This is a great view down East Capitol St. from the Dome, taken around 1880.
UPDATE: GoDCer Leonard sent along this great shot (a little blurry), from the same vantage point today. So cool!
A Look Back in Time: East Capitol Street from the Dome, 1880 and Today
Imagine living in that lone house on the left. What a view.
Is that the newly built Eastern Market in view?
This was shortly after Frederick Law Olmsted’s landscaping had been completed on the east grounds. The grounds at First street were lowered approximately 10-16 feet so that as one looked at the Capitol from that point it was not “downhill.” In some early views of the east grounds one can see the colored mosaic concrete that Olmsted and his hardscape manager, Thomas H. Wisedell, used on the sidewalks.
My father was born in 1920, in a house on 12th Place, that is still there, and was updated not long ago. My father passed away in Nov. 2006, and before he died he showed us where he was born, and all of what was in the area when he was a child, and my niece got all of it on film. His father was an Ice Man with his own horse and he worked for him too. On the corner, was a house that had a huge bakery in it, and it even delivered to the white house. He said it was the most popular bakery in town at the time. I hope to get a copy of the film and when I do, I’m going to put it up for the rest of my family to see. My mother was born in Washington too, She is 90 years old and I hope to get some tapes of her too. Lots of memories of DC. It’s a city like no other. I do remember when anyone could sit on the lawn at the Capital, only don’t ever pick a flower, that was a huge No-No.