Potomac Hill - General Services Administration · Executive Summary v 1.0 Introduction 1 1.1 Overview 1 1.2 Study Area 2 1.2.1 Potomac Hill 2 1.2.1.1 Previous Studies – Potomac

Potomac HillH i s t o r i c L a n d s c a p e A s s e s s m e n t

Draft Final 2.13.2015

Table of Contents

Executive Summary v

1.0 Introduction 1

1.1 Overview 1

1.2 Study Area 2

1.2.1 Potomac Hill 2

1.2.1.1 Previous Studies – Potomac Annex 3

1.2.1.2 Previous Studies - Navy Hill 4

2.0 Methodology 5

2.1 Scope and Objectives 5

2.2 Background Research and Field Survey 5

2.3 Assessment of Historic Landscape Features 5

3.0 Historic Periods of Development 6

3.1 Potomac Annex 6

3.1.1 Early History 6

3.1.2 The Old Naval Observatory (1842-1893) 6

3.1.3 The Naval Museum of Hygiene, Naval Hospital and Medical School (1894-1942) 10

3.1.4 Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (1942-Present) 13

3.2 Navy Hill 14

3.2.1 Hygienic Laboratory/National Institute of Health (1901-1940) 14

3.2.2 Coordinator of Information/Office of Strategic Services (1941-1945) 16

3.2.3 Central Intelligence Agency (1946-1961) 17

3.2.4 Central Intelligence Agency and State Department (1962-present) 18

4.0 Landscape Features and Existing

Conditions 17

4.1 Potomac Annex 19

4.1.1 Natural Systems and Features 19

4.1.1.1 Historical and Existing Conditions 19

4.1.1.2 Analysis 20

4.1.2 Land Use 20


4.1.2.2 Analysis 20

4.1.3 Spatial Organization 20


4.1.3.2 Analysis 21

4.1.4 Circulation Systems and Boundary Demarcations 21

4.1.4.1 Circulation Systems 21

4.1.4.2 Boundary Demarcations 22

4.1.5 Vegetation 22


4.1.5.2 Analysis 23

4.1.6 Small-Scale Features 23


4.1.6.2 Analysis 24

4.1.7 Views and Vistas 25


4.1.7.2 Analysis 25

4.2 Navy Hill 26

4.2.1 Natural Systems and Topography 26


4.2.1.2 Analysis 26

4.2.2 Land Use 26


4.2.2.2 Analysis 27

4.2.3 Spatial Organization 27

U.S. General Services Administration Potomac Hill Campus Draft Final Historic Landscape Assessment–

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Table of Contents


4.2.3.2 Analysis 27

4.2.4 Circulation Systems and Boundary Demarcations 28

4.2.4.1 Roads, Parking Areas and Pedestrian Paths 28

4.2.4.2 Boundary Demarcations 28

4.2.5 Vegetation 29


4.2.5.2 Analysis 29

4.2.6 Small-Scale Features 29


4.2.6.2 Analysis 30

4.2.7 Views and Vistas 30


4.2.7.2 Analysis 30

4.3 Inventory of Landscape Features 30

5.0 Conclusions and Recommendations 37

5.1 Potomac Annex 37

5.2 Navy Hill 37

6.0 References and Bibliography 38


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List of Tables

4.1 Inventory of Contributing Landscape Features 31

List of Images 1.1 1792 L’Enfant Plan of Washington 1

1.2 Site Vicinity 2

1.3 Study Area 3

3.1 1844 Strickland Plan of the Naval Observatory 7

3.2 Map of the U.S. Naval Observatory Grounds,

ca. 1873 8

3.3 South View of Tree-lined Allée, 1888 9

3.4 Southeast View of the Observatory, post Civil

War 9

3.5 Brick Patio with Herringbone Pattern,

ca. 1888 9 9

3.6 Wrought Iron Grillwork with Gas Light at the

Naval Observatory Building 9

3.7 View of the Naval Observatory from the

Washington Monument, 1885 10

3.8 View from the Washington Monument, 1900 11

3.9 Plan of the Naval Hospital, 1912 11

3.10 Plan of the Naval Hospital, 1920 12

3.11 Naval Hospital and Adjacent Grounds, 1932 12

3.12 Grand Staircase from E Street 13

3.13 North View of Potomac Annex from the E

Street Expressway, 1960s 14

3.14 Hygienic Laboratory, 1904 14

3.15 1909 Baist Map 15

3.16 Detail of 1916 Bird's Eye View of Washington,

D.C. 15

3.17 Aerial View of the Hygienic Laboratory, ca.

1920 15

3.18 1939 Baist Map 16

3.19 1951 Aerial View of Potomac Hill 18

3.20 1964 Aerial View of Potomac Hill Showing the

E Street Freeway 18

4.1 1791 L'Enfant Dotted Line Map Showing the

Original Topography of Potomac Hill 19

4.2 1801 Lithograph of Georgetown and

Washington, D.C. Showing Potomac Hill in

the Mid-ground 19

4.3 Maury Circle Drive with Parking 21

4.4 23rd Street Concrete Wall Looking Northwest 22

4.5 Burr Oaks Along Maury Circle 23

4.6 White Oak Tree Between Buildings 3 and 5 23

4.7 Nineteenth Century Depiction of the Naval

Observatory 23

4.8 Benjamin Rush Statue and Flagpole at Maury

Circle 24

4.9 Ca. 1865 View of the Observatory from Present-

day Rosslyn, Virginia 24

4.10 View of Georgetown from Potomac Hill 25

4.11 View from Potomac Annex Toward the

Washington Monument 25

4.12 View from Potomac Annex to Arlington

National Cemetery 25

4.13 View toward Potomac Hill from Arlington

National Cemetery 25

4.14 View of the Quadrangle from the Central

Building 27


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List of Images

4.15 View of the North Building, Flagpole, and

Stairs from E Street 28

4.16 Eastern Retaining Wall, Looking Southwest 29

4.17 Flowerbeds and Plantings Along the Façade of

the East Building 29

4.18 Flowerbeds and Hedgerow Along the

Quadrangle 29

4.19 View from the South Building Terrace Toward

the Lincoln Memorial 30

4.20 Natural Systems and Topography Map 32

4.21 Land Use Map 33

4.22 Spatial Organization Map 33

4.23 Circulation Systems Map 34

4.24 Vegetation Map 34

4.25 Small-scale Feature Map 35

4.26 Views from Potomac Hill Map 35

4.27 Views toward Potomac Hill Map 36


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Executive Summary On behalf of the United States General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of State (DOS), the Goody Clancy Berger Joint Venture (GCB) completed a survey and evaluation of the Potomac Hill landscape in Washington, D.C. This study will be used in support of GSA’s ongoing cultural resource management program and in the development of a Master Plan for Potomac Hill’s future development. It partially fulfills GSA’s responsibility under Sections 106 and 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The objective of this study was to identify landscape features, such as roads, paths, designated open spaces, and other elements that have not been previously defined by cultural resources studies, and determine if the features are contributing resources to the Old Naval Observatory and E Street Complex Historic Districts.

Potomac Hill encompasses 11.8 acres near the intersection of 23rd and E streets NW in downtown Washington, D.C. The campus was historically divided into two areas, now referred to as Potomac Annex and Navy Hill. The east half of the campus, Potomac Annex, is a National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-eligible historic district that also contains one National Historic Landmark (NHL). The Old Naval Observatory (Building 2) was individually designated as an NHL on January 12, 1965. It was listed in the NRHP on October 15, 1966 for

its contribution to Naval and United States history, though preparation of a form documenting Building 2 and establishing boundaries did not occur until 1977 (listed in 1978). A draft NRHP nomination for the Old Naval Observatory Historic District was prepared in 1993 by GSA, though never formally submitted for listing in the NRHP. The west portion of Potomac Hill, Navy Hill, is also an NRHP-eligible historic district. In 2010 GSA prepared an NRHP form for the E Street Complex Historic District, though it was never formally submitted for listing. A revised nomination will be completed during the preparation of the Master Plan, combining the two NRHP-eligible districts into a single historic district.

The historic landscape survey for Potomac Hill was limited to resources within the property now in custody and control of GSA and did not include Quarters AA, BB, or CC (U.S. Navy) or Buildings 6 and 7 (U.S. Institute of Peace), though these buildings are included within the NRHP boundaries of the Old Naval Observatory Historic District. Features were evaluated as contributing or non-contributing elements to their associated districts.

At Potomac Annex the landscape survey identified features from various periods of use:

• the Old Naval Observatory (1842-1893) • the Naval Museum of Hygiene, Hospital

and Medical School (1894-1942), and • the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery

(1942-present).

Contributing landscape features include:

• topography • land use • circulation • spatial organization • vegetation • small-scale features, and • views and vistas.

The majority of the landscape features identified at Navy Hill date from the turn of the twentieth century through 1961. At Navy Hill the periods of use are:

• Hygienic Laboratory/National Institutes of Health (1901-1940)

• Coordinator of Information/Office of Strategic Services (1941-1945)

• Central Intelligence Agency (1946-1961), and

• Central Intelligence Agency and State Department (1962-present).

Contributing landscape features include:

• topography • land use • spatial organization, and • views and vistas.


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Historic Landscape Assessment1.0 Introduction

1.1 Overview

On behalf of the United States General Services Administration (GSA) and the Department of State (DOS), the Goody Clancy Berger Joint Venture (GCB) has completed a survey and evaluation of the Potomac Hill landscape in Washington, D.C. This study will be used in support of GSA’s ongoing cultural resource management program and in the development of a Master Plan for Potomac Hill’s future development. It partially fulfills GSA’s responsibility under Sections 106 and 110 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA). The objective of the study was to identify landscape features, such as roads, paths, and designed open spaces, and determine if the features are contributing resources to National Register of Historic Places (NRHP)-eligible historic districts. The study covered two areas within Potomac Hill: the Potomac Annex and Navy Hill.

When the Old Naval Observatory was built on the Potomac Annex site in 1844, the surrounding grounds were largely undeveloped. The Observatory was sited prominently on a hill overlooking the confluence of Tiber Creek and the Potomac River. The property was left open in the 1791 L’Enfant plan for Washington; because of its prominent position along the Potomac, the site was viewed as an ideal location for fortification or university (Image

1.1). The land was eventually named Reservation No. 4. There were occasional military encampments at the site, but no fortifications were built. The Observatory operated at this 23rd Street site during the latter half of the nineteenth century, but because of less than optimal conditions for astronomical observation and generally unhealthy conditions along the Potomac, a new Observatory was built on a site along Massachusetts Avenue in the 1880s. Following the departure of the Observatory in 1893, the site was occupied by a series of Naval Medical institutions: the Museum of Hygiene (1894-1905) and the Naval Hospital and Medical School (1902-1942). After the opening of Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1942, and the transfer of the Naval Hospital and Medical School to that facility, the former Observatory and grounds were tenanted by the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery until 2012.

The Old Naval Observatory Historic District, which encompasses the same boundaries as the Potomac Annex, is historically significant and is eligible for listing in the NRHP because of its contribution to the study of oceanography, astronomy, and navigation during the nineteenth century, for its association with advances in the field of naval medicine, and for its embodiment of the Georgian Revival style of architecture. The period of significance for the district begins in 1842, with the selection of the site for the Depot of Charts and Instruments, and extends to 1942, when the Naval Medical Center was relocated to Bethesda, Maryland, and the complex became an administrative

facility (John Cullinane Associates and Robinson 2001; Miller 2008). The Old Naval Observatory (Building 2) was individually recognized as a National Historic Landmark (NHL) in 1965 and listed in the NRHP in 1966 for its contribution to Naval and United States history. Formal documentation and a boundary

delineation for the NHL were completed in 1977 and listed in 1978 (Schroer and Lewis 1977).

The west portion of Potomac Hill, now known as Navy Hill, remained mostly undeveloped until the turn of the twentieth century, when Congress appropriated funds for the construction of a new building for the Public

Image 1.1: 1792 L'Enfant Plan of Washington (Ellicott 1792)


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Health and Marine-Hospital Service’s (PH&MHS) Hygienic Laboratory. In March 1904 the laboratory moved to its newly completed building, later known as the North Building (demolished), and an additional laboratory building, the Central Building, was completed in 1920. After the transformation of the Hygienic Laboratory into the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1930, two additional buildings, the South and the East buildings, were constructed in 1933-1935. In 1938 the NIH vacated the Navy Hill complex and moved to its new Bethesda campus. At the onset of World War II, the newly established Coordinator of Information (COI) office, which soon after became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), took over the complex. The OSS and later the CIA remained the primary occupants of the complex until 1961, when the agency moved to its new headquarters in Langley, Virginia. The complex continued to be used by the CIA until it came under DOS control in 1987. It has since been used by DOS as an annex.

Navy Hill has been determined eligible for the NRHP as the complex in which the Hygienic Laboratory of the United States Public Health Service and later the NIH made significant advances in research relating to health and disease, particularly in the research of infectious and dietary-deficiency diseases. The established period of significance is 1919 to 1941 (Young 2010). Navy Hill has also been acknowledged by GSA as significant for its role in the early formation of the OSS, with an extended period of significance beginning in 1903, 1 with the completion of the Hygienic

1 The year 1903 marks the beginning construction date of the North Building, which is no longer extant.

Laboratory, and ending in 1961, when the CIA moved its headquarters to Langley, Virginia, based on research submitted to GSA by DCPL (Sefton et al. 2013).

GCB’s investigation included background research, field survey, and analysis. The historic landscape survey was conducted under the supervision of Principal Architectural Historian Steven Bedford. Architectural Historian Sarah Groesbeck conducted the survey, compiled archival research, and wrote the report. Architectural Historian Camilla Deiber assisted in writing the report. Anne Moiseev edited the document, and the graphics were prepared by Jacqueline Horsford.

1.2 Study Area

1.2.1 Potomac Hill

Potomac Hill is located in the Northwest quadrant of the District of Columbia on one of the highest elevation points in the L’Enfant-planned area of the District (Images 1.2 and 1.3). The study area includes both the Potomac Annex to the East and Navy Hill to the west. Land not held by GSA—Navy land including Quarters AA, BB, and CC and land transferred to the U.S. Institute of Peace, including Buildings 6 and 7—are not included in the study area.

Image 1.2: Site Vicinity


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The site’s elevated topographic position is one of its defining features and was a critical factor in the selection of the site for an observatory. When designing the City of Washington, Pierre L’Enfant left the site open. The site encompasses a hill that overlooked the Potomac River and the mouth of the Tiber Creek (now filled). The hill rises to an elevation of 96 feet above mean sea level (amsl), higher than the reservations set aside for the President’s House and the Capitol. The topography of the

site made it an ideal site for a military fortification, especially as a defensive position against an attack from the British navy, a major threat to the new capital city in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Formal fortifications were never built, but the site had a continuous Navy presence from 1842 until 2012.

Potomac Annex contains archeological resources, historic buildings, and landscape

features related to the site’s development as the United States Naval Observatory (1842-1894), the Naval Museum of Hygiene (1894-1902), the Navy Medical School and Medical School Hospital (1902-1942), and the administrative headquarters of the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (1942-2012). Until 2012, when the property was transferred to GSA, the Potomac Annex grounds experienced 165 years of continuous occupation and use by the Navy. Currently, the only portions of the site retained by the Navy are Quarters AA, BB, and CC, which are under long-term lease to a private developer.

