The block where the future Walter Way may find itself. Courtesy Google Maps
One of the more picturesque aspects of urban life, the alley plays an important role in our modern urban life: they are not just holders of garbage cans and keepers of the parking spot, but they are doorways to secret gardens, urban oases, music venues and more.
Alley buildings and Capitol Hill go hand in hand, specifically, as there are more alley buildings in our neighborhood than anywhere else in the city. There are 517 alley buildings in Capitol Hill; the next neighborhood with a high number of alley buildings is Georgetown, at 253. These are mostly garages, but many are carriage houses that have been converted to small homes, like those at Miller’s Court. Many alleys around our neighborhood bear names of people who were landowners or who lived in the area and made a difference. Take, for example, Robert Pohl’s backstories on Gessford Court (a.k.a. Tiger Alley) and Walter Houp Court.
There are, however, many alleys that remain unnamed: the District’s Office of Planning (OP), with a huge assist from the Historical Preservation Office, conducted a survey of the District’s alleys (a beautiful document you may enjoy if you’re an alley enthusiast) last fall and determined that it’s best to have alleys display appropriate signage and visibility, not just to help keep the character of the city, but in order to make it easier to identify for reference purposes. OP discusses in its survey that, although all city alleys were named at some point, most of the names have not been used for generations.
In this spirit, a Capitol Hill neighbor wants to rename that alley between 2nd and 3rd Streets and C and D Streets, NE as Walter Way, NE. This inconspicuous alley connects the numbered streets, and the neighbor wants to honor the Walter family, who owned several of the carriage houses in the alley. In last week’s Public Space, members of the committee approved the name change. There is a final round of approval at tonight’s ANC 6C meeting, at 7 p.m., Heritage Foundation building. If you have an opinion about the name of the alley, make sure to attend tonight’s meeting.