June 2009

Most Endangered Place for 2009

On June 2, the DC Preservation League announced its list of Most Endangered Places for 2009. This list, issued annually since 1996, is selected by the Board of Trustees from nominations submitted by concerned individuals and organizations across the city. These sites are selected based on the severity of the threats to the resources in question, whether through demolition, neglect, or inappropriate alteration.

The sites on the 2009 list are:

    Barney Circle Neighborhood (Capitol Hill)
    Foundry Branch Trolley Trestle, Glover Archer Park
    The Maples (Friendship House), 600 Block of South   
        Carolina Avenue, SE
    Meads' Row, 1305-1331 H Street, NE
    The Superintendent's House at Dalecarlia Reservoir,
    Washington Aqueduct
    Third Church of Christ, Scientist, 16th & Eye Streets, NW

Detailed Descriptions of each site and the threats to them can be found here.

Carter G. Woodson House Update
By Alexander M. Padro and Ralph Brabham, Shaw Main Streets, Inc.

The Carter G. Woodson House at 1538 9th Street, NW, has come a long way since it was on the DCPL Most Endangered Places List in 2001, 2002, and 2003. Following the establishment of the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site in 2003 by Act of Congress, the Woodson House was acquired by the National Park Service (NPS) in 2005. Two additional vacant row houses to the north of the Woodson House have been acquired by NPS, and the first two of three planning studies for the site (a Historic Structures Report and a Historic Resource Study) have been completed, with the third nearing completion.

On Thursday, June 25, 2009, the National Park Service, Shaw Main Streets, Inc., and the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH) hosted a forum on planning and progress on the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historic Site. The meeting took place at the historic former firehouse at 931 R Street, NW, which once housed Washington, DC’s first all African-American fire company and which now houses the studio of noted neon artist Craig Kraft.

Gayle Hazelwood, Superintendent of the National Capital Parks-East Division of NPS, provided a briefing on the status of the development of the site. She reported that NPS had prepared three alternative action concepts for the Woodson properties. A General Management Plan will describe three alternatives and include concept drawings for the same. The preferred alternative will be identified in the General Management Plan. Superintendent Hazelwood expects that the Woodson site will be operational by 2015, the 100th anniversary of the founding of ASALH. The National Park Service remains in negotiations to acquire 1544 9th Street, NW, the last property intended to be incorporated into the site.

More information on the planning process for the Woodson site is available at http://parkplanning.nps.gov/CAWO.