Navy Hill’s historic resources and landscape features reflect its use since just after the turn of the twentieth century by the Marine-Hospital Service’s Hygienic Laboratory (later the NIH) (1904-1938), the COI and OSS (1941-1945), and the headquarters of the CIA from 1947 until 1961, when its headquarters moved to Langley.

1.2.1.1 Previous Studies – Potomac Annex

1965 National Historic Landmark, Building 2

On January 12, 1965, Building 2 of the Old Naval Observatory was designated an NHL. Building 2 is nationally significant because of its contribution to the fields of oceanography, navigation, and astronomy. Under the direction of Matthew Fontaine Maury, the observatory’s first superintendent (between 1844 and 1861), the Observatory became a world leader in scientific research and the development of the new field of oceanography. The Old Naval Observatory was also listed in the NRHP on October 15, 1966, following the establishment of the NRHP (Lewis 1964; National Historic Landmarks Program [NHLP] 2007).

Although listed as an NHL in 1965, the NRHP registration form documenting Building 2 was not prepared until 1977 and listed in 1978. The nomination described the architectural condition, integrity, and historical evolution of the building; provided a boundary delineation; and used the statement of significance from the earlier NHL designation (Schroer and Lewis 1977).

1993 Draft National Register Nomination Form

A draft NRHP nomination prepared by GSA in 1993 identified an NRHP-eligible historic district encompassing most of the principal buildings at Potomac Annex. Entitled the “Naval Medical School and Washington Naval Hospital,” the proposed historic district nomination identified Buildings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 as contributing resources to the district. While acknowledging the NHL significance of Building 2, the historic district nomination states that the seven contributing buildings are linked by their architectural design and historical associations with the Naval Medical School and Hospital. The nomination states that the district meets NRHP Criteria A and C “for its role in the development of Naval medicine, its association with a distinguished architect, Ernest Flagg, and its architectural unity.” The nomination further states that the district is eligible in the areas of Architecture and Health/Medicine during the period from 1894 to 1908. The three quarters for naval medical officers at Potomac Annex (Quarters A, B, and C) were specifically identified by the nomination as excluded from the historic district (Wheat 1993). According to subsequent reports, the proposed historic district nomination was never submitted to the Keeper of the National Register of Historic Image 1.3: Study Area


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Places (John Cullinane Associates and Robinson & Associates, Inc. [JCA and Robinson] 2001).

2001 Intensive-Level Architectural Survey

The firms of John Cullinane Associates and Robinson & Associates, Inc. (JCA and Robinson), conducted an intensive-level survey of Potomac Annex in 2001 that documented the resources on the site and determined NRHP eligibility for Potomac Annex as a historic district. The survey report determined that the installation as a whole is eligible for the NRHP under Criterion A, as the “home of significant Naval institutions that have contributed to the scientific fields of astronomy, timekeeping, navigation, oceanography, hygiene, and medicine” (JCA and Robinson 2001:23). Further, the report recommended the Potomac Annex as NRHP-eligible under Criterion C, architecture. The main buildings at Potomac Annex were designed by noted architect Ernest Flagg, known for his hospital designs and innovative use of reinforced concrete. The remaining buildings as a group form a “coherent architectural complex that is compatible with the two earlier buildings, expressing their origins as a unified functional group” (JCA and Robinson 2001:24). The recommended period of significance begins in 1842, when the site was selected as the location of the U.S. Naval Observatory, and extends to 1942, when the Naval Medical Center was relocated to Bethesda, Maryland (JCA and Robinson 2001:24).

2005 Historic Landscape Survey

A Historic Landscape Survey conducted in 2005 by the Navy (Louis Berger 2005) focused on the grounds and landscaped areas of the Potomac Annex site and provided a framework for determining the NRHP eligibility of identified historic landscape features and elements. The landscape survey report contained a concise historic context describing the evolution of the site’s landscape, described remaining historic landscape features, and evaluated the landscape features’ NRHP eligibility. The report noted that the Potomac Annex’s landscape had undergone much alteration since its establishment as the Naval Observatory. The report further observed that, except for the location of the individual buildings at Potomac Annex, landscape features associated with the site’s evolution as a medical facility between 1894 and 1942 also did not survive or possessed very little integrity and the landscape was not eligible for listing in the NRHP. The report identified individual features that survived and were determined contributing elements of the historic district.

2007 Cultural Resources Survey/National Register Determination of Eligibility

In 2007 Louis Berger conducted a survey of Potomac Annex that synthesized prior architectural and archeological investigations into one document containing pertinent architectural and archeological information on the facility’s above- and below-ground resources. The survey also aimed to provide additional analysis and recommendations for the NRHP eligibility of Potomac Annex’s architectural resources. Existing historical data and earlier survey reports were reviewed, a site visit documented the existing historic

structures’ condition and integrity, and final recommendations were developed in accordance with Sections 106 and 110 of the NHPA and the guidelines and regulations of the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP).

As a result of that study, Louis Berger recommended the Potomac Annex Historic District as meeting NRHP significance and integrity criteria and as eligible for listing in the NRHP under Criteria A, C, and D. The proposed historic district includes all principal buildings on the Potomac Annex site as well as archeological remains and landscape features and elements. Archeological resources included the 1844 Magnetic Observatory and tunnel, brick foundations, and a trash deposit associated with the Naval Hospital. Louis Berger also recommended Quarters AA, BB, and CC as meeting NRHP significance and eligibility criteria as individual buildings and as eligible for listing in the NRHP under Criterion C (Louis Berger 2007).

The 2007 study’s recommended boundary of the district follows E Street NW on the north, 23rd Street on the east, and DOS property on the west, which follows the current boundary lines for the Navy’s Potomac Annex. The south boundary of the historic district follows the toe of the slope adjacent to the north terraced parking lot. This small portion of parking lot land was excluded from the historic district because it did not reflect its historical appearance as part of the Potomac Annex landscape and it possessed low probability for intact archeological remains. Since the 2007 study, this section of the Potomac Annex property is no longer part of the campus and is

currently part of the U.S. Institute of Peace, located south of the Potomac Annex property (see Figure 1.4).

2011 National Register Nomination Form/DC Historic Landmark Application

In 2011 DCPL submitted a National Register Nomination for the Old Naval Observatory and applied for DC Historic Landmark status. The form states that the property is significant under all NRHP criteria and that the recommended period of significance is 1842-1942. Associated areas of significance are science, health/medicine, military, architecture, and landscape architecture. The nomination form lists 16 contributing and 11 non-contributing resources within the property boundaries. Contributing resources include 10 buildings, three archeological sites, and associated landscape features (Miller 2008). The application is pending review.

1.2.1.2 Previous Studies - Navy Hill

2010 National Register Nomination Form

In 2010 A.D. Marble & Company prepared a National Register nomination for the E Street Complex for GSA. The nomination recommends the property as significant under National Register Criterion A under the area of Health/Medicine. The complex was found to be significant for the research conducted by the Hygienic Laboratory and NIH related to the discovery and research of infectious diseases and dietary-deficiency diseases. This research led to pasteurization regulations still in effect today. The buildings were the primary locations within which this research and subsequent health advocacy took place. The period of


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significance, 1919-1941, begins with the construction of the Central building in 1919 and ends in the year that Public Health Service (PHS) and NIH moved to Bethesda, Maryland. All three buildings in the complex were included as contributing buildings in the nomination (Young 2010).

2013 National Register Nomination Form/DC Historic Landmark Application

The DCPL completed a National Register Nomination for the E Street Complex in 2013 that expanded the period of significance and areas of significance under which the complex is eligible for the NRHP. The 2013 nomination asserts that the property is significant under all NRHP criteria in the areas of archeology (historic–non-aboriginal), architecture, health/medicine, military, and politics/government. It recommends an expanded period of significance from 1903, when the PH&MHS’s Hygienic Laboratory was completed, to 1961, when CIA headquarters were moved from the E Street Complex to Langley, Virginia. The expanded period of significance includes World War II use of the property by the COI and OSS. Similar to the previous nomination, this nomination includes all three buildings as contributing resources (Sefton et al. 2013). The application is pending review.

2.0 Methodology

2.1 Scope and Objectives

The objective of this landscape survey is to assist GSA with its obligations in complying with Section 106 of the NHPA of 1966, as amended. The study included archival research, field survey to determine existing conditions and identify historic landscape features, and an evaluation of landscape features as contributing elements of the NRHP-eligible Old Naval Observatory Historic District and the E Street Complex Historic District.

2.2 Background Research and Field Survey

To accurately identify and evaluate landscape features, background research was conducted on the historical appearance of the properties and how they evolved over time. The majority of the research for the survey was conducted at the Library of Congress, at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library’s Washingtoniana Room, and using online Congressional records and the NIH’s online library and photo archives. Research resources primarily consisted of historical maps and photographs. Period accounts and narratives were used to help reconstruct the appearance of the landscapes. Previous cultural resource reports were used to develop an applicable historic context for the evaluation of the landscapes surveyed.

After the baseline conditions of the landscapes were researched, a field survey was undertaken to document existing conditions and determine what landscape characteristics remain intact. Fieldwork was conducted during April 2014 and

involved taking digital photographs and detailed written notes, and assessing the integrity of identified landscape features.

2.3 Assessment of Historic Landscape Features

The historic landscape survey for Potomac Hill was limited to resources within the property now in custody and control of GSA and did not include Quarters AA, BB, or CC (U.S. Navy) or Buildings 6 and 7 (U.S. Institute of Peace), though these buildings are included within the NRHP boundaries of the Old Naval Observatory Historic District. The two areas were evaluated as two separate entities; after the Hygienic Laboratory began its tenancy at Navy Hill in 1901, the two areas operated individually and developed as discrete entities. The areas eventually developed individual circulation systems, spatial organization, and separate entrances and were even topographically divided by the large retaining wall between Potomac Annex and Navy Hill. Only after the construction of the E Street Expressway in the 1960s, which removed Navy Hill’s entrances on E and 25th streets, were the two areas rejoined through shared 23rd Street entrances.

The assessment is arranged to reflect the two landscapes. Chapter 4.0 includes a narrative description of landscape features and existing conditions. Current conditions were analyzed by landscape characteristics, including natural systems and features, land use, spatial organization, circulation and boundary demarcations, vegetation, small-scale features, and views and vistas. Each of the landscape characteristics was evaluated based on a comparison between existing conditions and

historical conditions, concluding with a determination regarding the historical integrity and significance of each landscape characteristic and associated feature within the context of the landscape as a whole. Extant characteristics and features evaluated as “contributing” are those that were present during the period of significance, are associated with the historical significance of the landscape, and retain sufficient integrity to convey the historical character of the property. Characteristics evaluated as “non-contributing” are those that were not present during the period of significance, do not relate to the historical significance, or that have changed to an extent that makes it difficult to convey the historical character of the property. The description and analysis is followed by an inventory of all identified features and their contributing or non-contributing status.


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3.0 Historic Periods of Development

3.1 Potomac Annex

3.1.1 Early History

Potomac Hill has been a prominent point on the Washington landscape, both topographically and historically, since early in the history of English settlement of the area. The first record of English ownership of the land dates to 1664, when King Charles II granted 600 acres of land to John Longworth that became known as Widow’s Mite (Herman 1996:2). In April 1755 British troops led by General Braddock are said to have landed at the base of the hill on their way to Fort Duquesne in Pennsylvania. Troops were ferried across the Potomac from Virginia to a rock on the river bank known as Braddock’s Rock.2 Braddock’s troops encamped overnight on the hill before continuing on their journey (Herman 1996:2). The Rock was also called the Key of All Keys since it was used as a benchmark and the initial point of several of the original land grants in the area (Van Zandt 1976:91).

A portion of the land just east of Potomac Hill was purchased by Jacob Funk in 1768 for the creation of a town called Hamburg (bounded by 23rd Street to the west, H Street to the north, the Potomac to the south, and between 18th and 19th

2 There is no specific historical evidence of Braddock’s Rock’s association with the General, though a nineteenth-century local tradition. The rock was historically part of the Observatory grounds but is now part of the eastern approach to Roosevelt Bridge, located approximately 15 feet below grade, marked by a plaque (Herman 1996:2)

streets to the east). The hill, then known as Peters Hill, was owned by Robert Peter.

As a conspicuous landmark in the new federal city’s landscape, Potomac Hill was featured in plans for the new federal city. In early 1791 President George Washington favored the area of Hamburg as the site for the new city’s principal government buildings. In a draft presidential proclamation, Thomas Jefferson, then Secretary of State, wrote, “the highest summit of lands in the town heretofore called Hamburgh, within said territory, with a convenient extent of grounds circumjacent, shall be appropriated for a capitol for the accommodation of Congress” (Tindall 1914:69). An accompanying drawing showed the capitol around the location of the White House and the President’s House located in the area of Potomac Hill (Tindall 1914:69).3

Pierre Charles L’Enfant’s plan ultimately moved the Capitol and President’s House to the east; however, his plan indicates that he, too, saw the value of the hilltop location. L’Enfant’s Manuscript Map shows the area as open with a hook-shaped nondescript feature; later maps of L’Enfant’s plan, including one by Andrew Ellicott, show the area as a fortification (see Image 1.1).

3 Jan Herman (1996) wrote that Jefferson chose Potomac Hill as the site for the capitol, perhaps based on an interpretation of that same text. Jefferson’s drawing shows buildings laid out roughly as described by Tindall, though the locations of buildings are not precisely located on the rough sketch. Regardless of a lack of definitive knowledge of what was planned, it is clear that the city’s planners regarded the Potomac Hill area as valuable and sought to incorporate the location into their plans for the District of Columbia.

The hill was among the plots of private land conveyed to the United States for public buildings, reservations, and streets without fee. The land between 23rd and 25th streets and E Street and the river was assigned as Reservation No. 4.

In 1795 the Commissioners of the Federal City chose the hill as the site of the National University, a pet project of George Washington’s, which he later wrote in his will was “where the youth of our country may be able to free themselves from local prejudices and jealousies pregnant of mischievous consequences to our county” (as quoted in Herman 1982:13). The University was never realized, though a few early maps referred to the site as University Square.

Among the firsts that occurred at Potomac Hill was the first concert held in the new capital city. On Sunday, August 20, 1800, the Marine Band, composed of clarinets, oboes, and 32 fifes and drums, played among the tents of the Marine military encampment. The hill was the home of a Marine encampment for two years until the completion of permanent barracks in southeast Washington. Following the Marine’s removal, the 3rd Battalion, 1st Legion of Militia occasionally encamped on the hill between 1811 and 1815. The soldiers marched from Potomac Hill to Bladensburg in 1814 to head off British troops advancing toward Washington during the War of 1812 (Herman 1982:13). Following the end of the war, the hill was vacant until the 1840s.

The site was used as a quarry for early public buildings; tradition states that rock for the building of the Capitol and White House came

from Braddock’s Rock, which was large and projected into the river. Quarrying and construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal along the south end of the site diminished the size of the rock; when the towpath bank was constructed, a large portion of the rock was blasted and removed (Taggart 1908:166-167).

