CATALOG | 2015 A Juried Competition of the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., DC Preservation League, and Capitol Hill Art League For the Record: Artfully Historic D.C. is a juried exhibit of the 75 best original artworks that capture the changing urban landscape of Washington, D.C., based on the DC Preservation League’s list of most endangered places. For more than 120 years, the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. has collected and preserved images of the city’s built environment in paintings and photographs. The Historical Society continues this tradition of capturing Washington’s built environment through the arts for the benefit of generations to come. The competition “For the Record: Artfully Historic D.C.” was created in partnership with the DC Preservation League and the Capitol Hill Art League. JURORS Nine jurors from local Washington, D.C. galleries, libraries, archives, and museums reviewed all of the submissions to select the “For the Record Top 75.” Theo Adamstein, Founder and Director, FOTODC Renee Braden, Manager, Archives & Special Collections, National Geographic Society Brandon Brame Fortune, Chief Curator, National Portrait Gallery Jane Freundel Levey, Consulting Curator, Albert H. Small Washingtoniana Collection, The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum Kerry McAleer-Keeler, Program Head, Art and the Book Graduate Program, Associate Professor, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, The George Washington University Martin Moeller, Jr., Senior Curator, National Building Museum Richard O’Connor, Ph.D., Chief, Heritage Documentation Programs, National Park Service Klaus Ottmann, Ph.D., Director of the Center for the Study of Modern Art and Curator at Large, The Phillips Collection SPONSORS AND PARTNERS The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. would like to thank the following organizations and individuals for their important contributions that made “For the Record: Artfully Historic D.C.” successful. Sponsors Partners Capitol Hill Art League Kay Fuller, Hamid Lagder, and Rindy O’Brien DC Preservation League Rebecca Miller Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at The George Washington University Clare Brown, Assistant Professor, Exhibit Design Program Meghan O’Loughlin and Madeline Smit, Graduate Students, Exhibit Design National Geographic Society Spencer “Spike” Oxford and Matthew DeOrio, Exhibits Department HISTORICAL PHOTOGRAPH CREDITS Eda Offutt DC Public Library, Library of Congress Historical Society of Washington, D.C. 1909-1913 Martin Luther 1909-1913 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. AVENUE, SE King Jr. Avenue, SE, and the Anacostia Commercial Corridor Threat: Neglect and Demolitions As the earliest commercial blocks in the Anacostia Historic District, the three low-scale structures at 1909- 1913 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE are considered the gateway to the Anacostia Historic District. They were built in the early 20th century to Ghosts of the Past—Anacostia #SE4 complement the surrounding residential Ivan Petrov. Digital image, 18 3/4” x 22 1/2 “ area. Today the buildings are part of the Anacostia Commercial Corridor, which Drum Major consists of 126 structures along Martin Edward Savwoir. Digital photo montage, 16 1/2” x 20 1/4 “ Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE from Howard Road to Good Hope Road that date between 1854 and 1930. The Anacostia ANACOSTIA COMMERCIAL CORRIDOR Commercial Corridor was first listed in the DC Inventory of Historic Sites in 1973, and in 1978 was added to the National Register of Historic Places. Continued neglect of these invaluable historic resources threatens to erase remnants of the neighborhood’s history and legacy. Despite the presence nearby of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site and the Smithsonian Institution’s Anacostia Community Museum, the deteriorating buildings and blighted landscape reflect decades of neighborhood disinvestment. Along the corridor are a number of vacant lots and buildings in need of rehabilitation due to neglect by owners, both public and Anacostia private. Fortunately, thanks to recent Hamid Lagder. Screen print on wood, 12”x 12” renovations, the historic commercial buildings along the 1200 block of Good Hope Road now house a thriving arts center and community workspaces. This transformation shows the adaptability of these resources and the value that thriving historic commercial corridors can bring to a community. FOR THE RECORD: ARTFULLY HISTORIC D.C. | 2015 CATALOG 1 Anacostia Historic District Threat: Neglect and Demolitions The Anacostia Historic District is bounded by Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, SE, on the west, Good Hope Road on the north, Fendall Street and the rear of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site on the east, and Bangor Street and Morris Road on the south. The Anacostia Historic District contains 550 buildings built from 1854 to 1930, including unusual wood frame structures with Italianate detailing, brick row houses and apartment buildings, as well as commercial structures. At the Historic District’s heart is