Turtle Park in the 80’s
In case you missed Maria’s post about raising kids on the Hill, take a moment to read it. As someone who was raised on the Hill, it brought a huge smile to my face as I thought about all of my favorite things as a kid.
I loved growing up on the Hill –not that I knew differently, of course. In my mind, my backyard was awesome – it didn’t occur to me that it was small because it was all we needed to supplement the large park up the street. We had huge sidewalks to express our artistic side with chalk. Lincoln Park is where I learned to climb trees and play hide and seek with friends and any random kid who wanted to join in. Hot days always included a trip to Sam’s (now P&C Market) for popsicles, which we would eat while slowly walking home or right back to the playgrounds for more fun. I walked to school with a group of kids from my block, and we’d frequently head out early to first get breakfast at Jimmy T’s. And on the way home, we would get snacks from one of the many corner stores on the way.
I got to ice skate on the Capitol’s reflecting pool, and sled down Capitol Hill before any representatives from other states deemed us a security threat (it still wasn’t technically allowed but no one would dream of enforcing such a silly rule). School field trips to museums were a regular occurrence because it cost the school nothing to take us up the road to see artifacts and historical items that we were reading about in our textbooks.
To this day, I still look up at the Capitol Dome with awe – it is a beautiful piece of architecture and an amazing sight when you think of how much history has taken place on and around it. I didn’t fully appreciate that last piece as a kid but I definitely do now.
I am sure Maria’s boys will have great memories of their childhood here, in large part to her devotion to showing them all of the well known and lesser-known treasures we have in this city. But I’m also confident they will also look back with smiles because of the little things about this neighborhood that so many of us Hill natives loved so much. To all Hill parents who are reading this: your kids will thank you one day for raising them in such a great neighborhood.
I decided to ask a few friends who grew up here (and who happen to be raising kids here now) what their favorite memories were. Please add your own memories in the comments!
“The thing I remember most about growing up on the Hill is the people. My closest friends now are those I met growing up here. The neighbors we had played a huge part in shaping who I have become. Luckily I think the Hill has retained this close knit community environment and I know the friends my children are making on the Hill now will be with them for life.”
– Laura Wackman Hogan
“I loved growing up on Capitol Hill because of the freedom and independence that it allowed me at a young age — walking to Eastern Market and McDonalds, taking the metro by myself in the 4th grade (but my parents didn’t let me change lines — lots of hanging out at cool spots like Crystal City and L. plaza) until The Shops opened), riding my bike to Soccer on the Hill practice on the Mall, delivering the Hill Rag, etc. My brother and I developed confidence and street smarts as city kids that have been beneficial in work and in life.”
– Holly O’Donnell
“The Hill was the best place to grow up that I can imagine and it is such a part of who I am today. We were all free-range kids long before there was a name for it, but it seems less controversial when you know all of your neighbors and shop-owners. (Plus we all knew that if we misbehaved, news would get home to our moms before we did.) Some of my memories would be very familiar to today’s Hill kids, like walking home from Eastern Market with something my mom needed for dinner. Or grilled cheese sandwiches at the Tune Inn (this one applies equally to childhood and late nights in law school). But some of our Hill Kid institutions — mainly those of a grittier, pre-“gentrified” Hill — persist only in my romanticized memories: Sam’s (now P&C Market), Kresge’s 5-and-10 (now Le Pain Quotidien), Bob’s Famous Ice Cream (Bagels & Baguettes), to name a few.
Part of what made the Hill unique is that it all happened against the backdrop of the “other” Capitol Hill. I remember working on pre-internet research papers in the awe-inspiring reading room of the Library of Congress. I’ve been on so many field trips to the Capitol building that I developed a slight obsession with one unusual representative from Hawaii in the Statuary Hall. I knew that the lights at the top of the Capitol Dome meant that the House or Senate was in night session. And not only did we sled down Capitol Hill, we skated on the reflecting pool.
The really important part though — the part that made us all Hill Kids — is that none of that meant anything to us. It was just there, like corn fields in Iowa. Political affiliation was not relevant to playground politics and the kids sure didn’t care what anyone’s parent did for a living. But it does make growing up here incredibly special and the mundane memories particularly picturesque.”
– Kate Holwill Albrecht (raised her kids here until a work-related move to another state)