3.1.2 The Old Naval Observatory (1842-1893)

The United States Naval Observatory is one of the oldest scientific agencies in the country. In 1825 President John Quincy Adams, who was also an amateur astronomer, asked Congress for an appropriation for the construction of an astronomical observatory. Established in 1831 as the Depot of Charts and Instruments in a rented building near the White House, the Depot’s early mission was to care for the U.S. Navy’s chronometers, charts, and other navigational equipment. In 1842 a bill was passed for the Navy to contract for the construction of a building for the Depot of Charts and Instruments. Construction of the building, now known as the Old Naval Observatory (Building 2), at the United States Navy’s Potomac Annex facility was begun in July 1843 and completed in 1844 (Herman 1996). This area of Washington was known as Foggy Bottom because of mists that formed during late night and early morning from the humidity and proximity to the Potomac River. The Secretary of the Navy’s report on the construction of the Observatory shows that Lt. James Melville Gilliss took plans for the observatory to Europe for consultation with English and European astronomers. Suggestions were incorporated into the new plans drawn up in London. Gilliss chose the location following the advice of the astronomer


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royal at Greenwich. Gilliss had originally chosen a more astronomically advantageous location, but the royal astronomer believed that architectural effect was a more important consideration. Accordingly, Gilliss chose the location at the intersection of the D and 24th street axes (U.S. Congress, Senate 1845:3).

The underground magnetic observatory was completed at the same time as the Observatory, its specifications part of the original building contract for the property. This underground structure was one of many fixed magnetic observation stations that were being constructed worldwide during this period. These efforts were part of a global interest in terrestrial magnetism and stemmed from the belief that greater knowledge of the Earth’s magnetism could aid in navigation. This cross-shaped underground room was constructed southwest of the Observatory and connected via a 52-foot stone and brick tunnel. The chamber, 10 feet wide, 10 feet, tall, and 70 feet long in each direction, was fitted with magnetometers set on stone piers at the west, south, and east ends. Scales and reading telescopes at the center of the magnetic observatory allowed remote readings of the magnetometers.

Unfortunately, cost-cutting measures substituted wood for the construction of the walls and roof of the chamber. The room leaked almost immediately; John Quincy Adams reported in 1845 that leaks from the ground or rain had halted observation and would soon damage equipment. Attempts to procure funding to replace the wood with brick failed. Flooding continued; by the fall of 1845, water was several inches deep, the wood walls began to decay, and sections of the roof gave way. The

instruments were removed and eventually the access tunnel to the observatory was sealed (Herman 1996:18-19).

In 1844 William Strickland was commissioned to prepare a plan for the improvement of the grounds and plans for the construction of officers’ houses (Image 3.1) (Gilchrist 1950:105-106). One of the foremost architects of the time, Strickland’s Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia is one of the most outstanding examples of the Greek Revival style that exists today (Philadelphia Architects and Buildings Project 2003). Strickland’s plan for the grounds depicts the already completed observatory and underground magnetic observatory enclosed by two concentric rings of terracing. A circular drive fronts the building, connecting it to the two proposed officers’ quarters on either side of the circle. A north gate, flanked by two “lodges,” opened to the circular drive leading directly to the Naval Observatory and quarters. The east gate led to the yard of one of the proposed quarters.

The landscaping plan included a perimeter wall with a gate in the east wall on an axis with D Street. In a letter from Strickland to J.Y. Mason, Secretary of the Navy, dated August 10, 1844, Strickland recommended grading the grounds prior to the construction of the walls. The grading was approved by Mason in a letter dated September 18, 1844 (Strickland 1844b). By 1845 the grounds had been enclosed by a brick perimeter wall and terracing begun (SHCA 2000). The material of the wall was not documented in any of the records from that time; however, a contract from 1853 to raise the walls on the east, south, and west sides states, “The bricks, including the coping bricks used in

raising the said wall are to be the best red brick and they are to be laid and filled in with mortar…” (as quoted in SCHA 2000:82). In addition, some plantings and sidewalk layout were implemented” (Bryan and Sessford 1908:330 ). It appears, however, that improvements were slow to be completed, since in 1848 the grounds were described as being “in a course of improvement” as walks and trees continued to be planted (Bryan and Sessford 1908:338).

Specifications for the 1848 improvements to the grounds indicate that the area within the walls was smoothed and graded with embankments (Bureau of Medicine 1848). Although Strickland’s plan for circular terraces was approved, it was never brought to fruition. This effort may have resulted in the more gently sloping hillside from the observatory south to the Potomac, visible in later prints and photographs from the late nineteenth century. Two springs were to be excavated and walled up; the lower spring was to become a reservoir 8 feet deep and 3 feet in diameter, covered by a blue stone slab with a granite basin for water. The upper spring (southeast of the Observatory) was excavated and a water-tight cistern installed from which a lead pipe carried water to a granite basin. Carriage ways and walks were covered with gravel, a wire fence with wrought iron posts was to line the road to the street, and two ornamental cast iron posts placed at the entrance to the Observatory. Specifications called for blue stone steps constructed along embankments and along the north side of the property (Bureau of Medicine 1848).

Gilliss’s account of the construction of the Observatory notes that the hill was of “gravel formation” with a clay surface (U.S. Congress, Senate 1845:3). The same year that the grounds were graded, gravel from Camp Hill was used in the grading and leveling of 19th Street along K Street (National Intelligencer 1948).

Descriptions of the grounds even from this early date show that it was meant to have a park-like setting, a “delightful place for recreation, being on an eminence, and affording a splendid view of this city, Georgetown, Alexandria, and the

Image 3.1: 1844 Strickland Plan of the Naval Observatory (Strickland 1844a)


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District” (Bryan and Sessford 1908:330). Descriptions emphasized views from the hill in all directions. Indeed, prints of the grounds dating from the nineteenth century emphasize its park setting by depicting the grounds with pedestrians strolling along its walks and paths or picnicking on the lawn in Maury Circle. Morrison’s Strangers’ Guide to the City of Washington of 1852 states that the grounds “are not laid out yet as they should be…. We hope to see them adorned as our other public walks about Washington, when they will become a charming resort to the stranger visiting the Metropolis.” Nonetheless, the guide also states that the Observatory “has become one of the prettiest spots in Washington, and has increased the value of property very much in that part of the city” (Morrison 1852:104).

In 1845 a local time service was added by request of the Secretary of the Navy. A black canvas time ball (2.5 feet in diameter) was raised every day at 10 minutes before noon on the flagpole atop the Observatory’s dome. At exactly noon the ball was dropped. The Observatory’s prominent location allowed it to be seen by ships on the river and local citizens, who could set their clocks according to the drop (Herman 1996:9).

As the Depot’s mission evolved and expanded, it was reestablished as the U.S. Naval Observatory. From 1844 to 1893, important scientific studies were carried out at the Observatory at Foggy Bottom, such as speed of light measurements, observation of solar eclipses, and work for the Transit of Venus expeditions in 1874 and 1882. In addition, the publication of astronomical and nautical almanacs began there in 1855 (Herman 1996).

In 1850 the Prime Meridian (the zero-degree meridian for the U.S.) was created to pass through the center of the Naval Observatory’s dome. The idea of a national meridian had been proposed previously, with the U.S. Capitol and the White House both proposed as meridians, but never legally defined by Congress. The question came to a head as the Observatory was about to publish an American Nautical Almanac; an American meridian was thought to provide greater accuracy for astronomical and geographical operations for North America, but it would be inconvenient for navigators using the Greenwich meridian. An 1850 report to the House of Representatives highlighted that a national astronomical meridian was the “policy of every enlightened nation on the globe” (U.S. Congress, House of Representatives 1850:2). The report also proposed that the meridian should be used as the American meridian for astronomy while the Greenwich meridian continued to be used for nautical purposes. On September 28, 1850 Congress legally defined the observatory meridian for astronomical purposes. It remained in used until 1912, when Congress repealed it. An allée 4 was added to the circular carriage drive that connected a proposed opening in the north wall with the main entry into the Old Naval Observatory. As early as 1857, Boschke’s Map of Washington City illustrated the circular drive and allée with a formal arrangement of evenly spaced trees both inside and outside the drive. Natural groves of

4An allée is a tree-lined pathway, a feature of the French formal garden, that was both a promenade and an extension of the view of the garden, which ended in a terminal feature or extended into infinity at the horizon. The allée normally passed through a small, planted wood (Morris Arboretum, University of Pennsylvania 2004). Image 3.2: Map of the U.S. Naval Observatory Grounds, ca. 1873 (Bauman ca. 1873)


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http://www.britannica.com/needmore

trees appear to fill the remaining landscape (Boschke 1857).

During the Civil War the Observatory’s staff was reduced as officers were reassigned. Those remaining aided the war effort by printing and distributing navigation charts of the shoreline from Galveston, Texas, to Norfolk, Virginia, to aid the southern blockade. The landscape of the hill was little changed. A picket fence along the northern border of the grounds was destroyed as part of a firewood-gathering effort on the part of local residents before the war began, and on the east side of the grounds part of the wall had fallen down and required repair. Like many parts of wartime Washington, the Observatory was surrounded by soldiers during the war: to the north, barracks of Camp Fry lined both sides of 23rd Street to south of Washington Circle. Simon Newcomb, Professor of Mathematics at the Observatory, described Arlington Heights across the Potomac as “whitened by the tents of soldiers” (Herman 1996:22).

The Bauman (1873) map of the Observatory depicts the buildings, roads, pathways, and grounds on the site following the Civil War. The map shows that the site had steep slopes on its north and west sides. A new gate at 23rd and E streets, instead of at D Street, provided access to the circular carriage drive on the north side of the building. The earliest photograph of the gate shows two stone gateposts with wrought iron, onion-shaped finials and a wrought iron gate (JCA and Robinson 2001:4/14). The Observatory by that time had become a T-shaped structure with additions on its east, west, and south sides housing clock rooms, offices, and storage rooms. The “Great Equatorial Telescope,” was

located on the south end of the now T-shaped building (Image 3.2).

A long sweeping drive ran west from the circular drive around to the south end of the site to the gardener’s shed, hay barn, and other outbuildings. Kitchen gardens were located behind the barnyards (JCA and Robinson 2001). A formal garden is also depicted north of this area, following the east-west axis of the Observatory. The remainder of the site is landscaped with scattered groves of trees and a line of trees along E Street, NW. The allée bisecting Maury Circle is further documented in a photograph dated 1888 (Image 3.3). Along the allée posts with rope cording delineated the separation of the walkway from the adjacent grass area, possibly used for horse grazing, as horses appear in various period photographs (Image 3.4).

The Bauman map shows one structure on the west side of the property identified as a magnetic observatory. This observatory does not appear on maps of the property before the 1870s, and little is known about its construction

or use during this period. The map shows additional structures immediately southwest of the Observatory, most of which were frame buildings and structures. One brick building, labeled on the map as #12, was a brick building used as a storeroom for the 1874 Transit of Venus expedition. Additional features include a cistern on the brick-paved area directly southeast of the Observatory, which was removed by ca. 1888 (Image 3.5), and a spring at the southwest corner of the property. These two

water features were likely the same springs mentioned in the 1848 construction specifications for the improvement of the Observatory grounds.

Other small-scale features from this period include wire fences and railings with ornate wrought iron grillwork and gates, which appear in the late nineteenth century adjacent to the north entrance adjacent to the north entrance of the Old Naval Observatory. Gas lamps, introduced in the 1860s, were placed along the front of the Observatory and at its rear (Image 3.6).

In her book Ten Years in Washington: Life and Scenes in the National Capital as a Woman Sees

Image 3.4: Southeast View of the Observatory, post Civil War (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Naval Medical Department)

Image 3.3: South View of Tree-lined Allée, 1888 (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Naval Medical Department 1888)

Image 3.5: Brick Patio with Herringbone Pattern, ca. 1888 (U.S. Naval Observatory Library 1888)

Image 3.6: Wrought Iron Grillwork with Gas Light at the Naval Observatory Building (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Naval Medical Department n.d.)


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Them, Mary Clemmer Ames describes a midsummer night visit to the Naval Observatory just before the Great Equatorial Telescope was completed and the view from the roof of the Observatory building:

Beneath us was Braddock’s Hill, where, generations gone, the young surveyor dreamed; and stretching far on to its guardian Capitol, the city which he foresaw—a verity now—its myriad lights twinkling through the misty distance. To our right was Georgetown; beyond Arlington Heights, and House; before us the Potomac, winding on to Alexandria; above us the fathomless heavens, the waxing moon and silent stars [Ames 1874:511-512].

This romantic description glossed over the state of the Observatory by the 1870s. The Superintendent’s 1875 report described the

older buildings as being in a dilapidated condition (U.S. Congress, House 1875:81). A marsh at the base of Observatory Hill was growing larger because of the siltation of the Potomac River, bringing with it mosquitoes carrying malaria. Those working and living at the observatory suffered from seasonal fevers from May through October of each year because of “miasma” from the Potomac flats. Additionally, the late night and early morning fog that gave Foggy Bottom its name increasingly hindered work. By 1877 there were more bad nights than good; 10 years later, 168 nights were too cloudy for observation, 133 were poor, 63 were fair, 19 good, and only two classified as very good (Herman 1996:52). Though conditions were poor, important scientific discoveries continued, and in 1877 astronomer Asaph Hall discovered the two moons of Mars, gaining worldwide recognition

for the Observatory (Herman 1996). That same year the first attempts to move the observatory were made. Although the Barber Estate north of Georgetown was acquired a few years later through a Congressional appropriation, no funding was given for construction.

The Observatory appeared quite prominently in a ca. 1885 view from the Washington Monument (Image 3.7). At that time the site had an undeveloped character with an abundance of trees around the few structures. The brick wall enclosing the entire reservation (as far south as present-day Constitution Avenue) is visible in the photograph. However, conditions at the Observatory continued to deteriorate through the 1880s; the buildings and grounds were run down, with little funding to make repairs. By 1886, 250 feet of the perimeter wall had fallen down, but there was only enough funding to buy temporary fencing to close the gaps (Herman 1996:58-59). That same year, Richard M. Hunt began preparing plans for the new observatory, though delays postponed removal to the new site. Finally, in 1893 the Observatory was vacated. It sat empty for 13 months before a new occupant was moved into the site.

3.1.3 The Naval Museum of Hygiene, Naval Hospital, and Medical School (1894-1942)

Potomac Hill’s new tenant, the Naval Museum of Hygiene, moved from its location at 1707 New York Avenue, NW after the property was transferred to the Bureau of Medicine (BUMED). In addition to housing exhibits and artifacts, the Museum of Hygiene was a working institution that pioneered environmental and occupational medicine. To convert the Observatory to these

uses, alterations were made to the building, but essentially the character of the original building’s exterior was respected (Image 3.8). The one major exterior change was to the Great Equatorial dome, which was removed and replaced with a larger rotunda and cupola. The next major change to the site was caused by a hurricane in 1896, which uprooted many trees. Many of the trees shown in the 1873 site plan (see Image 3.2) never recovered (SHCA 2000:83). Following the hurricane, downed trees were removed, remaining trees were trimmed back, and the grounds were plowed, graded, and planted with grass (Herman 1996:63). In 1901 the site was reduced from the original 17 acres when 5 acres of land on the west side was transferred to the Hygienic Laboratory (see Section 3.2.1). The museum was disestablished in 1905, and its collections were most likely transferred to the Smithsonian Institution (SHCA 2000:26).

