Located at the corner of 19th and Vernon streets NW, the Old Chinese Legation was only the second purpose-built legation (after the British Embassy) in Washington, DC. The old British Embassy on Connecticut Avenue NW has since been demolished, making the Old Chinese Legation the oldest standing building in DC commissioned and formerly occupied by a foreign government.
The building was constructed during an era of significant geopolitical changes, which encompassed the United States’ rising international status, due to its victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898. During this time, the United States and the Qing Dynasty had a fragile relationship – with diplomatic relations first established in 1844. In 1882, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act, targeting Chinese immigration to the United States. The following decade, the United States and European powers (as well as Japan) sent troops to China during the Boxer Rebellion, as well as agreed to the Americans’ Open Door Policy, which furthered foreign economic involvement in China.
In 1878, the first Chinese Legation was established on K Street NW in the former home of Governor Alexander Shephard. The legation then moved several times, including a stint at the Stewart Castle on Dupont Circle. In 1902, construction started on the building in Washington Heights, a neighborhood which had first started to develop in the 1890s. Efforts to construct a purpose-built legation building were driven by Minister Wu Ting Fang, who is also credited with selecting the legation building’s architectural style. As quoted in the landmark nomination, “The Chinese minister ‘preferred something American or adaptable to American home life rather than a building of the Chinese type.”
The Old Chinese Legation was designed by prolific Washington architect Waddy B. Wood in an Elizabethan/Jacobean Revival style, an early Washington example of this style. This romantic revival style gives the building a look reminiscent of an English manor house. The building is clad in brick masonry, but also includes limestone and terra cotta ornamentation throughout.
The primary façade (south elevation) facing Vernon Street includes a main entrance with a terra cotta surround, broken segmental pediment, and pilasters. The main entrance is flanked by two-story bays with parapeted gable roofs. Each bay includes a balcony with balustrade. Limestone ornamentation is found throughout the façade, including on the symmetrical limestone porches which extend on both the west and east sides of the building. This elevation, facing Vernon Street, featured the ambassador’s residence. The west elevation along 19th Street once housed the chancery and its offices. It is less ornate than the Vernon Street façade, but features the same stylistic elements.
The residence was constructed to allow for the minister to reside on the second floor, facing Vernon. This was in line with Chinese custom, which dictated that higher-ranking officials, such as a minister, should sleep on a floor above lower-ranking individuals, including secretaries and servants.
The new minister, Liang Cheng, moved into the building – officially the Imperial Chinese Legation – in April 1903. He was replaced by Minister Wu in 1907. After the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, the building served as the Legation of the Republic of China from 1912 to 1935.
Minister Alfred Sao-ke Sze, serving in the 1920s and 1930s, would be particularly influential, as he secured American support for China, which was then dealing with Japanese aggression. Japan would end up invading Manchuria in 1931 and continue its encroachment into China through the 1930s and into World War II. Minister Sze also brokered a truce during the “Tong Wars.” When the legation was elevated to embassy status in 1935, Minister Sze became Ambassador Sze, the first Chinese ambassador to the United States. In 1937, the Chinese Ambassador moved to Twin Oaks in Cleveland Park. The building in Washington Heights would continue to house the chancery until 1943, when it moved to the Fahnestock House on Embassy Row.
The Republic of China (Taiwan) sold the property in the early 1960s. During that decade, a parking lot almost replaced the aging building. Luckily, due to opposition, this plan was scrapped and the building was converted into apartments. In 1987, further renovations were completed and the building became condominiums.
DC Inventory: April 25, 2024
National Register: June 17, 2024
Within the Washington Heights Historic District
This site is a part of the Finding Asian American History in Washington DC digital tour.
