This area started life as a horse track, a circular mile long, at the site of what is today 14th and Irving Streets. When the track closed around 1840, the area became a village crossroads for a farming area, part of it wealthy estates. During the Civil War, this was "the" place to go to escape Washington's summer heat, and even President Lincoln frequented the Old Soldiers Home nearby. The Heights initiated several institutes of higher learning. Columbia College, established in 1821, was west of Howard University along 14th Street, until it moved downtown in 1884. Today the school is George Washington University.
As a suburb, Columbia Heights did not come into being until after the Civil War. Senator John Sherman and his brother, General W.T. Sherman, subdivided a parcel in 1868, and John Sherman named a 121-acre subdivision "Columbia Heights" in 1881. When the electric streetcar came on the scene in the early 1900s, Columbia Heights became a suburb of Washington, D.C., and was soon densely populated with townhouses and small apartment buildings. Most of the buildings that remain in the area were built during this era, between 1900 and the 1930s. Today around 30,000 people live in Columbia Heights, many of them refugees from oppression and war in other nations.
Tivoli Theatre
At the corner of Park Road and 14th Street sits the Tivoli Theatre, in the heart of Columbia Heights. Built in 1924 with a lavish Italianate design, the Tivoli hosted both films and live entertainment for decades. It closed in 1971, and has been under the constant threat of demolition ever since. Weather and vandals have picked away at the facade, and the interior is damaged--but still impressive. A group called Save the Tivoli has been actively lobbying for the venue's restoration for two decades , and so far has been able to stave off the bulldozers. Re-use plans for the theater are still on the drawing board.
Beverley Wheeler Home
The home Beverley Wheeler now lives in, a few blocks from the Tivoli on 14th street , was built in 1909, when Columbia Heights was "the" place to live. By the time Wheeler and her family purchased the place 12 years ago, it was in serious disrepair. The Wheelers lived in one room of the house while they began restoration, living without a working kitchen for two years. They started by gutting the entire house, then installing modern plumbing and electrical systems. Wheeler also refinished the home's floors and woodwork and redesigned the kitchen.
)
)
)
)