The establishment of the Naval Hospital (1903) and Medical School (1902) at 23rd and E streets significantly changed the landscape. In 1902 the facility was renamed the United States Naval Museum of Hygiene and Medical School, part of a wide reform of naval medical services by the Navy Surgeon General. The most visible changes resulted from the remodeling of the Old Naval Observatory building for the Medical School and the construction of the Naval hospital complex with pavilion-style wards, sited behind (i.e., south of) the Old Naval Observatory.

Just before the new buildings were constructed, the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia, more commonly known as the McMillan Commission, published its report on Image 3.7: View of the Naval Observatory from the Washington Monument, 1885 (Bureau of Medicine

and Surgery, Naval Medical Department n.d.)


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the Improvement of the Park System of the District of Columbia. In the report Potomac Hill was described as having “an exceptionally beautiful view” (Moore 1902:165). There was no other specific mention of the grounds in the report, but land west of the grounds to the Potomac River, occupied by the massive Heurich Brewing Company and other industrial activities, was recommended to be taken for the construction of a parkway along the Potomac with a broad, paved quay along the water and

the parkway raised to a higher level to allow the passage of goods from the quay to industrial areas east of the parkway (Moore 1902:82-83). Taken land west of the Old Observatory was to be converted to the park-like setting of the grounds.

The grounds soon changed, though not in the way envisioned by the McMillan Commission. The new Naval Medical Hospital (Buildings 3 and 4) was built to replace the outdated

Washington Naval Hospital and to provide clinical facilities for medical officers in training at the Naval Medical School. The new hospital was designed by architect Ernest Flagg, who was also the architect of the Naval Hospital at Annapolis, Maryland. Flagg’s design for the hospital generally followed the concept of the pavilion plan used for his other hospital designs, such as St. Luke’s in New York City and St. Margaret’s in Pittsburgh. Stylistically distinct from the French classicism of the two

preceding hospitals, these hospitals all shared plans that emphasized isolation, ventilation, and light. All hospitals had what Flagg termed “fresh-air cut-offs,” passages between the main block and wings that were cross-ventilated and prohibited air circulation from one pavilion to the next. The smaller-scale hospital at Washington (and its counterpart in Annapolis) exhibits Flagg’s interpretation of colonial Tidewater architecture (Bacon 1986:89-102).

Image 3.8: View from the Washington Monument, 1900 (Columbia Historical Society 1900) Image 3.9: Plan of the Naval Hospital, 1912 (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Library 1912)


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Congress appropriated $125,000 for construction of the hospital, power plant, and laundry in 1903. Work began in 1904, but an additional $20,000 was appropriated to build the southeast and southwest wards. The hospital was put in service on October 6, 1906, before construction had been completed (Dunbar 1912:486).

Construction of all the Naval Hospital and Medical School buildings was completed by 1911 (SHCA 2000:26). Construction of the Sick Officers’ Quarters (Building 5), the contagious disease hospital (Contagious Ward, Building 6), Nurses Quarters (Building 1), Hospital Corps Quarters (Building 7), and housing for medical officers (Quarters AA, BB, and CC) was completed using plans prepared by or under the Bureau of Yards and Docks. These buildings replaced many formal gardens and grassy lawn areas that had previously characterized the site. Work during this period included grading and construction of roads, conduits, and walks. The total cost of construction for these buildings and exterior work was $333,388 (Dunbar 1912:486) (Image 3.9).

One of the first improvements to the grounds was the addition of a statue of Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) placed in front of the Old Naval Observatory Building. Rush was a physician and Surgeon General of the Middle Department of the Continental Army, humanitarian (he advocated for the humane treatment of the mentally ill), founder of Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, co-founder of the first American antislavery society, and signer of the Declaration of Independence. The statue was unveiled on June 11, 1904, in the presence of President Theodore Roosevelt, who accepted

the monument as a gift to the American people from the medical profession. Albert L. Gihon, Medical Director of the United States Navy at that time, initiated the campaign to build the memorial to Benjamin Rush with funds donated from the American Medical Association membership. Roland Hinton Perry from New York was the statue’s sculptor, and Louis R. Metcalf, a New York architect, designed the limestone pedestal (SHCA 2000:84).

New construction included a new circulation system that would incorporate the new buildings into the hospital complex, creating a campus-like atmosphere with the arrangement of the new hospital buildings (SHCA 2000:83). A new driveway along the west side of Building 2 led to a small circular drive at the main entrance of the Naval Hospital (Building 3) by 1909 (Baist 1909). Roads built during this period were constructed with yellow brick gutters, which first appear on a 1912 site map (JCA and Robinson 2001:5-14). By 1913 another driveway had been constructed from the main entrance to the south along 23rd Street, providing access to the new Hospital Corps Quarters and Contagious Ward (Baist 1913). All roads during this period were paved in granite rock (JCA and Robinson 2001:125). In addition to roads, several paths were designed to connect the entrance at 23rd Street with residences and offices adjacent to Building 2.

In 1912 the mayor of Tokyo donated over 3,000 flowering cherry trees to the city of Washington, D.C., to be planted around the Tidal Basin near the National Mall. Eighteen hundred of these trees were Yoshino Cherries (Prunus x yedoensis) (National Park Service 2004). Several

of these Yoshino Cherries were planted at the Naval Medical School.

The Navy built four new temporary hospital wards along the south edge of the site (now the site of the U.S. Institute of Peace building) to care for the influx of servicemen during World War I and the subsequent influenza pandemic (JCA and Robinson 2001:4/14); these buildings remained in use until ca. 1951. Improvements to the campus continued throughout and after the war. In 1917 roads were paved with macadam, a new aggregate concrete retaining wall capped by a wood fence was built along E Street, and a new substantial entrance gate was constructed with cast concrete gateposts capped by acorn-shaped finials. A map of the site from 1920 shows retaining walls on the north and east sides of the site (Image 3.10). The Surgeon General’s Report for that same year reports improvements to the landscape, including construction of a “terrace along the concrete wall, main entrance, south to Hospital Corps Quarters on Twenty-third Street” (JCA and Robinson 2001:4/14).

Image 3.10: Plan of the Naval Hospital, 1920 (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Library 1920)

Image 3.11: Naval Hospital and Adjacent Grounds, 1932 (Caemmerer 1932:416)


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By 1920 the campus had taken on an entirely new appearance. The care put into landscaping and maintaining the grounds was thought to be as important as the design of the buildings. The Annual Report of the Surgeon General of 1920 (cited in Herman 1996) recorded that the Medical School grounds were well taken care of and that 3,000 plants were propagated and grown for planting on the site. A photograph from 1932 shows the system of sidewalks, roads, and landscaping, including a low hedge along the south side of the hospital (Building 4) and another dividing the Hospital and Medical School from the Hygienic Laboratory to the west (Image 3.11). Small trees and shrubs characterized the southern portion of the grounds; to the north the largest trees grew north of Building 1 and west of Building 2, effectively screening the two large Hygienic Laboratory buildings from the upper campus.

Congress authorized $3.2 million for a new 500-bed state-of-the-art hospital building in 1931. If completed, the project would have razed the old observatory, hospital, and medical school buildings, deemed obsolete and inadequate because more than half the patients at the hospital were housed in the temporary World War I buildings. The Navy did not immediately request an appropriation because a new hospital in Philadelphia was more urgently needed; the objections of the Commission of Fine Arts (CFA) and National Capital Park and Planning Commission and budgetary restrictions further stalled the project.

In the 1930s the various organizations at Potomac Hill were centrally organized as the Naval Medical Center, including the Medical School, Hospital, U.S. Naval Dental School

(1923, in temporary building near 23rd and B streets), a consultation service, and a variety of related activities that had been added over the preceding 30 years. A new bill was proposed in 1937 for the re-location of the Naval Medical Center to a larger, more adequate site in Bethesda, Maryland. The Naval Hospital and Medical School were in operation at Potomac Hill until they were replaced by the Bethesda facility, which was dedicated by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1942.

In 1937 the Potomac Hill campus was described as “high, wooded grounds… situated [to] afford a magnificent glimpse of the Potomac in its course pass Washington, with the Lincoln Memorial in the foreground and Arlington and Alexandria in the distance…. Narrow roads and paths wind through the reservation and visitors may wander afoot through the beautifully parked and landscaped grounds” (Pappas 1937:899).

3.1.4 Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery (1942-Present)

In 1942 the Old Naval Observatory was selected to be the administrative offices for the Bureau of Naval Medicine and Surgery following a six-month occupancy by the Public Health Service that same year. It also became the headquarters for the Surgeon General of the Navy. The Bureau of Medicine was established in 1842 as part of a major reorganization of the Navy. The bureau was responsible for naval hospitals, medical and dental clinics, preventive medicine units, disease vector environments and control units, medical units as non-naval activities, and technical schools serving Medical Department personnel. It continues as the administrative

organization responsible for Navy medicine (SHCA 2000).

The overall complex changed very little over the next 20 years. Small-scale features such as picket fences were installed around the quarters, and wood fences topped the concrete walls on the east and north perimeters of the site. By the late 1950s the entrance at the intersection of E and 23rd streets had been enlarged to two lanes forming a V at the entrance. The early twentieth-century concrete posts that flanked the old entrance were removed, though the acorn finials were retained and flanked the new entrance (Bureau of Medicine var.).

The increased use of automobiles altered the landscape of Potomac Annex during this period. Between 1949 and 1950 several of the temporary wards at the south end of the site were removed and replaced with a large parking area (USGS 1950). Additional parking was added by removing trees and green space between Buildings 2 and 3, south of Building 5, and south of Building 1 by 1963 (USGS 1963). Plans to build a complete freeway system in the District of Columbia had a tremendous impact on the site and its surroundings during the early 1960s. As part of this plan, in the early 1960s the E Street Expressway, planned to be the west leg of the Inner Loop Freeway, was constructed along with a new bridge across the Potomac, the Roosevelt Bridge. The new interstate and ramps along the river necessitated demolition of the remaining temporary buildings along the south edge of the site and the power plant. The new E Street ramp curved around the northwest corner of the site, cutting off the north entrance into the site by removing the grand staircase

(Image 3.12) and replacing it with large retaining walls (Image 3.13). The expressway truncated Maury Circle and rerouted the E Street entrance. A new road north of Buildings 6 and 7 was constructed to provide additional access to Potomac Annex and Navy Hill.

The open areas left by the demolition of buildings and construction of the interstate ramp were paved for parking by the 1980s. Many areas adjacent to the buildings on the remaining site were also paved for parking. Very little

Image 3.12: Grand Staircase from E Street (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Library n.d.)

Image 3.13: North View of Potomac Annex from the E Street Expressway, 1960s (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery Library n.d.)


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change has occurred to the landscape since then. Today more than half of the site is covered with asphalt, most of which is used for parking spaces. The site’s remaining grassy areas are found in the center of the oval drive, around the Observatory Building, around the three existing quarters, west and east of the Observatory, around the perimeter of the site, and in small areas along the sides of some buildings.

In 2012 the property was transferred from the Navy to GSA for DOS use as office space.

3.2 Navy Hill

3.2.1 Hygienic Laboratory/National Institutes of Health (1901-1940)

In 1901 Congress appropriated $35,000 for the construction of a new Hygienic Laboratory on 5 acres that were previously part of the Naval Hygiene Museum to the east, transferred to the Treasury Department by act of Congress on March 3, 1901. The laboratory was to be used to investigate “infectious and contagious diseases and matters pertaining to the public health” (Williams 1951:165). The Hygienic Laboratory was part of the Marine Hospital Service (MHS), which in the 1880s been mandated by Congress to examine ships arriving in the United States for passengers with infectious diseases to prevent epidemics (In1902 MHS was renamed the Public Health and Marine-Hospital Service [PH&MHS] and changed again in 1912 to the Public Health Service [PHS]). In 1887 a laboratory of hygiene was opened in the Marine Hospital at Stapleton, New York; in 1891 the laboratory moved to Washington, D.C., occupying the top floor of the Butler Building on Capitol Hill. The laboratory remained at that site

for the next decade until Congress appropriated funds for a purpose-built laboratory building on the 5 acres of the Old Naval Observatory reservation (Young 2010:8-2).

The new laboratory, constructed under the direction of the Supervising Architect of the Treasury, cost $35,000 to build and was equipped and furnished at a cost of $13,000. The building was completed in early July 1903 (PH&MHS 1905:373). The early building was a nine-bay brick building with a center

pedimented pavilion, located on the west side of the existing curvilinear road running from Maury Circle to the south end of the property (Image 3.14).

It appears that Congress’s appropriation did not include money for the beautification of the grounds surrounding the laboratory. The Surgeon General’s annual report for fiscal year 1904, not long after the completion of the building, described the conditions of the grounds surrounding the new laboratory:

The grounds about the laboratory are in a very untidy condition, need grading and terracing, and should be arranged by a landscape gardener, so that the plantings of trees and shrubbery may be done to attain an artistic end result. There is at present no separate entrance to our reservation, and the necessity for one need not be emphasized. The cost of these improvements is estimated at $10,000 [U.S. PH&MHS 1905:373].

In addition to the Hygienic Laboratory Building, in 1903 the area included two additional wood-frame buildings: the magnetic observatory located directly south of the laboratory building that was historically associated with the Old Naval Observatory, and another building of unknown use to its east (Baist 1903).5

The new laboratory was constructed to accommodate the pathology and bacteriology departments, and shortly after its construction, three other divisions were added: zoology, pharmacology, and chemistry. Thus, the building was already considered “cramped and insufficient,” and the director of the laboratory, M.J. Rosenau, recommended a $150,000 appropriation to construct additional laboratory facilities, including a disinfecting shed, animal house, and power plant (PH&MHS 1905:373-374).

The grounds present a sorry contrast to those of our neighbors, the Naval Museum of Hygiene and Naval Medical School. The two reservations combined constitute a public reservation of considerable extent and unusual prominence, situated as they are

5 The magnetic observatory appears on the 1874 Bauman map of the Observatory. The exact use of the building is unknown, but it should not be confused with the 1844 underground magnetic observatory southwest of the Observatory.

upon the summit of one of the most commanding hills in the District and in a section of the city which is rapidly developing. It would, therefore, seem to be a public duty to place our grounds in a sightly condition, corresponding to those of the naval reservation and in keeping with its position and dignity. During the past year a handsome statue of Benjamin Rush, one of the pioneer American physicians and a signer of the Declaration of Independence, in bronze and granite, was presented by the American Medical Association to the District of Columbia, and placed upon the grounds of the Naval Museum of Hygiene within a few hundred feet of our line. Magnificent terraced granite steps and approaches are now being built by the Navy Department as an entrance to their part of the reservation. These facts are given as a contrast to the rough appearance of our part of the reservation, which has not yet been cleared of weeds. The grounds should be terraced and artistically planted [PH&MHS 1906:218].

