The 2022-2023 school year began this week at the University of the District of Columbia, so we thought this was a good time to rerun this 2016 article on the origins of this historically Black university, which is also DC’s sole public university, and the only urban land-grant university in the United States. The comments […]
Search Results for: "ann kessler"
Questions about squirrels and parking on leaves: Some of the web search terms that brought readers to us in 2021
Most of our readers come to us through email notifications when we post new articles (see “Subscribe to our blog” in the sidebar, or on mobile, scroll down), and through our monthly newsletter. Many also come to us after searching the web for questions about local places and policies. And if you are here because […]
On the Van Ness Metro station’s 40th anniversary, what could have been: “This is a Red Line train to Glenmont. The next stop is… Soapstone.”
by Ann Kessler Sunday, December 5th is the 40th anniversary of the Van Ness, Cleveland Park and Woodley Park-Zoo Metro stations’ opening ceremonies, and Monday, December 6th will mark 40 years since the stations opened for regular service. The stations’ opening was years in the making. And while the construction of these Red Line Metro […]
In 1930, a Hot Shoppe arrived in the neighborhood and drew the young and rowdy. Its neighbors weren’t pleased.
by Ann Kessler On July 2nd, 1930, a new restaurant opened on Connecticut Avenue at Yuma Street NW. The grand opening was quite the affair, with a brass band playing and coupons for free root beer being passed around the crowd. It was the fifth of the Hot Shoppes chain of restaurants. Founded by J. […]
He envisioned Albemarle Street as an ‘attractive’ thoroughfare from AU to Mount Pleasant. It was not to be.
by Ann Kessler A 1913 real estate map of Washington makes it look easy to drive into Rock Creek Park from Connecticut Avenue. Just turn onto Albemarle Street and continue straight into the park. The publisher of this map obviously took liberties, perhaps taking to heart this description of Albemarle in The Washington Post in […]
A century ago, the neighborhood playground was… the neighborhood
In 2019, we published a series of recollections by Fred Rhodes (1913-2001), a federal worker whose long and varied resumé included the Manhattan Project and the Nixon administration. But a century ago, he was just a kid in Forest Hills, and the Soapstone Valley was his playground. His memoir Four Seasons in the Soapstone Valley, shared […]
In 1967, the Giant Food in Van Ness was chandeliered and swanky, and above it was DC’s first indoor mall
by Ann Kessler I miss the Van Ness Centre Mall. Granted, it only existed for 16 years, but from 1967 on through 1983 it was part of the community and a major convenience for shoppers in the neighborhood. Now, only the original ground floor tenants of the mall remain: Giant Food, CVS (formerly Peoples Drug […]
On March 4th, learn more about the man behind Melvin C. Hazen Park – and the people he helped displace at Fort Reno Park
For decades as a city surveyor, Melvin C. Hazen had a vision for Tenleytown, which included a park at Fort Reno. Standing in his way – a community of Black people that had settled there after the Civil War. The Reno neighborhood was a nearly forgotten casualty of government and developer efforts to remake this […]
Forest Hills was nicknamed “Hanukkah Heights.” But Jews and Black people weren’t always welcome.
by Ann Kessler The history of DC real estate is marred by restrictive covenants that prohibited the sale of property to Jews, Black people, and other frequent targets of discrimination. Forest Hills was, by comparison, more welcoming. At one point the neighborhood even earned the nickname “Hanukkah Heights,” so it’s long been assumed that Forest […]
A century ago, poor and ailing children came to a Forest Hills “Country Home”
by Ann Kessler A 1907 Baist real estate atlas shows very little development in what would become Forest Hills. Sure, there were land owners with acres of land, and some roads and streets had been cut through or were marked to be built, but few actual buildings or houses were shown. One prominent building that […]
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