While Wolfson seemed to think only about money, Chalk had an obvious zest for streetcars and buses, which he wanted to modernize and make glamorous for the jet age. He issued his transit operators new dark-green uniforms that featured gold sleeve bands and looked like pilots’ uniforms. He also adopted a distinctive two-toned bright green-and-white paint scheme highlighted with orange striping (supposedly his wife liked this color combination), making D.C. Transit’s PCC cars and buses look as much as possible like streamlined, Mid-Century Modern airliners.
Although D.C. Transit was required to phase out streetcars within seven years, once Chalk took over, he began pushing to keep them as long as possible. Like Capital Transit’s consultants, he realized that the PCC cars, most still in very good condition, were a valuable asset and that it would be costly to remove them and their conduit-based tracks. It would also be costly to purchase large quantities of new buses to replace them.
To demonstrate how modern and comfortable its streetcars could be, D.C. Transit overhauled one of them into a luxurious “super” streetcar. Designated the Silver Sightseer, the car’s main attraction was that it was air-conditioned; it was said to be the first air-conditioned streetcar in the world. The exterior was dolled up with chrome trim and little metal flags, and the interior featured pale-pink fluorescent lighting and seats with armrests and footrests. To complete the jet age transformation, the car was staffed by a flight attendant–like hostess, although she didn’t serve refreshments. The Silver Sightseer entered service in 1957, traveling the city’s original streetcar route between the Capitol and the White House and charging the same twenty-cent fare as a regular streetcar.
Encouraged by the public’s approval of the new car, D.C. Transit petitioned the PUC to add air conditioning to more of its streetcars. The commission, however, rebuffed this initiative, arguing that company funds shouldn’t be invested in vehicles that were soon to be decommissioned. The Washington Post gave Chalk an “A for effort” and lauded the fact that “someone is seriously attempting to make transit service in Washington more attractive,” but like the PUC, the newspaper’s editors doubted the wisdom of investing in streetcars. “[U]nfortunately streetcars are an anachronism in modern traffic and the remedies that would permit their retention are all extremely expensive,” the Post concluded.206
The Silver Sightseer was a specially modified PCC car that featured air conditioning and was meant to show how comfortable streetcars could be. Author’s collection.
The first major conversion in the D.C. Transit era occurred in September 1958, when Route 80 and 82 lines switched to buses. The two lines, remnants of the old Eckington & Soldiers Home Railway, had served the Eckington, Brookland and upper Rhode Island Avenue communities in Northeast and were heavily traveled by the city’s African American population. The changeover reduced the streetcar network by 15 percent. Earley W. Bryant, operating one of the last cars on the line, summed up a common view: “I hate to see the streetcar go, but I’ve got to agree that the buses do their job better.”207
With the end of the city’s legacy transit system drawing ever closer, the debate over the wisdom of eliminating streetcars in Washington intensified. As much as the venerable old cars had been vilified through the years, they were still the core of the city’s mass transit system, and thousands of Washingtonians used them on a daily basis. Unwilling to accept their demise without a fight, supporters began organizing and lobbying to save them. In October 1957, a coalition of some twenty-five local civic organizations formed an Emergency Committee to Save the Streetcars. Its president was seventy-six-year-old Gover M. Koockogey, a former Government Printing Office employee and president of the Kalorama Citizens Association. “To junk cars and rails with 15 to 20 years or more of useful life is nothing short of criminal waste,” Koockogey wrote. His committee urged Congress to rescind the law mandating conversion to buses.
Although the PUC consistently supported conversion, views in Congress were decidedly mixed. In 1958, Representative John L. McMillan (1898–1979), chair of the House District Committee, expressed support for continued streetcar operations, questioning the PUC’s calculations about the benefits of conversion and stating that an all-bus system “would prove to be a disaster and a calamity.” He noted that “if it had not been for the streetcars, mass transportation would have been almost impossible during World War II.”208 Similarly, in 1960 Senator Wayne L. Morse (1900–1974), noting that the 1956 law establishing D.C. Transit had been rushed to enactment, called for PUC hearings to reexamine the conversion policy and offered to introduce a “save the trolleys” bill in the next session of Congress. However, despite these misgivings, there was little the dissenters were willing to do, as ostensibly powerful as they were. By that point, too many streetcar lines had been shut down to turn back without causing lots of disruption and incurring significant expense. No one on Capitol Hill was willing to spend the political capital to reverse the course of events, and no legislation revoking the conversion mandate ever passed the House or Senate.