Recommendations were made for appropriations sufficient to erect an additional building and improve the grounds continued, citing unsightly conditions of the grounds, cramped conditions in the building, and poor access roads from the east grounds. Funding for a large addition to the North Building was eventually appropriated; by 1909 the new addition was finished. The newly expanded building was 230 feet long, containing 41 rooms. Even so, overcrowding was reported the same year that the addition was completed.

At the same time the addition was completed, a brick animal house was constructed “at one corner of the reservation” (PH&MHS 1910:78).

Image 3.14: Hygienic Laboratory, 1904 (Public Building Service 1904)


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The building was used to investigate special problems in contagious and infectious diseases and so specifically designed to prevent the spread of infection. The 52x25-foot building was surrounded by a brick and cement wall containing a crematory for burning refuse. Between 1903 and 1909, three wood-frame buildings were constructed, though by 1909 they were reported to be in poor condition. One building was used to raise guinea pigs; another was a stable that housed horses, goats, rabbits, and other animals; and the third was a storage

shed with a room used to conduct disinfecting experiments. The dilapidated buildings were not protected from heat and cold, which meant that animals housed there would not breed rapidly. Furthermore, the buildings were not rat-proof, allowing the spread of disease that had killed almost half the laboratory’s stock the previous year. Three additional buildings (a laundry, stable, and greenhouse) were on the south end of property by 1909, but these were associated with the Medical School (Image 3.15).

By 1909 an embankment had been created between the grounds of the Hygienic Laboratory and the Medical School to the east. No retaining wall had been built, however, creating the possibility of cave-in damage to the laboratory building. The steep slope of the west and south boundaries of the reservation required retaining walls or terracing to prevent erosion (PH&MHS 1910:78-79). An appropriation for funding was provided in 1910, but the $15,000 was not used when it was decided that grading should not occur until the frame buildings were removed and replaced. Also in 1911, a 60-foot flagpole was erected on the north side of the laboratory building (PH&MHS 1912:77-78).

In 1913 funds were appropriated for the new animal house and disinfecting rooms, which were completed in 1915. The three-story brick building housed a variety of functions, such as blacksmith and carpenter shops, isolation rooms for animals, rooms for testing disinfectants, laboratories, and storage. That same year, the Supervising Architect’s Office contracted for grading the grounds and resurfacing the entrance to the laboratory grounds. A new roadway was constructed to the animal house, which continued to the south end of the reservation (PHS 1916:82-83). A 1916 bird’s eye view of Washington shows the new drive. Though an idealized view of the city in general, the map provides a sense of the property at the time. It appears that the laboratory grounds were less heavily planted with trees, the majority of which were located along the north end of the property (Image 3.16).

By 1917 buildings at Navy Hill consisted of the main Hygienic Laboratory building, the two brick buildings at the south end of the grounds,

and the three wood-frame structures that were pronounced to be dilapidated in 1909 (Public Buildings Commission 1917). By 1919 the frame buildings had been removed. Construction of Image 3.15: 1909 Baist Map (Baist 1909)

Image 3.16: Detail of 1916 Birds Eye View of Washington, D.C. (Green 1916)

Image 3.17: Aerial View of the Hygienic Laboratory ca. 1919 (NIH ca. 1919)


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the South Building (now known as the Central Building) began in 1919 and was completed in 1920-1921 (PHS 1921:82) to facilitate “the examination of viruses, serums, toxins, etc…, research work in diseases of man, and the examination of pathological and other specimens” (as quoted in Young 2010).

The landscape of the Hygienic Laboratory remained largely unchanged throughout the 1920s. An undated aerial photograph taken ca. 1920 (Image 3.17) shows the North and Central buildings, the three-story animal house to the south (before the 1920 addition was constructed), and another unidentified masonry building to its west. The open space between the Central Building and the animal house had been graded and left open. The west edge of the property had retained its steeply sloping topography, though the south end had been graded. A few trees were located at the north end of the property, along its west border, and northeast of the animal house.

The Hygienic Laboratory became the NIH on May 26, 1930, when President Herbert Hoover signed the Ransdell Act. The act signaled an increased government role in providing services to merchant seamen and preventing epidemics. It established a presence in general health activities, provided personnel training, and created a system of fellowships and private endowment programs for medical and biological research (Young 2010:8-6). That same year, an article in the Washington Post described the campus:

The headquarters of the institute are in a group of odorous buildings on a bluff overlooking the Potomac, beside the western extremity of E street and just beyond the

Naval Hospital in one of the quietest and least traveled sections of Washington. Its old name was as unexciting as its location is hidden from beaten trails—as its work has been insulated from popular acclaim [Ulm 1930].

The landscape of the campus was little altered during the 1920s, though the need for additional space had increased (see Image 3.11). The Ransdell Act, in tandem with the Public Buildings Act of 1926, provided $750,000 in

appropriations for the expansion of the NIH. The cornerstone of the East Building, which was to serve as an administrative office, library, and reading room, was laid on March 2, 1933. The final building on the NIH campus, what has become known as the South Building, was constructed the same years as the East Building to house additional laboratory and office space.

The new construction produced a material change to the NIH campus (Image 3.18). At the north end, the drive connecting the Naval

Hospital to the NIH campus was removed and a separate entrance from E Street NW was constructed. Land south of the Central Building was regraded approximately 10 to 15 feet lower than its previous level, and a retaining wall running north-south was constructed along the border between the NIH and the Naval Hospital grounds. The placement of the Central and South buildings created the central quadrangle. A new road encircling the quadrangle ran along the north and east sides of the Central Building, continuing parallel with the retaining wall, and continuing south of the South Building where it connected with the old outlet on the 25th Street NW alignment. A terrace was built on the south side of the South Building.

In 1935, 45 acres of land in Bethesda, Maryland, was gifted to the federal government “to be used as the site of some institution for the general good of the people of the country” (Furman 1973:409). The PHS accepted the land, and construction began in 1938. A large laboratory was approved by Congress for use by NIH, and after its completion, all of NIH was transferred to the new facilities. By January 1941 NIH had mostly vacated the campus in Washington (Young 2010:8-8).

3.2.2 Coordinator of Information/Office of Strategic Services (1941-1945)

The E Street complex remained partially vacant during 1941, used by the Army and the Office of Emergency Management (Sefton et al. 2013:8-18). The exigencies of World War II quickly required a new use of the buildings. In December 1941 the government began renovating the four buildings for use as a war

Image 3.18: 1939 Baist Map (Baist 1939)


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dispensary and intelligence operations facility.

The new intelligence agency that moved into the E Street Complex was headed by the Coordinator of Information (COI), Col. William “Wild Bill” Donovan. Prior to the creation of the appointment of Donovan, there was no centralized intelligence coordination; intelligence activities were carried out by offices within the State Department, the Navy’s Office of Intelligence Division, the Army Military Intelligence Division (G-2), and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). Roosevelt authorized the COI:

to collect and analyze all information and data, which may bear upon national security; to correlate such information and data, and to make such information and data available to the President and to such departments and officials of the Government as the President may determine; and to carry out, when requested by the President, such supplementary activities as may facilitate the securing of information important for national security not now available to the Government [as quoted in Young 2010:8-9].

By the fall of 1941, the COI had a $10 million budget and 600 staff members. At the end of that year, Donovan proposed that the COI be brought under the direction of the new Joint Chiefs of Staff, except for the radio broadcasting Foreign Information Service, which went to the Office of War Information. The remainder of the organization became the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) on June 13, 1942. Its mandate under Roosevelt was to collect and analyze strategic information required by the Joint Chiefs and to conduct special operations. These special operations included sending operatives into enemy territory to

organize guerilla warfare and gather information.

The E Street Complex served as the headquarters and administrative offices of the OSS. The East Building was reportedly called “The Kremlin” because it housed administrative offices. Donovan’s office was at the southeast corner of the first floor (Sefton et al. 2013:8-25). The Central Building had laboratories and examination rooms for medical, dental, and eye exams of potential operatives. The South building housed a cafeteria, ancillary offices, and storage space (Young 2010:8-9, 8-10). OSS employees noted that the complex seemed secluded from the rest of Washington, the shrubbery of the central quadrangle adding to area’s park-like atmosphere (Sefton et al. 2013:8-19).

Although areas immediately surrounding the OSS headquarters changed as a result of World War II construction, especially temporary buildings south and southwest of the campus, no significant changes were made to the landscape during this period.

The OSS was disestablished in October 1945, just two months after the Japanese surrendered, possibly as a result of ongoing rivalries with other government intelligence organizations, because of personality conflicts between Donovan and President Harry Truman, or from a shift toward cryptanalysis and electronic eavesdropping. During the early months of 1946, the OSS headquarters were shut down (Sefton et al. 2013:8-27, 8-28).

3.2.3 Central Intelligence Agency (1946-1961)

In the wake of the end of World War II and with tensions between the United States and Soviet Union rising, on January 22, 1946, President Truman established the Central Intelligence Group (CIG) headed by a Director of Central Intelligence (DCI). The new organization operated under the direction of the DCI, a presidential representative, and the Secretaries of State, War, and the Navy as a way to mitigate rivalry between military and civilian organizations. When Congress passed the National Security Act in July 1947, the CIG became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), now an independent agency with its own budget. The new agency began operations on September 18, 1947 (Warner 2012:7-8).

During its short existence the CIG Headquarters were located in the State Department Building and the New War Department Building at 21st Street and Virginia Avenue NW, and the North Department of Interior Building. But by the first month of its operation, at least a portion of the CIA staff and its director, Admiral Hillenkoetter, had moved into the East Building. The headquarters of the CIA remained at E Street until the Langley, Virginia, campus opened in 1961. Even so, CIA staff did not fully relocate until the E Street Complex passed to the DOS in 1987 (Sefton et al. 2013:8-30). Personnel at headquarters managed operations, gave technical support, performed research in new technologies, and collected and analyzed information. The expansion of the CIA was rapid’; by 1950 the South Building was described as “bursting at the seams” (as quoted in Sefton et al. 2013:8-

32),and staff was continually being redistributed to various locations throughout the city. Headquarters, including the director’s office, were located in the East Building. The Central Building contained the headquarters of the Office of Medical Services from 1947 to 1961. The South Building held a variety of operations, such as the Communications Division and the Secret Writing activities (Sefton et al. 2013:8-33). To the southwest of the campus, the CIA also occupied Temporary Buildings M and Q.

Requests for a new, consolidated CIA headquarters began almost immediately after its formation but were stalled by lack of funding. In 1955 Congress authorized $51.5 million for the purchase of land in Langley, Virginia. Construction activities began in October 1957 and the building’s cornerstone was laid in November 1959 by President Eisenhower. A sufficient portion of the new Headquarters building was completed by September 1962 to allow the staff of the E Street Complex to move to the new building (Center for the Study of Intelligence 2012:10-15).

The landscape of the E Street Complex underwent no significant alterations during its tenure as the CIA headquarters. An aerial photograph from 1951 (Image 3.19) shows the campus much the same it was during World War II. Between 1957 and 1963, a road running between the East and South buildings was constructed.


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3.2.4 Central Intelligence Agency and State Department (1962-present)

Despite the removal of the majority of its staff to Langley, the E Street campus remained a part of the CIA through most of the 1980s. Technical service workshops and research facilities remained on site until the complex came under DOS control in 1987.

During the 1950s plans for urban renewal in Washington, D.C., included Foggy Bottom, allowing the expansion of the George Washington University campus and an “Inner Loop Freeway.” Temporary Buildings M and Q to the southwest were demolished in early 1962, followed by the North Building in 1963-1964 to make way for the E Street Freeway (Image 3.20). The size of the campus decreased, trees were removed from the north, south, and west sides of the property, and road access was altered. The E Street Freeway further isolated the buildings, since access to the site was once again through the Naval Bureau of Medicine and Surgery to its east. Access on the north side of the property ran along the new north edge of the property to the parking lot that was constructed on the north side of the Central Building. The north-south road along the east end of the complex now curved to the east to provide a second outlet to 23rd Street NW. The new U.S. Route 50 westbound ramp reduced the size of the parking area south of the South Building

No major construction or renovation has occurred since 1964. Various small changes, such as terracing along the east side of the Central Building, the sidewalk along the south side of the Central Building, and the conversion

of the south terrace (on the south side of the South Building) for use as a green parking lot, have been made by GSA. The north and west edges of the property were planted with trees.

Image 3.19: 1951 Aerial View of Potomac Hill (USGS 1951)

Image 3.20: 1964 Aerial View of Potomac Hill Showing the E Street Expressway (USGS 1964)


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4.0 Landscape Features and Existing Conditions

The key landscape features present at Potomac Hill are discussed below. Narrative descriptions of each landscape feature include historical and existing conditions to fully understand the evolution of each feature. Discussions of integrity and evaluation follow. Since Potomac Annex and Navy Hill were developed separately, the description and analysis of Potomac Hill is divided between the two areas.

4.1 Potomac Annex

4.1.1 Natural Systems and Features

4.1.1.1 Historical and Existing Conditions

The Observatory was sited prominently on a hill overlooking the confluence of Tiber Creek and the Potomac River, which can clearly be seen on L’Enfant’s 1791 map of the area (Image 4.1). A small ravine on the north side of the hill allowed an uninterrupted view of the surrounding landscape. An 1801 lithograph of Georgetown and the city of Washington shows the steep slope of the hill along the Potomac and on the north and east sides of the hill. The west side

had a moderate slope. Small groves of trees are depicted on the top of the hill (Image 4.2). No drainage systems, such as creeks or streams, were originally located on the site.

The natural topography of the site was undoubtedly altered by the removal of rock for new federal buildings at the turn of the nineteenth century and through grading during the grounds improvement efforts of the 1840s.

The steeply sloped hill shown in Image 4.1 appears more gradually sloped in later prints and photographs of the site. Early twentieth-century construction of new hospital and medical school facilities and additional roads along the east and south sides of the site constructed in the early 1900s would have required additional grading. The prominence of the slope has also been lessened over time by the change in the topography of the

Image 4.1: 1791 L'Enfant Dotted Line Map showing the Original Topography of Potomac Hill (L'Enfant 1791)

Image 4.2: 1801 Lithograph of Georgetown and the Washington, D.C. showing Potomac Hill in the Mid-ground. (Cartwright 1801)


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surrounding area, as low areas were built up for construction of buildings.

4.1.1.2 Analysis

The topography of Potomac Annex has been significant to the landscape since early in its history. Jefferson and Washington both identified the site as a potential location for federal buildings. L’Enfant’s choice of the site for a fortification was tied directly to its topography and its prominence along the Potomac River. Most importantly, its hilltop location was ideal for location of the Naval Observatory in the 1840s. The topography has been altered throughout the intervening years to adapt the site for government use, first as the Observatory and later as the Naval Medical School and Hospital. Changes to the topography have not altered its prominence on the Washington, D.C., landscape and have influenced the design of the campus. Topography must be considered a contributing feature in the landscape of Potomac Annex.

