Framed or unframed, desk size to sofa size, printed by us in Arizona and Alabama since 2007. Explore now.
Shorpy is funded by you. Patreon contributors get an ad-free experience.
Learn more.
Circa 1924, "Metropolitan Methodist Church, C Street, Washington, D.C." And the Ford building next door. National Photo Company glass negative. View full size. The church, at C Street NW and John Marshall Place, was abandoned and razed after the congregation moved to its Nebraska Avenue location in the 1930s. The 1905 Ford Motor Co. building on Pennsylvania Avenue was torn down in 1980.
Correct - the Canadian Embassy occupies this site today. The view looks southwest from the west corner of the old City Hall building on C Street. John Marshall Place (aka 4th Street) is at lower left, with C Street NW angling right. The Ford Building fronts on Pennsylvania Avenue; the Newseum building today is to the right of the Ford Building location on Penn Ave; it would block the view in this photo of the Smithsonian Castle visible across the Mall. John Marshall Place today has been turned into a park. The church would have been directly across the street from DC Superior Court.
Judging from the viewpoint (facing southwest) and the fact that the site is just west of John Marshall Place, I would say that the Canadian Embassy is what's on the site today.
What an awesome picture!
Everthing is straight, no distortion, weird perspective or barreling. And that depth of field is breathtaking.
Being a glass negative, would I be right in assuming that this was taken on a large format camera with bellows?
What a beautiful Church building. I shudder to think what it would cost to build in today's money.
Everybody remembers, don't you?, that in "Brave New World" the deity is called "our Ford."
Why was the church demolished in 1936, it appears to be sound.
[To make room for something else. Various municipal and federal court buildings occupy the site today. - Dave]
On Shorpy:
Today’s Top 5