Uniontown, platted in 1854 as one of D.C.’s first suburbs. Building lots and houses were sold to white workers employed across the Anacostia River at the Navy Yard. After the Civil War (1861–1865), new communities across the nation chose the name “Uniontown,” so Dentist’s Office Congress changed Uniontown’s name Emily Long. Digital image, 17” x 13” to Anacostia. Despite race restrictive Front Porch Emily Long. Digital image, 17” x 13” covenants, by 1880 some 15 percent of residents were African American. The area remained predominantly white until the “white flight” of the 1950s. Today Anacostia’s fragile condition, with neglected lots and abandoned buildings, reflects the years of overcrowding forced by redevelopment in other parts of Washington as well as the general civic disinvestment in the working-class African American communities east of the Anacostia River. Long-awaited economic revitalization is reaching the Historic District, but some proposals may be inconsistent with the historic nature of the area. 2 FOR THE RECORD: ARTFULLY HISTORIC D.C. | 2015 CATALOG Armed Forces Retirement Home Threat: Financial Hardship For three years beginning in 1848, Senator Jefferson Davis (later president of the Confederacy during the Civil War) sponsored legislation to create the United States Soldiers’ Home. The Soldiers’ Home would provide benefits for “every soldier…who shall have served or may serve honestly and faithfully twenty years . and every soldier . Granite Bridge, Soldiers’ Home whether regular or volunteer, who shall Kent Boese. Digital image, 15” x 19” have suffered by reason of disease or wounds incurred in the service and in the line of his duty, rendering him incapable of further military service.” The enabling legislation specified funding from fines levied by military courts-martial and a voluntary, monthly 25-cent pay deduction from enlisted personnel. For the facility, the Soldiers’ Soldiers’ Home—Park Road Gate Post Home board of directors purchased Kent Boese. Digital image, 19” x 15” the 198-acre farm of George W. Riggs, founder of Riggs National Bank, and Mount Joliet, the neighboring 58-acre tract of Charles Scrivener. Today the facility is bounded by North Capitol Street and Harewood Road, Rock Creek Church Road, Irving Street, and Park AFRH: Gargoyle, Grant Bldg. Place, NW. At the invitation of Soldiers’ Ann Elkington. Digital image, 14” x 17” Home Director General Winfield Scott, President James Buchanan was the first to make the former Riggs farmhouse his summer home. President Lincoln and his family spent long periods there, and Lincoln worked on the Emancipation Proclamation on the spot. The house is now known as President Lincoln’s Cottage, a National Historic Landmark. While the campus’s Sherman Building, with its crenellated tower, was restored in 2013, many other picturesque 19th-century buildings await major maintenance. Soldiers’ Home Circa 1851 Karen Komar. Digital image, 21.5” x 27.5” AFRH: Warren, Grant Blg. Ann Elkington. Digital image, 17” x 14” FOR THE RECORD: ARTFULLY HISTORIC D.C. | 2015 CATALOG 3 Banneker Park Barney Circle Neighborhood Threat: Neglect and Proposed Threat: Proposed Demolitions Demolitions Located to the east of the Capitol Occupying Banneker Circle at L’Enfant Hill Historic District, and bounded by Promenade, SW, and designed by Potomac Avenue, 17th Street, Kentucky renowned landscape architect Daniel Avenue, and Pennsylvania Avenue, Urban Kiley in 1970, Benjamin Banneker SE, Barney Circle is a residential Park provides panoramic views of neighborhood developed during World Washington and the surrounding War I to provide affordable housing area. Intended to balance the density for some of the thousands arriving in Banneker Park 1 of nearby development, the park Washington to support the war effort. Verena Radulovic. Digital image, 14.5” x 19.5” serves as the southern terminus of the The neighborhood is known for its L’Enfant Promenade. The park is an uninterrupted sets of single-family example of the mature work of Kiley, brick row houses. Largely unadorned combining many granite elements, and modest in scale and style, these including a large fountain, trees, and two-story row houses are wider and lighting as a transition to the open shallower than their 19th-century space of the Southwest waterfront. precedents and are characterized The site is culturally significant as by their horizontal orientation, the first public space in Washington front porches, and yards, as well as named for an African American. It overhanging eaves, mansard roofs serves as a memorial to Benjamin with dormers, and brick stringcourses. Banneker, the self-taught free black Known as “daylight roughhouses” mathematician and astronomer who because they were designed to be only assisted surveyor Andrew Ellicott in two rooms deep, ensuring that each Banneker Park 2 plotting the boundaries for the District room had windows to allow sunlight and Verena Radulovic. Digital image, 14.5” x 19.5” of Columbia in 1791. The men were part fresh air into the house, the row houses of the team working with Peter L’Enfant are set back from the street and read as to plan the new seat of government a cohesive unit along the streetscape.