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How Trinidad was built, from DC's historic building permits, and what the newspaper said about it a hundred years ago this week.
| Decade | Buildings |
|---|---|
| 1880s | 23 |
| 1890s | 178 |
| 1900s | 62 |
| 1910s | 151 |
| 1920s | 1,065 |
| 1930s | 897 |
| 1940s | 665 |
| 1950s | 147 |
Each record is one building listed on a historic DC building permit; a single permit can cover many buildings. The busiest decade is highlighted in the chart.
In 1925, Harry A. Kite built 56 buildings on the 1700 block of L Street NE under 4 permits, designed by A. H. Sonnemann. The largest permit covered 15 buildings at an estimated $84,000 in total.
Mentions of Trinidad in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Ivy City", "Trinidad avenue", "Gallaudet College", "Mount Olivet", "Montello".
“A letter from tho Northeast Busi ness Men’s Association, asking Presi dent Coolidge to consider Dr. Percival Hall, president of Gallaudet College, for appointment as District Commis sioner, was presented by a special com mittee from the association at the White House Friday.”See page 3 at loc.gov ↗
“The Y. W. C. A. cabinet meeting of Gallaudet College will be held at the home of Miss Elizabeth Peet, 100 Maryland avenue northeast, Wednes day at 4 p.m. Miss Mary J. Wright, rooms regis try secretary, who has been on vaca tion the …”See page 33 at loc.gov ↗
“I The association was addressed by a J representative of a firm which plans j jto erect 100 modern houses in Ivy City soon, and who asked that the j j members indorse certain changes in j the building zones. i The members went on record as re-1 gretting the resignation of Commis- J j sioner Rudolph, and a …”See page 17 at loc.gov ↗
Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too. This week 1 otherwise usable clip was held back by that screen.
![Kendall Green, [between 1910 and 1926]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/npcc/32100/32197r.jpg)
![Kendall Green, [between 1910 and 1926]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/npcc/32100/32198r.jpg)
![Washington, District of Columbia (vicinity). Hospital camp. Kendall Green, [between 1861 and 1869]](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/cwpb/01300/01394r.jpg)
![Experiment at Gallaudet College by Prof. R.H. Gault, 4/2/25, [19]25 April 2.](https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/npcc/26900/26918r.jpg)
Photographs from the Library of Congress (National Photo Company Collection; Civil War Glass Negatives and Related Prints; Historic American Buildings Survey; Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection), each with no known restrictions on publication or in the public domain, per the Library. Titles are the Library's, written when the photos were catalogued; some use the language of their time. Each links to its record.
The school board picked the name in November 1910, and the building opened in 1911 for Black children of Ivy City and Trinidad. Wikipedia says it was the first D.C. school named for an African American. The city closed it in the 1970s, and residents later won approval to reuse it.
Sources: Ivy City - Wikipedia · Ivy City Community Organizing (Empower DC)Cut around 1890. One of the Ivy City streets Wikipedia says took the name of an adjacent landlord. W.W. Corcoran's Trinidad estate lay nearby, according to the Eckington brochure.
Sources: Ivy City - Wikipedia · Eckington brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)Cut around 1898, the last of the early Ivy City streets Wikipedia lists, and one of those it says took the name of an adjacent landlord.
Source: Ivy City - WikipediaTrinidad's southern edge. Originally Boundary Street, the limit of the 1791 Federal City, it was renamed in 1890. An 1891 Washington Post article described Trinidad as fronting on its north side, a choice DCist says explains the rotated street grid.
Earlier: Boundary StreetSources: Florida Avenue - Wikipedia · The Street Grid In Trinidad Is Rotated (DCist, 2018)Wikipedia says many Ivy City streets took the names of adjacent landlords. This was the first to be cut, in September 1879, by the National Fair Grounds Association to reach its track. Patterson Avenue, cut at the same time, no longer exists.
Source: Ivy City - WikipediaBegan in 1856, when Amos Kendall took up the cause of deaf and blind children in Washington. The school became the Columbia Institution, and its college was renamed Gallaudet College in 1894 for the father of its president. The Eckington brochure lists Kendall's estate, Kendall Green, among the neighboring properties.
Earlier: Columbia Institution for the Instruction of the Deaf and Dumb, National Deaf-Mute CollegeSources: Gallaudet University - Wikipedia · Eckington brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)The subdivision was recorded on May 12, 1873, with 205 lots priced at $100, planned as a community for African Americans. Empower DC dates its founding to 1872. No source we read explains the name. This health planning area includes it.
Sources: Ivy City - Wikipedia · Ivy City Community Organizing (Empower DC)Part of it was cut around 1891 and its northernmost block in 1933. Wikipedia lists it among Ivy City streets named for adjacent landlords. The Eckington brochure lists Amos Kendall's Kendall Green among the neighboring estates.
