Trash day, schools, parking and what’s happening on your block
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How Hill East was built, from DC's historic building permits, and what the newspaper said about it a hundred years ago this week.
| Decade | Buildings |
|---|---|
| 1870s | 24 |
| 1880s | 144 |
| 1890s | 239 |
| 1900s | 553 |
| 1910s | 516 |
| 1920s | 905 |
| 1930s | 146 |
| 1940s | 81 |
| 1950s | 36 |
Each record is one building listed on a historic DC building permit; a single permit can cover many buildings. The busiest decade is highlighted in the chart.
In 1924, T. A. Jameson built 42 buildings on the 1700 block of D Street SE under 3 permits, designed by George T. Santmyers. The largest permit covered 17 buildings at an estimated $85,000 in total.
Mentions of Hill East in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Potomac avenue", "Fifteenth street southeast", "Massachusetts avenue southeast", "Thirteenth street southeast".
“Prices of $2 4 gold pieces were award ed as follows: For the most beauti ful! y costumed couple, to Mr. and Mrs. Frank Zuch, 509 Fifteenth street southeast; for the most origi nal costume, to Mrs. C. V. Cramblitt, 2212 G street, who dressed as Miss Safety First' 1 in a safety-pin-spangled dress, and for the most comically cos tumed individual, to H‘.”See page 23 at loc.gov ↗
Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too.
![Buchanan School Group, 12/5/22, [19]22 December 5.](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/npcc/07400/07479r.jpg)
Photographs from the Library of Congress (Historic American Buildings Survey; National Photo Company Collection), each with no known restrictions on publication or in the public domain, per the Library. Titles are the Library's, written when the photos were catalogued; some use the language of their time. Each links to its record.
A former traffic circle on Pennsylvania Avenue just before the Sousa Bridge, which gave its name to the blocks around it. Congress passed a 1911 act to confirm the name, after a local builder read a paper on Barney to the Columbia Historical Society in 1910.
Sources: Barney Circle - Wikipedia · Barney Circle Historic District nomination (National Register form, DC Office of Planning)Runs due east from the Capitol to the Maryland line. It is uninterrupted as far as Lincoln Park, then continues around the RFK campus and crosses the Anacostia. Wikipedia lists the East Capitol Street Car Barn among the places along it.
Source: East Capitol Street - WikipediaA recent name for the eastern end of Capitol Hill, coined to give the area an identity apart from the historic district. It began circulating in the mid-2010s and the D.C. government had adopted it by the end of that decade. Wikipedia says the area, Barney Circle in particular, had long counted as Capitol Hill.
Source: Hill East - WikipediaOriginally South B Street. The stretch south of the Mall was renamed Independence Avenue in 1934, three years after its northern counterpart became Constitution Avenue. It continues east through this neighborhood.
Earlier: South B StreetSources: Independence Avenue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia · Streets and highways of Washington, D.C. - WikipediaCarries Pennsylvania Avenue SE over the Anacostia and opened in December 1939. It is named for Sousa, who grew up near its northwestern end. A bridge first stood at this spot in 1804. It is also known as the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge.
Earlier: Pennsylvania Avenue BridgeSource: John Philip Sousa Bridge - WikipediaRuns from East Capitol Street at Lincoln Park to Barney Circle near Pennsylvania Avenue. The Barney Circle historic district nomination calls it the diagonal slash that meets Pennsylvania Avenue at the Anacostia.
Sources: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · Barney Circle Historic District nomination (National Register form, DC Office of Planning)One of two avenues that run through three quadrants, and the only state-named road that touches two District borders.
Sources: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · Massachusetts Avenue (Washington, D.C.) - WikipediaFor about fifty years it dead-ended at the river. The East Washington Citizens Association campaigned to rebuild the bridge, finished in 1890. A trolley reached the circle in 1901, and the first rowhouses in the Barney Circle district went up in 1905.
Sources: Barney Circle Historic District nomination (National Register form, DC Office of Planning) · List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - WikipediaA state-named avenue that runs from 2nd and F Streets to the junction of Independence Avenue, 15th Street and Massachusetts Avenue.
Source: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - WikipediaStill looking for a reliable source on Bay Street SE, Burke Street SE, Ives Place SE, Potomac Avenue SE, Southeast Boulevard, Water Street SE. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.
Kreinheder and her husband bought a house on Kentucky Avenue in 1963 and still lived there in 2020. She interviewed longtime residents for the Capitol Hill Restoration Society in 1974. Her own 2015 and 2016 interviews lean on the blocks closest to her home.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Kentucky Avenue, Lincoln Park, historic district, neighborsDone for the Barney Circle Neighborhood Watch Association's history effort. Parsons watched G Street SE rowhouses go up in the 1920s, basements dug by horse-drawn plows. He also recalls school, the Bonus Army in the neighborhood and John Philip Sousa's funeral.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Barney Circle, Bonus Army, schools, Sousa's funeralHiggins moved to Burke Street SE at age three. When her family left during the block-busting of the 1950s, she commuted back to finish at Eastern. She recalls Bryan School and Eastern, living near the D.C. Jail, wartime Washington and local hospitals.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Burke Street SE, Bryan School, Eastern High School, D.C. JailBorn at home in 1919 on H Street SE, Shore spent her first 21 years there. She remembers playing barefoot after summer rains, the corner store, the Italian stonecutter who carved headstones for Congressional Cemetery and the family Model T.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · H Street SE, Holy Comforter School, Congressional CemeteryJosephine Shore's sister grew up on H Street SE near Congressional Cemetery just after World War I. She remembers caring for her younger siblings, hansom cabs and the cars that replaced them, and her school and working days.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · H Street SE, school days, Congressional CemeteryBorn in Southeast in 1928, Turner spent most of his childhood on G Street SE. He recalls the paving of cobblestone streets in 1939, delivering groceries to the Marine Commandant's house and living without indoor plumbing, then a career with the telephone company and Capitol Police.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · G Street SE, street paving, delivering groceriesBefore he was D.C. police chief from 1989 to 1992, Fulwood grew up near Kentucky Avenue SE. In two interviews he credits family, faith and friends for the neighborhood's stability and names the people and places that shaped him.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Kentucky Avenue SE, family, faith, policeArlotto's family has lived on Kentucky Avenue since the 1990s. Drawing on her work in pedestrian planning, preservation and DC schools, she talks about recent changes on the Hill and how the neighborhood lived through the September 11 attacks and the January 6 riot.
At Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Kentucky Avenue, pedestrian planning, DC schools, September 11, January 6Harris's family came from North Carolina in 1966, when he was eight, and settled in Hill East. He attended Bryan Elementary and Eliot Junior High, finished Eastern High in 1977, and talks about carpentry, federal work and the city under Marion Barry.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library · Great Migration, Bryan School, Eastern High School, carpentrySearch the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series) · Foggy Bottom Association History Project: Oral Histories · George Washington University Special Collections Research Center · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past · Empower DC: Ivy City · Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience (Dig DC) · Gallaudet University Archives. Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.