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A Fresh Facade: 1918

Washington, D.C., circa 1918. "District National Bank, exterior, G Street N.W." Scrubbing in progress, or a new addition? 8x6 inch glass negative, National Photo Company. View full size.

Washington, D.C., circa 1918. "District National Bank, exterior, G Street N.W." Scrubbing in progress, or a new addition? 8x6 inch glass negative, National Photo Company. View full size.

 

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Swanky banky

The District National Bank didn't last nearly as long as the building - it failed in 1933 and became part of Hamilton National Bank. The building may have lasted until the late 1970s when it was demolished to make way for the Metropolitan Square building. It sounded pretty swanky in its day:

  • The president's room is richly decorated with East India mahogany wainscoting for the walls, old ivory and gold on the ceiling andcornice, and Turkish rugs spread upon quartered oak flooring ...
  • The ladies room is also fitted out in East India mahogany, gold and ivory decorations with mahogany furniture and Turkish rugs ...
  • From the ladies room begins the line of cages for the tellers, extending to the bookkeeping department in the rear ... The counter screen surrounding the lobby is of natural bronze glass and sienna marble. The bronze cornice, with verde green to bring out prominently the high light ornamentations is both massive and elegant in design, and attractive in every particular..

They even had a cool pewter coin bank depicting the building; if you want a reproduction, it's available here.

Metalwork street numbers

The street address numbers over the entrance at 1410/1412 are just amazing.

Both

The new building isn't so new -- it has names in the windows. I think the whole thing is being cleaned -- from the 2nd floor up the old building has a stripe of clean. and here is the 'swing stage' they are working from, sitting on the sidewalk. It looks like they broke off a bit of stone cornice just below the right window-- clumsy. No, wait -- that is more likely a bit of wood to avoid damaging the stone; I take it all back.

Courtesy of previous Shorpy posts

By 1931 the grime on the adjoining buildings had become more even, especially at street level.

Here's what the skinnier District National Bank (on the right) looked like from the Treasury Building in 1915. Below is how that view looks today.

United Cigar Stores

There was a chain of small cigar stores in Canada back when I lived there called United Cigars Stores. Used to see them in malls and subway stations etc. Basically little tuck shops. Looked this name up on Wikipedia and didn't see anything much past the 1960's. I know they were still up in Canada in the early 2000's.

I vote:

New addition for the righthand three groups of windows. Scrubbing for one set of windows from floors 2 through 10 on the one set of windows adjoining the new addition.

A new addition for sure

Here's the skinnier bank that opened in December 1910.

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