A look at what's going on in Trinidad, on H Street, and in the larger area north of Capitol Hill.
Monday, February 06, 2006
DCist: Englert Activity on H Street
Here's a link to a post on DCist (this past Friday) discussing the new Joe Englert associated places on H Street. Oh yeah, the title of the post? "Trinidad is Rad."
You live in Trinidad, but H Street isn't Trinidad.
I wrote this in response to the DCist post:
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it... You guys don't know where Trinidad is! or was.
Trinidad was the William Corcoran estate, and this estate was in Washington County. Washington County lay north of Boundary Street, now known as Florida Avenue. H Street is south of Boundary Street, H Street was platted as part of the original L'Enfant City. Therefore, H Street cannot be Trinidad. For more information you can read the "H Street Neighborhood Social and Cultural History" linked on my blog. There also are recent (within the last few years) articles in _Washington History_, including this one:
14:1 (Spring/Summer 2002),
Michael R. Harrison, "The 'Evil of the Misfit Subdivisions': Creating the Permanent System of Highways of the District of Columbia," 26-55.
Anyway, the Corcoran estate was sold to Washington Brick Machine Company to mine for clay. But they had enough clay, so they developed it into the neighborhood it is today. Part of this estate was also the location for the first baseball stadium for the Washington Senators, from something like 1901-1904, although I have not yet been able to find a photo of it. It is on the plat maps.
H Street is definitely not part of Trinidad. Trinidad is entirely north of Florida Ave & your are right about where it got its name. This is not the first time I've seen this mistake made & maybe I'm partially to blame for that issue. I cover both Trinidad & the H Street Corridor because I live in Trinidad, but I also live very close to the H Street Corridor. I'm glad that DCist is paying attention to this section of the city, but yeah, they need to figure out the neighborhoods a bit better.
Trinidad was the name of the estate that Richard references above. The fact that it was a separate estate helps explain why the boundaries of Trinidad are more set than those of, say, Capitol Hill. I was recently reminded that houses in the Carver-Langston neighborhood will say that they are in Trinidad if you pull them up on the tax database (which means that is probably also what a lot of real estate ads for those houses say). I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect that the same would be true of Ivy-City. The neighborhoods are all part of "cluster 23" (an identifier used in some DC maps). I suspect that these other neighborhoods get called Trinidad because Trinidad is the largest of these three kind of tiny neighborhoods. Does anyone have a better explanation. Also, it's really strange (I'm looking at a small stack of maps right now) which names make it onto the map, and which don't. For instance, I see Truxton Circle & I sherwood, but I don't see Carver-Langston on the Mapquest maps. In its place is Kingman Park. A search for Kingman Park brings up a few things, including an article on Kingman Park giving largely the same boundaries that I've heard given for Carver-Langston. This is odd, I've heard of both neighborhoods, but I never though that they were right on top of each other. I know that the ANC Commissioners over there (at least William Myers & Kathy Henderson) call it Carver-Langston. Anyone have any insight?
I ran into Commissioner William Myers (from ANC6B & the Carver-Langston area) about an hour ago. I told him about the map issue & that I had read a Hill Rag article from last summer (by Jim Myers) identifying pretty much that whole area as Kingman Park. W.M. said that Kingman Park does not cross Benning Road (contradicting J.M.'s assertion that Kingman Park extends up to M Street) & that it ends at River Terrace (which may be the same thing, I'll have to check the map). I thought that maybe Carver-Langston had once been Kingman Park, but had been renamed when they built the two developments from which Carver-Langston takes its name. W.M. vetoed this saying that these areas had never been part of Kingman Park.
Another thing I noticed is that the Hill Rag article says that the Trinidad Citizens' Association protested the building of Langston Terrace (begun in 1935 & completed in 1938). But according to the website of the Ivy City-Trinidad Citizens' Association (the modern incarnation of the original association), the Trinidad Citizens' Association didn't exist before 1951.
I emailed Richard on this topic, but please, anyone else who wants to chime in: I want to compile a (brief, say page-or-so long) history of Trinidad neighborhood to put on the web. Can anyone suggest the best resources for that? How about for old maps and pictures of Trinidad?
Obviously you will want to hit up the Washingtonia room at MLK. I tend to feel that Trinidad is a kind of under document neighborhood (a good argument for scanning existing old photos/documents before they disappear).
You may also want to speak with Commissioner Whilhelmina Lawson on the topic (I've heard that she is interested in doing some kind of history project on the neighborhood). An oral & visual history would be ideal, but that is a very tremendous undertaking.
Thanks for the information. I've often wanted to just talk to the elderly residents of my street but the crushing demands on my time have prohibited it so far.
11 comments:
You live in Trinidad, but H Street isn't Trinidad.
