Dolley Madison's House on Lafayette Square

On the northeast corner of Lafayette Square sits a distinctive yellow house with an ornamental wrought iron porch. Quaint and domestic as it is, it seems transported from a bygone era, a time when Lafayette Square was where the rich and famous lived and this house on the corner was the epicenter of Washington social life. Dolley Madison (1768-1849) owned the house at one time and was by far its most famous resident. Her presence was so large that some believe it still lingers around the house to this day. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Postcard view of Madison Place, circa 1910. The Dolley Madison House is the one on the left

Doctors Hospital, a 'Hotel for the Sick'

It seems that as long as hospitals have been around, they've seemed dreary and depressing, or at times even unhealthful. The first D.C. hospital, for example, was a decidedly morbid place, opened at the Washington Asylum for indigents during a cholera epidemic in 1832. Medical practitioners have been trying for a long time to do better than that. One major step forward occurred downtown in 1940, when a group of doctors realized their long-held vision of constructing a modern, private, un-hospital-like hospital in the 1800 block of I Street NW. (The immense International Square complex, completed in 1982, fills the block now.)

This particular group of doctors, led by acclaimed surgeon Dr. Charles S. White, were no strangers to building construction. Originally a group of eight, they had organized themselves in 1924 to build a medical office building on the corner of 18th and I Streets NW. In those days physicians were increasingly relying on laboratories and other technical facilities for support, and they needed a centralized building where offices and labs could be close by. That first eight-story building, called the Washington Medical Building, was completed by the end of 1925. It was fully occupied less than a year later, and soon more space was sorely needed. Thus a second, twin office building was completed in 1929, at the opposite end of the block, at 19th and I. That one was called the Columbia Medical Building.