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1925. Washington, D.C. "Texas Company. Linworth Place and C Street S.W." National Photo Company Collection glass negative. View full size.
Looks like an early morning shot - very long shadows and no evidence of people anywhere, even in the car waiting for gas. Haunting photo.
If ever in Manhattan Beach CA, you'll see a handful of streets within a few blocks of the ocean have gas lamps, which are four sided. I bought a house on 21st Street for that reason. So. Cal. Gas Co. has a special division that repairs/maintains them.
Linworth Place ran for a block on either side of C between 13th and 14th SW. By the 1930s the USDA building expanded south into the north block of Linworth Place. The south block was razed for an engraving annex and steam plant.
It's not hard to imagine the need for more space at the USDA given the importance of the agency during The Depression helping farms, food distribution, and loans.
There's no trace of Linworth Place on current maps, at least that I can find. Either it's the short stretch south of Agriculture that's now marked as 13th St., or it was wiped out for some federal building or for I-395. In any event every single building depicted is surely long gone.
Are those gas street lamps on the street? And yet the station itself seems to have electric lamps around it. Another example of a transitional period. I don't think I've ever been in the presence of a functioning gas lamp.
Darn it.
Now that is a beautiful thing. Someone had a good idea there.
I'm no expert, but that street light looks 19th Century. I always enjoy seeing these moments of transition, as here with automobiles and Victorian-era housing and street lamps. And I'm also guessing that's a Franklin auto sitting at the pump.
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