The Uptown Theater is prominently located along Connecticut Avenue NW in the Cleveland Park Historic District. Designed by John J. Zink – a notable and prolific movie theater architect from Baltimore – the theater’s Art Deco/Moderne design is composed of geometric motifs, buff brick and limestone cladding, and an ornamental metal marquee. With its tripartite composition, the Uptown is similar in style to Zink’s other nearby design, the former MacArthur Theater.
This particular Art Moderne style could be described as “Waterfall Moderne.” Additionally, the theater is part of a Moderne façade that extends along the west side of Connecticut Avenue, between Newark and Ordway streets. The Uptown’s façade has received very few physical alterations, while the interior has been remodeled over the decades and has lost much of its historic integrity.
The Uptown was one of many movie theaters that opened in Washington during the 20th century – with the first, the Star Theatre at 401 D Street NW, dating to 1906. Soon, theaters were being constructed in Downtown Washington – along 9th and F streets NW – and later, throughout the city’s neighborhoods. At the time, Harry Crandall was particularly noteworthy in shaping Washington’s movie theater industry. His Metropolitan (1918) was widely-popular. In 1922, his Knickerbocker Theater was the site of an infamous event. That year, snowpack led to the roof collapsing and the death of 98 attendees.
In his rush to construct theaters, Crandall bought the site that would become the Uptown. However, due to the Great Depression, Crandall’s plan for the site never materialized, and he would soon be eclipsed by Warner Brothers, which purchased the land in 1933. Warner Brothers opened the Penn Theater in Capitol Hill in 1935, followed by the Uptown in 1936. Both were designed in a Moderne style.
With 1300-seats and air conditioning, the first film to screen at the Uptown was Cain and Mabel on October 29, 1936. Following its opening, the Uptown quickly became a popular entertainment destination. Not only was the theater an important place for the Cleveland Park community, but it soon became a destination for residents throughout the District and the metropolitan area. The Uptown’s opening coincided with Connecticut Avenue’s transition from a streetcar thoroughfare to a major arterial serving automobiles and buses – thanks, in part, to the modern, Art Deco style Klingle Valley Bridge, which first started carrying vehicular traffic in 1931. The theater opened six-years after the nearby Park and Shop. The Park and Shop has since been recognized as a significant milestone in shopping center development.
In 1957, the Uptown started screening first-run pictures. Just one-year prior, the theater was upgraded with Todd-AO technology, and by 1962, Cinerama was added. Starting in the late 1960s, the theater was known for screening blockbuster films, including the world premiere of 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, Star Wars in 1977 (one of a limited number of theaters across the country to show the film), and the world premiere of Jurassic Park in 1993, amongst other films. Following ownership by Cineplex Odeon, Loew’s Theatres, and AMC, the theater closed its doors in early 2020.
The red neon sign at the Uptown is particularly well-known. Thanks to community activism in 2017, the sign was saved from being removed and replaced. Instead of full removal of the iconic lettering, the sign was modernized with LED technology.
DC Inventory: May 26, 2022
National Register: December 15, 2022
]]>Designed by William D. Nixon, a self-taught African American architect who was also a social and civil rights activist in DC, this private residence is a notable Art Deco style building in the Palisades neighborhood. The home is significant for both its connection to an individual and its architecture. While Nixon designed the home for his daughter, Ethel Nixon Mounsey, and her family, he also lived in the home from its completion in 1950 until his passing in 1962. During this time, he continued his social activism and organizational efforts targeted at dismantling segregation in the District. Born to formerly enslaved parents Burrell and Martha in 1871, William D. Nixon lived a long life as an educator, activist, and community leader. Raised largely in DC, and a graduate of Miner Normal School, Nixon lived briefly in Detroit for employment purposes before moving back to the District and accepting a teaching job at one of the first public high schools for Black students: M Street High School (later Paul Lawrence Dunbar High School). During his teaching career, Nixon served as president of the Young Men’s Protective League, which promoted social and civic activities for young African Americans in the city. Nixon also served on the board of directors for the Whitelaw Hotel and held leadership positions in the Civilian Defense Committee, Teachers’ Benefits and Annuity Association, and Association of the Oldest Inhabitants (Colored). Throughout his lifetime, Nixon launched and participated in successful campaigns to integrate the DC Fire Department and local restaurants—in addition to pursuing equitable housing for African Americans. His legacy as an activist, community leader, and spearhead for equality stretches across the District. Remarkably, William D. Nixon’s home is one of a limited number of single-family residences in the District designed in the Art Deco style, specifically in the Streamline Moderne variation. Art Deco was more often used in the design of apartment buildings, of which there are numerous examples throughout DC. Appropriately, the nomination calls the home "a well-preserved architectural gem" and emphasizes its high integrity. Today, the home continues to function as a private residence and a physical reminder of William D. Nixon’s powerful and unique legacy.
