In 1891, The Washington & Georgetown Railroad Co. built a streetcar barn at 770 M St. SE to serve its line running from Georgetown along Pennsylvania Avenue to 8th Street SE and down to the Navy Yard gate. Known as the Navy Yard Car Barn, within a few years cable cars fell out of favor, and the line and barn were converted to the electric streetcar system. Standing opposite the Navy Yard’s main gate, the castellated tower caps the original Romanesque Revival section of the building that was expanded to meet the demands of the growing streetcar system. Placed on the DC Inventory of Historic Sites and the National Register of Historic Places in 2006, the car barn is one of the few surviving streetcar facilities and a reminder of the Navy Yard’s importance as an employment center. It also highlights the city’s streetcar system that lasted 100 years and had a profound influence on the city’s development. At this writing, blue paint covers the brick-and-brownstone building, so it is often called the “Blue Castle.”
*****
For more information on this historic sites, go to the restoration society’s web page for the tour at http://chrs.org/historic-sites-tour-2020/
Best to view in "Original" because other versions resized by Pbase are decidedly unsharp.
Major League Baseball during the pandemic, posted earlier: