Southwest Washington, 1942 — Union Street Is Not on the Map Any More
The film of this episode premieres January 26, 2027 on YouTube. The documents, the transcript and the sources are below now.
The government's wartime picture file holds fifty colour transparencies made in and around Washington between 1941 and May 1943 — real Kodachrome, not colorization.
Transcript
The corner
R001 Shulman's Market at the southeast corner of N Street and Union Street S.W., Washington, D.C., with a 1931 Chevrolet car parked in front
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
You cannot go and stand here. The street in this photograph is not on the map any more.
D01 Shulman's Market at the southeast corner of N Street and Union Street S.W., Washington, D.C., with a 1931 Chevrolet car parked in front
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
It is on the sign, though. Union Street, South-west. And N Street.
R002 Shulman's market, on N at Union Street S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Shulman's Market. Groceries, meats, vegetables. Coca-Cola in bottles.
R003 Row houses, corner of N and Union Streets S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The government's wartime picture file holds fifty colour transparencies made in and around Washington. Three of them are this corner.
What the government named
R004 U.S. Supreme Court building, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Thirty-seven of the fifty arrived with a caption the government had written itself. Thirteen did not.
R005 U.S. Supreme Court Building, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The Supreme Court building. The Library says the agency wrote that caption itself.
R006 The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The National Gallery of Art, across the grass, with the sky doing most of the work.
R007 War Department Building at 21st and Virginia Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The War Department building, at Twenty-first Street and Virginia Avenue.
R008 Building of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
This one the caption calls the building of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. That department was created in nineteen fifty-three, ten years after the picture.
R009 Columbus Statue in front of Union Station, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The Columbus Fountain, in front of Union Station.
R010 Columbus Fountain and statue in front of Union Station, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Photographed twice, a few steps apart, on the same clear afternoon.
R011 Memorial Bridge, looking from the Virginia side of the Potomac River across to the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Memorial Bridge, looking back from the Virginia bank towards the Lincoln Memorial.
The park by the station
R012 Two little girls in a park near Union Station, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The same run turns to the little park beside Union Station. Two little girls in a park near Union Station — that is the whole caption.
R013 Little girl in a park near Union Station, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Little girl in a park near Union Station.
R014 Little girl in a park with Union Station in the background, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Little girl in a park with Union Station in the background.
R015 Woman putting on her lipstick in a park with Union Station behind her, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Woman putting on her lipstick in a park with Union Station behind her.
R016 A soldier and a woman in a park, with the Old Russell Senate Office Building behind them, Washington, D.C.
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · circa 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
A soldier and a woman in a park. Behind them the Old Senate Office Building, and the Library has had to bracket in which one it is.
Ten frames, one sentence
R017 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
In May nineteen forty-three, John Collier crossed the river and made ten exposures.
R018 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
All ten carry the same caption. Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
R019 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Word for word. Ten times.
R020 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The Library files them under Virginia, because Arlington is in Virginia. The caption says Washington anyway.
R021 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
He worked the scene the way a photographer does when he thinks he has something.
R022 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Wide, with the city hazy behind the marble.
R023 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Then close, at the inscription.
D05 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God.
D04 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
She is holding his hand while he kneels at the chain.
R024 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Neither of them is named.
R025 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Not here either.
R026 Sailor and girl at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Virginia · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Nor in the last frame, from a hundred feet back, where the two of them are the size of a thumbnail.
The only two names
R027 Amir Khalid right and Amir Faisal, sons of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Their Royal Highnesses recently concluded an extensive visit in the United States as guests of the government. They have made a special study of irrigation projects in the United States. The princes at their own farewell reception in the nation's capital
John Rous · Washington, D.C. · 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
In all fifty captions, exactly two people are named.
R028 Amir Khalid right and Amir Faisal, sons of King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia. Their Royal Highnesses recently concluded an extensive visit in the United States as guests of the government. They have made a special study of irrigation projects in the United States. The princes at their own farewell reception in the nation's capital
John Rous · Washington, D.C. · 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Two sons of the King of Saudi Arabia, at their own farewell reception at the Mayflower Hotel. Their caption runs to fifty words and gives both names.
R029 United Nations Fight for Freedom : colored, white and Chinese Boy Scouts in front of Capitol, They help out by delivering poster to help the war effort
John Rous · Washington, D.C. · 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Three Boy Scouts on the Capitol steps get a caption too. It sorts them by race and names none of them.
D06 United Nations Fight for Freedom : colored, white and Chinese Boy Scouts in front of Capitol, They help out by delivering poster to help the war effort
John Rous · Washington, D.C. · 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
They are delivering a poster. The United Nations fight for freedom.
R030 United Nations Fight for Freedom: Boy Scout in front of Capitol. They help out by delivering posters to help the war effort
John Rous · Washington, D.C. · 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
A second boy, alone, with the same poster and the same dome behind him.
R031 U.S. Marine Band drummer, probably at the Marine Barracks, Washington, D.C.
