Columbia Heights (October 15, 2020)
We were back in Columbia Heights today on a beautiful sunny day. There are many majestic row houses in the neighborhood. Here are some of our favorites.
There were also the usual assortment of brightly colored homes, including this lilac one.
We walked by the Carlos Rosario International Public Charter School. The school is named for a Puerto Rican activist who lived in the District and was the first head of the Spanish Community Advisory Committee. The Committee is now called the Office on Latino Affairs of the District of Columbia and acts as an intermediary between governmental agencies and the private sector to improve the quality of life of the Latino population. The school, which was the first adult charter school established in the United States, teaches numerous international student oriented classes, including: English as a Second Language; culinary arts; and technology. The school has two campuses, including the one we passed on Harvard Street that was formerly the home of James Ormond Wilson Normal School. It was designed in Elizabethan Revival style by Snowden Ashford and built in 1912. Ashford was the District’s first municipal architect serving from 1895 through 1921. His fingerprints are on numerous public buildings from that time including Eastern Market, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and a number of schools and fire stations.
Two quiet, one block long, streets that run along either side of Harvard St. between Sherman and Georgia Avenues are remarkably different. Hobart Place is tree lined and shady. It even had an empty lot that had been turned into an idyllic little park.
Gresham Place on the other hand was almost completely devoid of trees. It gave us an appreciation of how lucky we are to live in an urban environment where treelined streets are the norm.
There are also a number of old and new apartment buildings in the area and we passed many currently under construction. This building provided an interesting juxtaposition between the old and new.
Walking The District 