I wrote this in response to the DCist post:
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it... You guys don't know where Trinidad is! or was.
Trinidad was the William Corcoran estate, and this estate was in Washington County. Washington County lay north of Boundary Street, now known as Florida Avenue. H Street is south of Boundary Street, H Street was platted as part of the original L'Enfant City. Therefore, H Street cannot be Trinidad. For more information you can read the "H Street Neighborhood Social and Cultural History" linked on my blog. There also are recent (within the last few years) articles in _Washington History_, including this one:
14:1 (Spring/Summer 2002),
Michael R. Harrison, "The 'Evil of the Misfit Subdivisions': Creating the Permanent System of Highways of the District of Columbia," 26-55.
Anyway, the Corcoran estate was sold to Washington Brick Machine Company to mine for clay. But they had enough clay, so they developed it into the neighborhood it is today. Part of this estate was also the location for the first baseball stadium for the Washington Senators, from something like 1901-1904, although I have not yet been able to find a photo of it. It is on the plat maps.
H Street is definitely not part of Trinidad. Trinidad is entirely north of Florida Ave & your are right about where it got its name. This is not the first time I've seen this mistake made & maybe I'm partially to blame for that issue. I cover both Trinidad & the H Street Corridor because I live in Trinidad, but I also live very close to the H Street Corridor. I'm glad that DCist is paying attention to this section of the city, but yeah, they need to figure out the neighborhoods a bit better.
I was actually poking a bit of fun at the neighborhood confusion when
I referenced the title of their post.
So does anyone know why the neighborhood is called Trinidad?
Trinidad was the name of the estate that Richard references above. The fact that it was a separate estate helps explain why the boundaries of Trinidad are more set than those of, say, Capitol Hill. I was recently reminded that houses in the Carver-Langston neighborhood will say that they are in Trinidad if you pull them up on the tax database (which means that is probably also what a lot of real estate ads for those houses say). I haven't tried it yet, but I suspect that the same would be true of Ivy-City. The neighborhoods are all part of "cluster 23" (an identifier used in some DC maps). I suspect that these other neighborhoods get called Trinidad because Trinidad is the largest of these three kind of tiny neighborhoods. Does anyone have a better explanation.
Also, it's really strange (I'm looking at a small stack of maps right now) which names make it onto the map, and which don't. For instance, I see Truxton Circle & I sherwood, but I don't see Carver-Langston on the Mapquest maps. In its place is Kingman Park. A search for Kingman Park brings up a few things, including an article on Kingman Park giving largely the same boundaries that I've heard given for Carver-Langston.
This is odd, I've heard of both neighborhoods, but I never though that they were right on top of each other. I know that the ANC Commissioners over there (at least William Myers & Kathy Henderson) call it Carver-Langston.
Anyone have any insight?
no insight to carver- langston but my neighborhood ,bloomingdale, also overlaps with others.
south of rhode island is part of eckington, while noth of rhode island is sometimes considered part of ledroit park.
certainly eastern market is in capitol hill. and logan is in shaw.
I ran into Commissioner William Myers (from ANC6B & the Carver-Langston area) about an hour ago. I told him about the map issue & that I had read a Hill Rag article from last summer (by Jim Myers) identifying pretty much that whole area as Kingman Park. W.M. said that Kingman Park does not cross Benning Road (contradicting J.M.'s assertion that Kingman Park extends up to M Street) & that it ends at River Terrace (which may be the same thing, I'll have to check the map). I thought that maybe Carver-Langston had once been Kingman Park, but had been renamed when they built the two developments from which Carver-Langston takes its name. W.M. vetoed this saying that these areas had never been part of Kingman Park.
Another thing I noticed is that the Hill Rag article says that the Trinidad Citizens' Association protested the building of Langston Terrace (begun in 1935 & completed in 1938). But according to the website of the Ivy City-Trinidad Citizens' Association (the modern incarnation of the original association), the Trinidad Citizens' Association didn't exist before 1951.
I emailed Richard on this topic, but please, anyone else who wants to chime in: I want to compile a (brief, say page-or-so long) history of Trinidad neighborhood to put on the web. Can anyone suggest the best resources for that? How about for old maps and pictures of Trinidad?
Obviously you will want to hit up the Washingtonia room at MLK. I tend to feel that Trinidad is a kind of under document neighborhood (a good argument for scanning existing old photos/documents before they disappear).
You may also want to speak with Commissioner Whilhelmina Lawson on the topic (I've heard that she is interested in doing some kind of history project on the neighborhood). An oral & visual history would be ideal, but that is a very tremendous undertaking.
Thanks for the information. I've often wanted to just talk to the elderly residents of my street but the crushing demands on my time have prohibited it so far.
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