Hello Everyone! We are now just over three weeks away from 2021! I, for one, will welcome the New Year with open arms and a heart full of hope for a better year for us all. For all of the challenges 2020 has brought both to me personally and to us collectively, I continue to be grateful for the blessings in my life and the opportunities that have come along as well. It’s been an amazing experience to spend time with a 2 year-old and a 13 year-old and help them along in whatever way I could this year. I’ve also gotten to spend a lot of time with my folks here in Washington and know that I’m helping keep them safe and vice-versa. I’ve also been grateful to have some time to explore my hometown more than I ever have before which has brought me a lot of joy and contentment. While I’m looking forward to getting a vaccine and getting back on the road as soon as possible in 2021, I will always look back at this year as a time I was able to stop, reflect on the blessings I have in this life and make real plans for the future.
Speaking of a vaccine, there’s definitely been good news this week on that front. The Pfizer vaccine has been approved and the first shots administered in the UK. Approval should be right around the corner here in the US, and then the long and slow process of administering it can begin. I read yesterday morning that the FDA’s initial perusal of the application for approval was extremely positive. I know there are plenty of people out there who have read a lot of whacky things regarding the upcoming vaccine and vaccines in general for that matter. With all the travel I’ve done in my life, I’ve gotten every vaccine available and will gladly step to the front of the line for this one. I have plenty of family and friends in the medical industry and they have their people who they listen to and trust. If they tell me this is a go, I’m in. I simply don’t have time to waste on conspiracy theories and look forward to moving ahead with my life.
This week has been another busy week with my 2 year-old buddy, Mason. I’m happy that he’s continued to want to go outside and play despite the temperatures dropping into the thirties and forties. We bundle up tight but we’ve still been getting outside and going for long walks in neighborhood. He really loves running through the big piles of leaves and spent today sitting in one and just throwing the leaves up and watching them float down. It was a joy to watch him enjoying such a simple pleasure so much, and he’s definitely gotten me to run through more leaf piles than I have in many a year. We continue to look for berries, acorns and pretty colored leaves and he has been good about having me take off his mittens so he can grab these treasures and then letting me put them back on immediately after. We’ve also been having fun watching dead leaves float down the stream in the park as well, which really is pretty cool. He’s enjoying the few Christmas decorations which have sprung up around the neighborhood this week, but is particularly fond of his Christmas tree at home and loves showing me all the different ornaments and the stocking his grandmother sent him. Today we were reading the Night Before Christmas, and he is starting to recognize “Danda” (Santa). In one picture with Santa and his reindeer he was telling me that the reindeer were named Nick and Matt which are his cousin’s names (Nick is the young man I tutor on Mondays). I couldn’t figure it out, and then realized the text talks about “St. Nick” and the only Nick he knows is his cousin. Since he knows who Santa is, the reindeer must be the Nick they keep referring to and since Nick and Matt are twins, his brother must be one of the other reindeer. At least that’s how my mind processed what he said. Either way, he’s enjoying the holiday season so far and I’m enjoying it right alongside him.
I hope you enjoy this post with photos and history from Forest Hills, a beautiful neighborhood in Northwest Washington D.C.
Resting quietly between Cleveland Park and Chevy Chase and bordered by Rock Creek Park to the east is the quaint neighborhood of Forest Hills. Those of us who grew up in the era of the Metro are probably more likely to think about this neighborhood as Van Ness/UDC. The station takes its name from Van Ness Street, the main cross street in the neighborhood, and the University of the District of Columbia. Since the northern border of the neighborhood is considered to be Nebraska Avenue, I grew up right across the street from Forest Hills.
Once home to a Native American soapstone quarry, Forest Hills has quite an interesting history. In 1763, long before the creation of Washington D.C., Col. Samuel Beale was granted a tract of land by Lord Baltimore and named the area Azadia. Much of this tract would later be purchased by Isaac Pierce who would build his namesake mill along Rock Creek. In 1814, Revolutionary War veteran and retired land surveyor John Adlum bought a 200 acre tract of land in the area to start a vineyard. He named his estate Springland Farm and went on to become one of the first commercial producers of wine in the country (Adlum is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown). During the Civil War, Forest Hills was the site of Fort Kearny – one of the ring of forts protecting the Capital City…
Tenleytown grew up around the intersection of what are now River Road and Wisconsin Avenue, two roads which long predate both the city of Washington D.C. and the United States. River Road, in fact, predates European settlement to the area altogether, serving as a Native American trail to the Potomac River. In the early days of European settlement, the roads were used to transport goods from surrounding farms to Georgetown, then a major port city on the river. It is not surprising, then, that John Tennally, from whom the neighborhood takes its name, would build a tavern and blacksmith shop at the intersection of these historic roads. A small community soon grew up around the tavern and was known as Tennally’s Town. During the Civil War, Fort Pennsylvania was built nearby to protect the Capital City and was later renamed Fort Reno. After the war, a small African-American community known as Reno City was built in the area. When a streetcar came through at the end of the 19th century which connected Tenleytown to Downtown Washington, the neighborhood began to grow and flourish. Woodrow Wilson High School, Alice Deal Middle School and a water revoir and water tower were built, sadly displacing many of the residents of Reno City in the process. A proposed hospital on the site was never built. As the neighborhood developed, two major retailers, Sears and Roebuck and Hechinger’s Hardware Store, opened for business in Tenleytown and a Metro station further connected the neighborhood to the rest of the city. Today, Tenleytown is embracing its history as one of the oldest neighborhoods in what is now Washington D.C. with a wonderful historic walking tour and several historic plaques around town.
Chevy Chase dates back all the way to 1725, when Col. Joseph Belt was granted 1000 acres by Lord Baltimore, the first proprietor of the Colony of Maryland. Col. Belt, who had commanded the Prince George’s County Militia in the French and Indian War, named his new farm Cheivy Chase after an area in Northern England. A portion of the land was bought up for development in the late 1800s, and lots began to sell when a streetcar line connected the neighborhood to downtown Washington. Many of the houses in Chevy Chase were bought straight from a Sears and Roebuck catalog and remain standing today. Much of the architecture in the area is in the humble Bungalow, Foursquare and Dutch Colonial styles, but many of my favorites are in the less well represented Tudor revival style. Some of the key landmarks of the community are Magruder’s Market which opened in 1875, the 1923 Avalon Theater and the far newer Chevy Chase Library and Community Center. Chevy Chase is my home neighborhood, and I have wonderful memories from my childhood of movies at the Avalon, art and gymnastics classes at the community center, going to the old Riggs Bank with my grandmother and for ice cream at the long-gone Baskin Robbins. I often take my morning walk up Connecticut Avenue, the central road of the neighborhood, and reminisce about times gone by and five generations of my family who have wandered these streets. It made my heart feel good to go out and shoot these photos of my home neighborhood.
