You’ve seen these heritage trails elsewhere in Washington. The signs feature historical photographs and explanations of the areas’ historical significance.

At the last meeting we attended, we heard from residents who lived in the neighborhood that stood where the Gage-Eckington School was later built, neighbors who had to walk several extra blocks to school because Washington ran a segregated school system, and neighbors who remember seeing Eleanor Roosevelt visiting what is now Slowe Hall at 3rd and U Streets.

These are the oral histories that Cultural Tourism, which organizes these trails, documents for the historical record and includes in the signs.  So much of Washington’s history, nay human history, is committed to memory that if we don’t record it, it risks being lost.

The trail, which is put together by Cultural Tourism DC, is close to completion, but the next few meetings are critical in determining final details and extra stories that may be incorporated.  Even if you don’t have stories or original research to contribute, attending the meeting solely to listen will be worthwhile.

Thursday, April 19 at 7 pm
St. George’s Church (basement)
2nd & U Streets NW

Interview subjects include Bobby Donaldson, the South Carolina native who opened B&J Barbeque at Rhode Island Avenue and 3rd Street.  You’ll find out what inspired him to open a restaurant and what people like in their barbeque.

LeDroit resident and former Ward 1 councilmember Frank Smith spent part of his youth as a civil rights worker in rural Mississippi. Mr. Smith recorded and reported civil rights abuses, such as bogus “literacy tests” that southern states used to prohibit black residents from voting.  Here how he reacted to Marion Barry’s infamous arrest.

Hear from the Elks Lodge and their relationship with the neighborhood.  You can also hear Elks reminisce about performances at the Howard Theatre back in the day.

The flamboyantly dressed “Hollywood” explains his eclectic attire and Bloomingdaler John Salatti sings the praises of his wife and Bloomingdale.

Finally, Robert was able to interview LeDroit residents Dolores Baylor and her daughter Mechelle just before Dolores died in December.  Mechelle explains what it was like growing up in the neighborhood and Dolores recounts what it was like living through the riots of 1968.

The lives of famous figures in history are well-documented, but it is also important to record the experiences and views of the not-so-famous.  Robert contracted your author, who is a professional web developer by day, to build the site.  While building the site, we couldn’t help but notice that each story delivered its own unexpected poignancy.

The top portion of the McMillan fountain, pictured below, was returned to Crispus Attucks park in the Bloomingdale neighborhood in 1983. In 1992 it was moved back to the fenced-off grounds of the McMillan Reservoir just a few blocks away.

The fountain was installed in 1913 at the McMillan Reservoir as a memorial to Senator James McMillan (R – Michigan), who is more remembered locally for his his ambitious McMillan Plan to beautify Washington. The fountain was dismantled in 1941, when the reservoir was fenced off from the public.

Top of the McMillan Fountain today (left) and in 1912 (right).

Though the top of the McMillan Fountain had been restored to the reservoir grounds, a Bloomingdale ANC commissioner told me the base of the fountain was in the woods in Fort Washington along with the remains of the fountain that stood at the center of the now-razed Truxton Circle.

I went to Fort Washington in search of these discarded works of art. I asked a park ranger where the fountain was and she drew me a map, saying that it stood in the park’s “dump” and partly behind a fence.

I went to the picnic area nearest the site and walked into the woods a short distance where I found a fence. Behind it stood piles of bricks and other discarded building materials.

Beside the site is a dugout that serves as the back court to Battery Emory, a concrete gun battery built in 1898 to protect the capital city from enemy ships.

As I passed through the unfenced dugout, I immediately spotted few granite blocks that served as the cornerstones of the base bowl. Though they are strewn about the ground, a 1912 photograph can help us identify what pieces went where.

A cornerstone sitting on the ground (left) formed part of the fountain’s bottom basin (right).

The elements of the fountain were stacked like totem pole. The bottom element features carved classical allegorical heads from whose mouths water gushed into the carved bowls below.

Fence material and tree debris cover the carved granite (left) that stood as the fountain base (right).

The next element of the stack is the fluted base to the top bowl.

Upside down on the ground (left) is the fluted base for the top bowl (right).

Several other large granite stones are stacked and marked with numbers, presumably to help in reassembly.