Sources: Ivy City - Wikipedia · Eckington brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)One of four avenues centered on the Capitol, this stretch once carried U.S. 1 to Bladensburg Road. Until 1992 its eastern end led to a National Arboretum entrance.
Source: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - WikipediaOlivet Street, later Mt. Olivet Road, was cut around 1892 and leads to Mount Olivet Cemetery, the Catholic burial ground established in 1858 at 1300 Bladensburg Road. The company behind the Ivy City racetrack asked Gallaudet for permission to cut the road.
Earlier: Olivet StreetSources: Ivy City - Wikipedia · Mount Olivet Cemetery (Washington, D.C.) - WikipediaA trail marker and the Eckington brochure name it for Corcoran's estate. Ghosts of DC traces the land to speculator James Barry, who had lived on the Caribbean island. DCist finds no firm origin. Corcoran gave it to Columbian University in 1875, and a brick company bought it in 1885.
Earlier: Trinidad FarmSources: Brickyards to Buildings, Greater H Street NE Heritage Trail (HMdb) · How Washington's Trinidad Neighborhood Got Its Name (Ghosts of DC, 2022) · The Street Grid In Trinidad Is Rotated (DCist, 2018) · Trinidad (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia · Eckington brochure (DC Historic Preservation Office)Long the edge of a brickyard that ran between here and Bladensburg Road. In 1901-1903 the Washington Senators played at American League Park at Florida and Trinidad Avenues. Houses later built on those sites face east or west, unlike the older parts of Trinidad.
Sources: The Street Grid In Trinidad Is Rotated (DCist, 2018) · Brickyards to Buildings, Greater H Street NE Heritage Trail (HMdb)Center Market on Pennsylvania Avenue came down in 1931 to make way for the National Archives, and vendors moved to this high ground near the B&O tracks. Union Terminal Market opened that February at 4th Street and Florida Avenue NE with stalls for 700 vendors. The land had been part of the Brentwood estate.
Earlier: Union Terminal Market, Capital City MarketSources: Provisions for the City, Greater H Street NE Heritage Trail (HMdb) · About Union Market District: History · Union Market - Wikipedia · Trinidad (Washington, D.C.) - WikipediaRuns from K Street NE to New York Avenue through Trinidad and Ivy City, between Gallaudet University and Mount Olivet Cemetery. DCist says its route was laid over an old Baltimore and Ohio right-of-way.
Sources: List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · The Street Grid In Trinidad Is Rotated (DCist, 2018)Still looking for a reliable source on Bladensburg Road NE, Hecht Avenue NE, Holbrook Street NE, Montello Avenue NE, Morse Street NE, Neal Street NE, Oates Street NE, Okie Street NE, Orren Street NE, Queen Street NE. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.
Rose reflects on growing up when education, jobs and recreation were limited for Deaf Washingtonians, and on the organizations they built for themselves. He talks about Kendall School and Gallaudet College and their teachers. Conducted in American Sign Language with a voice interpreter.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library · Deaf community, Kendall School, Gallaudet College, Club of the DeafAmong the first Black students admitted to the Kendall School after integration, Miller talks about childhood in Washington, his Deaf brother, his teachers, and his neighborhood before and after the killing of Martin Luther King Jr. His mother was among the parents who sued for Black Deaf schooling in the city.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library (Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience) · Kendall School, Black Deaf community, 1968, integrationAmong the first Black students at the Kendall School after integration, Miller explores how she communicated as a Deaf child in a hearing family and with Black and white Deaf peers, her changing awareness of race, and life after school.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library (Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience) · Kendall School, Black Deaf community, integrationBorn in 1950 not far from Gallaudet, Miller recounts his transfer to Kendall School, his teachers, communication at home, the Deaf community, music and sports, his career at The Washington Post, and his mother's struggle to secure education at Kendall.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library (Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience) · Kendall School, sign language, Washington Post, 1968Miller describes his time at the Kendall School, his struggles with communication and hearing loss, his family's changing dynamics, the school's varied student body and the impact of its teachers.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library (Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience) · Kendall School, Black Deaf communityDeaf from age three, Ogburn was sent to a segregated Maryland school because Kendall had stopped enrolling Black Deaf children in 1905. After the Miller lawsuit he and others entered Kendall in a segregated classroom. He later spent 37 years with the Postal Service in New York.
At Dig DC, DC Public Library (Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience) · Kendall School, segregation, Black Deaf teachers, Postal ServiceEmpower DC's Ivy City page offers a history booklet, zines and an audio documentary from its oral history project. The files sit on Google Drive and we did not open them; this entry rests only on the Empower DC page.
At Empower DC · Ivy City, Crummell SchoolSearch the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series) · Foggy Bottom Association History Project: Oral Histories · George Washington University Special Collections Research Center · Woodley Park Community: A Sketch of Our Past · Empower DC: Ivy City · Power of Preserving the Black Deaf Experience (Dig DC) · Gallaudet University Archives. Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.