The DC Preservation League (DCPL), Washington’s only citywide non-profit organization promoting the preservation and enhancement of the District’s historic and built environment, released its annual list of Most Endangered Places in Washington for 2012.

This list, issued annually since 1996, is selected by the Board of Trustees of the DC Preservation League from nominations submitted by concerned individuals and organizations across the city. These sites are selected based on the severity of the threats to the buildings and landscapes in question, whether through demolition, neglect, or inappropriate alteration. The list can include buildings, parks or other landscaped areas, as well as vistas and other aspects of the city’s unique planned history. All Most Endangered Places listed are located in the District of Columbia.

The sites on the 2012 list of Most Endangered Places in Washington are: Bond Bread Factory, 2146 Georgia Avenue, NW; Alexander Crummell School, 1900 Gallaudet, NE; Mount Zion Cemetery/Female Union Band Cemetery, 27th and Q Streets, NW; Old Thai Embassy, 2300 Kalorama Road, NW; Washington Canoe Club, 3700 Water Street, NW; Watchman’s Lodge and Tower, Donaldson Place, NW.

Detailed descriptions of each site and the threats can be found by clicking here.

Several sites were deemed “saved” and removed from the Most Endangered List in 2012. These include the DC War Memorial, Battleground National Cemetery, the Howard Theatre and Engine Company 6.

The DC Preservation League invites volunteers, civic associations, the DC government, the federal government, and other groups to partner with DCPL in preserving and protecting these endangered places. For more information, contact the DC Preservation League at 202-783-5144 or info@dcpreservation.org.

Photographs of sites available by request.

By Amanda Wilson, November 30, 2012, DCMud

>>>Read original article.

From the top, 315 feet above the street, a visitor is greeted with sweeping 360 degree view of the city.  The Capitol Building dome rises in the near distance, airplanes appear to graze the Potomac, and the city’s radial streets fan out in all directions. In the far distance, the Washington Cathedral and the Pentagon anchor opposite skylines.

The Old Post Office Building and tower, the third tallest structure in DC (behind the Washington Monument and the Basilica), at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, with its cavernous atrium and spectacular architecture, is finally getting deserved, if delayed, attention as a destination venue.  Long underutilized as nondescript federal offices and a food court to match, details of a new design have finally emerged.

In February, the General Services Administration (GSA) selected the Trump Organization to overhaul the building.   Thursday night theTrump team presented in-depth plans for the overhaul of the Old Post Office Tower building at the annual membership meeting of the DC Preservation League.

David Horowitz of the Trump Organization told the preservation group – the very group that that helped save the building over 40 years ago – that the Trump group sees the hotel as its top project and that the project will place a heavy emphasis on preservation.

“Our goal for this property is to build the best hotel in Washington, DC, and realistically, the world,” Horowitz told the crowd. “We see an important role as the caretaker of this historic building on our nation’s Main Street.”  He emphasized that the plans are still in development.

Architect Hany Hassan, FAIA, partner at Beyer Blinder Belle in DC, presented the vision for the building.  He sketched a tentative plan that would extend the original ground floor level in the building’s central cortile – bringing back the “slab” on which the first post office workers sorted mail – and then open it up to public entrances from all sides.

Hotel drop-offs are penciled in for 11th and 12th streets, with retail and cafe space with outdoor seating on C Street and on Pennsylvania Avenue. “The building will finally be accessible to the public from all directions,” Hassan said.

The south side is where the Trump Organization would locate the public entrance to a lobby leading to the tower elevators and the Clock Tower Museum, which first opened to the public in 1985.

The existing mezzanine will likely be expanded for a restaurant or cafe, Hassan said.  He asked the audience to imagine Grand Central Station in New York.  “The only difference here is that while you are at this mezzanine level you are not only appreciating the ground floor, you will also be able to look up to the north and see the clock tower, which is one of the most beautiful features of this building,” Hassan said.

Hassan said that, for him, the restoration was a dream project to be approached with humility. He said the project entails a great responsibility to preserve and enhance the building “and the synergy and energy that it will bring to Federal Triangle and connecting the National Mall and the monumental core to the downtown.”

Hassan said the glass annex that was added to the building in the 20th century would house banquet rooms, conference rooms, and public event spaces. The upper levels will house guest rooms that will preserve the building’s original room layout. The larger, postmaster general’s office on the fifth floor, for example, might become a suite, Hassan said.  Some windows might be added on the ninth floor to “give incredible views of the city.”

In Hassan’s eyes, “the building has these incredible bones and all you have to do is work with it and respect it.” The Trump team – with Donald Trump’s daughter Ivanka Trump heading the DC project – has set a timeline for breaking ground in 2014 with delivery of a 250-room hotel in 2016.

The building, dating back to 1892, was almost torn down in 1926 when construction on the neo-classical Federal Triangle began and the building went out of style.  Demolition permits were again issued in the 1970s, but a small group of protestors formed the “Don’t Tear it Down” movement to save the building.  That group later turned into the DC Preservation League.

This Event Is Sold Out!
Contact Valerie Hague at valerie@dcpreservation.org to be placed on the waiting list.

