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:
“Don’t you realize that this is a new empire? Why, folks, there’s never been anything like this since creation. Creation, huh, that took six days, this was done in one. History made in an hour. Why it’s a miracle out of the Old Testament!”
—Howard Estabrook (1884–1978)
“There are two great unknown forces to-day, electricity and woman, but men can reckon much better on electricity than they can on woman.”
—Josephine K. Henry, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 15, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)