Robert Pohl worked for many years as a computer programmer but recovered from that and became a full time stay-at-home dad. With his son now in school, he has expanded his horizons and become a self-taught historian. He has written books about his house as well as Emancipation in the District of Columbia. You can reach Robert at Robert[at]thehillishome.com
With the reopening of Eastern Market, it seems only right to look at the pre-history of what is again the center of our neighborhood. Long before Cluss built his masterpiece, there was another market, one which L’Enfant had planned into his earliest drawings of Washington DC: Eastern Branch Market. In 1791, it made sense to […]
On September 28, 1928, 127th Zeppelin took off from its factory in Germany. It was named Graf Zeppelin, in honor of the founder of the airship company, who had died about 10 years earlier. During the next nine years, the Graf Zeppelin travelled over one million miles and visited the US a total of five […]
Capitol Hill is, contra my usual focus, not just buildings. Today’s post concerns itself with a different Capitol Hill icon, Senator Ted Kennedy, whose passing robbed the Senate of an institution as well as the nation’s third longest-serving Senator. Edward Moore Kennedy first arrived in the Senate on November 7, 1962, to take over the […]
When Abraham Lincoln moved to Capitol Hill in 1847 as a freshman congressman from Illinois’s 7th district, he soon found lodging in Mrs. Sprigg’s Boardinghouse. Her house was the second from the north of a row of five houses fronting 1st Street SE, just across from the Capitol. Lincoln spent two years in this house, […]
When Barack Obama bowled in Pennsylvania during the primary, his poor performance made for political good humor for quite a while. His bowling talents, it turns out, give him further ammunition in comparisons with a previous president with whom he has already been frequently compared: Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln, however, bowled inside the beltway. Over […]