The Brookland Bowling Alley was constructed in 1938-1939 for the Brookland Recreation Center, Inc. to accommodate lanes for duckpin bowling. The building’s designer was William Edward St. Cyr Barrington, an architect who learned drafting as a youth in the office of Jules Henri di Sibour. In the mid-1930s, Barrington was known mostly as an interior designer of restaurants, nightclubs, and hotel dining rooms, although in later years his emphasis shifted toward designing mostly single-family homes, along with several apartment buildings, a hotel, warehouses, stores, a gas station, a factory, and a dairy. He was employed by the Home Construction Corporation on commissions for a number of affordable, single-family homes in the late 1930s.
Late in the Depression, bowling was increasing in popularity as inexpensive entertainment for a rapidly growing D.C. population. When the Brookland facility opened, there were 13 other commercial bowling alleys in Washington, plus lanes in clubhouses, universities, government bases, and other such buildings. Most are gone, including all of the public lanes themselves, but about a half dozen of the buildings remain from that time, only one other in Northeast (at 1123 H Street).
The sport’s popularity induced the property owners to add a second story and additional lanes to the Brookland facility within a year of its opening, still perceptible as a change in brick color on the exposed side and in the more subtly distinct set-back second-story façade. Nationally, bowling’s popularity peaked in the early/mid-1960s, but the number of District alleys peaked during World War II—with the number rising to 22—thereafter presumably crowded out by “higher and better” uses.
DC Inventory: July 28, 2016
National Register: August 19, 2019
]]>The Hebrew Home for the Aged was constructed in 1925 to provide social support for destitute Jews, many of whom were immigrants who neither spoke nor understood English. The Hebrew Home, located in what was at the time considered the northern fringe of Washington, DC, was built to serve Washington’s growing Jewish community, particularly in the nearby Columbia Heights, Petworth, and Park View neighborhoods.
In 1922, the board of directors of the Washington Hebrew Home for the Aged announced their intentions to move the Home from the Shaw neighborhood to their newly purchased site on Spring Road between 10th and 13th Streets, NW, which would include both a residential facility and a hospital. Construction commenced in June 1924 to the designs of noted architect Appleton P. Clark, Jr., who planned the building to be erected in phases. The building was to have a central synagogue flanked by symmetrical residential and hospital wings. However, only the westernmost portion of Clark’s design was realized when the Home opened in 1925 with 35 beds for residents.
The building was subsequently expanded between 1951 and 1953 to the designs of Washington architect William St. Cyr Barrington. In 1940, the Jewish Social Service Agency was constructed to the west of the Hebrew Home to the designs of Washington architect Julius Wenig. The Hebrew Home for the Aged moved to a new site in 1968, at which point the building was sold to the DC government, who used it as a mental health facility for years before the building fell vacant in 2009.
Since 2020, the former Hebrew Home for the Aged and surrounding site have been redeveloped and now include mixed-income and affordable housing. The historic building was rehabilitated into The Appleton at Spring Flats — the new name being a reference to the building's architect. The award-winning adaptive reuse project was designed by Wiencek + Associates Architects + Planners. The Appleton houses 88 apartment units for senior citizens. New buildings were constructed on the surrounding site: The Robeson at Spring Flats, an 87-unit apartment building, and The Rows at Spring Flats, ten town homes along Spring Road.
DC Inventory: May 22, 2014
National Register: July 25, 2014
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