Alfred T. Palmer · Washington, D.C. · May 1942 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
A drummer of the Marine Band, probably at the Marine Barracks, in May nineteen forty-two.
R032 Black troops at the Memorial Day parade, Washington, D.C., probably Constitution Avenue
Royden Dixon · Washington, D.C. · May 1942 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome slide. View the original.
And Black troops at the Memorial Day parade that same month, probably on Constitution Avenue. The Library worked out what this was by matching a black-and-white negative to it.
The house of the Americas
R033 Front view of the Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Nine of the fifty are one building, on Constitution Avenue.
R034 Front view of the Pan American Union, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The Pan American Union, which the American republics ran between them. Collier worked it over one May afternoon.
R035 Steps of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Steps of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
R036 Steps of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Steps of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
R037 Courtyard of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Inside, a courtyard with palms in it, in a city that freezes.
R038 Courtyard of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Courtyard of the Pan American Building. Three times.
R039 Courtyard of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
A fountain, a flag, and a man in a white coat crossing the tiles.
R040 Garden of the Pan American Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
And the garden at the back, with a stone bird on the wellhead.
R041 Garden of Pan American Union Building, Washington, D.C.
John Collier · Washington, D.C. · May 1943 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
This last one lost its caption somewhere. The Library gave it a title by matching it to the frame before.
N and Union
R042 Row houses, corner of N and Union Streets S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Now back to the corner, and to thirteen transparencies nobody in the government described.
R043 Children on row house steps, Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Children on row house steps, Washington, D.C. Title devised by Library staff.
R044 Children in street, Washington, D.C
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Children in street. That one, and only that one, came with the agency's own words.
R045 Children aiming sticks as guns, lined up against a brick building, Washington, D.C.?
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Children aiming sticks as guns, lined up against a brick building, Washington, D.C. Question mark.
R046 Row house or school(?), Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Row house or school, question mark, Washington, D.C.
D03 Row house or school(?), Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
It is neither. The sign under the window says air raid warden. Sector post.
R047 House in Washington, D.C.?
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
House in Washington, D.C., question mark.
R048 Laundry, barbershop and store, Washington, D.C.?
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Laundry, barbershop and store, Washington, D.C., question mark.
R049 Laundry, barbershop and stores, Washington, D.C.?
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Laundry, barbershop and stores. Question mark again.
D02 Shulman's market, on N at Union Street S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Children in the doorway of the market, in the middle of a weekday.
Lot 11671-30
R050 Car in front of Shulman's Market on N at Union St. S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
How anyone knows where this is takes some following.
D07 Car in front of Shulman's Market on N at Union St. S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
Louise Rosskam shot the same corner in black and white, and that negative was captioned: corner of N and Union Streets, Southwest.
D08 Children aiming sticks as guns, lined up against a brick building, Washington, D.C.?
Photographer unrecorded · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The Library matched two colour slides to it. Then matched the market to those two. A whole block placed by one black-and-white frame.
D09 Laundry, barbershop and stores, Washington, D.C.?
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
And every one of the thirteen records carries the same line underneath. Lot eleven six seven one, dash thirty. Missing since nineteen eighty-one.
The street itself is on a federal map. In nineteen forty the Census Bureau had Washington drawn block by block, and Union Street is on the Southwest sheet.
The Act of 1945
Four years after these photographs, Congress passed a law for the District of Columbia.
It is called the Redevelopment Act of nineteen forty-five. It was approved in August nineteen forty-six.
Section two. Conditions with respect to substandard housing and blighted areas are injurious to the public health, safety, morals, and welfare.
Regulation having proved inadequate and insufficient, it is in the judgment of Congress necessary to acquire property by gift, purchase, or the use of eminent domain.
Assembling the land, and then leasing or selling it on for redevelopment, is hereby declared to be a public use.
Project Area B
The Planning Commission then drew a land use plan for what it called the Southwest Survey Area — which includes almost the whole of Southwest Washington.
The first project was not this corner. It was Project Area B, up by the Capitol. The two men who sued owned a department store and a hardware store on Fourth Street.
The survey of Area B found one thousand three hundred and forty-five dwelling units, in a thousand and six structures, housing five thousand and twelve people.
The plan that replaced them provides for seven hundred and fifty to nine hundred.
Beautiful as well as sanitary
The Supreme Court heard the case in October nineteen fifty-four. Its own recital: in Area B, sixty-four point three percent of the dwellings were beyond repair.
The population of Area B amounted to five thousand and twelve persons. The Court puts the share of them who were Black at ninety-seven and a half percent.
Their property was not housing at all. It is not used as a dwelling or place of habitation. A department store is located on it.
Justice Douglas, for a unanimous Court. Miserable and disreputable housing conditions may do more than spread disease and crime and immorality.
They may also be an ugly sore, a blight on the community which robs it of charm — which makes it a place from which men turn.
It is within the power of the legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy.
