Page 45 - Summer_2019

ArchDC Summer 2019.qxp_Spring 2019 5/22/19 2:58 PM Page 43

The reconstructed Oyster Shucking Shed, now a
restaurant, at left, with one of the new buildings at Project: Maine Avenue Fish Market,
the Maine Avenue Fish Market in the background. 1100 Maine Avenue, SW, Washington, DC
Architects: StudioMB

Interior Designers: StudioMB (Tiki TNT, Rappahannock Oyster Bar,
Southwest Soda Pop Shop); BCJ (Blue Bottle Coffee); HD Interiors
(District Doughnut); Grupo 7 (Officina)
Landscape Architects: Landscape Architecture Bureau
Structural Engineers: Ehlert Bryan Consulting Structural Engineers
MEP Engineers: MCE Engineers
Civil Engineers: AMT, LLC
Marine Engineers: Moffatt & Nichol
Lighting Consultants: Gilmore Lighting Design
Building Skin Consultants: Wiss Janney Elstner
Environmental/Geotechnical Consultants: ECS
Historic Preservation Consultants: EHT Traceries
Contractor: Balfour Beatty

When the Maine Avenue Fish Market along DC’s Southwest
Waterfront first opened in 1805, the U.S. Capitol was still decades
away from initial completion, the Executive Mansion (later officially
renamed the White House) did not yet bear its distinctive north and
south porticoes, and the land that would become the greensward
of the National Mall was a scruffy landscape punctuated by a
meandering creek that drained into mud flats along the ever-
fluctuating bank of the Potomac River. Like all of those other
Washington landmarks, the fish market has undergone dramatic
physical changes over the ensuing centuries, but it has endured.
Although it remains a private commercial enterprise, the open-air
market is a veritable local institution.
The Maine Avenue Fish Market—the oldest continuously
operating facility of its kind in the country—was a cornerstone of
a bustling wharf district during the early 19th century. Small boats
piloted by Chesapeake Bay fishermen, crabbers, and oystermen
mingled with larger ships carrying goods to and from other ports
in the U.S. and abroad. With the onset of the Civil War, the area
became a major embarkation point for Union soldiers headed into
battle. Commercial shipping activity was hindered in the late 19th
century as the river silted up and railroads became the preferred
means of transporting goods within the country. The adjacent
neighborhood, which had attracted many freed slaves after the war,
was riddled with substandard housing lining unpaved streets.
In the early 20th century, the U.S. Congress, which still exercised
direct control over the District of Columbia, commissioned plans
for improvements to the wharf and the surrounding area. One result
of this initiative was a new Municipal Fish Market, completed in
1916, which included a long, Colonial Revival building with a
street-facing colonnade, and a freestanding Lunch Room, where
wharf workers and fishermen could eat. An open-air Oyster
Shucking Shed was appended to the Lunch Room.
In the 1960s, the main Market Building was demolished to
make way for an off-ramp from the new I-395 bridge across the
Potomac. The Lunch Room, which by then was operating as a
public restaurant, remained standing, as did the Oyster Shed, which
had been enclosed years before. The vendors who had occupied
stalls in the building were relocated to temporary barges provided
by the city. The colorful awnings and eye-catching signs that the
vendors installed on the barges created a carnival-like atmosphere
that many locals came to love, while the rest of the wharf area was
gradually lined with generic motels and restaurants.

Photo © Thomas Holdsworth FRESHENED FISH MARKET 43