Sixteen marker walking tour highlighting local history. "Beginning in the 1890s LeDroit Park attracted important African American intellectuals, artists, and professionals. At the same time, prominent white, and later prominent black, Americans called Bloomingdale home or got their start there."
You are standing in the heart of Bloomingdale. Noted DC developer Harry Wardman, responsible for 180 Bloomingdale houses, was one of many builders who built here between 1890 and 1910.
These Victorian rowhouses were designed for . . . — — Map (db m130827) HM
In the 1940s, homeowners in the 100 block of Bryant Street breached a contract when they sold their houses to African Americans. Covenants, or agreements, in their real estate deeds prohibited "the sale of the house to anyone of the Negro . . . — — Map (db m130828) HM
This busy stretch of Rhode Island Avenue was a racial dividing line even as DC became majority African American in 1957. "African Americans were not welcome on [the north] side of the street," commented Reverend Bobby Livingston years later, . . . — — Map (db m130840) HM
St. Martin of Tours Catholic Church celebrated its first Mass in 1901 in a nearby mansion. Father Eugene Hannan, a graduate of Gonzaga High School just south of here, founded St. Martin's to serve the growing Catholic population that dated to . . . — — Map (db m130841) HM
Bloomingdale of the 1940s and '50s was a village of high expectations. Within a block of this sign lived four young women who grew up to be judges.
Anna Diggs Taylor rose to chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Michigan. The . . . — — Map (db m130843) HM
Edward Brooke, who represented Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate from 1967 to 1979, was the first African American elected to the Senate in the 20th century. Brooke was born at 1938 Third Street and later lived with his family at 1730 First . . . — — Map (db m130842) HM
The Nathaniel Gage School for white children opened here in 1904, when Washington's public school system was segregated. By the 1930s, even though LeDroit Park was an African American neighborhood, Gage remained white only. "I had to walk by . . . — — Map (db m130839) HM
You are entering Bloomingdale. Its name recalls the estate of Navy Commander George Beale, who served in the War of 1812, and his wife Emily, the daughter of Commodore Thomas Truxton. The estate occupied the land now bounded by Florida . . . — — Map (db m110508) HM
This Circle Honors Anna Julia Haywood Cooper the educator and civil and women's rights advocate who lived in the gracious house at 201 T Street from 1916 until her death in 1964 at age 105. Born into slavery, Cooper graduated from Oberlin . . . — — Map (db m170781) HM
Poet May Miller once remarked that unlike New York's Harlem, LeDroit Park didn't have to have a renaissance. In fact, before they joined the cultural movement of the 1920s and '30s, most Harlem Renaissance intellectuals spent time at Howard . . . — — Map (db m130838) HM
To your right is Lucy Diggs Slowe Hall, a Howard University dormitory. It opened in 1942 as U.S. government housing for African American women who came to DC to take new war-related jobs or fill in for men who left to join the military during . . . — — Map (db m130836) HM
The Roster of LeDroit Park's accomplished African Americans is long. Consider these prominent Washingtonians who lived on T Street.
Walter E. Washington and his wife, Bennetta Bullock Washington, lived with her family at 408 T Street. Mrs. . . . — — Map (db m152367) HM
When I was at Dunbar, I thought I wanted to be a doctor. In our community, doctors were the men who made the most money, earned the most respect and had the prettiest wives."
Sen. Edward W. Brooke, Bridging the Divide: . . . — — Map (db m190357) HM
A Peaceful Landscape With City Conveniences for wealthy Washingtonians: that was the goal of the men who made LeDroit Park.
Brothers-in-law Amzi L. Barber and Andrew Langdon purchased land here, and in 1873 hired local architect/builder . . . — — Map (db m152365) HM
Before there was a LeDroit Park, map engraver David McClelland owned a mansion on the property across Rhode Island Avenue. When the Civil War broke out in April 1861, McClelland possessed a detailed map of Washington that suddenly had great . . . — — Map (db m130844) HM
Howard University's Employment, educational, and cultural opportunities have attracted and kept families in LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale for generations. Ettyce Hill Moore, a third generation Washingtonian who grew up at 128 V Street in the . . . — — Map (db m113985) HM
