Roads to Diversity: Adams Morgan Heritage Trail

On this self-guided walking Roads to Diversity tour of Adams Morgan, ADAMS MORGAN HERITAGE TRAIL historic markers lead you to: – The heart of Washington’s Latino community – Grand Beaux-Arts mansions and embassies – The church of a Civil Rights martyr – Former homes of future Presidents Kennedy, Eisenhower, and Taft – The location of the first Toys ‘R’ Us Adams Morgan bears the legacy of the many groups that have enjoyed its breezy location at an important cross- roads for the nation’s capital. Follow this trail to discover the roots of the Adams Morgan name, and the traces of the presidents, paupers, natives, immigrants, artists, activists and others who have called Adams Morgan home. Welcome. Visitors to Washington, DC flock to the National Mall, where grand monuments symbolize the nation’s highest ideals. This self-guided walking tour is the fifth in a series that invites you to discover what lies beyond the monuments: Washington’s historic neighborhoods. Long appreciated as one of the city’s most diverse neighborhoods, the Adams Morgan you’re about to explore is no accident. It is the legacy of elite colonial families, Jewish merchants, liberal activists, revolutionaries, African American government clerks, transportation planners, and entrepreneurs from Africa, Central, and South America. This guide uncovers their footprints. © 2005 by Cultural Tourism DC All rights reserved. Roads to Diversity Distributed by Cultural Tourism DC 1250 H Street, NW, Suite 1000 Washington, DC 20005 Adams Morgan www.CulturalTourismDC.org First Printing Heritage Trail Design by side view/Hannah Smotrich Translation by Syntaxis, LLC As you walk this trail, please keep safety in mind, just as you would while visiting any unfamiliar place. Jane Freundel Levey Historian and Writer Laura Croghan Kamoie Historian, Adams Morgan Heritage Trail Working Group Richard T. Busch and J.Brendan Meyer Project Managers Anne W.Rollins Researcher A project of Cultural Tourism DC, Angela Fox, execu- tive director, in collaboration with the Adams Morgan Heritage Trail Working Group, Josh Gibson, Barbara Heil, Carolyn Llorente, and Mark Wright, co-chairs. Funding provided by District Department of Transportation, Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, and U.S. Department of Transportation. Support provided by the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., Humanities Council of Washington, DC, Adams Morgan Business and Professional Association, Latino Economic Development Corporation, and the Public History Program of American University. Spanish edition made possible by a grant from BB&T. Introduction The Historical SocietyWashington,The Historical of D.C. Managassett, above, the Truesdell adams morgan is ever changing. Even its country estate at Columbia Rd. and Wyoming Ave., 1880s.Left,Margaret name is new. This area once was known simply as John Singer Sargent,by Gallery courtesy Corcoran of Art “18th and Columbia,” referring to its major cross- Stuyvesant Rutherfurd White, and roads and the center point of this Heritage Trail. husband Henry White, were the first owners of 1624 Crescent Place. Back in the 1920s people also spoke of Lanier Heights when describing the streets just north of Columbia Road, and Meridian Hill for those to the south. But in the late 1950s, urban planners and liberal activists came together to promote a new identity: Adams Morgan. This was no accident. The name change began with the community’s schools. Most of the area’s schools, they knew each other, and desegregation elementary schools were built before 1910, and by went well. In 1955 school officials and residents the late 1940s had aged badly. As was the practice organized as the Adams Morgan Better Neighbor- in Washington, white children received new hood Conference — giving the area its new name. school buildings when needed, and “colored” students inherited the old buildings. Consequently Long before the schools came together, the breezy the colored schools were in terrible shape. Parents hilltops here had attracted Native Americans and and teachers of both the colored Morgan School colonial settlers. Like most areas on this broad (named for city commissioner Thomas P.Morgan) ridge, this one remained rural for the city’s first 80 and the white Adams School (named for President years, with a few sprawling private estates. In 1791 John Quincy Adams) began campaigning for bet- fact, Peter C. L’Enfant’s plan for Washington ter facilities. Families of both races opted to work ended at the foot of a steep rise at Boundary together to improve education for all. Street, now Florida Avenue. In L’Enfant’s day, when city dwellers walked or relied on horses, When the Supreme Court ruled school segregation climbing steep ridges was very difficult. But once unconstitutional in 1954, President Eisenhower electric streetcars appeared in the late 1880s and ordered DC schools to desegregate immediately as hills were easily conquered, city dwellers began Library of Congress a model for the nation. Because