Embassy Building No. 10 is a historic building located at 3149

16th Street NW 16th Street Northwest is a prominent north–south thoroughfare in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. Part of Pierre L'Enfant's design for the city, 16th Street begins just north of the White House across Lafayette Park at H Street and ...

Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...

, in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. Although as the name implies it was built to be a

foreign mission A diplomatic mission or foreign mission is a group of people from a state or organization present in another state to represent the sending state or organization officially in the receiving or host state. In practice, the phrase usually deno ...

, it was never in fact used as such; instead, it served as the central office of the District's municipal parks department for nearly seventy years.

History

The Renaissance Revival building was designed in 1928 by George Oakley Totten Jr., and constructed by

Mary Foote Henderson Mary Foote Henderson (July 21, 1842 – July 16, 1931) was an American author, real estate developer, and social activist from the U.S. state of New York who was known as "The Empress of Sixteenth Street". Henderson was a notable supporter of wom ...

in 1929–1930 as part of her attempt to create a new

Embassy Row Embassy Row is the informal name for a section of Northwest Washington, D.C. with a high concentration of embassies, diplomatic missions, and diplomatic residences. It spans Massachusetts Avenue N.W. between 18th and 35th street, bounded by ...

"in the vicinity of

Meridian Hill Park Meridian Hill Park, also known as Malcolm X Park, is a structured urban park located in the Washington, D.C., neighborhood of Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C., Columbia Heights; it also abuts the nearby neighborhood of Adams Morgan. The park wa ...

and Mount Pleasant". She died in 1931 and, perhaps due to "the onset of the Depression as well as the failure of Henderson's heirs to pursue her business interests", the building never became an embassy. It was vacant for several years, then became a residence and boarding house during the late Depression. In 1940, Embassy Building No. 10 became the headquarters of what is now the

District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation The District of Columbia Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR) is an executive branch agency of the government of the District of Columbia in the United States. The department plans, builds, and maintains publicly owned recreational facilities ...

. The building was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

on November 6, 1986. Although the ways in which the building responds to its site make up a part of its National Register nomination — "The symmetry of the facade belies the actual form and plan, designed for the wedge-shaped lot situated in the acute angle formed by the intersection of Lament and Sixteenth Streets, N.W." — the context has been lost: at some point, the section of Lamont Street adjacent to the building was closed, consolidated with the property immediately to the north, and turned into a parking lot and playground. In 2012, the DC DPR moved "its central office operations…to two new location"s in order to "provid a better working environment for DPR employees, and a place to better serve customers" than was possible in the aging building. In 2020, the Junior Achievement of Greater Washington organization, which operates the Powell Recreation Center in Embassy Building No. 10, sought approval from the Historic Preservation Review Board to add an auditorium clad in limestone.

References

External links

* Columbia Heights, Washington, D.C. Houses completed in 1928 Houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C. Renaissance Revival architecture in Washington, D.C. {{WashingtonDC-NRHP-stub