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Hidden behind the grand houses of N Street — and many others large and small — are tranquil walled gardens with brick terraces, old shade trees, lily ponds, swimming pools, and a tennis court or two.
Behind you stands the Edes Home, established in the early 1900s as a home for aged and indigent widows of Georgetown, who were allowed to move in with no more than one trunk and a sewing machine. Behind it, the Colonial Apartments at 1311 30th served as Miss English's Seminary for Young Ladies from 1820 to 1861, and during the Civil War as a Union Army hospital. An ardent secessionist, Miss English despised seeing the U.S. flag flying from the building, so she moved her school around the corner and out of sight. Two of Georgetown's narrowest houses, at 1239 30th and 3047 N, are but eleven feet wide — hardly stately. They are called "spite houses" since they were built mainly to block the neighbor's light.
The stately mansion at 3014 N was built in 1799 by wealthy tobacco merchant, James Laird, whose family kept a cow and pigs in the backyard. Laird's descendants sold it to Robert Todd Lincoln, eldest son of President Abraham Lincoln.
Built in 1794-1796 (when its magnificent magnolia trees were planted), 3017 N was briefly the home of Jacqueline Kennedy and her two
children after the 1964 assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Just ten months later, Mrs. Kennedy moved the family to New York to escape the throngs of people hoping to glimpse the glamorous widow. After her husband's death, Mrs. Kennedy was first offered a haven in the 3038 N Street home of Ambassador W. Averell Harriman, a former Governor of New York. Built in 1805, the house was a political gathering spot for Democrats in the 1980s as Pamela Harriman played hostess to legions of the famous and powerful. She later served as U.S. ambassador to France.
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Restoration of Georgetown's Call Boxes
Georgetown's Call Box restoration project is part of a city-wide effort to rescue the District's abandoned fire and police call boxes. Known as Art on Call, the project has identified more than 800 boxes for restoration. Neighborhood by neighborhood, they are being put to new use as permanent displays of local art, history and culture. The Georgetown project highlights the anecdotal history of Georgetown and its unique heritage as a thriving colonial port town that predated the District of Columbia.
Police alarm boxes such as this one (originally painted blue) were installed in the District after the Civil War. In most boxes, the alarm was activated by opening a door on the front of the box and pulling a lever. An automatic
telegraph system transmitted the box number to a central office that directed the closes fire station to dispatch a fire truck to the vicinity of the call box. After almost 100 years, the system began to decline in the 1960s with the advent of two-way car radios and walkie-talkies. The alarms were finally turned off in the 1960s and replaced with the 911 emergency system.
Art on Call is a program of Cultural Tourism DC with support from
DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, DC Creates Public Art Program
District Department of Transportation
Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development
Citizens Association of Georgetown
Jerry & Emily Stampiglia
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