First FBA History Project GWU Interns Build History Map!

By Frank Leone

Since Denise Vogt and I founded the Foggy Bottom Association’s History Project in 2021, we have included George Washington University and its students in our endeavors. Thanks to a very generous grant from the Foggy Bottom Trust, this summer we hired two GWU interns to collect information to add to Foggy Bottom Historic District House Map’s specific House History Pages. We were extraordinarily lucky to sign up freshman Roan Smith and sophomore Sarvani Jaladanki to engage in original research totaling 80 hours each. They showed great intelligence and initiative in working independently to review census, city directory, newspaper, ancestry.com, and other resources and collect information about Foggy Bottom Historic District Study Area houses, their residents, and goings-on, with a concentration in the period from 1870 to 1950. They gathered information on nearly 40 (of the 270) houses, which we are adding to the house history pages. And some of what the found out about our seven-block area was compelling!

Foggy Bottom Association Co-Chairs and interns – Sarvani Jaladanki, Denise Vogt, Roan Smith, and Frank Leone - at the end of project lunch. (Aug. 2025)

Among the many interesting facts:

-         African Americans were present during the earliest days and became a majority in the 1910-1950s; In the late 1800s/early 1900s Irish, German, Russian, Polish and other immigrants settled in the neighborhood.

-         Some residents lived to be over 100 years old, others died after a few hours.

-         Occupations varied and included laborer, domestic, gas house worker, brewery worker, newsboy, tradesman (carpenter, plumber, electrician, machinist), chauffer, cook, government employee (clerk, messenger, elevator operator, letter carrier), grocer, bartender, shoemaker, printer, barber, beautician, streetcar conductor, and music teacher.

-         Many Foggy Bottom houses hosted businesses, including dressmakers, bakeries, oyster bars, and a funeral home.

-         In 1920, there were 11 grocery stores in the area, most operated by Eastern European Jewish immigrants.

-         An Irish plumber who lived on New Hampshire Avenue was in a car accident with future presidential candidate Robert Lafollette in 1911.

-         In 1912 two neighborhood boys set out on the Potomac in a raft they built of driftwood – it fell apart, but they were rescued by a police boat.

-         In 1938 Miss Helen Barney caught a 4 ½ pound bass in the Tidal Basin.

-         Newspapers seemed to delight in reporting occasional mayhem including robberies, burglaries, brawls, stabbings, jealous murders, double suicide message in a bottle hoaxes, drownings, stove explosions, fires, runaway horses, numbers running, and violation of prohibition laws (including possession of “liquid corn”).

We may seek funding to continue the project in the Spring 2026 semester.  Stay tuned!

And if you have any old photos of the historic district, recollections or news articles, send them our way!