All Titles

In Washington, D.C., a city steeped in history--from museums and monuments to statues and stations--there are perhaps no structures as prominent as the working symbols of the United States' three-branch government: the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court. Embodying our nation's complex and, at times, tumultuous history, these buildings also house invaluable pieces of our American past. A visit to these national treasures provides a lesson in both the people and events that have shaped this country. Representing the heart, soul, and strength of American independence, the White House, the Capitol, and the Supreme Court tell a fascinating true story--one that includes presidents, vice presidents, senators, justices, and political visionaries. Touring the buildings, visitors see such familiar faces as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., and Susan B. Anthony, as well as learn about lesser-known figures such as Chippewa warrior Beeshekee, Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite, and Vice Presidents Daniel Tompkins and William R. King. The paintings and portraits that adorn the walls, the statues in every corner, and the rooms themselves provide commentary on the political life of a developing nation.

The Park View neighborhood, nestled in the northeastern corner of Washington's Ward One and bordering the Soldiers' Home and Howard University, is historically linked to its main thoroughfare, Georgia Avenue. Located on high ground in close proximity to downtown, the land was home to farms and country retreats throughout the 19th century. Park View's location on a streetcar line leading to the Washington waterfront hastened development when the city experienced a housing boom at the start of the 20th century. Builders, including Harry Wardman and Edgar S. Kennedy, constructed entire streets of row houses to meet the demand. Between 1948 and 1950, the community experienced rapid demographic changes, resulting in a solidly African American community. Civil unrest in the late 1960s dramatically impacted Georgia Avenue, with many businesses deciding to leave the corridor rather than stay. The opening of Metro stations at Columbia Heights and Georgia Avenue in 1999 reinvigorated the community and laid a foundation for new investment and development in the area.

In Dupont Circle, author Paul K. Williams documents the growth and development of the historic Dupont Circle neighborhood with over 200 vintage images.

From the vast estates of the mid-1800s to the row houses built at the end of the 19th century, from Charles Lindbergh's balcony address at the Patterson House to the various political rallies staged in the urban neighborhood, Washington, D.C.'s Dupont Circle has for many years been at the center of a rich history. Boasting a fascinating heritage of architectural, cultural, and political activity and diversity, the Dupont Circle neighborhood has played a part in the great story of the capital city and has witnessed many of the people and events that have challenged our national community. Following the area's use as a Civil War encampment, Dupont Circle slowly began to develop a more urban character. At the neighborhood's social zenith in the early 1900s, gracious mansions surrounding the circle hosted lavish parties attended by diplomats, presidents, and wealthy socialites. The photographs in this informative visual history capture the elegant homes that were later replaced by office buildings and the fashionable era that was soon to fade. Rare World War II images of former mansions used as rooming houses bring readersinto the 20th century, along with the early 1960s photographs of gay activists who gathered at the circle and began the modern restoration of the neighborhood.

Brookland is a neighborhood with strong connections to Howard and Catholic Universities, the Catholic Church, and Washington's black intelligentsia. Its rich past is well preserved in its architecture, historic sites, and social institutions. It is a thriving middle-class neighborhood and a place full of family stories. It is graced by beautiful institutional open spaces, woods, and large backyards. But above all, it is a place full of history. The Brooks Mansion, the Twelfth Street business corridor, the Franciscan monastery, Fort Bunker Hill, and the Ralph Bunche House--each site tells another story of Brookland.

In 1801, on a ridge that overlooked the incipient national capital, Philip Barton Key, uncle and mentor of Francis Scott Key, built a Federal-style house and named it Woodley. Its extraordinary vistas, together with its extensive grounds and stables, would subsequently attract a series of residents that not only included two presidents, but also some of the most eminent senators, cabinet officers, generals, and socialites of their respective eras. In a sense, the history of Woodley is a history of the nation. This volume contains 200 years of images that detail the history of the house and the men and women who lived there. In doing so, it persuasively supports the contention that, with the single exception of the White House, no house in America can boast a roster of residents comparable to that of Woodley.

This volume contains more than 200 images of prominent homes and noteworthy points of national interest on Capitol Hill, including Union Station, the Navy Yard, Eastern Market, and the B&O Railroad Company.

