District of Columbia Main Sewerage Pumping Station

Style: Renaissance Revival
City: Washington, DC

The D.C. Water Main Pumping Station sits on the Anacostia River in Southeast Washington, between the Washington Navy Yard and Nationals Park, and has pumped the city's sewage since it was built in 1904-1907. Local architect Clement A. Didden dressed the utilitarian structure in reddish-brown brick and stone decoration in the Beaux-Arts and Renaissance Revival styles, an ornamental treatment shaped by the era's City Beautiful Movement of civic design.

the building

Structure. Behind the brick and stone facade, the two-and-a-half-story building is framed in steel and concrete.

the style

Didden's Beaux-Arts detailing and Renaissance Revival touches turned an industrial pumping plant into a building meant to look civic and dignified, in keeping with the City Beautiful Movement's belief that infrastructure should be handsome as well as functional.

significance

The station was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 24, 2012, and is also included in the District of Columbia Inventory of Historic Sites. DC Water still operates it, staffed around the clock.

nearby

Washington Navy Yard 0.4 mi · Colonial Revival · 1799
Latrobe Gate 0.5 mi · Greek Revival · 1806
Washington Navy Yard, Tingey House (Commandant's House) 0.5 mi · Georgian · 1804
Washington and Georgetown Railroad Car House 0.5 mi · Romanesque Revival
Christ Church 0.6 mi · Gothic Revival · 1794
Friendship Baptist Church 0.6 mi · Romanesque Revival

All 315 buildings in Washington, DC