The Willard Hotel as an example that almost any wreck of a building can be rehabilitated

Willard Hotel photo from DC Goes to the Movies.

Today's New York Times has a story about the Willard Hotel, which is celebrating the 20th anniversary of its reopening. The online article, "A Hotel Preens as the Center of Political Attentions ", doesn't have copies of the photographs taken by Carol M. Highsmith before and during its renovation. They show serious "dilapidation." Today, you have to spend hundreds of dollars for a one night's stay, and serious money for dinner...

The Highsmith photos have not yet been converted to digital images by the Library of Congress, which houses these photos, but they will be on display in an exhibt at the LC later this Spring. By then, I imagine they'll be available digitally. In the meantime, check out today's NYT arts section.

(H.A. Willard was an active re-investor of his hotel profits. He was an investor in land, trolley systems, and the Washington Brick Machine Company in the greater H Street neighborhood. I believe that he owned land in places like Columbia Heights as well. Today the hotel still has connections to DC developers as I believe that it is still owned by Carr America and/or the Carr family independently.)

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization; historic-preservation