History
How Friendship Heights was built, from DC's historic building permits, and what the newspaper said about it a hundred years ago this week.
When it was built
Buildings by decade of permitCounts by decade
| Decade | Buildings |
|---|---|
| 1890s | 13 |
| 1900s | 28 |
| 1910s | 151 |
| 1920s | 434 |
| 1930s | 337 |
| 1940s | 94 |
| 1950s | 61 |
| 1960s | 3 |
| 1970s | 2 |
| 1980s | 10 |
| 1990s | 32 |
| 2000s | 3 |
| 2010s | 2 |
At a glance
Each record is one building listed on a historic DC building permit; a single permit can cover many buildings. The busiest decade is highlighted in the chart.
Top architects
Buildings designedTop builders
Buildings builtFeatured block
One builder, one yearIn 1918, Boss & Phelps built 16 buildings on the 5300 block of 41st Street NW under 1 permit, designed by A. H. Sonnemann. The largest permit covered 16 buildings at an estimated $104,000 in total.
100 years ago this week
October 31 – November 6, 1926Mentions of Friendship Heights in the Evening Star, October 31 – November 6, 1926. Searched for "Friendship Heights".
No clips matched this week.
No usable mentions in the Evening Star for October 31 – November 6, 1926 (0 matching pages searched). Some weeks a neighborhood just isn't in the paper. Clips are machine-read text (OCR) from scanned Evening Star pages on the Library of Congress's Chronicling America, lightly cleaned (line-break hyphens rejoined, stray symbols removed); misspellings are the scanner's. Newspapers this old are public domain. Each clip links to its page at loc.gov. Clips that mention race, covenants, deed restrictions or slurs are skipped automatically (keyword list: race, races, racial, colored, coloured, negro, negroes, white only, whites only, for whites, white people, white persons, white residents, caucasian, segregation, segregated, covenant, covenants, restricted, restriction, restrictions, plus a list of slurs), because they need an editor's context; legal notices and lists of private individuals are skipped too.
Historical photos
Library of Congress
Wisconsin Ave at the DC-Maryland line · 1942 June-JulyWashington, D.C. District of Columbia and Maryland boundary line at Wisconsin Avenue in the evening
Lord & Taylor, Western Ave NW · 1959 OctLord & Taylor, business in Washington, D.C. General view, Western Ave.
Lord & Taylor, Western Ave NW · 1959 OctLord & Taylor, business in Washington, D.C. Western Ave. entrance at night
Photographs from the Library of Congress (Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection; Gottscho-Schleisner Collection), each with no known restrictions on publication or in the public domain, per the Library. Titles are the Library's, written when the photos were catalogued; some use the language of their time. Each links to its record.
Street names: where they come from
5 names, each with a source- Friendship Heights1713 (grant); 1890s-1910s (subdivision)
- Honors: 'Friendship,' a 1713 colonial land grant
In 1713 Thomas Addison and James Stoddert received a 3,124-acre grant called Friendship that stretched from today's Cleveland Park toward Rockville. The 1890 streetcar extension made the land worth subdividing, largely by Albert Shoemaker and Henry Offutt, and by 1914 the Evening Star called it a thriving little community.
Sources: Ten Facts You May Not Know About Friendship Heights (DCist, 2019) · Murdock's Friendship (Tenleytown Historical Society) · Friendship Heights - Wikipedia - Military Road NW1860s
Built by the Union Army during the Civil War as a route connecting the forts of northwest Washington, and later given its own crossing of Rock Creek.
Source: Military Road (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- River Road NW
Tennallytown grew up around a tavern at what is now Wisconsin Avenue and River Road. Glover Park History traces a 1711 map's Indian trail from near Georgetown toward Sugarloaf Mountain that roughly follows Wisconsin Avenue, River Road and Darnestown Road.
