Historic Capital: Preservation, Race, and Real Estate in Washington, D.C.

292 Pages·2017·7.056 MB·English

by  Cameron Logan

HISTORIC
CAPITAL

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H I S TO R I C
C A P I TA L
Preservation, Race, and
Real Estate in Washington, D.C.
Cameron Lo gan
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESO TA PRESS
MINNEAPOLIS • LONDON

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Every effort was made to obtain permission to reproduce material in this book. If any
proper acknowledgment has not been included here, we encourage copyright holders to
notify the publisher.
Illustrations in this book were funded in part or in whole by a grant from the SAH/
Mellon Author Awards of the Society of Architectural Historians.
Portions of chapters 2 and 4 were published as “Mrs. McCain’s Parlor: House and
Garden Tours and the Inner- City Restoration Trend in Washington, D.C.,” Journal of
Urban History 39, no. 5 (2013): 956– 74. Portions of chapters 4 and 5 were published as
“Beyond a Boundary: Washington’s Historic Districts and Their Racial Contents,”
Urban History Review 41, no. 1 (2012): 57– 68.
Copyright 2017 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of
the publisher.
Published by the University of Minnesota Press
111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290
Minneapolis, MN 55401- 2520
http://www.upress.umn.edu
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
The University of Minnesota is an equal- opportunity educator and employer.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Logan, Cameron
Title: Historic capital : preservation, race, and real estate in Washington, D.C. / Cameron Logan.
Description: Minneapolis : University of Minnesota Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017042178| ISBN 978-0-8166-9234-7 (pb) | ISBN 978-0-8166-9232-3 (hc)
Subjects: LCSH: City planning–Social aspects–Washington (D.C.) | Historic preservation–Social aspects–Washington (D.C.) |
Federal-city relations–Washington (D.C.) | Land use–Social aspects–Washington (D.C.) | BISAC: ARCHITECTURE / History /
Contemporary (1945-). | SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / Urban. | ARCHITECTURE / Urban & Land Use Planning.
Classification: LCC NA9127.W2 L64 2017 | DDC 720.9753–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042178

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Contents
Abbreviations vii
introduction From “Life Inside a Monument”
to Living in Historic Neighborhoods ix
1 Value
Property, History, and Homeliness in Georgetown 1
2 Taste
Architectural Complexity and Social Diversity in the 1960s 37
3 The White House and Its Neighborhood
Federal City Making and Local Preservation, 1960–1 975 67
4 Race and Resistance
Gentrification and the Critique of Historic Preservation 97
5 Whose Neighborhood? Whose History?
Expanding Dupont Circle, 1975– 1985 125
6 Rhodes Tavern and the Problem with Preservation
in the 1980s 153
7 M odernist Urbanism as History
Preserving the Southwest Urban Renewal Area 185
conclusion Preservation, Profits, and Loss 209
Acknowledgments 217
Notes 221
Index 257

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Abbreviations
ADSW Art Deco Society of Washington
AIA American Institute of Architects
CECO Capitol East Community Organization
CFA Commission of Fine Arts
CHRS Capitol Hill Restoration Society
DCCA Dupont Circle Citizens’ Association
DCPL District of Columbia Preservation League
DCRA Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs
DTID Don’t Tear It Down!
ECR Emergency Committee on Recreation
FHA Federal Housing Administration
GSA General Services Administration
HPO Historic Preservation Office
HPRB Historic Preservation Review Board
HSW Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
JCL Joint Committee on Landmarks
MICCO Model Inner City Community Organization
NCPC National Capital Planning Commission
PPS Providence Preservation Society
RLA Redevelopment Land Agency
SWNA Southwest Neighborhood Association
ULI Urban Land Institute

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Introduction
From “Life Inside a Monument”
to Living in Historic Neighborhoods
In 1974 local activist and neighborhood newspaper editor Sam Smith
published Captive Capital: Colonial Life in Modern Washington, a wide-
ranging and racially salient critique of municipal government and daily
life in Washington, D.C. In the first chapter, “Life Inside a Monument,”
Smith suggested that Washington’s ever- expanding federal core was an
empty theatrical set, a mere backdrop for national politics and pageant
that was largely irrelevant to inhabitants and antithetical to the develop-
ment of a satisfying and humane urban environment.1 Charles Dickens
inaugurated Smith’s theme of a bloated and enveloping monumentality
in the 1840s with his famous dismissal of Washington as a “city of mag-
nificent intentions.”2 But in the second half of the twentieth century the
idea of Washington as an unnaturally puffed-u p evocation of the classical
past became a touchstone for architectural and urban critics of the capital
city. Reviewing the new Senate office building for the Architectural Forum
in 1959 under the heading “Saying Nothing, Going Nowhere,” Douglas
Haskell cited Washington’s predilection for a watered down and meager
version of the classical language of architecture as evidence of “a state
of architectural illness” and “extreme mental confusion.”3 In the same
publication a few years later prominent late modern architect and educa-
tor Paul Rudolph described the means of achieving monumental effects
in Washington as “banal and meaningless.”4 In 1968 critic and prominent
historic preservation advocate Ada Louise Huxtable memorably com-
plained that Washington is an “endless series of mock palaces built for
clerks, not for kings.”5 Huxtable, Rudolph, and Haskell led a band of

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