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I am addicted to Shorpys photos! This pic took me back to a very happy place! Thanks.
Look at how worn that threshold is. These houses have seen a heap of living.
I like how the iron partitions by the doors are topped with boards. I bet to make sitting outside more comfortable, which would be preferable to suffocation during the sweltering summer months. Also a convenient little shelf as you're juggling to open the door.
For 1922, these houses seem to have been around for quite a while. Look how worn the stone threshold is on the entrance to 349. Also, the brick arches above the windows have cracked mortar and are falling down. This is damage I see along New York Ave NW and had associated with the decades of heavy traffic rumbling by - now it just looks like age or a bad design (the arch has to spread and fail if it is carrying the load of the bricks above).
Stephen
Washington, D.C.
Thanks to Shorpy, I'm now addicted to brickwork and I love what I see here. Those castle-like bumps along the roofline are called crenelations and I think they're enchanting. I get all excited imagining what these places could have become with a little love and money. They're wonderful.
Doesn't look like your average D.C. street -- no granite curb, and the surface seems to be unpaved.
Could this address be in Northeast, not Northwest, Washington? That would place it in the redeveloped area around RFK Stadium. From looking at a 1917 map of Washington, the street grid had reached that far east, and went three blocks north of East Capitol Street. The reason NW is still more plausible than NE, however, is that this set of rowhouses looks quite aged, not like you'd expect to see at the edge.
This location is now within the perimeter of the U.S. State Department, however many identical buildings survive around the older neighborhoods of D.C. I believe this architectural style of row house is considered Queen Anne Victorian - not nearly as ornate as the typical Queen Anne suburban house but more decorated then the typical Victorian row home of the era because of the additional detailed brick work, especially in the cornice.
I'm particularly struck by the front yards: the one on the left could be fenced as a chicken run. The other houses have those rickety looking chair swings and simple wooden fencing. Today most fencing of the front yards in D.C. (which is technically city-owned "parking" space) is wrought iron.
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