Central National Bank Building

Central National Bank Building 631 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC is now 633 Pennsylvania Avenue, the National Council of Negro Women, Inc headquarters. Purchased December 1995, houses the Dorothy I Height Leadership Institute and the National Centers for African American Women as we;; as NCNW. This building location now includes the former Brady Photography studio which was originally behind the bank. 

For many years this building was occupied on the ground floor by the Apex Liquour Store. It has a Temperance Statue on the plaza in front and used to be quite a joke in DC to have a liquor store and a temperance statue in front. The Building is situated across the Pennsylvania Avenue entrance of the National Archives. The most popular photographs of the Innaugural Parade Route since the 1980s has been the view which includes this building on the left background in the photos One of the paintings by Frank Wright of the an old innaugural parade taken from a Brady photograph includes this building. It is very picturesque with its twin towers.

Following the Apex Liquor Store, Sears bought the building and renovated it inside and cleaned and painted it outside. They were in keeping with a new Pennsylvania Avenue Renovation Project that began in the 1980s. Sears did an excellent job though they did not allow anyone inside beyond the foyer except those who worked in the building. Information on the early construction of this building is in A.B. Mullett: His Influence in American Architecture and Historic Preservation in a chapter by Dr. Theodore Turak, formerly professor of Architectural History at American University.

Three Apartment Town Houses

Three Apartment Town Houses with commercial space on the ground floor are on Pennsylvania Avenue near 25th Street. These three townhouses have been listed in Washington, DC as historic landmarks so the exterior will be preserved. The ground floor now has Papa John’s Pizza at one end, a Subway at the other end and another restaurant between. Upper floors are apartments. Some original features are intact on the construction reflecting some patents A. B. Mullett took out for better air circulation in the buildings in a time before Air Conditioning and when there were still few electric fans. Constructed at the end of A. B. Mullett’s life, these were the last buildings to go up. There is continual effort by builders in this area of DC to want to build a larger complex around this building. Many neighbors in Apartment buildings acrossthe alley from these townhouses have benn trying to prevent changes to these town houses using the Historic Landmark as their primary reason. We appreciate these efforts. However, these neighbors have other reasons. The neighborhood has about as much population it can maintain. The area often called West End, just East of Georgetown it is the western most end of DC before Georgetown. More recently, real estate agents have included it in Foggy Bottom, which used to be a poorer section across Pennsylvania Avenue towards the Potomac River, a low swamp land close to the old water gate of the River. It is a short walk from West End to the present, high fashionable neighborhood which now includes the Watergate Apartments, Hotel and office building as well as the Kennedy Center. Now that old Foggy Bottom is fashionable, West End does not seem to object too much being included in the Foggy Bottom community but historically they are different. Due to the constant efforts of the commercial builders to construct high rise buildings around or encasing these townhouses, a constant watch is needed to protect the historic quality of the original townhouses.  More on the historic nature of these townhouses is in A. B. Mullett: His Relevance in American Architecture and Historic Preservation in the chapter by Dr. Theodore Turak.

The Sun Building

The Sun Building on F Street in Washington, DC near 14th Street is also extant and renovated about twenty years ago by a group of businessmen and lawyers who purchased the building. This is the first building in D.C. to be called a sky scraper, though now it has been demoted to the first “elevator building” being too tall for most people to climb the stairs to the top and requiring an elevator to comfortably reach all floors. It was originally designed for the use of the Washington Offices of the Baltimore Sun newspaper. The ground floor of this building is now stores and a Bank. The upper stores are used by several different offices including some lawyers and from time to time, non-profit enterprises. This building appears to be secure from any dangerous renovations that might destroy features. The occupants appear to be quite enamoured with the original mantels and fire screens, window and office trim features. These appear to be safe from any destruction or pilfering. The surrounding buildings over the years began to close in on it on either side, soon rising as tall as it is. This building is as tall as the building code in Washington, DC allows.  For a while, the building next to it on the east was removed and one could see the building including the sides, more easily. This exposure rarely lasts long in D.C. More on this historic construction of this building is in A.B. Mullett: His Relevance in American Architecture and Historic Preservation in the chapter by Dr. Theodore Turak.