We used to vote at this ugly building.
Memory Lane: Elections at Dunbar
Category: Buildings
Memory Lane: Mt. Lebanon Baptist Church
This church building gives me Lutheran church vibes. This church sits in the Mount Vernon Sq part of Truxton Circle. It also housed the Israel Metropolitan CME Church during the 1957 Church Survey.
Memory Lane: Dunbar HS Falling Apart
Going through my photo catalog and remembering in 2007 Dunbar High School was in bad shape. This may have been wind damage.
Memory Lane: That Market at 3rd and P
So for a while it was empty. Then it was in limbo as the owner spun stories of possibly making it a store for Georgian wines. That never happened.
Then it opened and turned into a quickie mart that kept getting robbed.
Memory Lane: There’s a house there now- 1541 4th St NW
See the photo above. There was a space between the taller yellow house and the shorter white house. That space is 1541 4th St NW. What is there now is a house worth around a million dollars according to Redfin. Infill I think is the word I should use.
Memory Lane: 403 R St NW
I’m going through old photos, walking down memory lane I spot this bunch of 403 R St NW.
I’ve researched the history with Black Home Owner- Lewis Griffin. And I’ve looked at it as a long vacant house on the 400 block of R Street with cinder block windows.
Those permits in the window seemed just for show. Nothing happened to this house for years and years.
Fast forward to today, and Redfin claims the renovated house is worth well over a million dollars. The key word here is “renovated”.
I’m going to resist going on a tangent about the worth of housing. I’m very sorry that housing has gotten so ‘flippin’ expensive. But that’s the cost of all the things we want out of housing. The cheapest housing in the world is a tent or a crappy hut with some random materials thrown together on land you can’t claim. We want walls that are strong and will keep out the bad weather. We want A/C and heat. We want to keep out rodents (good luck). We want plumbing and electrical systems that work. And we want the local municipality to approve it. All this adds costs. It doesn’t explain all of the costs.
Anyway, this went from being an abandoned vacant house to a home.
Memory Lane- 36 Florida Ave NW 2004
Now there is a pop up on top. This is pre pop top.
Memory Lane- John Cook School now Mundo Verde at dusk
Memory lane is the series where I go through my old photos of the Truxton Circle (or Shaw) neighborhood and reflect.
The John Cook School is the building that Mundo Verde PCS now occupies. When the photos were taken in 2007, I believe the school had recently closed, but the city kept the lights on.
Memory Lane- New York/M Street Firehouse
This is a close up of the old firehouse at 219 M Street NW, but it could just as well be on New York Avenue NW. Twenty years ago neighborhood had a lot of great historical assets that were being neglected or not kept up. This was one of them.
Currently the firehouse is a fitness gym called Flex, and this is their DC location. I think prior to that it was a parkour gym.
Black History Month 2024: First Class- Ch. 12 New School
This year for Black History Month we’ll review chapter by chapter Alison Stewart’s First Class: The Legacy of Dunbar, America’s First Black Public High School. This is more Truxton Circle related then this blog’s previous annual looks at Shaw resident and founder of Negro History Week (later Black history month) Dr. Carter G. Woodson’s Mis-Education of the Negro. As Dunbar High School is located in Truxton Circle currently taking up all of Square 554.
This chapter starts with the 1968 riots which pretty much destroyed much of 9th and 7th Street in Shaw. Yes, other neighborhoods experienced damage too, but we’re focusing on Shaw. The damage lasted 30 years. Whatever plans for the Shaw School Urban Renewal Area took on a new spirit after the riots and redoing Dunbar was part of it.
There were pre-riot plans for the Dunbar facility. There was a modernization plan to make it larger than Eastern High School. After the riot the School Board decided the building needed to be torn down.
As the 1970s approach Dunbar was a completely different school. Gone were the high standards and expectations of earlier years. There was a mix and range of students. And there were drug dealers around the neighborhood.
This chapter gives some detail about the prison like structure that loomed on Square 554 for 30 years. The new Dunbar Senior High School would be modern. It had open classrooms. I’m sure that idea looked great on paper.
Of course Dunbar alumni fought the good fight and tried to save the original 1916 building. Senator Brooke (mentioned in the previous chapter) lent his support for saving the old building. Apparently the building was recognized as an historic landmark. The alumni even took the city to court in 1977. June 2, 1977 the city began to knock down the old Dunbar building.