History
The brick building that houses the recreation center was constructed in 1951–52 by consolidating, expanding, and adding a second story onto three single-story fuel sheds that stood behind row houses once located at 1621–1625 P Street NW. The unsegregated park was formally opened on November 13, 1953, at a cost of $80,000.
In 2003, plans for a four-story, multi-million-dollar gay community center to be built on a small section of the aging park sparked a dispute among Dupont Circle residents and the Washington D.C. Center for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender People. The plans were ultimately abandoned.
In 2008, the recreation center and playground were renovated. Work began in April and the park reopened on December 15. During the renovation, archaeological work uncovered several artifacts and two brick foundations: one from a row house at 1613 P Street and one at 1625 P Street. Researchers concluded that the latter supported a house built in 1878 by Henry Hurt, a Confederate Army veteran and president of the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company.
Read more about this topic: Stead Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“Only the history of free peoples is worth our attention; the history of men under a despotism is merely a collection of anecdotes.”
—Sébastien-Roch Nicolas De Chamfort (1741–1794)