For the Children

For the Children. Top of the Town. , From 1927 until the late 1950s, the landscaped grounds across the street were the Hillcrest Children’s Center. It was founded downtown in 1814 as the Washington City Orphan Asylum by Marcia Burnes Van Ness and President Madison’s wife Dolley. The center’s Tudor style stone cottages created a village environment. In the 1960s changing social conditions led Hillcrest to move back downtown, this time in service to disabled children and their families. , The National Presbyterian Church and School, which occupy Hillcrest’s former site, trace their origins to four in-town congregations. One of these dates from 1795, when stone masons working at the White House gathered for services there in a carpenters’ shed. Most presidents since James Madison, and notables including Queen Elizabeth and Mother Teresa, have worshipped with the congregation. , President Lyndon Johnson’s message for National Presbyterian’s 1966 groundbreaking praised the church for forging “bonds which draw us together and which crumble the barriers that stand between us.” In 1970 Duke Ellington told a reporter that he performed here to “praise God with music” and to raise money for the church's Eisenhower Memorial Arts Fund to foster harmony between religion and the arts. Along with its soaring carillon tower, the church boasts a main sanctuary that seats 1,260, and dramatic walks and gardens. It is the third largest religious center in Washington, after the Washington Cathedral and the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It was designated the national church for its denomination in 1947.