Washington, D.C., Past and Present

With 127 pairs of matching photographs, "Washington, D.C., Past and Present" takes the reader on a journey through time. Author and photographer Peter R. Penczer has selected 127 fine vintage photographs of Washington, D.C., and the Virginia and Maryland suburbs and has rephotographed each site from exactly the same vantage point. Readers will be astonished by how much, and in some cases how little, the city has changed. Many of Washington's great monumental buildings are still with us today, but in dramatically different settings. Others, such as the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station, site of President Garfield's assassination, have since been demolished. Today the site is occupied by the National Gallery of Art. On every page, then and now photographs appear side-by-side. A photograph of workers putting the finishing touches on the Tivoli Theater in 1923 is shown alongside the Tivoli today, a magnificent ruin. Where a row of houses stood in Southwest Washington in the 1950s we now see the Southwest Freeway. The Virginia and Maryland suburbs are covered here as well. Early photographs of Clarendon, Falls Church, Alexandria, Fairfax, Herndon, Chevy Chase, Rockville, Hyattsville, and many other localities appear alongside recent photographs of exactly the same view. Accompanying the 254 then and now photographs are 127 lucid, thoroughly researched captions describing the forces that have transformed Washington, D.C., and the metropolitan area. "Washington, D.C., Past and Present" is fascinating reading for anyone interested in Washington, metropolis and capital city, and its environs.