Crummell, Alexander School
- Architect
- Snowden Ashford
- City
- Washington, DC
The Alexander Crummell School is an Elizabethan Revival school building at 1900 Gallaudet Street NE in Ivy City, designed in 1910 by Snowden Ashford, the District's municipal architect. Built in 1911 by contractor Allan T. Howlson for $44,987 and dedicated that November, it was named for the Rev. Alexander Crummell, a Black educator and Episcopal priest.
the building
A contested schoolyard. After the school closed in 1977, it served for decades as a preschool, library, job-training center, and daycare, then in the 1990s as a lot for an automobile auctioneer. In 2012, Mayor Vincent Gray's administration moved to pave the historic schoolyard for tour-bus parking, fencing the property and installing pylons to keep buses off the building itself.
Empower DC's lawsuit. The community group Empower DC sued the District over the parking plan and won injunctions blocking use of the schoolyard, land originally dedicated to educating African Americans, as a bus lot. The city dropped the plan in 2016 and instead issued a request for proposals to private developers.
the style
The school is designed in the Elizabethan Revival style, though no fuller description of its architectural detail survives beyond that label.
the architect
Snowden Ashford served as the District of Columbia's municipal architect, responsible for numerous public school buildings; the Crummell School, designed in 1910, is among the works credited to his office.
significance
The Crummell School is individually designated a DC Historic Landmark (#L_0049) and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Its 2010s fight over the parking-lot proposal made it a flashpoint in debates over how the city treats historically Black educational sites.
nearby
- Hecht Company Warehouse
- Engine Company No. 26
- H Street Playhouse
- Engine Company No. 10 (Truck House No. 13; Trindad Firehouse)
- Atlas Performing Arts Center
- Old Engine Company No. 10