The site also contains the rusting remains of the fountain that stood at Truxton Circle, which formed the intersection of North Capitol Street, Florida Avenue, Lincoln Road, and Q Street. The circle was built around 1901 and the fountain installed there originally stood at the triangle park at Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street in Georgetown.

Truxton Circle stood at Florida Avenue, North Capitol Street, Q Street, and Lincoln Road from 1901 to 1940, when it was demolished to aid commuter traffic.

A newspaper at the time described it as one of the largest fountains in the city. The circle was removed in 1940 to ease the flow of commuter traffic. At that time, the fountain, which may date to as early as the 1880s, made its way to Fort Washington to rust in the woods.

The metal pedestal (left) held up the fountain bowl whose rim rusts in pieces on the ground (right). Notice the classical egg-and-dart pattern.

The fountain was also noted for the metal grates that stood near its base. Now these grates sit rusting in the woods.

If you want to see the fountain remains for yourself at Fort Washington National Park, go to picnic area C. Beyond the end of the parking lot is a restroom building and behind that is the fountain “graveyard.” A fence encloses part of the site, but you can enter through the large gap down the hillside.

Rather than tossing aside our city’s artistic patrimony, we should aim to restore these treasures to the neighborhoods from which they came. Public art is part of what differentiates cherished neighborhoods from unmemorable places.

These works remind us of the accomplishments and civic-mindedness of generations past and urge us to carry on the tradition of civic improvement for generations to come.

Capital Bikeshare, the District’s smashingly successful bikesharing system, will expand this fall.  Unfortunately, the expansion plans for this fall exclude LeDroit Park.

The District and Arlington launched the system a year ago with 14 stations in Arlington and 100 in the District.  This fall, DDOT will add 34 stations in the District.  In our area, DDOT will add a station by the Shaw Library and another at 1st Street NW and Rhode Island Avenue NW in Bloomingdale.

These additions should help alleviate the pressure placed on the existing stations at 7th & T Streets NW in Shaw and at Florida Avenue and R Street NW in Bloomingdale.  Currently, LeDroiters and Bloomingdalers compete to use these two stations and thus frequently leave the stations empty or full during rushhour.

Last week DDOT Director Terry Bellamy announced that the district will add 50 stations early next year.  We hope that in this new round DDOT focuses more attention on LeDroit Park and other neighborhoods in ANC 1B.

For instance, a Capital Bikeshare station could easily go in at the Park at LeDroit’s south entrance at 3rd and Elm Streets NW.  This location is central to the neighborhood and could bring some extra eyes to the park throughout the day.

Outside of LeDroit Park, there is a noticeable station gap in the northern reaches of Bloomingdale and around Cardozo High School.

Capital Bikeshare is particuarly successful in our part of DC for several reasons:

• Car ownership is relatively low compared to the rest of the nation, region, and city.  This inclines people to bike more.
• Parking is particularly difficult on many neighborhood streets, thus making cycling more attractive.
• The historical development of this area has permitted the close proximity of commercial uses to residential uses.  This means trips to shops and restaurants are short and easily made by bike.
• Downtown is a short ride away and biking is often faster than taking the bus.

The site sits behind locked fences between North Capitol Street, Channing Street NW, 1st Street NW, and Michigan Avenue NW.  The filtration site opened in 1905 to purify river water supplied to a burgeoning capital.

The filtration plant contains 25 acres of underground sand filtration cells.  Water flows from the “castle” on McArthur Boulevard NW at the Georgetown Reservoir through an arrow-straight tunnel to the valve house on 4th Street at the McMillan Reservoir.

Diagram of the Washington City Tunnel, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The reservoir opened in 1902 and is actually a dammed stream valley.  Since the reservoir stores untreated river water, the water must be cleaned before it can be distributed to residents’ taps.  

At the turn of the 20th century, a debate ensued between proponents of chemical purification and slow sand filtration.  Slow sand filtration won the debate and Congress provided money to build the sand filtration cells.

McMillan Sand Filtration Site under construction. Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The process of slow sand filtration is pretty simple. Water fills a cell that contains 2 feet of sand at the bottom— it’s like an underground beach.

The water percolates through the sand leaving contaminants behind in the sand. When the water reaches the floor under the sand, it exits the cell and is distributed into the city’s water pipes.

The sand itself required routine cleaning to remove the contiminants. Clean sand was stored in the concrete silos that stand in rows on the site.

