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 Mihran Mesrobian in 1931 for Max Gorin, the president of the Southern Construction Company, Sedgwick Gardens is a significant Art Deco building. Mesrobian designed many significant buildings in Washington, including the Hay-Adams Hotel, Carlton Hotel, and Wardman Tower — the latter of which also includes a rare interior designation.
The highly decorated copper roof that crowns its central tower accentuates the focal point of the complex, and copper is also used on the opalescent lamps and fan motif below in the porte-cochère. Wrought iron railings along the roofline parapet add yet another decorative touch and provide variety as they alternate with the pinnacle stone panels which pierce the skyline.The building also features a similarly elaborate interior. The lobby itself cost about half a million dollars, with more than two dozen pillars specially imported from Italy, each individually hand painted, glazed and baked. A marble fountain in the center was designed to be stocked with shimmering goldfish, and expensive dark-stained wood characterized the lobby's furniture and the reception desk.
All of Sedgwick Gardens' 116 units feature sun porches and bay windows, and larger apartments even included two bathrooms, considered an incredible luxury during the 1930s. Promotional brochures advertised the building's air conditioning unit, a complex cooling system that used pumps to circulate water through the building to carry unwanted August heat up and out through the roof. Combining Art Deco motifs with Byzantine and Moorish influence, Sedgwick Gardens is a transition from the medieval revival styles of the 1920s to the more explicitly Art Deco buildings of the 1930s.
DC Inventory: May 28, 2015
National Register: February 23, 2016
]]>Twin Oaks, designed in 1888 by Francis Allen, is one of the earliest extant examples of Georgian Revival architecture in this country, and is an excellent and notable example of this style. It is is the only remaining example of a New England frame summer house in DC. Twin Oaks was built by Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who made a significant contribution to the development of Washington and the United States through his establishment of the National Geographic Society, as well as his financial support of his son-in-law Alexander Graham Bell, which led to the invention and widespread distribution of the telephone.
Twin Oaks is an estate consisting of 17 acres of rolling lawn and wooded areas, a large frame summer house, and several smaller dwellings. The driveway winds up the hill to the west of the house affording views across the gently sloping lawn to Hubbard's summer home, which has a commanding presence astride the top of the hill.
DC Inventory: May 18, 1983
National Register: February 5, 1986
]]>Tregaron (The Causeway), an estate designed in 1912 by Charles Adams Platt, is notable for its Colonial Revival design and landscaped grounds, as well as its former residents. Joseph Edward Davies and his wife, Post Cereal Company heiress and socialite Marjorie Merriweather Post, were the second occupants of the estate, beginning in 1941. While residing in the house, Davies made significant contributions to American history in the field of politics and government, during and after World War II. As an ambassador, Davies represented the U.S. to Belgium, Luxembourg, and, most importantly, the Soviet Union. His ties to the Soviet Union can be seen at the estate in the Russian-style dacha that he added in 1945.
The mansion is located at the very highest point of the hill, making it the focal point of the ensemble of buildings and grounds. Carefully planned vistas from the mansion overlook the city to the south and Cleveland Park to the north. The mansion is approached from Klingle Road over a stone causeway along a serpentine driveway, which affords a glimpse of the mansion crowning the hill and views into the informal landscaping at its base. At the crest of the hill, just prior to arrival at the main entrance of the mansion, the north vista opens out to the hilly meadow and heavily wooded area of mature trees below.
Today, the former estate composes both the Tregaron Conservancy and the Washington International School.
DC Inventory: January 5, 1979
National Register: June 28, 1990
]]>Designed in the International Style, the William L. Slayton House is one of only three houses known to have been designed by world-renowned architect I.M. Pei. Pei, primarily a corporate architect but best known for municipal buildings and art museums, consented in 1959 to design a house for his friend and colleague Slayton, who was an active part of the Southwest urban renewal project.
The house was completed in 1960 and features a triple-vault, poured-in-place concrete roof as its most distinguishing feature. The front and rear elevations are all glass, resulting in a house that is largely transparent and open in plan. The Slayton House is significant not only for its architecture but also for its structure. The poured-in-place concrete arched roof was an important technological innovation, and its use in the Slayton House still represents one of its few applications in the United States.
The house has an interior designation — one of the few DC residences with this protection.
DC Inventory: May 22, 2008
National Register: October 2, 2008
]]>Located on a hill in Cleveland Park, Rosedale is an 18th-century frame house that stands on spacious grounds surrounded by trees and boxwood. Despite being located within Washington's boundaries, the house retains a secluded, rural setting and the unusual quality of a rambling country farmhouse.