If those who govern the District of Columbia decide that the Nation's Capital should be beautiful as well as sanitary —
— there is nothing in the Fifth Amendment that stands in the way.
Property may of course be taken for this redevelopment which, standing by itself, is innocuous and unoffending.
And it is not for the courts to oversee the choice of the boundary line, nor to sit in review on the size of a particular project area.
Union Street
D10 Row houses, corner of N and Union Streets S.W., Washington, D.C.
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
The doors on the north side of N Street. The railings. The front steps.
D01 Shulman's Market at the southeast corner of N Street and Union Street S.W., Washington, D.C., with a 1931 Chevrolet car parked in front
Louise Rosskam · Washington, D.C. · 1941–42 · Library of Congress · FSA/OWI Kodachrome transparency. View the original.
There is no Union Street in Southwest Washington today, and no McLean Avenue. Half Street is still there, and so is Canal.
Sources
- Fifty transparencies. Louise Rosskam (11), John Collier (19), John Rous (4), Alfred T. Palmer (1), Royden Dixon (1), and fourteen for which the Library records no photographer. Browse the whole colour file: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/fsac/
- Each frame has its own item page carrying the call number, the caption and the Library's notes — Shulman's Market is https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017877969/ , and every other frame in the film has the equivalent URL. The full list of fifty, as harvested, is `items.json` in this project's research directory.
- The count of fifty. Forty carry the subject heading *United States — District of Columbia — Washington (D.C.)*. Ten more — LC-USW36-723 to 732, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier — are filed by the Library under *Virginia*, because Arlington is in Virginia, while their captions read "…, Washington, D.C." They sit inside one continuous accession run with the Pan American Union frames (733–740) and the uncredited monuments (741–753), so this film treats the run as one assignment and their credit line names Virginia.
- Where the captions come from. The Library states this on each record. Thirty-seven say *"Title from FSA or OWI agency caption"*; nine say *"Title devised by Library staff"*; four were reconstructed by matching another photograph. The thirteen that are not the agency's own words are exactly the thirteen 35mm slides.
- How the corner was identified. LC-USF35-628 and 629 are placed by "similarity to photo LC-USW3-25986 by Louise Rosskam" — a black-and-white negative captioned *"Washington, D.C. Corner of N and Union Streets, Southwest"* and dated 1942 Spring: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2017853012/ . Shulman's Market (LC-USF35-633) is then placed by similarity to 629.
- "t 11671-30 missing since 1981." That note appears on all thirteen 35mm records. It is a note about the lot, not about any single slide — LC-USF35-509, outside this set, carries it too, and neighbouring lots carry their own ("ph in Lot 11671-29 is missing"). The film says what the note says and no more.
- The colour records are dated by the Library "between 1941 and 1942" (Rosskam) and "[ca. 1943]" (the uncredited run). Photo dates in the credit lines come from those fields or from the caption, never from a harvest timestamp.
- Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940 — Housing — Block Statistics for Cities, Part 2 (District of Columbia–Indiana), U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census. The fifteen Washington sheets were drawn under W.P.A. Project No. 165-2-97-66; part 14 covers Southwest and carries Union Street, Canal Street, Delaware Avenue, McLean Avenue, Carrollburg Place and Howison Place. https://archive.org/details/sixteenthcensuso1940unse_4
- District of Columbia Redevelopment Act of 1945, ch. 736, approved August 2, 1946 — 60 Stat. 790. U.S. Statutes at Large, vol. 60. https://archive.org/details/us_stat_60
- Schneider v. District of Columbia, 117 F. Supp. 705 (D.D.C. 1953) — the three-judge court (Prettyman, Keech, Curran) below. Project Area B's boundary, the survey of 1,345 dwelling units in 1,006 structures housing 5,012 people, and the plan for 750 to 900. https://static.case.law/f-supp/117.pdf
- Berman v. Parker, 348 U.S. 26 (1954) — argued October 19, decided November 22, 1954. Opinion by Justice Douglas for a unanimous Court. https://static.case.law/us/348.pdf
- It does not say Shulman's Market was condemned under the Redevelopment Act. N and Union Streets S.W. lies outside Project Area B, whose boundary the district court recites (South Capitol and I Streets, west to Fourth Street, north on Fourth, west along H, east along G, F, and E Street to the P.B. & W. railroad). What connects the corner to the plan is the court's own sentence that the Southwest Survey Area "includes almost the whole of Southwest Washington."
- It gives no demolition date for the corner and no displacement figure for Southwest as a whole. Nothing consulted here carries either.
- That Union Street S.W. is not on the map today is a present-day check, not a document. The Census Bureau's current geocoder returns no match for it and OpenStreetMap has no such street, while Half Street S.W. and Canal Street S.W. — its neighbours on the 1940 sheet — both still resolve; Carrollburg Place and McLean Avenue are gone with it.
- The Library's caption on LC-USW36-745 names the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and the Library attributes that caption to the agency. That department was created in 1953. The film states both facts and resolves neither.