black to settle on higher ground. One early streetcar and white community members were line followed 18th Street to Calvert Street and already working together for better then crossed a bridge spanning Rock Creek to The Historical SocietyWashington,The Historical of D.C. Connecticut Avenue Extended. The streetcars led to the appearance of the grand President John apartments and town houses of Kalorama Triangle Quincy Adams, and Washington Heights. Up-scale businesses far left,and followed. From the 1890s until the 1930s, 18th and Thomas Morgan, left, builder of Columbia was known for its gentility, its furriers Oak Lawn. and caterers. Nearby Lanier Heights attracted GALA Hispanic Theatre GALA Hispanic Costa Rican float, Hispanic Festival,1987. The Washington Post The Washington Library of Congress From Federico, Gracia y Calor, by the GALA Company, 1979. middle-class Jewish merchants moving up both the economic ladder and the city’s topography Former Embassy of France from Southwest or Seventh Street. In the 1880s, at 2460 16th St., designed by the ambitious and persuasive Mary Foote George O.Totten. Henderson had bought vast acreage along 16th Street and evicted African Americans who had Committee, many merchants and residents sighed clustered there since the days of Meridian Hill’s with relief when the National Capital Planning Civil War forts. Many moved west across 16th Commission rejected an urban renewal plan that Street to a small area now known as Reed-Cooke. would have destroyed buildings and displaced Then Henderson attracted a number of foreign families. embassies to occupy mansions she built along 18 16th Street. As many of the embassies represented Today th and Columbia’s international shops, Spanish-speaking governments, their diplomats restaurants, and nightlife are once again drawing and domestic help began settling in the area as residents from across the city as well as visitors early as the 1910s. to the nation’s capital. African immigrants are the latest to find a haven here. And the fine old Between 1930 and the 1950s, many of Adams apartments and townhouses, in a cycle of neigh- Morgan’s posh residents moved on to newer and borhood change common to inner-city neighbor- grander accommodations as the city expanded. hoods across the country, are once again seen as Their aged former housing became profitable to attractive and welcoming living spaces. subdivide and rent. By the 1960s affordable Adams Morgan attracted a younger, more ethnically Jubilee Housing mixed population, including immigrants from nations in political turmoil. Lanier Place became a hub of anti-establishment politics,where Students for a Democratic Society members shared the block with Black Panthers and anti-Vietnam-War organizers. The small buildings along 18th Street drew artists and musicians. Active and committed residents of this diverse neighborhood succeeded in defeating two federal initiatives that would have destroyed its unique character. Working with others across the city, Division,Washingtoniana D.C. Library Public residents stopped a freeway alongside Florida Avenue that would have cut Adams Morgan off First tenant board, top, from Downtown. And in 1965, thanks in part Jubilee Housing’s to the efforts of the Adams Morgan Planning Mozart building (1630 Fuller St.) meets, 1976. “No BP” protest, left, 18th and Columbia,1974. Mrs. Henderson’s Legacy 1 16th street and florida avenue nw one of those who saw the potential of bring- ing city life to the hills of this area was Mary Foote Henderson. A wealthy and powerful figure, she was married to Missouri Senator John B. Henderson, who introduced the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery. Beginning in 1887,Mrs.Hen- derson created a new community here for her peers. On the corner of 16th and Florida (now the Beekman Place development), she built herself a castle-like mansion. Then she tried unsuccessfully to persuade the U.S. Government to build a new White House or the Lincoln Memorial atop the hill. The government declined, but it did accept land for Meridian Hill Park (also known as Malcolm X Park). Henderson also hired noted architects to design elaborate mansions and lured the French, Spanish, Mexican, Cuban, and Polish embassies to move in. Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes was a neighbor at 2100 16th, and many embassies remain today. Public school students sketch Henderson Castle, around 1899. After Mrs. Henderson’s death in 1931, her castle Library of Congress became apartments and later a noisy “after- hours” club. A sleepless neighbor, Washington Post publisher Eugene Meyer of 1624 Crescent Place, bought the castle and eventually razed it, but left behind a memento: the brownstone walls lining the Beekman Place development. Across the street is the Roosevelt, constructed in 1919 as a fine apartment-hotel. Its name honors President Theodore Roosevelt. Mrs. Henderson successfully fought to limit the building’s height, so it wouldn’t block views of the city from the park.

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