Workers replenished the cells by dumping clean sand through the various access holes on the roof of each cell.

In fact, an early photo shows fresh sand dumped into a cell.

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Regulator houses contained valves for regulating the flow of water through each cell.

The top of the filtration site was turned into a park, as envisioned by Sen. James McMillan (R – Michigan), famous for his ambitious McMillan Plan to beautify Washington.

Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., designed the park grounds on top of the sand filtration cells. Since the park closed to public access during World War II, the park’s recreational features, including green lawns, park lamps, walkways, and staircases, sit decaying today.

In the 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers build a rapid sand filter on the part of the reservoir west of 1st Street NW, thus obviating the need for the slow sand filters east of 1st Street. The western section today holds the active open-air reservoir and rapid sand filters that supply clean water to much of Washington.

That section, which is still an active reservoir and water treatment plant, is closed to the public.  What’s most unfortunate is that the western section contains the most notable feature of the reservoir park.

Shortly after Sen. McMillan’s death, Congress and donors in his home state of Michigan decided to honor the senator with an ornate fountain to adorn the park that bears his name.

Source: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

The 1912 fountain, designed by Herbert Adams, contains a bronze sculpture of 3 nymphs on a pink granite base. In 1941 the fountain was dismantled, left in storage and mostly neglected until the top portion of the fountain was returned to Crispus Attucks Park in 1983. In 1992 the top section was moved to its current location, at the active reservoir site, locked away from public access.

One can still see the top portion of the fountain by glancing through the fence on 1st Street NW.

The base of the fountain remains somewhere in Fort Washington National Park in Prince George’s County. Perhaps someday the District, the federal government, and neighbors can raise the funds to reunite and restore the fountain for public enjoyment.

The next meeting is Saturday, April 16 at 10 am at the office of the Howard University Community Association, 2731 Georgia Avenue.

In the coming months, Cultural Tourism DC, which sponsors the heritage trails, will collect all the interview transcripts and photographs and draft a series of trail markers like the one pictured right.

After neighborhood review, Cultural Tourism DC will install these markers throughout the neighborhoods marking locations of notable events, buildings, and residents.

Read the flyer for Saturday’s meeting.

In DC neighborhoods where street parking is at a premium, few things raise a resident’s ire like church congregants who park illegally on Sunday mornings. Congregants who drive from other parts of the District, from Maryland, and from Virginia have been known to double-park, park in alleys, block crosswalks, and block fire hydrants.

After receiving numerous complaints from residents, Mr. Thomas introduced the bill to primarily allay residents in Bloomindale and Eckington. Since these neighborhoods are among Ward Five’s most densely populated, they, like LeDroit Park, suffer from high street parking occupancy.  Last week in Eckington, Mr. Thomas hosted a forum on his bills and took questions from residents.

Mr. Thomas acknowledged what residents have long known: parking enforcement around churches is intentionally lax on Sundays. Though Mr. Thomas admitted the unique challenges to transportation on Sunday mornings, he also decried congregants who park illegally, block residents in, and hinder public safety.

Transit service reaches its nadir on Sunday mornings, and churchgoers often travel to churches in residential neighborhoods with light Sunday service. Since transit service and car traffic are relatively low on Sunday mornings, Mr. Thomas thinks DDOT will be able to find instances of roadways wide enough to accommodate both angle parking and through traffic on Sunday mornings. In each case, though, DDOT will make the final determination of what is safe and permitted, even if an ANC supports the petition.

Left: typical curbside parking. Right: possible angle parking

We asked Mr. Thomas why he singled out angle parking and not other non-traditional parking arrangements and he admitted that the bill was just a first draft and could be expanded to include other measures.

For instance, DDOT permits parking beside the median on Sundays on the 1300 and 1400 blocks of New York Avenue NW downtown. This arrangement works since there is still one lane available for through traffic and since Sunday morning traffic flows are small. A similar arrangement might work along other multi-lane avenues in the District, including Rhode Island Avenue.

In other cases, solutions could be less radical. The congregants of several churches on Florida Avenue park in the right lane on Sunday morning even where parking is never permitted at any time. DDOT may be able to simply change the signs and permit curbside parking in such places on Sunday mornings. The extra parking can act as a traffic-calming measure, though, as we know, easier parking can induce more driving.

