Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Questions About the Capitol Hill Historic District
Take a look at Richard's post from Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space. He talks about the Capitol Hill Restoration Society & mentions that it may have a possible interest in expanding the Capitol Hill Historic District all the way north to H Street. Richard is basically asking where the line should be drawn.
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Richard thinks the line should be Florida Avenue (south side).
He also thinks that the CHHD could be extended east to incorporate the area called Hill East.
When I worked on a survey a few years ago, we basically looked at the area between Maryland and Florida Avenues that wasn't in the CHHD, from 2nd Street to 15th Street.
But as you know, the area south of Maryland Avenue and east (around Miner School) has awesome building stock dating from the same general period of the CHHD.
Then there is Trinidad. I am not super familiar with Trinidad block by block but at least the area that I think of as "lower" Trinidad shares history, patrimony, and building stock similarity with the part of the neighborhood south of Florida Avenue.
In 1872, owners of land in the H Street area built the Columbia Horse Car Railroad (the trolley) in order to foster development of the area. The investor group included H.A. Willard (of the Hotel).
Later Willard and fellow financiers created the Washington Brick Machine Company to produce manufactured bricks.
WBMC built the houses on Wylie Street and other places south of Florida (then called Boundary Street) perhaps in part as demonstration, perhaps for their workers.
WBMC purchased, for access to clay as well as to build a brick works, the Trinidad estate from what became GWU to whom Corcoran's will had bequeathed the estate.
They discovered they didn't need all of the land, so they platted and subdivided and developed a goodly portion of it, before the turn of the century (I don't remember exactly when they started). At some point, I'm not sure when, they left the area, probably in the early 1900s.
I do know that from 1901-1904 the Washington American League Baseball team played in a stadium built on the north side of Boundary Street, around 13 1/2th to 14th Streets.
I have not been able to find a photograph of this, although it is indicated on the plat maps.
So even though from a historicity sense it makes no sense for the CHHD to go beyond the original boundaries of the L'Enfant City, it does make sense to support efforts to survey the Trinidad neighborhood and to assist efforts, if any exist, to work to create a historic district in the area north of Florida Avenue.
Over the years, people throughout Cluster 23 have expressed interest in this based on conversations I've had with people. Well, at least people in Carver Terrace and Arboretum Place have talked to me about this, as well as Trinidad. Not really in Ivy City.)
I live in the 1200 block of Florida Ave & the docs I have say my house was built in 1913. I spoke with a woman who moved to the 1200 block of Florida Ave around 1925 & she assured me that the area was entirely built up at that time. I think some of the places further north (but still in Trinidad) were built in the 1920s-1940s.
My deed says 1908, however I did some research and found out that my house was built in 1893. I even found out who lived in my house in 1900.
The easiest 1st step is to look at the plat maps at the Washingtonian collection at MLK. MLK also has copies of the Census for DC. (They are made public after 70 years)
If you are really interested in finding specific information on your house, The National Archives has the Census, plus your building permit on microfishe, maybe a copy of your house blueprints and a few really old city directories.
Although I haven't yet researched my house, I learned about a year ago that all homes in DC built before 1900 list the build date as 1900. This is when the responsibility for tracking / recording land records was transferred from the National Archives (I think--a Fed Dept, at any rate) to the DC Recorder of Deeds (or its predecessor).
So, if your deed indicates a build date of 1900, odds are very high that your home is older than that. In addition to Washingtonia at MLK, I've heard that the National Archives has retained many of the pre-1900 records.
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