Scaffolding Comes Down Revealing Historic Details

After months of construction at the old Mr. Smith’s building at 3104 M St., the scaffolding was removed recently and it revealed historical details that the old awning hid.

Stores like to have awnings. Mostly because they can act as giant billboards. But as this work demonstrates, they can also cover up some nice architecture, in this case a stately row of transom windows. Compare the photo above with what it looked like before:

The awning covered up everything between the first and second floor windows. The new cream-colored trim also makes the details “pop”, but the awning is the largest change.

This sort of reveal also occurred when Francesca’s took over half of the Bristo Francais:

That’s a fairly distinct architectural feature that was simply covered up for years, if not decades.

In both of these cases, the prior tenant was a restaurant, but the building itself was probably originally designed for retail, hence the projecting bays. Eastbanc has not announced a new tenant for 3104, but given the trends, it seems likely that it will be like the other property with retail taking over.

This is not to say, of course, that awnings are bad or ahistorical. Quite the opposite. If you browse old photos of DC you’ll see that in the days before air conditioning, awnings cover just about every window in sight. But if they’re no longer functionally necessary, and don’t add any particular charm, it’s well worth taking them down if they’re covering up nice architectural features like this.