Capitol Hill celebrates one of the largest historic districts in the nation and a neighborhood rich in history that shaped a nation and the world. Beginning as a port area on the high plateau near the deep water of the Anacostia River, Capitol Hill was largely shaped by the early residential development near the Navy Yard. Later home to middle-class workers in the 19th century, Capitol Hill is now one of Washington's most elite neighborhoods. While the name of the current neighborhood is derived from its proximity to the United States Capitol, it is actually not located on a hill. Situated on the highest point of land between the Anacostia and Potomac Rivers, Capitol Hill began as a small cluster of homes located at First and Second Streets along New Jersey Avenue, Southeast around 1800. The neighborhood was also home to hospitals and boarding houses during the Civil War. The area now known as the Capitol Hill Historic District was primarily built up in the 1880s and 1890s for speculative housing on a more modest scale, but now the district is considered elite with more senators and members of Congress residing there than in any other neighborhood.

Southwest Washington, D.C.: A defined neighborhood even without a proper name.

The quadrant of Southwest Washington, D.C. has a clear border southwest of the U.S. Capitol Building, nestled along the oldest waterfront in the city. Its physical delineations have defined it as a community for more than 250 years, beginning in the mid-1700s with emerging farms. By the mid-1800s, a thriving urban, residential, and commercial neighborhood was supported by the waterfront where Washingtonians bought seafood and produce right off the boats. In the 1920s and 1930s, an aging housing stock and an overcrowded city led to an increase of African Americans and Jewish immigrants who became self-sufficient within their own communities. However, political pressures and radical urban planning concepts in the 1950s led to the large-scale razing of most of SW, creating a new community with what was then innovative apartment and cooperative living constructed with such unusual building materials as aluminum. Author and local historian Paul K. Williams provides and in-depth look at it all.

The Forest Hills neighborhood is set within a heavily treed, rolling landscape adjoining Rock Creek Park and was first home to the Piscataway Indian tribe and later to Civil War encampments. Threshing mills and large rural estates gradually gave way in the early 1900s to a residential community in close proximity to the National Bureau of Standards where many of the residents worked. Diplomats, politicians, and many prominent Washingtonians now inhabit many of the splendidly designed houses found in Forest Hills today. 0Images of America: Forest Hills includes nearly 200 vintage images that document the long and fascinating history of the community. Etchings, maps, and photographs combine to illustrate Native American settlers; architect-designed residences; and the homes of Presidents Truman and Johnson, infamous FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, and Post cereal heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post. The book also highlights Connecticut Avenue, the neighborhood's main street; apartment buildings; and well-known artists and authors who have called Forest Hills home.

Lafayette Square's rich history dates back to the founding of the District of Columbia when Pierre L'Enfant planned it as part of the grounds for the president's house. The square was one of the first open spaces within the city to be designed as a public park. Across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, the park's neighborhood became home to presidents, vice presidents, cabinet members, diplomats, inventors, journalists, heroes, authors, scientists, law breakers, and scoundrels. Today, the square and its sculptures are surrounded by government offices, but symbolically, it is the White House's front yard, making it an attractive destination. Using historic photographs, Lafayette Square captures the square's social, political, and architectural history, highlighting important past events.

Known as the Village in the City since 1973, Burleith is a small 10-square-block residential community nestled between Georgetown to the south and east and Glover Park to the north. The name "Burleith" dates back to 17th-century Scotland, and the area was first subdivided in 1887 as part of Frederic W. Huidekoper's Burleith Addition to West Washington. Also known as Georgetown Heights, Burleith caught the attention of Charles Dickens, who wrote in 1842, "The heights of this neighborhood, above the Potomac River, are very picturesque and are free, I should conceive, from some of the insalubrities of Washington." The Shannon & Luchs real estate firm built the majority of Burleith's row houses in a predominantly Georgian style during the early 1920s.

View the legacy of the long-standing African-American neighborhood that formed the close-knit community today.

Located in the far northeastern edge of the city, Deanwood is one of Washington, D.C.'s oldest, consistently African American neighborhoods. Rooted in slave-based agriculture on white-owned land, the community began its transition from rural to urban development with the 1871 arrival of a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad along its western boundary. This period after the Civil War offered blacks the opportunity to become landowners. Since this time, many notable Washingtonians of various ethnicities have been residents and frequent visitors to the area. In the early 1920s, it was home to Suburban Gardens, the only permanent amusement park ever to be housed within the city limits. Many of Deanwood's families have lived in the community for generations, which makes it stable and close-knit.