4.1.2 Land Use


When the Old Naval Observatory was built on the site in 1844, the surrounding grounds were largely undeveloped. The property had been set aside in the 1791 L’Enfant plan for the city of Washington as Reservation 4; L’Enfant viewed the prominent location along the Potomac as ideal for fortification. There were occasional military encampments at the site, but no fortifications were built. The 1792 land grant map depicts the area as the town of Hamburgh with one house on the west edge of the new town. The 1801 lithograph of Georgetown

illustrates this dwelling. Hamburgh did not develop any further, and in 1844 the Old Naval Observatory was constructed on the site. Land use relating to the Naval Observatory focused on military astronomy and navigation.

Following the departure of the Observatory in 1893, the site was briefly occupied by the Naval Museum of Hygiene until it was disestablished in 1905. The Naval Medical School and the Washington Naval Hospital (or Naval Medical School Hospital) were established on the site in 1903 and 1902, respectively. With the addition of these institutions, land use focused on military education, medical advancements, and administration.

Since the opening of Bethesda Naval Hospital in 1942 and the transfer of the Medical School to that facility, the former Observatory and grounds at Potomac Annex were tenanted by the Navy’s Bureau of Medicine and Surgery until 2012. The land use changed to strictly administrative office and housing functions. U.S. Navy Quarters Buildings AA, BB, and CC are used as military housing; these buildings, however, are not part of this study. Buildings are currently under renovation and are not inhabited. DOS plans to use Potomac Annex for administrative purposes.

4.1.2.2 Analysis

Land use of the site changed most significantly at the turn of the twentieth century with the arrival of the Naval Hospital and Medical School. The focus of work at the site shifted from military astronomy and navigation to military education and medicine. The open areas necessary for astronomical investigations were no longer required. The open areas

southeast of the Observatory that were maintained as open grounds and kitchen gardens were eliminated and occupied by new buildings. Since that time the land use of the site has remained relatively unchanged, moving from military education and medicine to administration.

4.1.3 Spatial Organization


The location of the Naval Observatory building was chosen by Lieutenant Gilliss in consultation with the astronomer royal at Greenwich. Though he originally planned to place the building in an astronomically advantageous location, he was convinced to consider architectural effect as a means of drawing importance to the Observatory. Consequently, it was placed at the projected intersection of D and 24th streets. The building would have been visible from points in the city, on the Potomac, and across the river in Virginia, regardless of its location at the crest of the hill, but Gilliss’s choice additionally tied the observatory to L’Enfant’s grid plan for the city. When the American Meridian was established in 1850, it was drawn through the center of the Observatory building, which, in turn, was positioned along the projected alignment of 24th Street.

The original Strickland site plan (see Image 3.1) influenced the spatial organization of the Observatory despite its limited implementation. Strickland’s plan called for a circular drive fronting the Observatory and flanking housing, encircled by two rings of terracing. The circular drive, Maury Circle, was realized soon after, as were the walls enclosing the grounds. Although

the grounds were graded, they do not appear to have followed Strickland’s plan for terracing on all sides. The housing envisioned by Strickland was eventually realized, though not completed until the twentieth century.

By 1873 an allée had been incorporated into the circular drive (see Image 3.2). The buildings and formal grounds were concentrated in the northeast corner of the site. The Observatory was the central structure with wings extending along an east-west and north-south axis. A formal garden continued the east-west axis to the perimeter wall along 23rd Street. Support buildings, such as a gardener’s shed, hay barn, and other outbuildings, were located south of the Observatory, apparently not following any kind of plan but built according to necessity. Kitchen gardens and other open spaces, such as pastures, were organized in a formal rectilinear pattern east of the outbuildings. The remainder of the site was park-like with scattered groves of trees.

The arrival of the Hospital Museum and Medical School marked a change in the spatial organization of the site with the addition of numerous buildings. The Naval Hospital was constructed directly south of the Observatory with the central pavilions in line with the north-south axis of the original building; indeed, the hospital’s three wings almost mimic the plan of the Observatory centered around the line of the American Meridian established in 1850. The three officers’ quarters were constructed east and west of the central axis formed by the Observatory and Hospital, similar to


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Strickland’s 1844 plan for the Observatory. 6 Buildings 1 and 5 are located south of the quarters, and the Contagious Ward (Building 6) and Corpsmen’s Quarters (Building 7) were constructed down the hill from the main complex, but the site as a whole still retained its formal spatial organization.

These new medical facilities were established in open areas of the former Observatory and changed the character of the original site; however, the campus-like landscape established by the Naval Hospital and Medical School was maintained until the 1950s, when the automobile influenced the landscape with the construction of parking lots in the open spaces around and between buildings.

4.1.3.2 Analysis

In its current spatial organization Potomac Annex today mostly reflects the twentieth-century Naval Hospital and Medical School. Even so, these changes from the nineteenth-century plan have not completely erased all organizing principles of the Naval Observatory era. The northern portion of the grounds retains the circular drive envisioned by Strickland and its relationship to Building 2 (though truncated by the E Street Expressway) and also retains the axis of 24th Street and the Prime Meridian.

The new buildings of the Naval Hospital and Medical School created a campus-like spatial organization with grassy areas between buildings dotted with trees. Today the campus-like site layout still generally respects the spatial

6 No documentation was found to determine whether the placement of the quarters was influenced by Strickland’s plan.

arrangements between open space and buildings that was prevalent by 1924; however, individual landscape elements, such as the formal gardens that were east of the Observatory and the tree-lined grassy oval between the Observatory and the Hospital, now no longer exist. Open spaces adjacent to buildings and walkways remain, though replaced by parking. Despite these changes, the most important elements of the historic district remain intact.

4.1.4 Circulation Systems and Boundary Demarcations

4.1.4.1 Circulation Systems

Historical and Existing Conditions

The earliest main entrance gate to the Observatory was located at the north side of the grounds, on E Street at its intersection with 24th Street. Initially, Maury Circle and the sweeping drive along the west side of the Observatory were the only roads on the site. The grounds included several walks between the Observatory and areas to the south and east, as well as a path that looped to the south end of the grounds.

Following the establishment of the Naval Hospital and Medical School, the main entrance was moved from E Street to the intersection of 23rd and E streets. By 1909 a new driveway had been constructed along the west side of Building 2 that led to a small circular drive at the main entrance of the new hospital (see Image 3.9). Another driveway had been constructed by 1913 from the main entrance south along 23rd Street, providing access to the new Hospital

Corps Quarters and Contagious Ward. The location of this road from the entrance to the southeast corner of Building 4 remains largely intact from its construction around 1913. Before 1917 the roads were paved in granite block; after 1917 with macadam with yellow brick gutters.

Photographs from the 1920s and 1930s show informal pedestrian pathways from the Contagious Building and Hospital Corps Quarters to the Naval Hospital. Finished sidewalks were also evident during this period between the Power Plant, Hospital, and Contagious Building. Sidewalks north of the hospital were rectilinear in nature, following the edges of lawns or adjacent roads or following direct routes between officers’ quarters buildings on the east side of the site.

Roads and paths have been altered by the addition of parking spaces along roads and the construction of parking lots in and around buildings (Image 4.3). Construction of the E Street Expressway cut off the north edge of the circular drive, making it more of an oval, and pushed the location of the entrance south along 23rd Street. The C Street entrance and road were built at that time, running north of Buildings 6 and 7, to provide a second access point to Potomac Annex and Navy Hill. By the 1980s additional parking areas had been added to the site. Only portions of the yellow brick gutters remain visible in roads behind the Quarters AA and BB garages and along the north side of the drive fronting Building 5. In general, sidewalks are standard concrete with expansion joints. Existing sidewalks around the hospital are concrete with high concrete curbs on one or both sides.

Analysis

The current road system fragmentarily reflects the initial development of the Observatory in the mid- to late nineteenth century as well as the development of the Naval Hospital and Medical School in the early 1900s with the hospital complex, officers’ quarters, and contagious building.

The circular drive established around 1844 retains its original location but has been reduced to an oval after losing the northern 10 feet from the construction of Interstate 66. Some roads associated with the establishment of the Naval Hospital and Medical School remain, though the addition of parking spaces during the second half of the twentieth century has resulted in the loss of many of the Naval Hospitals pedestrian paths and has altered the traffic flow of the site. Though most original routes remain navigable, the infill of parking spaces in any available open space has altered the sense of a road system into that of a continuous parking lot flowing between the campus buildings. It has been further altered by the construction of the C Street entrance, which

Image 4.3: Maury Circle Drive with Parking


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separates Buildings 5 and 6 from the remainder of the campus.

Major changes in the circulation system during the second half of the twentieth century have affected the character of Potomac Hill’s circulation to the extent that the majority of roads and walks do not retain sufficient integrity to be contributing to the historic district. Similarly, portions of sidewalks reflect the historical pedestrian circulation system; however, many sections have been replaced with parking areas. Parking areas do not contribute to the historic landscape as they do not reflect the historical circulation system of the Potomac Annex. Historical yellow brick gutters, still intact along the perimeter drive behind Quarters AA and BB garages and in front of Building 5, are the oldest intact material from the historic circulation system, but they are only fragments of the original gutter system.

The only circulation feature contributing to the Historic District is Maury Circle. The circle dates to the earliest period of the Observatory’s history and was part of Strickland’s design for the grounds. The E Street Expressway altered its configuration from circle to oval; nonetheless, its importance as one of the oldest landscape features that has remained throughout the history of the site is sufficient that it retains integrity to contribute to the historic district.

4.1.4.2 Boundary Demarcations


The Strickland plan for the site called for a brick perimeter wall enclosing the site, completed by 1845. The material of the wall was not

documented in any of the records from that time; however, a contract from 1853 to raise the walls on the east, south, and west sides stated that brick was to be used. The main entrance to the site, originally along the north edge of the site, was marked with ornamental cast iron posts

The brick perimeter wall remained on the site at least through 1900 (see Image 3.8), eventually replaced in 1917 by an aggregate concrete retaining wall constructed along E Street. By 1920 a retaining wall was also located along the north boundary of the property. That same year, a more substantial gate was constructed with concrete posts capped with acorn finials. By the 1950s the gates had been removed and the entrance area widened. Wood slat fences were added to the top of the concrete perimeter walls, and the yards of Quarters A, B, and C were demarcated by wood picket fences.

Construction of Interstate 66 in the 1960s shifted the entrance to the south along 23rd Street. The existing retaining wall along E Street was also installed in the 1960s as part of the construction of the E Street ramp (see Image 3.20).

The 1917 aggregate concrete wall remains along 23rd Street but is topped by a modern chain link fence. The boundary fence along the south appears to be modern construction as it is not evident on historical maps or aerials of the site. A series of temporary chain link fences are located throughout the site for construction purposes.

Analysis

Boundary demarcations within the Potomac Annex have been altered throughout the years

as the area around the site has developed. The northern boundary moved south in the 1960s to accommodate the E Street ramp of Interstate 66. Thus, the original retaining wall along that boundary was replaced with the current modern stone block wall, which does not contribute to the historic landscape.

The 1917 concrete wall along 23rd Street remains intact, but the chain link fence atop the concrete wall is an alteration (Image 4.4). The concrete wall appears to be located in a similar location as the original brick wall, but no records or photographs are available to confirm this. No remnants of the brick wall have been located on site. The concrete retaining wall along 23rd Street contributes to the historic landscape of the Potomac Annex as it reflects the historical boundary of the site. The remaining boundary demarcations fall outside the period of significance and are not contributing to the historic district.

4.1.5 Vegetation


Earliest descriptions and drawings of the Naval Observatory emphasized its park-like setting, with walks and trees planted throughout the grounds. Maps and plans of the observatory show the overall site landscaped with scattered groves of trees and formal gardens on the east side of the property (see Image 3.2). Maury Circle featured evenly spaced trees along both sides of its drive and an allée down its center. (see Image 3.3). The 1885 photograph of the Observatory from the Washington Monument (see Figure 3.7) shows matures trees surrounding the observatory to the north, west, and south, with a grassy slope dotted with trees leading south to the Potomac River.

A hurricane in 1896 damaged many trees, a large number of which never recovered. As the campus of the Naval Medical School increased in size, the Navy removed the formal gardens and large swaths of grassy lawn to make way for new buildings. New trees were planted throughout the early decades of the twentieth century, and open lawn areas were retained between buildings. In 1912 a small number of the over 3,000 Yoshino Cherries donated to the city of Washington, D.C., were planted. Planting of new trees and plants continued; in 1920, 3,000 plants were propagated and grown for planting at the Naval Hospital and Medical School.

Both land and trees were lost when the E Street Freeway was constructed in 1963 (see Image 3.2). Much of the property on the north end of Potomac Hill was planted with trees along E Street, the entrance drive, and within Maury Circle. To the south, construction of the south

Image 4.4: 23rd Street Concrete Wall looking northwest


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perimeter road connecting to Navy Hill also resulted in the loss of trees along the road alignment. Additional trees were removed throughout the latter half of the twentieth century for the construction of additional parking areas (United States Geological Survey [USGS] 1984).

Today, trees are generally scattered throughout the site, and newly planted street trees can be found along both E Street and 23rd Street. Trees associated with the late nineteenth- to mid-twentieth-century landscape are present throughout the Potomac Annex. The canopy

north of Building 2 is dominated by a group of eight Burr Oaks (Quercus macrocarpa) clustered around Maury Circle (Trees 1-8) (Image 4.5). These oaks were planted in the 1890s and have several progeny on the site. A White Oak (Quercus alba) specimen located between Buildings 3 and 5 (Tree 9) is possibly the oldest tree in the District at approximately 150 years old. The tree is planted on the edge of a small, unpaved slope but is otherwise surrounded by pavement (Image 4.6). A Den Linden (Tilia americana) (Tree 17) sits near the White Oak, likely dating to the turn of the twentieth century. Other trees include a collection of cherry trees from the original gift of Tidal Basin trees from Japan in 1912, such as the two Gateway weeping cherries (Prunus subhirtella) (Trees 22 and 23). A Yoshino Cherry (Prunus x yedoensis), known as the Charlie Brown tree (Tree 10), sits against the fence surrounding Building BB. A large Gingko (Gingko biloba) estimated to date from the World War II period (Tree 18) is part of a cluster of trees on the summit of the hill at the south entrance (De Stephano 2004).

Several Yoshino Cherry trees located on the north slope of the site (Trees 11-16) are the progeny of the original cherry specimen through cloning in the 1970s. Grouped with the Gingko are a Burr Oak descendant of the Maury Circle Oaks (Tree 19) and two Willow Oaks (Quercus phellos) (Trees 20 and 21).

4.1.5.2 Analysis

Historically, vegetation at the Potomac Annex has been a significant part of the character of the site, in creating a park-like setting for the Naval Observatory and later the Naval Medical School. None of the formal gardens from the nineteenth century observatory remain, and all

of the lawn areas other than Maury Circle have been removed through construction of buildings or more recently with the construction of parking areas.

Potomac Annex has one of the best and most unusual historic tree collections in Washington and therefore the trees contribute to the historic district. Specific contributing trees are the eight Burr Oaks around Maury Circle (Trees 1-8), the White Oak specimen (Tree 9), the Yoshino Cherry (Tree 10), the two Gateway weeping cherries (Trees 22 and 23), and the large Gingko (Tree 18).

