Learn Some D.C. History, Drop a Few Dollar Bills

Adams Morgan Trail Welcomed Warmly

On a sunny day that could have passed for springtime, Mayor Anthony A. Williams unveils a sign along the Adams Morgan Heritage Trail with D.C. Council member Jim Graham, left, and Josh Gibson, co-chairman of the working group that designed the self-guided trail. (By Bill O'leary -- The Washington Post)

Here's how the Northwest Washington neighborhood once called simply "18th and Columbia" got the name it is known by today:

During the Eisenhower administration, black teachers and parents of pupils at a segregated elementary school named for a former city commissioner, Thomas P. Morgan, worked on community-improvement projects with their counterparts at a nearby school named for John Quincy Adams, where all the children were white.

Then, in the mid-1950s, they formalized the arrangement, creating the Adams Morgan Better Neighborhood Conference.

"And the name just stuck," said Angela Fox, executive director of Cultural Tourism D.C., a nonprofit partnership of economic development groups that promotes awareness of the city's heritage.

You would know this if you'd read the sign at stop No. 16 on the new Adams Morgan Heritage Trail, which was formally dedicated yesterday, on a sunny, springlike winter afternoon. In all, there are 18 stops on the tour, which winds through a vibrant community that Fox called "one of Washington's most eclectic and international."

Five years in the making, the Adams Morgan trail -- celebrating the neighborhood's 19th century origins and architecture and its history of ethnic diversity and social activism -- is the District's fifth heritage walking tour.

Another trail, downtown, is focused on the Civil War and the civil rights movement. There are heritage trails on Capitol Hill and at the Southwest waterfront. The Greater U Street Heritage Trail celebrates African American leaders in the arts, science and law.

When visitors walk the trails, "they proceed at their own pace, and a few magical things happen," said Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D).

"One is they realize that our city isn't just a collection of monuments downtown but that there are wonderful neighborhoods that make up the fabric of our city," he said, addressing about 100 people at the dedication.

"And I hate to be crass," the mayor said, "but as they do all this, they patronize our restaurants, our stores, our cafes, and they wind up paying [sales] taxes -- and that's a wonderful thing!"

In fact, that's the overarching theme of all the heritage trails.

"We want you to come out here and learn a little bit about neighborhood history," Fox said. "And spend money."

In Adams Morgan, stop No. 1, at 16th Street and Florida Avenue, describes the neighborhood's birth in the 1880s, when Mary Foote Henderson, a senator's wife, built a castlelike mansion in what was then a sparsely populated section of the capital city.

She hired well-known architects to design more mansions for the area and persuaded foreign governments -- several in Spanish-speaking countries -- to use them as embassies. The diplomats and their domestic help gave the community its first Latino presence.

"Adams Morgan has long been known as a nighttime destination," Williams said at the dedication, held at the Potter's House, a bookshop and coffeehouse that opened in 1960 at Columbia Road near 17th Street, at what is now stop No. 6 on the walk. More than a hotspot for club-goers, "it's a neighborhood with a rich history," the mayor said.

Stop No. 13, at Columbia Road and Wyoming Avenue, tells the story of the Kalorama Triangle's grand apartment houses, built more than 100 years ago.

At Columbia Road and Champlain Street, stop No. 8 focuses on the evolution of the neighborhood's retail trade, from the early 20th century (the French pastries at Avignon Freres, the furs at Gartenhaus) to the Latino businesses and funky shops that began opening in the 1970s.

Stop No. 9, at 18th Street and Columbia Road, recalls the 1922 roof collapse at the Knickerbocker Theater, which killed 98 people. At the trail's final stop, at 18th Street between Columbia and Belmont roads, the focus is on the arts -- on jazzman Charlie Byrd, for example, who headlined at the Show Boat Lounge there until it closed in 1967.

"In this neighborhood, we can talk about diversity as something that is real," said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who attended the dedication. "It is present, it is with us every day and it is something we treasure."