Day 80

Crestwood (June 4, 2020)

On a hot muggy day, we headed back into the peaceful streets of Crestwood. We are really enjoying this neighborhood with its tree lined streets and wide variety of homes.

A number of the homes had steps going up to their front yards with interesting iron hand railings.

This house had a very interesting “Keep off the Grass” sign.

And this one had a sculpture that had been carved out of a tree.

Here are some different types of house we saw along the way.

This house had a front yard consisting of wild grasses, a nice change from the immaculate grass lawns of most Washington DC homes.

And this house had an interesting purple iron entry way.

We passed this sign of the times.

And this tree within a tree.

As with many of the neighborhoods we have explored, there was easy access to the neighboring woods.

Back on 16th Street with passed the usual array of religious buildings.

One of the more imposing was the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church which despite its name is actually on 16th Street. Its original site was on 19th Street but the congregation moved to its current location in 1975 . Founded in 1839, it is considered to be the first and oldest black Baptist congregation in the District.

The building was the former home of the Jewish congregation, B’nai Israel, where Lauren attended as a child with siblings, parents and grandparents. If you look closely you can still see the original Jewish symbols and stars on the facade of the church.

There is still a Jewish presence nearby because across 16th Street is the Milton Gottesman Jewish Day School.

One of the more attractive churches that we have passed is the Cathedral of St. John the Baptists, a Russian Orthodox Church built in 1958. The building is 17th century Muscovite-Yaroslav style with iconic gilded onion domes.