4.1.6 Small-Scale Features


The oldest known small-scale features at Potomac Hill were located around Maury Circle

in front of Building 2. The grounds were depicted as a park-like area for strolling, playing, and picnicking in a number of nineteenth-century renderings of the Observatory (Image 4.7). These photographs and prints show the post and rope fencing around Maury Circle similar to that specified by the 1848 plans for the improvement of the grounds (also see Image 3.3). Gas lamps were introduced in the 1860s; the ca. 1873 plan of the observatory shows several gas lamps at the front of the building as well as at least two at its rear.

The statue of Benjamin Rush was unveiled in 1904 and located near the center of the circular driveway. The Navy also added a large flagpole to Maury Circle during the first few decades of the twentieth century. Photographs available from this period do not show other small-scale features, if they existed.

Image 4.5: Burr Oaks along Maury Circle

Image 4.6: White Oak Tree Between Buildings 3 and 5

Image 4.7: Nineteenth Century Depiction of the Naval Observatory (Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, Naval Medical Department n.d.)


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Numerous small-scale features were introduced to the landscape after World War II. Pipe railing from the 1950s to the present can be found along sidewalks and staircases along the circular drive and between the former Naval Hospital (Building 4) and the Contagious Building (Building 6). Globe lampposts are found along E Street and in scattered locations throughout the site. Examination of historical photographs suggests that the fixtures are not original to the Naval Hospital and Medical School.

The E Street Expressway repositioned the E Street entrance and once again displaced the acorn finials (originally set atop concrete gate posts in the early twentieth century). The finials were removed to Maury Circle and used to flank

signposts at the northeast side of the circle.

Construction of the E Street ramp took substantial space from the driveway and thus necessitated moving the Rush statue from its original location to the south edge of that driveway facing the Old Naval Observatory. At that same time the flagpole that was located south of the statue in the circular driveway was moved to the former location of the statue (Image 4.8). Today, the location where the flagpole formerly stood contains a plaque that explains the origins of the Prime Meridian, the zero-degree U.S. meridian. The statue retains its original octagonal granite base and is surrounded by a narrow sidewalk and flowerbed. The flagpole is a plain iron pole with a plain base planted with shrubs and trees and crossbars for flying flags.

Concrete bollards are present along roadways and parking areas throughout the complex. Concrete-filled steel posts are also present around air-conditioning units for various buildings. A wood picnic table and grill are located in a grassy area south of Building 5. A series of temporary chain link fences is located throughout the site because of construction.

4.1.6.2 Analysis

Several small-scale features from the Old Navy Observatory period are present in the landscape. A non-operating gas lamp, introduced in the 1860s, is located at the north entrance to Building 2. The lamp is not shown in this location in the 1935 photograph of the main façade, indicating that it was subsequently moved to this location. A wood-frame cupola with louvered vents that likely dates to the Old

Naval Observatory period is located on a concrete slab in front of the Building 2.

Though the gas lamp, Benjamin Rush statue, and flagpole were all moved from their original location, they still are contributing to the landscape of the Old Naval Observatory Historic District because they reflect the Naval Hospital and Medical School period. The flagpole, statue, and gas lamp have settings similar to their original locations. The cast iron railings along the north façade of the Observatory building date from the period of significance but are considered part of building and are not listed as distinct landscape features.

The acorn finials, though constructed within the period of significance, were moved several times and no longer retain integrity in relation to their original context or use within the period of significance and therefore are not contributing to the historic district. The wood cupola, a remnant of a past building, is out of its original context and is not a permanent feature of the landscape. None of the small-scale features constructed after World War II are contributing because they fall outside the period of significance for the district.

Image 4.8: Benjamin Rush Statue and Flagpole at Maury Circle

Image 4.9: Ca. 1865 View of the Observatory from present-day Rosslyn, Virginia (Library of Congress 1865)


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4.1.7 Views and Vistas


Historically one of the highest points in the Washington, the site commanded natural views to all points in the city. Its views up and down the Potomac River gave it defensive possibilities that L’Enfant recognized when he drew plans for a fortification at the hill. To the west along the Potomac River, Georgetown was visible from the top of the hill (Image 4.9). The Navy understood that the prominence of the hill meant that it would also be seen from many

vantage points throughout the city, and made it a prime location for the local time service added in 1845. The Observatory’s prominent location allowed it to be seen by ships on the river and local citizens, who could set their clocks according to the drop (Image 4.10).

Early descriptions of the Observatory specifically mention views of the city, Georgetown, and Alexandria. Arlington House and later Arlington Cemetery would have been visible across the Potomac River to the southwest along with Arlington Ridge in Virginia, as evidenced by Simon Newcomb’s

description of Arlington Heights whitened with tents during the Civil War. Mary Clemmer Ames’s description of views from the Observatory adds the Capitol to the list nineteenth-century views (see Section 3.1.2).

Certainly the growth of the nation’s capital throughout the course of nineteenth century and early twentieth century would have been visible from the vantage point of Potomac Hill, and throughout the years and as the city developed, views from the hilltop changed. Still, in 1902 the McMillan Commission characterized views from the hill as exceptionally beautiful.

During the twentieth century some historical views were screened because of the construction on the north, east, and west sides of Potomac Hill. The most prominent views, such as those to the Washington Monument (Image 4.11), Georgetown, and across the Potomac River to Arlington National Cemetery (Image 4.12), remained.

With the construction of the U.S. Institute of Peace, views toward Potomac Annex have been partially obstructed from points such as Arlington Cemetery, Memorial Bridge, and the Lincoln Memorial (Image 4.13). Potomac Hill is no longer visible from the Georgetown waterfront as a result of modern development.

4.1.7.2 Analysis

Views and vistas to and from Potomac Annex have been an important aspect of its landscape since before the construction of the Naval Observatory. Many of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century views have been obstructed by subsequent development. Those that remain intact and are contributing to the historic

Image 4.10: View of Georgetown from Potomac Hill (Sachse 1855)

Image 4.11: View from Potomac Annex toward the Washington Monument

Image 4.12: View from Potomac Annex to Arlington National Cemetery

Image 4.13: View toward Potomac Hill from Arlington National Cemetery


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district are views to the Washington Monument, Arlington National Cemetery, and Georgetown.

Views toward the Observatory were equally important, especially during the nineteenth century when the Observatory provided the local time service. Most artists’ depictions of the site focused on views from the river or across the river toward the Observatory, highlighting its prominence over the Potomac River and overlooking the city. The site’s visibility diminished as the city grew, but the site, and even the dome of the Observatory, is still visible from the Potomac and from Arlington, despite the construction of the U.S. Institute of Peace. Views from the National Mall and East and West Potomac Parks, Memorial Bridge, and from Arlington National Cemetery contribute to the historic district.

4.2 Navy Hill

The landscape of Navy Hill, or the E Street Complex, represents a variety of uses over the course of the twentieth century. Rather than the result of a unified design plan, the site evolved over the course of the twentieth century. Within its period of significance, the complex best represents the period from 1933 to 1961. The construction of the East and South buildings significantly altered the configuration and orientation of the landscape; the North Building (now demolished) was the public face of the complex along E Street, and the center of the Complex became the quadrangle and East Building, which served as the administrative headquarters for the NIH, OSS, and CIA. Though the E Street Freeway resulted in the demolition of the North Building and loss of land historically associated with the landscape,

buildings remain intact. The landscape is characterized by its three buildings and their spatial organization around the quadrangle, natural systems and topography, and several small-scale features.

4.2.1 Natural Systems and Topography


For information about the topography of the site before 1900, see Section 4.1.1.

When the Hygienic Laboratory moved to its new location in 1901, few changes had been made to the natural topography of the site. The prominence of the property was acknowledged by Hygienic Laboratory officials, who considered it “one of the most commanding hills in the District” (PHS 1906:218). Nonetheless, it was also a cause for complaint, as the steep west and south slopes of the prominent hillside had a rough appearance and were at risk of eroding. Requests for funds to complete grading and terracing of the property began almost immediately after the new laboratory building was completed and continued through the remainder of the decade. One of the first noted man-made changes to the topography during its tenancy by the Hygienic Laboratory had occurred by 1909, an embankment that was created between the Hygienic Laboratory and Medical School to the east, creating an earthen boundary between the two pieces of land (PHS 1910:78-79).

In 1915 the Office of the Supervising Architect contracted for the grading of the laboratory grounds. The new grading occurred in tandem with the construction of the new brick animal

house and roadway. The ca. 1920 aerial photograph of the grounds (see Image 3.17) indicates that the grounds along the north end of the property were graded and landscaped. The level hilltop grade on which the North and Central buildings sat continued to the south before a steep drop-off just north of the animal house. Below the drop-off the roadbed that wound around the animal house was likely graded to allow a more shallow descent from the hilltop to the animal house and outlet along Water Street to the southwest.

The construction of the East and South buildings in 1933 again altered the topography of the site. Although the area north of Central Building remained unchanged, south of the Central Building 10 to 15 feet of earth was removed, creating a gentle slope to the south.

The last major alteration to the site took place after the period of significance, beginning in 1963 with the construction of the E Street Freeway. A large part of the north end of campus was removed, including most of the land on which the North Building had been located, and a new retaining wall was constructed along the north boundary of the site. Additional land on the south and west side of the campus was lost during the construction, but the remainder of the campus was unaltered. Since that time the only alteration has been terracing added along the stairs east of the Central Building.

4.2.1.2 Analysis

The topography of the E Street Complex has been altered since the turn of the twentieth century when the Hygienic Laboratory first occupied the area. Nonetheless, it remains an

important landscape feature because the topography of the hill has been important in the design of the campus, is significant as a prominent high point in the Washington landscape, and is contributing to the landscape of the historic district. As the laboratory expanded, the natural topography was altered to suit the needs of its growing campus of buildings. Its steep hillside slopes were graded to allow the construction of the East and South buildings in 1933. The construction of the E Street Freeway in the 1960s altered the campus by replacing the gently sloping northern end of the complex with a sharp drop shored up by a retaining wall and fence. The steep slope of west side of the hill remains the one natural topographic feature, though even it was reduced by the 1960s road construction.

4.2.2 Land Use


Prior to the transfer of the west portion of the reservation to the Hygienic Laboratory, this portion of the reservation was less developed than portions to the east. The only observatory-related use of this section was the Magnetic Observatory, which appears on maps of the Observatory in the 1870s (see Image 3.2). Following the establishment of the Hygienic Laboratory on the west side of the reservation, its land use shifted from military and scientific to medical research. Its transition to this new use coincided with the relocation of the Naval Hospital and Medical School to the Old Naval Observatory and, as a result, the entire reservation developed into a medical campus. From 1901 through 1941, the Hygienic Laboratory, and later NIH, used the property for


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conducting research into infectious diseases, and so housed medical laboratories. Buildings on the site were purpose-built as laboratories, with the exception of the East Building, which was built for administrative purposes for NIH staff.

Just as both portions of Potomac Hill developed for medical use during the first years of the twentieth century, during World War II their uses shifted away from it. Whereas Potomac Annex changed from the Naval Medical School to the Navy Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, the former NIH campus became the headquarters of the OSS. No longer entirely devoted to medical use, the Central Building retained some medical association since medical, dental, and eye examinations of OSS operatives and recruits were performed there. Additionally, laboratories were retained; while previously medical in nature, the new R&D laboratories developed custom-designed weapons and equipment used for subversive warfare, such as time delay fuses, pocket incendiary devices, limpet mines, silent pistols, and edible explosives (Sefton et al. 2013:8-25).

As the administrative headquarters of the OSS, the E Street Complex housed its command center. In addition to the office of William Donovan and his staff, the East Building housed the Message Center. The portion of the Communication branch included the Code Room, Paraphrasing and Distribution Section, Teletype Section and Typing Room, maintenance, and a Cryptographic Security Section (Sefton et al. 2013:8-25).

After the disestablishment of the OSS, CIA occupation of the complex continued its use

along similar lines. Even its medical use continued; from 1947 to 1961 the Central building housed the headquarters of the Office of Medical Services. After CIA Headquarters was moved to Langley in 1962, the campus remained part of the CIA until 1987. Personnel at Navy Hill managed operations, gave technical support, performed research in new technologies, and collected and analyzed information.

Since 1987 the DOS has used the campus as an annex site to its neighboring main building.

4.2.2.2 Analysis

Navy Hill has remained in government use throughout its history, though its uses by federal agencies have been varied. The common use throughout was as office space, whether for a medical research facility, intelligence agency, or its current use by the DOS. Land uses from two significant yet distinct periods of its history are no longer present, that of a medical research facility and the center of two government intelligence agencies.

4.2.3 Spatial Organization


The spatial organization of the E Street Complex developed organically over the first decades of the twentieth century as additional space for laboratories and administration was needed and funding appropriated by Congress. Early organization of buildings was probably necessitated by their function; the main laboratory building was located at the north end of the site and acted as the public façade of the Hygienic Laboratory. The first animal house was placed at a distance from the laboratory to the

north. The Central Building would have been placed out of necessity near the North Building to allow easy access between the buildings, and the new three-story brick animal house built in 1915 was placed at the back of the lot. A major shift in the spatial organization of the E Street Complex took place when the East and South buildings were constructed in 1933. Not only was the spatial organization changed through the regrading of the land, the new buildings created a new center of the campus. The North Building remained the public face of the property along E Street, but the East Building — the administrative building — became the physical center and focus of the campus. The two new buildings were constructed so that the Central, East, and South buildings faced a center quadrangle around which a drive was located.

Under the OSS and CIA, the inward-facing organization of the buildings became an apt physical expression of the secrecy under which these two organizations operated. OSS employees noted that the complex seemed secluded from the rest of Washington (Sefton et al. 2013:8-19). Separated from the busy traffic corridor of 23rd Street NW by the Navy Bureau of Medicine & Surgery and screened by trees to the north and west, the complex was set apart from other areas but was still close to other government agencies, including the DOS, the White House, and Capitol Hill.

Following the construction of the E Street Freeway in the 1960s, Navy Hill became more connected to the Potomac Annex, since it no longer had separate entrances at the north and southwest ends of the site. Rather, Navy Hill was accessed through the north and south

entrances on 23rd Street. The demolition of the North Building removed the north public façade of the complex, as well as the courtyard between the North and Central Buildings. The spatial organization of Navy Hill has not been altered since that time.

4.2.3.2 Analysis

Spatial organization from the period of significance remains intact despite the loss of the North Building. The construction of the E Street Freeway necessitated the removal of the North Building, but even so, the orientation of the two areas has not changed. Gates at the entrances to Navy Hill further distinguish the division between Navy Hill and Potomac Annex. A new road encircling the quadrangle runs along the north and east sides of the Central Building, continuing parallel with the retaining wall, and continuing south of the South Building where it connected with the old outlet on the 25th Street NW alignment.

The three remaining buildings are arranged around the quadrangle, a configuration that has remained to this day (Image 4.14). The quadrangle is important to the spatial

Image 4.14: View of the Quadrangle from the Central Building


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organization of Navy Hill as the remaining defining open space. This inward-facing organization created a sense of isolation and seclusion from the rest of the city that was noted by OSS employees during World War II. The relationship between the buildings and the central open space of the quadrangle is a contributing feature in the landscape of the historic district.

