Langston Terrace Dwellings | |
Langston Terrace Dwellings in 2012 | |
Location | 21st St NE, between Benning Rd NE and H St NE Washington, D.C. |
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Coordinates | 38°53′58″N76°58′26″W / 38.89944°N 76.97389°W |
Built | 1935–1938 |
Architect | Hilyard Robinson |
Architectural style | International |
NRHP reference No. | 87001851 [1] |
Added to NRHP | November 12, 1987 |
Langston Terrace Dwellings are historic structures located in the Langston portion of the Carver/Langston neighborhoods in the Northeast quadrant of Washington, D.C. The apartments were built between 1935 and 1938, as one of the earliest housing projects to be federally funded. [2] The Langston Terrace Dwellings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1987. [3]
Langston Terrace was the first federally funded housing project in Washington, D.C., and one of the first four in the United States. [4] It was developed as part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Public Works Administration. Unlike Techwood Homes, the first public housing project in the U.S., Langston was open to African American families. [3] The project was named in honor of John Mercer Langston, a 19th-century American attorney and abolitionist who founded Howard University Law School. Langston served in the U.S. Congress, representing Virginia. [3]
The complex was co-designed by Bauhaus-trained Washington architect Hilyard Robinson and Los Angeles-based architect Paul Revere Williams in the International Style. [5] [6] The site planning and landscape design were completed by landscape architect David Williston. [7] The project cost the government $1.8 million and rooms were available for $6 per month or $4.50 per month without utilities. [8]
Much like Aberdeen Gardens in Virginia, also designed by the famed African American architect Hilyard Robinson, the 274-unit complex was constructed primarily by African American laborers. The housing project contained a mixture of two-story townhouses and three-story walk-ups, built around garden style central common areas (mews). [3] [9] The site was organized to include 20% buildings and 80% common green space and walkways. [9]
Daniel Gillette Olney's The Progress of the Negro Race is a terra-cotta frieze located in the central courtyard. The frieze depicts African American history from slavery to World War I migration. [4] Olney's Madonna and Children is located in the same courtyard. [10] Cubist concrete animal sculptures by sculptor Lenore Thomas Straus were added to the courtyard in 1941, and provide climbing structures for children. [9] [11]
Langston Terrace was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as of 1987. [3]
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[Williston] completed the site planning and landscape design for the Langston Terrace Housing Project ... in Washington D.C., completed between 1935 and 1938.