Monday, July 28, 2008

Anacostia in 1921

The past is not a package one can lay away.
~Emily Dickinson

Click image to Enlarge

This aerial photo from June 26, 1921 shows Anacostia before much of the post-war redevelopment and unfortunate tear-downs in the neighborhood.

1. The U-Street cut-through, before poor planning eliminated the road (formerly called Jackson Street) and the houses that once graced it!

2. The once-human-friendly block that is now the decrepit grocery store and an unnecessarilly large parking lot. I wonder what that larger u-shaped set of buildings was...

3. The current home of a now-empty lot and a corrugated-metal warehouse / health care center thing. Any idea what those two larger (and probably very cool-looking) buildings were?

*Update: the large building on that site was the old Van Buren School, a neighborhood landmark.

4. The residential block - on both W Street and Pleasant Street - that is now the Union Temple baptist church and its ridiculous parking lot.

photo for graphic courtesy of the Washington Post his, via Proquest.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

For a real trip take a look at this

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gmd/g3851s.cw0676000