No matter what happens, the Department of Public Works, the primary agency in charge of parking enforcement, needs to end its practice of lax Sunday enforcement near churches. Only DDOT, not pastors and not congregants, should make the determination as to what constitutes safe Sunday morning parking. Mr. Thomas acknowledged that the law needs to be enforced uniformly as it is unfair to overlook, as one resident noted, illegal parking in residential neighborhoods, while actively ticketing illegal parking downtown on Sundays.

Though residents expressed frustration with some, though not all, neighborhood churches, Mr. Thomas rightly advised residents that parking tensions need not be adversarial. In fact, he called attention to instances in which neighborhood residents and churches collaborated to resolve parking problems. This can include urging pastors to rent unused lots for their congregants or to provide shuttle service from satellite lots or from congregants’ homes. He even touted bikesharing several times but said it is not practical for everyone.

Whatever the solution, Mr. Thomas admitted the bill was in its infancy and that he wants to provide a template for cooperation; angle parking may be one of many possible solutions.

Mr. Thomas was eager to mention the companion bill to allow permanent angle parking in business districts. Though most meeting attendees were there to complain about church parking in residential neighborhoods, Mr. Thomas said that many Ward 5 businesses depend heavily on customers arriving by private car. However, when he asked a local business owner how much of his business is from outside his neighborhood, the owner said that very little came from elsewhere.

The business corridor bill is significantly different from the Sunday parking bill. The former would permit businesses to seek diagonal parking at all times, regardless of transit service, or if the street space could be reallocated to bike lanes or wider sidewalks.

The Sunday parking bill carries more merit than the business corridor bill because of the unique circumstances of church locations and Sunday transit service. The business corridor bill, in contrast, too hastily and disproportionately prioritizes parking to the detriment of other road uses.

Cities have toyed with the idea of installing free wireless internet access as a way to bridge the digital divide. During the dot-com era, techno-evangelists fretted that the lack of internet access would further marginalize the poor in an increasingly digital world.  Inexpensive wifi promises to close the gap by broadcasting free internet access at short ranges.

Over in Bloomingdale a plan has been brewing for several years to install a series of wifi antennae to broadcast internet to residents for free. Interestingly, the District’s Office of the Chief Technology Officer (OCTO) recently revealed that the city has indeed already installed wifi hotspots on the Mall. OCTO is partnering with Bloomingdale to bring the Bridge, as the program is called, to fruition.

The aptly named Bridge is expected to seep into parts of LeDroit Park and Eckington, too.  Have a look at the proposed coverage map.

View The Bridge – Bloomingdale’s Free Wifi in a larger map

You’ve seen them around DC.  Those tall signs with historic photos and narratives explaining what happened in that neighborhood 70 or 200 years ago.  Several neighborhoods in DC have heritage trails, courtesy of Cultural Tourism DC.

We in LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale are on our way to getting our very own heritage trail, but the LeDroit Park-Bloomingdale Heritage Trail Working Group needs your help.

The Working Group will meet on Wednesday, May 12 at 7 pm at St. George’s Episcopal Church (Second & U Streets) to collect stories, old photos, and to plan how to interview our neighborhoods’ long-time residents.

Do you have an old photo or an old story to tell or are you interested in local history?  LeDroit Park has hosted many notable residents from Civil War generals, to Duke Ellington, to Walter Washington, and even Jesse Jackson!

Come join us Wednesday night and learn how you can help.

Wednesday, May 12
7 pm
St. George’s Episcopal Church
Second & U Streets NW

Around 5:50 PM [Wednesday] I was riding along First St. NW with other commuters. We crossed over Florida Ave and a car came in behind me, horn continuously on, and accelerated into my rear wheel knocking me to the ground. The driver then got out of the car and yelled some obscenity at me. He got back into his car and left the scene.

I ended up with a few bruises and bumps but luckily no serious injury, but my rear wheel was destroyed along with my saddle, still not sure about the frame. Although there were seven plus witnesses, we were only able to get a partial license plate. We did get a great description of the car. The police arrived on the scene and took all the witness statements, etc and the incident will be filed as a hit and run.

Using a vehicle as a weapon is a serious crime.  It’s also important to remember that cyclists and drivers are equally entitled to use the streets of the city.