Woodley Park celebrates the history of one of Washington D.C.'s most sought-after addresses. Once an area consisting of wooded land and scattered farmsteads, the neighborhood has experienced dramatic changes over the years. In 1797, Francis Scott Key's uncle purchased 250 acres and three years later built "Woodley," a house owned today by the Maret School. A century later, the neighborhood was connected to the city by the "million dollar bridge" over Rock Creek Park, and has since been the home to several U.S. Presidents, statesmen, diplomats, and the working class alike. This volume contains more than 200 images of prominent homes built during the neighborhood's infancy, mills along Rock Creek, the beginnings of the National Zoo, and the construction of the prominent Woodley Park and Shoreham Hotels, constructed by prolific builder and Woodley Park resident Harry Wardman.

Once a single 998-acre farm, Cleveland Park can trace its origins to 1740, when large country estates, such as Rosedale, Twin Oaks, Tregaron, and Red Tops, were located here. Alexander Graham Bell and President Grover Cleveland, the neighborhood's namesake, owned such estates, a few of which remain to this day. Although a mere 60 houses dotted the landscape in 1903, the building boom of the 1920s created numerous houses and commercial buildings along Connecticut Avenue. Today, the neighborhood is a modern urban residential neighborhood with many fine examples of American architecture and urban planning concepts. Cleveland Park documents the cultural, social, environmental, and architectural evolution of the neighborhood, offering photographs from the opening night of the famous art deco Uptown Theater and of the first strip mall in America, the Park and Shop. Combined with interior and exterior images from some of the celebrated apartment houses that remain and those of the now-demolished Bureau of Standards complex, this volume is certain to both delight and surprise the reader.

Bloomingdale was named for the beautiful spring flowers and elm, maple, crepe myrtle, and ginkgo trees in the area. A unique neighborhood, Bloomingdale was settled in 1877 to provide housing for blue-collar workers in Washington. Landowners had estates, commercial properties, and expansive orchards. The area was also a hub of transportation and home to one of two large flour mills in Washington. With the influx of workers and freed people, the need for housing became urgent, and developers reexamined the land they had set aside for industry and orchards. The city worked to improve roads and set up trolley lines, and additional residential housing was constructed by the end of the 1890s. The Army Corps of Engineers built the McMillan Park Reservoir and Washington City Tunnel between 1882 and 1902. The site of the reservoir was designated a historic landmark by the D.C. Historic Preservation Review in 1991. Images of America: Bloomingdale presents images collected from Washington-area libraries, historical societies, neighbors, and historians.

Visit the important developments in these Washington DC neighborhoods, the stately homes and notable citizens in this compelling visual record.

From the farm and orchard lands of the mid-1880s to the Civil War encampments, from modest wood frame homes to vast residences of Victorian splendor, the area surrounding the closely located Logan, Scott, and Thomas Circles has for many years been at the center of a rich history. Comprising a diverse architectural and social heritage, these neighborhoods have played a part in the great story of the capital city and have been home to the working man and woman, the wealthy, the middle class, and the politically powerful alike.

Following their use as the site of hangman's gallows for Civil War traitors, all three circles evolved into lush parks surrounded by the elegant, Victorian-era homes that housed nearly all of the nation's elite by the 1890s. Prior to the turn of the twentieth century, these neighborhoods were home to Washington's most influential citizens-pioneers and politicians, generals and industrialists-and, in the 1930s, to well-known leaders of the city's African-American community, such as Mary McLeod Bethune and Bishop Charles M. ""Sweet Daddy"" Grace. Logan Circle survives much as it was today, but many readers will not recognize the early homes, now long gone, that once surrounded Scott and Thomas Circles and have since been replaced by office buildings, hotels, and commercial establishments. Fortunately, a compelling visual record of the development of Logan, Scott, and Thomas Circles remains.

The Palisades neighborhood, in the extreme western corner of Washington, D.C., lies on the Maryland side of the Potomac River at Little Falls. Its history and landscape are inextricably linked to the river. George Washington, as president of the Patowmack Company, determined that a skirting canal was necessary to navigate around the rapids at Little Falls. Later, the skirting canal was replaced by the C&O Canal. Nowadays the river and the canal are used for
recreational sports, and the Capital Crescent Trail, formerly a railroad bed used to bring coal in from West Virginia, is a haven for dog-walkers, bike-riders, and joggers. But despite this constant flow of people and the current pressure for development, the Palisades maintains a stable residential population and enjoys a friendly, small-town atmosphere.