Take a Look Back in Time: A 1927 Photo of 14th St, Washington DC

Check out this amazing 1927 photo of 14th St.

Looking north up 14th Street NW from just below Constitution Avenue NW. Visible is the Commerce Department and the Willard Hotel in the distance. A set of streetcar tracks appear embedded in the street in the foreground.

Source: Dig DC

The 14th Street corridor would look very different forty years later, after the 1968 riots created the conditions for DC’s red-light district on these same blocks.

You’re looking north along 14th St. towards the Commerce Department. It’s probably a little later than 1927 since construction on the Commerce building only started that year.

3 thoughts on “Take a Look Back in Time: A 1927 Photo of 14th St, Washington DC”

I see no signs of construction around what looks like a finished building, but it’s obviously not the present Commerce Department Building. So I infer this picture was taken before 1927, when they must have torn down this building.

The building in question is presumably the War Industries building…which you can see on the Baist atlases.

I agree with the other commentators — the War Industries Building must have been a WW I “tempo.” Note particularly one of the Bulfinch Gates, relocated from the Capitol grounds to Constitution Avenue/”B” Street, NW, where they remain today.

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