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The area was originally developed in 1887 as the Forest Inn, a shingle-style resort hotel with a stop on the B & O Railroad. In 1894, it was expanded and became the National Park Seminary; not a religious institution, but an expensive finishing school for the daughters of the upper class. At the Seminary, the students were taught horseback riding, piano, foreign languages, dance, art, and other skills and pursuits necessary to become a proper society matron. There was a well-equipped gymnasium, a ballroom, and sorority houses designed to resemble architecture from around the world. On Mondays, the girls traveled to Washington, DC by train, to visit the museums and monuments, or to shop at Woodward & Lothrop. It sounds good to me!
With the gradual decline of the old upper-crust families, especially after the Great Depression started, the National Park Seminary morphed into a traditional women's college, and the name was changed in 1937 to National Park College. The campus was renowned for its beauty, with the eclectic, whimsical architecture, sculpture and fountains dotting the grounds, and a staff of dozens of gardeners to keep everything looking good. The college would have likely continued to evolve, perhaps admitting men today, and they probably would have built a few ugly 1970s buildings on the campus. However, World War Two began with the attack on Pearl Harbor, and in 1942 the U.S. Army appropriated the entire campus for military use, and the college was permanently closed.
From 1942 until recently, the site was used as an annex to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and wounded soldiers recovered there in the former sorority houses and classrooms. Unfortunately, the Army was not a very good steward of the unique, historic property. They did things like cover polished wood with 20 layers of institutional green paint, allowed footbridges to collapse, roofs to leak, and worst of all they didn't secure the property. Statues and fountains were vandalized, stained-glass windows were smashed or stolen, and arsonists burned down the Odeon Theatre. The preservation group Save Our Seminary pretty much saved the campus from complete ruin, and worked with local government and private developers to come up with a plan to rehabilitate most of the buildings. The former National Park Seminary will contain a mixture of single-family houses, condominiums, rental apartments, affordable units, as well as a small facility for the homeless. It would be nice, in my opinion, if there was some retail planned, so the residents won't have to drive everywhere, but so far that isn't the case. There should also be a shuttle to the nearest Metro station.
It was great fun trudging around the site, which is partly in ruins, partly under construction, and rife with poison ivy, which I thankfully avoided. It will be interesting to visit again in a couple of years, when the restoration is complete.
- Mood:
okay
- Mood:
impressed
Who needs athletic fields, anyway? School sports only lead to unrealistic dreams of professional athletic careers, and let's not forget the inevitable brutalization of the weak by the strong in gym class. Dodgeball is nothing more than state-sanctioned bullying, you can lose an eye in a towel-snapping incident in the locker room, and there's the trauma of being picked last in team sports. They already have an outdoor basketball court next to the school, and presumably a gym inside, so it's time for the jocks to let the nerds win a round. Seriously, why not make it a magnet school, or a computer science lab?
The old brick school has survived years of neglect, 1960s riots, and budget cuts over the years. It has "good bones" as they say. They don't build them like that anymore. Let's not tear it down.
Thanks for the mention in the morning roundup, City Paper!
- Mood:inspired
The children's book shopping expeditions of the previous week inspired J and I to venture to the National Building Museum and its wonderful gift shop. They have tons of great toys, books and assorted gizmos for children, including the nicest sets of architectural building blocks I've ever seen. I also found a beautifully illustrated children's book on the glories of the late, great Penn Station (Old Penn Station, by William Low), and its unfortunate demolition. It would make a perfect gift for the junior historic preservationist in the family. We'll come back around holiday shopping time. And G, they have a whole section of green design and living books. For adults, there are books galore, and a surprising amount of sleekly designed kitchen wares.
The rest of the museum was nice, too, I've been there several times over the years. I love the massive old pile of bricks, with the wraparound frieze, soaring atrium inside, giant faux-marble columns, and ample natural light. To me, it is no less representative of Washington architecture than the Capitol or White House, yet few tourists seek it out. There are only a couple of similar spaces in the city, where you pause on entering, and for a split second almost expect to see whiskered men in tophats and 19th century garb walking around.
For dinner we grilled up some tuna burgers from Trader Joe's, and also grilled orange pepper slices, zucchini, and eggplant. It was good, though the tuna burgers stuck to the grill a bit, and it required a little elbow grease to clean.
- Mood: cheerful
For 140 years, residents of Georgetown have been compiling a rare trove of data on their past: oil paintings, leather-bound maps, photos and files on nearly every property in the neighborhood -- all kept in the stately, two-story library on R Street NW. In just a few hours yesterday, a three-alarm fire devoured much of it. Onlookers gasped as D.C. firefighters carried out item after historical item. Most were severely damaged: a warped 1840 oil painting of a freed slave, a soot-covered copy of a D.C. atlas from a century ago, a photo left unrecognizable by flames. All afternoon flames could be seen. They ate through the precious Peabody Room, the key source for original historic materials about Georgetown. The second-floor room was named after the financier who in 1867 provided seed money for a library for Georgetown. "The second floor is gone," said branch manager Mary Hernandez.
It seems to me that as a general rule, libraries and archives do not have sprinkler systems because of the fear of leaks and water damage. However, as the head of the DCPL system, Ginnie Cooper, said in an interview today, "wet is better than ashes." Something creative needs to be done to safeguard our fragile paper cultural heritage in libraries and archives: inert-gas fire suppression systems, scanned electronic backups, acid-free paper copies kept offsite, unique items locked in fireproof/waterproof safes, whatever it takes. As usual, extra precautions will be taken after the fact, we seem to be good at closing the barn door after losing the cow these days. I hope they do something with the Washingtonia collection at the main MLK Library downtown. This is heartbreaking stuff to a librarian and history buff.
[Thank you to The Express, DC Blogs, and Wonkette for the mentions today.]
- Mood:
sad
Within 24 hours, DC has lost two historic treasures to fire. On Capitol Hill, Eastern Market was gutted by fire last night, and will be closed indefinitely. I'm glad J and I walked by it Sunday, even if we didn't go in the building. I scanned the roofline and facade, noticed much rust and peeling paint, and remarked to J, "It looks pretty shabby, they really need to renovate it from top to bottom." Well, now it will need to be rebuilt, and we can be thankful the sturdy walls and much of the north end have survived. There are pictures of the damage here, from Flickr user Erin M. Over at the Washington Post, Marc Fisher wrote an entry on his blog about the loss to the city. Mayor Fenty has repeatedly stated the market will be "rebuilt 100%" and I'm pretty confident that it will. I just hope the reconstruction proceeds smoothly and isn't marred by inefficiency or neighborhood infighting.
I'm even sadder about the fire at the Georgetown branch of the DC Public Library. Unlike Eastern market, the library housed an irreplaceable collection of rare maps, photographs, documents, clippings, and books related to Georgetown history. They had copies of the Maryland Gazette newspaper from 1775 and 1776, as well as unique Civil War maps. It was one of only 4 "regional" branches, with a larger collection of more scholarly books and periodicals, and the 1935 neo-Georgian building was under exterior renovation at the time. It sounds like the damage is worse than Eastern Market, and I have much less confidence in the timely reconstruction of the Georgetown library by the underfunded and neglected DCPL system. When the time comes I'll certainly get out my checkbook and make a donation, but nothing can replace all the lost, unique historic materials. Though no lives have been lost, it is nonetheless a tragic day for DC.
- Mood: melancholy