Sources: Wisconsin Avenue: From High Street to a State Name (Ghosts of DC) · A Brief History of Wisconsin Avenue (Glover Park History)- Western Avenue NWproposed 1893; built c. 1900-1931
Runs along the Maryland line but lies wholly inside the District. Proposed in 1893 and built in pieces between about 1900 and 1931, it crosses Wisconsin Avenue at Friendship Heights, where it widens to four lanes.
Earlier: Columbia Boulevard, Boundary AvenueSource: Western Avenue (Washington, D.C.) - Wikipedia- Wisconsin Avenue NW1906
- Honors: State of Wisconsin
North of Georgetown this was Tennallytown Road, part of the Georgetown and Rockville Pike. Residents fought the Wisconsin name as late as 1904; Tenley Road was renamed in 1906. Streetcars reached Friendship Heights in 1890, and the line's end is now the bus depot.
Earlier: Tennallytown Road / Tenley Road, Georgetown and Rockville PikeSources: Wisconsin Avenue: From High Street to a State Name (Ghosts of DC) · List of state-named roadways in Washington, D.C. - Wikipedia · Ten Facts You May Not Know About Friendship Heights (DCist, 2019)
Still looking for a reliable source on Belt Road NW, Chevy Chase Parkway NW, Jenifer Street NW, Harrison Street NW, Fessenden Street NW, Garrison Street NW, Ingomar Street NW, Ellicott Street NW, Davenport Street NW, Wisconsin Circle NW, Reno Road NW. We don't publish a name's story until we can cite one. Know it? Tell us.
Neighborhood voices
Oral histories, held by the archives- Frances HambyFrances Hamby · 2011 · transcript · remembers the 1960s, 1970s
Hamby recalls gas stations on all four corners of Wisconsin Avenue and Jenifer Street, gas at about 30 cents a gallon, how little shopping there was before Woodward and Lothrop arrived, and the Silver Fox restaurant with a pianist where Mazza Gallerie now stands.
At Historic Chevy Chase DC · Wisconsin and Jenifer, Woodward & Lothrop, Silver Fox restaurant - William GrayWilliam Gray · 2011 · transcript · remembers the 1930s, 1940s
Gray, who remembers Washington as a sleepy Southern town where $1 bought a weekly streetcar pass, mentions a neighbor whose father ran the Silver Fox restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue, where shops were leveled for Mazza Gallerie, and a local collection of streetcar photographs.
At Historic Chevy Chase DC · Silver Fox restaurant, Mazza Gallerie, streetcars - Patty MylerPatricia Wimsatt Myler · 2017 · transcript · remembers the 1950s, 1960s
Myler recalls that going out to dinner was a big event for her parents, who sometimes chose the Silver Fox, a restaurant where Mazza Gallerie now stands, along with neighborhood stores such as Broad Branch Market and Brookville Market.
At Historic Chevy Chase DC · Silver Fox restaurant, dining out, Broad Branch Market
Search the archives yourself: The People's Archive, DC Public Library · Historic Chevy Chase DC Oral History Archive · Humanities Truck Community Archive, American University · Tenleytown Historical Society · Boundary Stones (WETA) · Glover Park History: Oral History and Reminiscences · Cleveland Park Historical Society Oral Histories · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · hometown DC (DC History Center) · Hola Cultura: Adams Morgan History · Citizens Association of Georgetown · Peabody Room, Georgetown Neighborhood Library (DC Public Library) · Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum Archives: A Right to the City Exhibition Records · Ruth Ann Overbeck Capitol Hill History Project · Mosaic Theater H Street Oral History Project · Library of Congress, Manuscript Division · Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Naval History and Heritage Command, Navy Department Library · The Catholic University of America Archives · Bygone Brookland · Dig DC, DC Public Library · hometown DC (HumanitiesDC / Historical Society of Washington, D.C.) · Dig DC, DC Public Library's digital repository · A Right to the City exhibition records, Anacostia Community Museum Archives (Smithsonian) · Rainbow History Project Digital Collections · Palisades Community Association · Forest Hills Connection (neighborhood history series). Summaries are ours; the recordings and their rights stay with each archive.