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Throwback Thursday: The “lost hilltop home” of the National Bureau of Standards

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This artwork depicting the National Bureau of Standards is one of the few hints of the land's use before UDC and the embassies moved in.

This artwork depicting the National Bureau of Standards is one of the few hints of the land’s use before Intelsat, UDC and the embassies moved in.

Why is there a curb cut and a gate to nowhere on Connecticut Avenue between Tilden and Van Ness Streets? It’s an entrance gate to what was once “one of the country’s most sophisticated scientific laboratory complexes,” the National Bureau of Standards.

John DeFerrari wrote about this lost piece of Forest Hills history in his Streets of Washington blog. He has also written about the neighborhood’s former Ice Palace.

As you read about the Bureau of Standards, imagine what might have been if the sprawling campus still stood. As DeFerrari writes, “The Secretary of Commerce… determined that not a single one of the 90 structures on the 70-acre campus had any historic significance at all, an outrageous assertion that would be inconceivable today.”

It’s not the same as being there, but Forest Hills author Anthony Dobranski is writing a historical novel based on the people and the work done at the National Bureau of Standards in 1942. In keeping with the spirit of the times, we’re publishing the novel in serial form, chapter by chapter. You’ll find the entire work-in-progress here.

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