DC Inventory: March 24, 2022
National Register: May 24, 2022
]]>Designed and built by the prominent construction firm Stone & Webster, the Buzzard Point Power Plant stands as an emblem of technological and artistic advancement in Southwest Washington. While various individuals owned the property and attempted to settle the area prior to the development of the land, the area remained largely undeveloped and unloved by the District community. Even as early as the 1800s, residents disliked the area as it was often filled with a larger than usual amount of black-winged buzzards. Additional health hazards, such as the routine dumping of refuse and sewer system runoff in the area, contributed to a less than sterling reputation for Buzzard Point.
Various proposals to turn the area into a canal, railroad center, trash incinerator, and private factory all failed—until the construction of the PEPCO Buzzard Point Power Plant. With architect George R. Wryen on staff, construction began in October 1932 and concluded by the next year, when PEPCO held an inauguration to open the $4 million dollar building. The plant was expanded into the 1940s, as its increased capacity helped power the war effort at the nearby Washington Navy Yard. The power plant is designed in the Art Moderne industrial style, with a brick and stone-clad structural system of reinforced steel and concrete. The streamlined building is especially notable for the three octagonal chimneystacks above its west elevation. The monument-like feel of the structure can also be attributed to the clerestory at the center of the low-slung roof.
DC Inventory: February 24, 2022
]]>Designed by noted theater designer John Jacob Zink in the Art Deco Style, the Atlas Theater and Shops were an iconic part of the H Street NE Corridor for 30 years. The building is identifiable through its Art Deco elements, such as zigzag ornamentation on the steel and glass marquee and a vertically aligned neon sign.
Constructed in 1938, the Atlas Theater constituted a gateway to the magical realms of Hollywood movies, and offered daily matinee and evening performances. The surrounding shops contributed to the thriving commercial center of H Street NE, and streetcar lines brought new customers as transportation became more accessible throughout the city in the 1940s and 1950s.
In 1968, the riots that followed Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination devastated H Street’s thriving businesses, including the Atlas. Despite offering movies on the weekends, the theater closed in 1976 and stayed vacant until renovations in 2004. The surrounding shops remained in business until the 1990s. Following rehabilitation of the space in the early 2000s, the storefront space reopened to once again serve the community.
The Atlas Theater is now home to the Atlas Performing Arts Center, a non-profit that provides performance space, theater events, and arts education on H Street.
DC Inventory: October 24, 2002
National Register: November 10, 2010
]]>The Homestead Apartments were constructed in 1939, one of many multi-unit buildings erected to house working-class and middle-class Washingtonians during the interwar period. Much of this development followed the streetcar lines radiating from downtown, seeking lower land costs to accommodate a burgeoning labor force. This building was designed by French architect Louis de LaDurantaye (1885-1956). LaDurantaye designed dozens of buildings in the District but is not well known.
Fairly conventional in its H-shape plan and four-story height, the Homestead Apartments has quirky, Gothic/Romanesque decoration in the form of corbeling, round arches, basket-weave brick panels, and peaks on the roofline. There are elements that could be interpreted as Art Deco and Moderne as well, such as a stepped parapet at the central bar and projecting brick streamlining at corners and suggested pavilions, but the streamlining is presumably intended as a modern take on quoins, which picks up the classicism of the most notable exterior element of the building, the Renaissance-style hemi-octagonal entrance bay.
The most interesting functional element is the basement-level garage reached via openings off a rear alley, and the at-grade garage supports an exterior patio on its roof. The building’s landscape is notable for the intimate courtyard enclosed by the low stone walls punctuated by piers, the taller of which support a wrought-iron arch. These are echoed by stone piers and gates controlling admittance to the side yards. Stone steps stand at the entrance and at the sidewalk, and one of DC’s typical rustic granite retaining wall supports the central portion of the front yard as the land slopes away to the west.