4.2.4 Circulation Systems and Boundary Demarcations

4.2.4.1 Roads, Parking Areas and Pedestrian Paths


When the Hygienic Laboratory moved to its new location in 1903, the curvilinear road running west from Maury Circle was used to access the site. Records indicate that the entrance at 23rd and E streets continued to be used by the Hygienic Laboratory until ca. 1915, when the new road connected the North Building to the animal house. The new road created a separate

entrance to the Hygienic Laboratory, but the road from Maury Circle also remained in use (see Image 3.17). Pedestrian access to the site was provided via stairs from 23rd Street to the flagpole fronting the North Building (Image 4.15).

The circulation system was almost completely reconfigured in 1933, when the East and South buildings were constructed. The road from Maury Circle was removed and a new entrance from 23rd Street (east of the stairs) was built. The road fronting the North Building remained, as did the section running along the west elevations of the North and Central buildings. A new road encircling the quadrangle ran along the north and east sides of the Central Building, continuing parallel with the retaining wall and continuing south of the South Building, where it connected with the old outlet on the 25th Street NW alignment (see Image 3.18). At the south end of the complex, a parking area was constructed in the triangular area formed by the South Building terrace and the road. Given the size of the campus and the proximity of the buildings, there were few pedestrian paths at Navy Hill. A walkway ran south from the quadrangle to the entrance of the South Building. To its west a stair from the southwest side of the quadrangle led down the hillside to a level area along the west side of the South Building’s north elevation, where mechanical equipment was located.

During the ensuing years the only addition was the road running between the East and South buildings, built between 1957 and 1963. Construction of the E Street Freeway eliminated both existing entrances to Navy Hill and the road fronting the North Building (also

demolished). The circulation system was altered to allow access through the Potomac Annex on the north and south sides of the property. The triangular area north of the Central Building became a parking area; the existing parking lot at the south end of the site remained, though its size was reduced (see Image 3.20).

Navy Hill’s circulation system today is the same as that which existed post-1963. Small additions include the stair running along the east side of the Central Building and the sidewalk running along the west end of the Central Building’s south elevation. Parking spaces have been added along the quadrangle and the east side of the road that runs along the east edge of Navy Hill. The walk leading from the quadrangle to the South Building has been removed to allow additional parking along the quadrangle.

Analysis

The extant circulation system at Navy Hill is only a portion of the historic system, following the construction of the E Street Expressway in 1963. The circulation system is no longer independent of Potomac Annex with separate entrances on its north and south sides; instead, both access points require passing through Potomac Annex. What remains of the historic circulation system— the road encircling the quadrangle and the north-south road along the east sides of the East and South buildings—are fragments that do not have significance in terms of design. None of the pedestrian paths is contributing to the landscape because they were added after the period of significance.

None of the parking areas is contributing to the historic landscape at Navy Hill. The north

parking area was added after the period of significance ended; the area at the south end of the site was extant during the period of significance but was not a significant feature and served a secondary support function that is not integral to circulation within the site. For similar reasons the stairway at the southwest side of the quadrangle is not contributing.

4.2.4.2 Boundary Demarcations


The earliest extant photographs and maps of Navy Hill provide no indication of the type of boundary demarcations that were used to enclose the Hygienic Laboratory. The first known boundary distinction is the embankment created between the Hygienic Laboratory and the Medical School. The embankment appears in later photographs (see Image 3.11), showing that a hedge was planted along the ridge of the embankment. This same photograph indicates that a fence ran along the southwest corner of the property by 1932. The concrete retaining wall along the east boundary of the property was constructed in the area that was regraded for the construction of the East and South buildings.

Available photographs show that during the time that the CIA was headquartered at Navy Hill, a chain link fence was present along the boundaries of the property. Following the construction of the E Street Freeway, a stone retaining wall was built along the north and west perimeters.

Current boundary demarcations include the retaining walls along the E Street Freeway, the concrete retaining wall capped by a chain link

Image 4.15: View of the North Building, Flagpole, and Stairs from 23rd Street (NIH n.d.)


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fence along Navy Hill’s east edge (Image 4.16), and chain link fences and gates enclosing the north and south entrances to Navy Hill.

Analysis

The only boundary demarcation of significance at Navy Hill is the concrete retaining wall along the east perimeter of the campus, built in 1933. The retaining wall is less significant for its construction or material than it is as a division between Navy Hill and Potomac Annex. The remaining features date from after the period of significance and, therefore, are not contributing to the historic landscape.

4.2.5 Vegetation


The earliest descriptions of the conditions of the grounds at Navy Hill following their transfer to the Hygienic Laboratory indicates that, unlike the area to the east, little had been done in terms of planting or landscaping. In 1906 the director of the laboratory indicated that the grounds had not been cleared of weeds and had a “rough appearance” (PHS 1906:218). Nineteenth-century photographs and plans (see Image 3.2) show trees on the property that would have been there when the first Hygienic Laboratory building was constructed (see Image 3.14).

Based on written records, no landscaping or improvement took place until 1915, when the grounds were graded. By 1919 (see Image 3.11) the E Street frontage had been planted with grass and trees flanked the building. Additional trees were located along the west-sloping boundary of the property. The area between the Central Building and animal house was a grassy lawn, with a single tree northeast of the animal house. Throughout this earliest period the Hygienic Laboratory lacked any kind of ornamental planting.

The lack of ornamental planting continued following the expansion of the campus in the 1930s. Trees were planted along the sides of the quadrangle lawn (see Image 3.19). Additional trees were planted along the north, west, and south edges of the campus by the late 1940s. Photographs from the CIA Headquarters period show that shrubs were planted along the primary building façades and along the stair leading from E Street to the North Building.

Other than the trees in the quadrangle, all trees on the property were removed during the construction of the E Street Freeway. These areas remained unplanted for a time, but eventually new trees were placed along the north and west perimeters.

Currently, the vegetation on Navy Hill is characterized by perimeter trees, the quadrangle lawn, and ornamental plantings along the façades of the Central and East buildings. The terraced area along the east side of the Central building is planted with shrubs and herbaceous plants. Flowering trees are planted in the quadrangle; a hedgerow and flowerbeds now grow along its north, west, and east sides. A separate flowerbed has been planted along the south side of the quadrangle. (Images 4.17 and 4.18).

4.2.5.2 Analysis

The only vegetation remaining from the period of significance is the lawn area of the quadrangle; however, the area was historically shaded by trees, which have been removed, and the area has been replanted. All remaining extant vegetation post-dates 1961 and is therefore not considered contributing.

4.2.6 Small-Scale Features


The first known small-scale feature added to the Hygienic Laboratory was a 60-foot flagpole erected in 1910 on the north side of the North Building (see Image 4.15). Through 1933 there is no evidence of other small-scale features at the site.

Few available photographs date from the OSS and CIA period. One photograph shows that by the late 1950s or early 1960s, a flagpole had been erected in front of the South Building and the grassy area surrounding the pole was enclosed by a post-and-chain fence. There are no photographs of additional small-scale features, if they existed.

Currently Navy Hill contains a number of small-scale features that have not been dated but were not likely present during the period of

Image 4.16: Eastern Retaining Wall looking Southwest

Image 4.17: Flowerbeds and plantings along the façade of the East Building

Image 4.18: Flowerbeds and Hedgerow along the Quadrangle


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significance. Since the construction of the retaining wall along the E Street Freeway, metal guard rails have been added along the north and west sides of the perimeter road. Metal pipe railing has been added along the north side of the Central Building, the north side of the East Building, and the north side of the South Building. Other small-scale features include garbage cans and benches. Picnic benches and tables are located in the quadrangle.

4.2.6.2 Analysis

There are no small-scale features in Navy Hill that contribute to the historic district. The terrace along the south elevation of the South Building was part of the original design of the building, as were the lampposts flanking the entrance to the South Building. These resources are part of building and are not considered distinct landscape features. The remainder post-date the period of significance and are not significant to the landscape.

4.2.7 Views and Vistas


A lack of photographs or contemporary observations about views from Navy Hill makes it difficult to state with certainty what would have been visible from the site following its division from the remainder of the hill. The hilltop campus would have had views of the Potomac River similar to those from the Potomac Annex, though somewhat obstructed by the Heurich Brewery to the southwest. Trees growing along the west and north perimeters of Navy Hill during the first half of the twentieth century would have further screened views.

4.2.7.2 Analysis

Views and vistas are an important feature of Navy Hill’s landscape. As with the Potomac Annex, the significance of views from Navy Hill stems from its prominent position in Washington, D.C.’s landscape. Significant views today include those from the south end of the property toward the Lincoln Memorial (Image 4.19).

4.3 Inventory of Contributing Landscape Features

Landscape features contributing to the Old Naval Observatory and E Street Complex Historic Districts at Potomac Hill are summarized in Table 4.1 and mapped on Images 4.20-4.27.

Image 4.19: View from the South Building Terrace Toward the Lincoln Memorial


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Site Feature Period of Development Natural Systems and Topography Potomac Annex Natural topography Grading for construction of Hospital and Medical School

Naval Museum of Hygiene, Hospital and Medical School

Navy Hill Natural topography Grading for construction of East and South buildings

Hygienic Laboratory/NIH

Land Use Potomac Annex Administrative/Office Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Navy Hill Administrative/Office Hygienic Laboratory/NIH;

OSS; CIA Spatial Organization Potomac Annex Prime Meridian Axis Old Naval Observatory Maury Circle Old Naval Observatory Navy Hill Quadrangle Hygienic Laboratory/NIH Circulation Networks/Boundary Demarcations

Potomac Annex Maury Circle Old Naval Observatory 23rd Street Concrete Wall Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Navy Hill Retaining Wall Hygienic Laboratory/NIH

Table 4.1: Inventory of Contributing Landscape Features

Site Feature Period of Development Vegetation Potomac Annex Eight Burr Oaks (Maury Circle) (Trees 1-8) Old Naval Observatory White Oak (Tree 9) Old Naval Observatory Yoshino Cherry (Tree 10) Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Gateway Weeping Cherries (Trees 22-23) Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Gingko (Tree 18) Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Navy Hill N/A Small-Scale Features Potomac Annex Gas lamp Old Naval Observatory Benjamin Rush statue Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Flagpole Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Navy Hill N/A Views and Vistas Potomac Annex

Views to and from the National Mall/East and West Potomac Parks

Old Naval Observatory

Views to and from Arlington National Cemetery

Old Naval Observatory

View to Georgetown Old Naval Observatory Views from Memorial Bridge Naval Museum of Hygiene,

Hospital and Medical School Navy Hill View to Lincoln Memorial Hygienic Laboratory/NIH


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Image 4.20: Natural Systems and Topography Map


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Image 4.21: Land Use Map Image 4.22: Spatial Organization Map


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Image 4.23: Circulation Systems and Boundary Delineations Map Image 4.24: Vegetation Map


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Image 4.25: Small-scale Feature Map Image 4.26: Views from Potomac Hill Map


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Image 4.27: Views toward Potomac Hill Map


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5.0 Conclusions and Recommendations

On behalf of GSA and DOS, GCB completed a survey and evaluation of the Potomac Hill landscape in Washington, D.C. This study will be used in support of GSA’s ongoing cultural resource management program and in the development of a Master Plan for Potomac Hill’s future development. It partially fulfills GSA’s responsibility under Sections 106 and 110 of the NHPA. The objective of this study was to re-evaluate landscape features, such as roads, paths, designated open spaces, and other elements previously determined as contributing to the Old Naval Observatory Historic District and to identify landscape features that have not been previously defined by cultural resources studies, and determine if the features are contributing resources to the Old Naval Observatory and E Street Complex Historic Districts. Features evaluated as contributing are those that were present during the period of significance, are associated with the historical significance of the landscape, and retain sufficient integrity to convey the historical character of the property.

5.1 Potomac Annex

The Potomac Annex portion of Potomac Hill represents several periods of development. Building 2 (the Old Naval Observatory) and Maury Circle illustrate the oldest period of the campus’s history, when it was used as the U.S. Naval Observatory. The remainder of the site is more indicative of twentieth-century development after the establishment of the Naval Hospital and Medical School. The current

landscape of Potomac Annex contains a few features from the earliest period through the end of the Old Naval Observatory Historic District’s period of significance in 1942. GCB recommends that the following landscape features contribute to the Old Naval Observatory Historic District.

• The area’s topography contributes to the historic district. It has been altered since the 1840s but remains an important feature for its influence on the design of the campus and as a prominent hill in Washington’s landscape.

• The earliest land use, focusing on military astronomy and navigation, is no longer extant. Though the medical and educational uses are no longer represented on the site, Potomac Annex has remained in continuous government use and has retained administrative and office uses through the present. This land use contributes to the historic district.

• The most important aspect of the historic district’s spatial organization, the Prime Meridian around which the campus was organized on a north-south axis, is still present. Today the campus-like site layout still respects the spatial arrangement that was prevalent by 1924, though some individual landscape elements no longer exist. The Prime Meridian and Maury Circle, one of the few remaining features from the Naval Observatory, contribute to the district.

• The current circulation system is fragmentary and only partially reflects

the development of the campus during the early decades of the twentieth century; Maury Circle is the only contributing circulation feature. The remainder of the roads and walks were altered through the addition of parking and the construction of new roads and are non-contributing. The site contains one contributing boundary demarcation, the concrete wall along 23rd Street, which was constructed for the Naval Hospital and Medical School and has not been altered since its construction.

• Historically, vegetation at the Potomac Annex has been a significant part of the character of the site, in creating a park-like setting for the Naval Observatory and later the Naval Medical School. A number of trees at Potomac Annex date from the period of significance and should be considered as contributing to the historic landscape.

• Small-scale features that are part of the historic landscape and contribute to the district are the gas lamp, flagpole, and Benjamin Rush statue.

• Though some of the historical views from the campus no longer exist, those views to and from the National Mall and East and West Potomac Parks, to and from Arlington National Cemetery, to Georgetown, and from Memorial Bridge, remain and are contributing to the historic landscape of the site.

5.2 Navy Hill

The development of Navy Hill did not follow a unified design plan but evolved over the course of the twentieth century as additional buildings were needed for the Hygienic Laboratory and its successor, the NIH. The following landscape features have been found to retain integrity and are recommended as contributing to the E Street Complex Historic District.

• Similar to Potomac Hill, Navy Hill’s topography has been altered but remains an important influence on the design of the complex and is a contributing feature.

• Navy Hill has remained in government use throughout its history, though its use by federal agencies has been varied. This land use contributes to the historic district.

• Despite the loss of the North Building in the 1960s, the most important aspect of the area’s spatial organization, the quadrangle, and the orientation of the remaining buildings have been retained. The quadrangle is significant as an organizing element and is a contributing feature.

• The circulation system was affected by the construction of the E Street Freeway, and therefore the remaining circulation system is fragmented and not contributing. The only contributing boundary demarcation of significance at Navy Hill is the concrete retaining wall along the eastern perimeter of the campus, built in 1933.


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• All vegetation at Navy Hill post-dates the end of the period of significance and is considered non-contributing.

• There are no extant small-scale features that date from the period of significance.

• Views and vistas are an important feature of Potomac Hill’s cultural landscape. As with Potomac Hill, the significance of views from Navy Hill stems from its prominent position in Washington’s landscape. Significant, contributing views today are views from the south end of the property toward the Lincoln Memorial.


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6.0 References and Bibliography

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