March 11, 2010
To Whom It May Concern:
Although I’ve had the pleasure of working with Donna Hanousek on numerous
historic preservation projects, this letter specifically describes her contributions to
the designations of the Mount Vernon Triangle Historic District (MVTHD) and
several nearby buildings.
With encouragement from the DC Office of Historic Preservation, in 2005 the DC
Preservation League prepared and sponsored the successful nomination of the
MVTHD to the DC Inventory of Historic Sites. I coordinated these efforts, which
occupied a team of volunteers for a full year, and I am confident in stating that no
one’s contributions were more vital than Donna’s.
Before detailing Donna’s major contributions, I’ll point out that the MVTHD shares
many characteristics with the H Street NE area. It is a mixed commercial and
residential neighborhood located on a transportation corridor that once centered
on a streetcar line. Its vernacular building stock represents multiple layers of
development between the 1870s and the1930’s. Showing how the MVTHD met
the DC Inventory criteria presented a special challenge, as we had to show the
slow accretion of significance by tracing each building’s history through each
stage of its existence.
Donna particularly contributed to the following aspects of this project:
1)
Project Coordination: Preparing the MVTHD nomination required a great
deal of preliminary fieldwork and archival research. 75 buildings within the
tentative boundaries of the district had to be inventoried, associated with
current and historic lot and square numbers, photographed, and evaluated
for intactness and significance with the aid of building permits and other
records. Donna played a key role in ensuring that every building within the
designated area was properly catalogued, that the original list was
reduced to roughly 30 potential contributing buildings by rational and
defensible methods, and that full information was available to the
volunteer responsible for writing the nomination for each building. Starting
the project on an organized footing ensured that it was accomplished in a
timely manner, with high quality results.
2)
Research: Donna took personal responsibility for solving numerous
intricate research problems, including tracing individual stories through
decades of newspaper articles and documenting properties and plots
before the District began designating them by addresses or documenting
construction with building permits. Solving these problems required
familiarity with a wide variety of archival resources, including the plat maps
and land records at the Recorder of Deeds, creativity, and persistence.
Donna is a most dogged and diligent detective!
3)
Writing and Analysis: Donna assumed responsibility for researching and
writing sections of the nomination that concerned several key structures.
Among these were the proposed district’s most architecturally
distinguished structures, the Charles W. King row houses at 457-459
Massachusetts Avenue NW. Donna also prepared the portions of the
nomination that concerned contributing buildings on K Street, and
augmented the efforts of several volunteers whose contributions were of
insufficient weight.
Perhaps the greatest challenge Donna faced involved the oldest structure
in the vicinity of the Mount Vernon Triangle, the Civil War vintage Emily
Wiley House at 902 Third Street NW. After drafting final boundaries for the
proposed district, we realized the Wiley House had been isolated from its
core by decades of demolition. Donna had already performed the difficult
task of tracing the 135 year history of the house, which included service as
the headquarters of an African-American voting rights group of the 1920s
and an early home of the Italian-American congregation of Holy Rosary
Church. However, she ultimately prepared a nomination which related the
house to the development patterns of the historic district and met the
greater burden of establishing its significance as an individual landmark of
the District of Columbia.
Donna’s writing and analysis were characterized by a high degree of
thoroughness and accuracy. I believe that, without her contributions, the
MVTHD, as well as the Emily Wiley House, would not have been listed in
the DC Inventory by unanimous votes of the Historic Preservation Review
Board. In addition, her organizational skills helped ensure that this project
was completed on schedule.
Peter Sefton
Trustee, DC Preservation League
Chair, DCPL Landmarks Committee