Okay. One little break from the Washington Sanitary Improvement Co houses for Christmas. Merry Christmas/ Happy Festivus to my 3 readers.
Merry Christmas Tree
Images
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.
Carter G. Woodson FBI FOIA request – #1
So I put in a FOIA request to the FBI looking for Carter G. Woodson. Not my first. That was George Basiliko. That led to bupkis. But I decided to give it another try with Carter G. Woodson. I got a response to go bug the National Archives with a couple of file numbers and the document below.
I was going to sit on this but the FBI’s eFOIA system got some crazy bug and sent me about 18 emails in the past 3 days. I have another non-Shaw related request (I’m curious about stuff) and was hoping it was about that. But nope. It took me a while but I discovered it was the same stuff I got before. It’s just one crazy duplicate email after another. And the FBI gives you 48 hours to click on the link if you want your document. I clicked the link and I got an error.
Instead of suffering in silence, I decided to blog about it. May as well write a post.
The above disappointing article is a very brief mention of Dr. Carter G. Woodson. I’m guessing it is FBI file 25-LA-330971 and this appears to be some African American paper where Nation of Islam (NOI) leader Elijah Muhammad had a column. EM mentions Woodson’s book Negro Orators and Their Orations, published in 1925.
When I get something from the National Archives, I might share it. If it is semi-useless as the newspaper clipping from the FBI, I probably won’t.
Memory Lane: 400 Block of Q St NW 2007
Even as far back as 2007, there were bike lanes.
Memory Lane: Snowy City Scenes February 12, 2006
I’m looking into my collection of photographs and going down memory lane.
I took these photos eighteen years ago. The snow just fell and it was pretty. Pretty until you have to go to work and it gets packed into ice on the sidewalk.
Memory Lane: Watha Daniels Shaw Library
This photo was taken back in February 2010 of the construction that was to be the Shaw library at Rhode Island Ave and 7th St NW.
Memory Lane: 1500 Block of 1st St NW January 5, 2008
When I took this photo back in 2008 I did not know that the corner house had history. That it was the home of the notable Pocahontas Pope.
So much has changed since then. It’s been renovated and now I am more familiar with it’s notable former resident.
It was on the market last year, but I see the listing was removed. Well, better luck in 2024!
This Was Once A Functional School- Langston School
Among the Library of Congress photographs were photographs of the John Mercer Langston School, which sits on the unit block of P St NW in Truxton Circle. I discovered photographs of the Langston School among the several photographs that photojournalist Marjory Collins took in March 1942. However, like the Slater School, it was not labeled. Thank goodness these schools are located so close to each other that this slice of Truxton Circle history has been captured.
Collins, it seems was aiming to focus on the woman in the hat, not so much the school building.
Langston Elementary was a functional school. It had students and teachers and staff. But now it is just an empty historic building:
The images below are from 2007. The building has been better secured in the past 16 years.
Slater School 1942
I happened to have found this photograph in the Library of Congress’ collection. It was listed as a Negro elementary school. When I took a closer look I saw the name of the school on the building.
I am amazed seeing children playing on P Street as if it was an extension of the playground. P Street actually doesn’t look that wide in this photo. Things were different in 1942, when this was taken by Marjory Collins the Farm Security Administration – Office of War Information photographer who took the photograph.
I found a similar view from 2008.
The school was in poor shape then.
Fifteenth Street Presbyterian 1899
This is the old building, probably the same one that was in the 1957 Church Survey.