]]>In 1879, Mary Baker Eddy founded the Christian Science church, and it quickly spread to DC in 1895. After hosting their religious services in members’ homes and other denominations’ churches, the congregation decided to construct its own building. The resulting church at 1770 Euclid Street NW was completed in 1912 and served the congregation well into the 1970s. Designed in the Neoclassical style by architectural firm Marsh & Peter, under the direction of Edwin D. Ryerson, the building provided numerous benefits for the Christian Science church. The congregation chose the Washington Heights site near 18th Street and Columbia Road because of its proximity to the streetcar lines and downtown DC; Christian Science had mainly appealed to the middle-class, and the church’s convenient location made it easier for congregants to attend services. The congregation thrived into the 1950s, but urban flight took a toll on the original congregation’s population. However, after a period of loss, the arrival of a growing Latino population in the area helped the church grow once again in the 1970s. The church offered Spanish services monthly, then weekly, to accommodate its new members. The church left this building in favor of their other, smaller property across the street in the late 1970s, leaving the building unoccupied. After almost 25 years, though, a new developer has transformed the former church into a hotel, The LINE DC, purchasing the building in 2013 and opening in late 2017.
DC Inventory: October 2, 2014
National Register: January 27, 2015
]]>The Washington Heights Historic District contains one of the most eclectic, yet cohesive collections of historic buildings in the Adams Morgan area. Platted in 1888, the neighborhood features intact groups of late 19th-century row houses along its grid streets, early-20th century luxury apartment houses framing the larger avenues, and an eclectic mix of commercial structures (both purpose built and modified) along both sides of 18th Street.
The development of Washington Heights illustrates the neighborhood’s architectural evolution from a streetcar suburb on the outskirts of the original city limits to a vibrant urban neighborhood and commercial corridor. Once a bucolic setting on the breezy heights at the northern boundary of the city, the area was first attractive for its easy walking distance to the horse-drawn streetcar line that terminated at Connecticut and Florida Avenues. But its major growth was spurred by the electric streetcars extended through the subdivision along 18th Street in 1892, and along Columbia Road in 1896.
Until the early 1920s, Washington Heights remained mostly white and middle-class, but in the 1920s and 1930s, European and Asian immigrants began moving into the neighborhood, many operating small businesses on 18th Street or working for the nearby embassies. These immigrants brought slow but increasing diversity to the neighborhood. Similarly, the neighborhood’s African American population, at first largely limited to servants or janitors living in the homes or apartments where they worked, became more diversified by 1930, with a large concentration along Vernon Street in particular.
The sweeping demographic and social changes that define the neighborhood today did not occur until after World War II, when a housing shortage in the city caused many of the single-family row houses to be transformed into rooming houses, attracting a majority African American population. The changing demographics and the declining value of the area’s real estate spurred the departure of many middle-class white families to the suburbs.
Beginning in the 1950s and 1960s, the area became increasingly attractive to Spanish-speaking residents, due in part to its affordability and to its proximity to Hispanic embassies. As political turmoil afflicted Latin American countries in the 1960s, the Latino population grew. During the 1970s, in addition to increasing numbers of African Americans and Latin Americans, new ethnic groups, including Caribbeans, Southeast Asians, and Africans moved into the neighborhood, creating a multicultural and multinational community that is part of the neighborhood’s defining character. The district includes 347 contributing buildings, dating from 1891 to 1950.
DC Inventory: July 27, 2006 (effective September 10, 2006)
National Register: September 27, 2006
]]>In its essentially unaltered state, the Wyoming stands as a reminder of the elegance and the quality of design, workmanship, and materials characteristic of the Golden Age of the apartment building in the early years of the twentieth century. The Wyoming Apartments was designed by prominent Washington architect B. Stanley Simmons. Its buff brick and limestone Eclectic Beaux-Arts facade, with its classical details and unusual, elaborate one-story, yet monumental, entrance pavilion, is boldly designed and prominently sited.
The building captures the essence of the early-twentieth century departure from the Victorian styles of the eighteenth century and it stands as a monument to the emerging popularity of apartment living in Washington. Through the years, this stately apartment building has been the residence of a number of military and political figures of national significance.
DC Inventory: July 16, 1980 (amended May 18, 1983 to include interior of entrance pavilion) National Register: September 27, 1983
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