DC Inventory: November 16, 2017
National Register: February 14, 2018
]]>This federal building was constructed between 1939 and 1940, using the design of architects Charles Z. Klauder and Louis A. Simon. Although it was intended for the Railroad Retirement Board, its first occupant was the United States Department of War.
On July 28, 1938, Simon and Klauder presented their designs for two buildings to house the Railroad Retirement Board and the Social Security Administration to the United States Commission of Fine Arts, which had the authority to review all new public buildings erected in the District of Columbia. Klauder designed back-to-back buildings, with the Social Security Administration building facing Independence Avenue SW and the Railroad Retirement Board building facing C Street SW. The finished building, in addition to its unusual "fishbone" plan, had elements of both Streamline Moderne and Egyptian Revival in its facade.
Through an Act of Congress, it was renamed the Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building on October 21, 1972, becoming the first federal building to be named for a woman.
DC Inventory: April 26, 2007
National Register: July 6, 2007
]]>Designed by architect John J. Zink, K-B Theatres opened the Senator Theater on February 19, 1942 with 946 available seats. The first film shown in the communal space was Alfred Hitchcock’s Suspicion. The auditorium had large murals with classical scenes.
When the Senator Theater closed in 1989, it had 880 seats and the second-largest movie screen in Washington D.C. — the title for largest screen was held by the Uptown Theater. The District of Columbia Historic Preservation Board recommended that the Senator be designated as an historic landmark, but facing the owner's opposition, the designation excluded the auditorium.
After much controversy, tragically, the auditorium was demolished in 1990, leaving only the facade and lobby building. It now stands as a large and depressing tombstone that tells of a theater's fate.
DC Inventory: September 19, 1990
]]>The Greyhound Bus Terminal, completed in 1940, is a classic Art Deco/Streamline Moderne landmark, with a design aesthetic that epitomizes the promise of the industrial age as the hope for the future. The stepped central tower facing New York Avenue NW, a typical "ziggurat" design, exudes freshness and optimism, with its clean, triumphal lines. The clear planar and curvilinear forms with smooth surfaces also suggest the speed with which Greyhound's Super Coaches were to whisk patrons to their destinations.
DC's Greyhound Bus Terminal is the work of William Strudwick Arrasmith (Wischmeyer, Arrasmith & Elswick Architects) of Louisville, Kentucky, who designed more than 25 Greyhound bus terminals between 1937 and 1950. The building features quintessential materials of the Streamline Moderne style, including limestone, glazed brick, glass block, aluminum, formica, and terrazzo.
For more than 40 years, from 1940 to 1987, the Greyhound Bus Terminal was an important transportation hub for the city, especially during the years of World War II. In April 1947, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Morgan v. Virginia, which invalidated state laws that enforced segregation on interstate transportation, the "Journey of Reconciliation" — led by civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, and co-sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) — departed from the terminal.
Most famously, the terminal served as one of two departure points in DC for the 1961 Freedom Rides, also sponsored by CORE. Intended to test the enforcement of the U.S. Supreme Court decisions that had ruled bus segregation unconstitutional, a bus departing from this station, as well as one departing from the nearby Trailways station, took Black and white riders through several Southern states. With interracial pairs sitting together in the bus seats and Black riders stationed at the front of the bus, the rides did not encounter trouble as they departed DC, but as they traveled further south, the Freedom Riders faced mobs and organized violence. The Freedom Rides became a significant moment for the Civil Rights Movement.
Threatened with demolition after its closure in 1987, the Greyhound Bus Terminal was saved by preservationists from the DC Preservation League, the Art Deco Society of Washington, and the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, who mobilized quickly and successfully to have the building added to the DC Inventory of Historic Sites that same year.
Notably, in an effort to "modernize," the terminal's exterior had been enclosed with a slipcover of cement-asbestos wall and metal mansard roof panels in 1976. Preservationists successfully argued that the slipcover had been added with minimal impact to the original exterior, and that once the slipcover was removed the streamlined design of 1940 would be found.
Today, the former terminal serves as the entrance pavilion to a 12-story office building completed in 1991. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, the historic landmark's exterior, and interior lobby and waiting room were restored by architect Hyman Myers. The historic landmark designation was extended to the interior lobby and waiting room in 2025, with a new period of significance that extends from the terminal's opening in 1940 to the completion of the restoration in 1991.
DC Inventory: March 4, 1987
DC Inventory (Amendment, including Interior Lobby and Waiting Room): November 20, 2025
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