While the Buchanan School Plaza in the Capitol Hill neighborhood has shrunk greatly since its construction, the original playground and park facilities built in 1968 represented major changes in playground design, concepts of play, and urban…

The Washington Yacht Club (WYC) was founded in 1910 by a group of white Washingtonian boaters, looking to establish affordable facilities along the Anacostia River in proximity to their homes on the east side of the river. Unlike some extant clubs,…

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…

As an example of the purpose-built Conventional Low-Rise apartment building, Texas Gardens was constructed to meet the challenges of housing the Washington region’s rapidly expanding population during the interwar period. Built in the Randle…

The oldest burial ground at Saint Elizabeths was created in 1856 on the wooded western slope of the West Campus. In most cases, funeral arrangements for patients who dies at Saint Elizabeths were made by family members of the deceased, and the…

Saint Elizabeths' West Campus includes some of the hospital's earliest buildings, with The Center Building being the first. Facilities on the West Campus of Saint Elizabeths provide a striking picture of how the opinions of mental illness and its…

The Rest was constructed in 1882 and served as Saint Elizabeths mortuary and pathology lab. One of the most prominent figures to work in The Rest was Dr. Isaac Wright Blackburn. Blackburn was appointed special pathologist at the hospital in 1884,…

The Administration Building, constructed in 1903, was the centerpiece of the hospital’s largest building campaign and expansion, which included fourteen new buildings. Plans for the Administration Building had been in the works for quite some time,…

Built in 1924, the Blackburn Laboratory was named for Dr. Isaac Wright Blackburn, who had been appointed special pathologist at Saint Elizabeths in 1884. The Laboratory was the hospital's first medical science facility dedicated to the study of…

Constructed in 1886, the Dining Hall benefited the social lives of patients at Saint Elizabeths. It allowed for as many as 600 patients to convene for meals. This was far different than dining in the Center Building, where patients took meals to…