The Equitable Life Insurance Company was founded in Washington in 1885. Following World War II, the industry entered an age of major expansion and significant profit as it invested life insurance funds in housing mortgages. During the 1950s,…

Duvall Manor was designed and built specifically to function as a multifamily residence of at least two and no more than four stories in height with no elevator. Although the type most often has a single main entrance, Duvall Manor presages later…

Roosevelt High School was founded in 1890 as Business High School, then DC’s only institution devoted to instruction in business. The co-educational and segregated school had an itinerant early history until it moved into its first purpose-built…

Built in 1926, this stately two-story, Colonial Revival-style, stone house can be found in the suburban neighborhood of Forest Hills. In 1979, the Polish government purchased the house at the encouragement of then-ambassador Romuald Spasowski…

Built in 1931, Lafayette Elementary School accommodated the rapid growth of the suburban community, Chevy Chase. One of several schools of the 1925 five-year plan, this major building campaign intended to relieve overcrowding, but additional…

Spingarn Senior High School, Browne Junior High School, Charles Young Elementary School, and Phelps Architecture, Construction and Engineering (formerly Vocational) High School are located on approximately 27.25 sloping acres of land overlooking the…

The five-story, Colonial Revival-style Tilden Hall apartment building was designed by noted architect Frederic B. Pyle (1867-1934) and constructed between 1922 and 1924 by the P.F. Gormley Company as a “high-class” apartment hotel.As such, Tilden…

In 1940, Old Engine Company No. 26 moved in with Truck Company No. 15 at 1340 Rhode Island Avenue NE, when a restructuring of the fire department led to the disposal of redundant stations. The combined branches became known as Engine Company No. 26,…

The three-story, four-bay-wide Engine Company No. 16 is often referred to as the "big house," since it is the largest of the city's firehouses and the only one with four apparatus bays. The building became the new home to Engine Company No. 16,…

Washington, DC's fire alarm call box system started in the mid-nineteenth century with 25 boxes installed on main streets throughout the city. By the time the headquarters were built in 1939, there were over 1,200 call boxes placing calls to local…