DC on the Move: Historic Streetcar Photos
Reported by Justin
A streetcar passes the once ubiquitous Peoples Drug Store on 14th Street, NW, one of the District’s busiest streetcar lines, circa 1935
I just recently came across this set of historic streetcar photos on the DDOT site. They show a DC that was growing at the time, up to a peak population of over 800,000 residents by the 1950′s. Then came the 60′s, an America dominated by the automobile, “white flight” and violent racial tensions, followed by the crack epidemic. DC’s population dropped to 500,000 in the mid 90′s.
Now that the population has been increasing for about a decade now (to about 600,000), we are pushing for the return of the streetcar to manage the local urban growth, as well as the issues of congestion, air quality, health and climate change. Hopefully one day we will have a network as extensive as the original.
Comments & Trackbacks
@Justin
I’m in the middle of reading Zach Schrag’s epic history of the DC Metro “The Great Society Subway”. It contains a lot of info about DC’s old streetcar system and why it failed. Beyond this issues you mentioned, there were two that I hadn’t heard about before.
1. The streetcar system was purchased by the Wolfson family, which then proceeded to bleed it dry financially by distributing huge dividends to shareholders (themselves.)
2. Because of the federal ban on overhead wires within the original “L’Enfant City”, wires were buried under the tracks. The streetcars were equipped with hooks which reached down through a slot, keeping contacting with the wire. The problem was that the slots would frequently jam up from debris or ice, forcing streetcars to wait while the jam was removed, and causing backups through the whole system. Buses started to be seen as the better alternative.
Hopefully the lesson of #2 will be remembered when planning our new streetcar system, as the National Capitol Planning Commission is once again putting pressure on DDOT to investigate new (untested) propultion technologies because of the overhead wire ban. Maybe its time we reconsider the ban so we just use wires which are proven to work?
Chris said at 12:33 PM on October 17th, 2009
Also, cool photos!
Chris said at 12:34 PM on October 17th, 2009
I have fond memories of riding the street cars in D.C. with my grandmother, and hope that they are returned to D.C. as a transportation alternative.
Kathleen Terry Barr said at 9:05 PM on December 9th, 2009
would like to see pictures of any streetcars going in the neighborhodd showing the Uline Ice Arena or Washington Coliseum (same building)…we don’t see any photos of the Uline Ice Company or its ice arena…anywhere or the construction of the arena…or any interior photos of events in it….what a shame…!!!
robert romero said at 2:13 PM on February 5th, 2010