At the urging of his wife Rebecca Plater Forrest, Revolutionary War Colonel Uriah Forrest moved from Georgetown to build this country homestead off the Frederick Turnpike. The farmhouse, built about 1793, incorporates a small stone cottage dating from about 1740, predating Georgetown’s Old Stone House. Forrest died in 1805, and the estate remained in the family until 1920.
DC Inventory: November 8, 1964 (Joint Committee on Landmarks)
National Register: May 8, 1973
]]>The Klingle Valley Bridge—also known as the Connecticut Avenue Bridge over Klingle Valley and DC Bridge No. 27—carries Connecticut Avenue over the deep, wooded ravine of the Klingle Valley in northwest DC. The historic route of Klingle Road runs beneath the bridge. For more than a century, this road was among several routes that provided access between the east and west sides of the Rock Creek Valley. After part of the road washed away in 1991, it was closed to automobile traffic.
Designed through the collaboration of architect Paul Cret and engineer Ralph Modjeski, the new bridge was built for the DC Department of Highways under the supervision of Clifford Riddle Whyte, the Engineer of Bridges. Resident engineer Albert B. Green oversaw construction onsite.
The Connecticut Avenue Bridge is an excellent example of an engineering design that illustrates changing transportation modes in Washington in the early twentieth century. It was built in 1931 to replace an obsolete bridge that had been built in 1891 by the Rock Creek and Potomac Railway Company. By the 1930s, Connecticut Avenue had become a major thoroughfare, and automobiles had almost completely supplanted horse-drawn vehicles. The new bridge was built to provide a wider crossing that would safely carry pedestrians, cars, trucks, and buses, as well as streetcars, over the Klingle Valley.
DC Inventory: January 29, 2004
National Register: May 21, 2004
]]>The garden-style construction at 3901 Connecticut Avenue NW fulfilled many of the aesthetic and logistic needs of the residents that lived there. The building had direct streetcar access that allowed commuting workers to easily travel to and from work, while also maintaining aesthetically-pleasing elements like its Tudor Revival exterior, suburban-like landscaping, and a large entrance lobby.
With all of the design elements and convenient location, the building appealed to middle-class residents for many reasons. With major growth in D.C.'s population in the interwar years between World War I and II, 3901 Connecticut Avenue NW had everything a federal employee needed in order to live comfortably within the city. The increase in social acceptance towards apartment-style living also helped with the transition towards many D.C. residents living in apartment buildings versus single-family homes. Designed by George T. Santmyers, this apartment building exemplified new housing and population trends within the city.
DC Inventory: March 28, 1996 (including lobby interior)
National Register: September 11, 1997
This site is a stop on the D.C. Apartment Buildings tour as an example of a Garden apartment building.
]]>The Cleveland Park Historic District is an intact community integrating residences, apartment buildings and neighborhood retail shopping located on a hill overlooking the city center but separated from it by Rock Creek Park, a deep geological chasm.
A distinguishing feature of the district is the large number of frame houses with local Rock Creek granite foundations, in a city of predominantly brick structures, representing a full range of architectural styles popular around the turn of the century including, but not limited to: Carpenter Gothic, Italianate, Queen Anne, Shingle, Dutch Colonial Revival, Mission Revival, Colonial Revival, Neoclassical, and Tudor revival houses in various styles, such as Beaux Arts, Art Deco, International style, and modern or contemporary. Subsequently, brick and some stone houses were built in the 1910s and 1920s. Stylistically, the neighborhood is a veritable museum of changing tastes, representing the overlay of history in a continuous line of development from 1894 to 1941.
Cleveland Park's initial growth was in direct response to the opening of the electric streetcars connecting this area with downtown. Streetcar service began in 1890 on Wisconsin Avenue and 1892 on Connecticut Avenue. The community grew rapidly, continuously reflecting changing aesthetic tastes, housing needs and lifestyles.
The houses of the historic district were largely constructed between 1894 and 1930, overlapping with the most intense period of apartment and retail/commercial construction between 1920 and 1941. The district also includes two estates that predate the development of the streetcar suburb. Two additional estates were established after the initial phase of the suburb was completed. All four estates have maintained the integrity of their buildings and grounds including some of the original landscaping schemes.
The historic district includes approximately 1000 buildings that date from about 1880 to 1941.
DC Inventory: November 19, 1986 (effective April 27, 1987)
National Register: April 27, 1987
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