Just north of Lincoln Park, where Tennessee and Constitution Avenues intersect with 13th, lies one of Capitol Hill’s most historic schools, Maury Elementary. Maury has been a fixture of the Hill since its construction in 1886 and is one of the best examples of the eight room schoolhouse that was standard in the 1880s and […]
After posting last week’s column about changing the name of B Street SE, a commenter wondered how Georgia Avenue SE had become Potomac Avenue. Fortunately, others have already found the answer to that question, so I have been able to dig up a fairly coherent story about how it happened.
So much of Washington, DC’s history is bound in the inexorable discussion of race, and our schools are no different. As no doubt the vast majority of you know, Washington, DC’s schools were segregated for much of our history; both because our Congressional overlords deemed it so and because, frankly, few white residents felt it […]
To all of us living on the Hill, the names of Constitution and Independence Avenues are a part of our daily routine just as much as H Street or Pennsylvania Avenue. They are not, however, the names originally given these thoroughfares by Pierre L’Enfant: He had given the designation of ‘Avenue’ only to those routes […]
Some of you may have seen the article in the latest Hill Rag, in which a Hill resident describes finding an old advertisement painted on a brick wall in their house. It’s on the wall they share with their neighbor’s house, and was clearly painted when only the neighbor’s house was standing, then later plastered […]