DC Preservation League Annual Membership Meeting
Presentation of Proposed Redevelopment by the Trump Organization and Design Team

November 29, 2012 | 6:30pm Program | Reception to Follow
Old Post Office Building | 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

*Clock Tower will be open for tours*

Event Sponsors

                       

Organizational Sponsors

By David Montgomery, October 1, 2012, The Washington Post

>>>Read original article. 

Historic preservationists nominated most of the graceful interior of the Corcoran Gallery of Art as a local architectural landmark Monday, a move that opens a new front in the battle over the economically struggling museum’s future.

While the Corcoran’s 1897 beaux-arts home near the White House was designated a national historic landmark in 1992, that distinction does not protect it from radical alterations by a private developer. The 68-page nomination filed by the D.C. Preservation League under the District’s preservation ordinance would require public review of significant construction work.

The city’s nine-member Historic Preservation Review Board will decide if the Corcoran’s vast atrium, grand staircase, rotunda, galleries and other critical spaces merit landmark protection, following a public hearing in the coming months. For now, the simple act of submitting the nomination blocks any construction in the historic areas, according to city preservation officials.

“Interior public spaces of this grandeur are very rare in Washington,” said Rebecca Miller, executive director of the preservation league, a membership organization founded in 1971 to save the Willard Hotel and other cherished downtown structures. Miller compared the Corcoran to Union Station, whose interior the league also recently nominated. “It’s fairly unique to have an interior that is as intact as the Corcoran is.”

The landmark proposal comes as theCorcoran’s leadership considers selling the building and moving to another location, possibly outside the city. Placing limitations on an owner’s ability to reconfigure the interior could complicate efforts to sell.Developers have previously told The Washington Post that the building would be worth more if it weren’t a historic landmark.

Now Corcoran officials find themselves in the unusual position of having to decide whether to oppose the nomination — and argue that the interior is not worthy of being landmarked — or support it and perhaps affect the market value of the building.

Mimi Carter, the Corcoran’s senior director of communications and marketing, said gallery officials had no comment.

Activists opposed to the Corcoran’s possible move hailed the preservationists’ proposal as a boost to their cause.

“My real hope is that it will give them significant pause in going ahead and selling the building,” said Roberta Faul-Zeitler, a former director of communications for the gallery who has been active with the group Save the Corcoran. “There’s no guarantee, even with landmark status, that it won’t be sold. But it probably will be a deterrent to anyone who has a notion that they can come in there and turn it into a private club or a perhaps even an embassy.”

The Corcoran’s executives have said that the gallery and the affiliated Corcoran College of Art and Design must consider relocating because it would cost an estimated $130 million to renovate the building to modern museum standards. Millions more would have to be spent to expand the college, they said. The Corcoran does not have that kind of money. Recent fundraising has lagged, and the institution posted a deficit of $7 million for the fiscal year ended in June.

The DC Preservation League (DCPL), Washington’s only citywide nonprofit dedicated to the preservation and protection of the historic resources of our nation’s capital, announced today the submittal of an amended DC landmark nomination to extend protections to significant interior spaces of the Corcoran Gallery of Art Building. This landmark nomination was submitted under the Historic Landmark and Historic District Protection Act of 1978 with the purpose of safeguarding the historic, aesthetic and cultural heritage of the District of Columbia.

“The DC Preservation League has submitted this amended nomination out of concern for the future of a building that is both architecturally important and embodies a storied history,” said Rebecca Miller, executive director of the DC Preservation League. “Further confirmation of the buildings significance can be found in the 1992 National Historic Landmark documentation which states ‘The excellence of the designs of the exterior and interior and the wholly compatible addition to the Corcoran make it the premier example of French Beaux Arts architecture in Washington at the turn of the century, a tribute to the Gallery’s founder and its architects, all of whom made additional significant contributions to the history of American art and architecture’.”

The nomination serves as protection against any major interior alterations to the building until a public hearing is held on the application by the DC Historic Preservation Review Board.

The National Historic Landmark Corcoran Gallery of Art building was designed by prominent New York Architect Ernest Flagg in 1897. Flagg is well known for his later work at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and the Charles Scribner’s Sons building in New York.

The Corcoran building had two major alterations since its completion by Flagg. In 1915, Washington Architect Waddy Wood modified the large open auditorium on the northeast corner of the building, known as the Hemicycle, to include a second floor of gallery space and additional windows. In 1925, Charles Platt was commissioned to design an extension to the rear of the original building that adds several additional galleries and office and storage space.

The gallery’s exterior was included in the National Register in 1971, but, following the practices of the time, the documentation accompanying the nomination was limited. This amendment to the nomination contains additional documentation of the building’s interior, including the atrium, grand staircase, hemicycle, rotunda, Salon Doré, and other spaces.

Click here to view the complete nomination.

High resolution images available upon request.

By Rebecca Miller, August 3, 2012, Washington Business Journal

>>>Read Original Article

Union Station has been at the heart of life in the nation’s capital since its opening in 1907, and it remains one of the world’s grandest railroad terminals. The station, however, is significant not just for its role in transportation but also for its architecture.

The building was designed in the beaux-arts style by Daniel H. Burnham and Co. It enabled the Pennsylvania Railroad to remove its station and tracks from the National Mall, which made possible key features of the 1902 McMillan Plan and the creation of the Mall we enjoy today. Arguably, Burnham’s design for Union Station set … click here to read more.