On January 3, 1960, the same day that Senator John F. Kennedy kicked off his campaign for the presidency, nearly half of Washington’s remaining streetcar system was junked. Three major lines—the 20, 30 and 70/72/74 routes—were converted to bus operations. Route 20 had been the highly popular scenic line to Glen Echo Park and Cabin John, Maryland, the only remaining streetcar line in 1960 that extended into Maryland. Route 30 was the Pennsylvania Avenue line, the original Washington & Georgetown Railroad route that had been in existence since 1862. And the 70/72/74 was the workhorse Seventh Street line, also dating in part from 1862, that extended up Georgia Avenue to Brightwood. The wholesale abandonment of routes that had been a part of Washington life for so long was cause for much nostalgia and angst. “There are those who will feel for a long while hereafter that the streetcars of the three lines were sacrificed to mere administrative caprice,” reporter John McKelway observed in the Sunday Star. “They will take it as a personal loss and see not the slightest communal gain.” Many of these folks, McKelway wrote, “are just plain in love with the Cabin John line and always will be.”209
McKelway joined about forty diehard streetcar patrons at 12:10 a.m. on January 3 for a final raucous ride on the Cabin John line. “They chattered all the way out and back. They jeered at the motorman. They made cracks about O. Roy Chalk. They pulled the trolley [pole] off [the overhead wire] once. They rang bells when they didn’t want to get off.” Sitting in the back of the car, the revelers sang “Auld Lang Syne” “raucously and without sentiment.” All the mischief was apparently too much for the exhausted motorman, who at one point stopped the car and got up to address the motley assembly: “Look you guys. I’ve been hearing that bell for eight hours. If you want to get off, get off. But stop ringing that bell unless you want to get off.”210 Such was the unceremonious finale for the Cabin John line and a large part of Washington streetcar history.
With these three major routes gone, just four lines remained in service: the 40/42 to Mount Pleasant, the 50/54 on Fourteenth Street, the 60 on Eleventh Street and the 90/92 line on U Street and Florida Avenue. Even with just this bare-bones system left in operation, the city’s streetcar backers were not yet ready to admit defeat. As late as April 1961, several of them testified to the PUC about the merits of retaining streetcars. The Washington Post reported that a group of “several never-say-die trolley partisans, applauded by a small group of supporters” argued that giving up on streetcars would, among other things, forfeit an opportunity to take an evolutionary approach to building a subway for the city. They also argued that “a primary cause of conversion to buses here and elsewhere in the Nation is an alliance between bus manufacturers, equipment and fuel suppliers and road builders,” a conspiracy theory that would persist for decades to come. To make the case more personal, several transit patrons added their own perspectives. Mrs. Edward B. Morris complained that “reading on ‘the jerky buses’ gives her a headache, or even nausea,” whil
e Mrs. Thorn P. Starkey warned that “if we keep covering over vacant lands and destroying vegetation to accommodate the private automobile, Washingtonians will have to carry oxygen tanks on their backs.”211
The PUC was not won over by any of these desperate arguments. After much consideration and revision by D.C. Transit and the PUC, the target for final conversion of the last streetcar lines was set for early 1962. By that point, most Washingtonians were looking forward to a streetcar-free future. The performance of the streetcar network during a disastrous fourteen-inch snowfall in February 1958 had convinced many that the system simply no longer could function properly. Because maintenance of the conduits had dropped off so much, tie-ups caused by the snow could not be quickly resolved. Snow, ice and broken automobile tire chains jammed many of the conduits and sometimes shorted out power, stranding many cars on downtown streets and interrupting service when customers needed it most. In some cases, D.C. road crews salted streets where conduits lay (they were supposed to avoid them), invariably shorting the power. The 20, 50 and 90/92 lines were out of commission for several days, their cars virtually abandoned on the tracks. Parts of the 40/42 routes were inoperable for as long as five days. Buses, meanwhile, fared much better. More than ever, frustrated customers yearned for the day when the balky streetcars would be gone forever.212 Severe snowstorms returned in early 1961, creating similar problems and cementing the antipathy for streetcars.
A line of streetcars stands immobilized by snow clogging the conduit slot on Independence Avenue near New Jersey Avenue in January 1961. According to the Evening Star, the entire streetcar fleet was paralyzed by the storm. D.C. Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post.
Next to convert, in December 1961, were the 40/42 and 60 lines. In late November, the Mount Pleasant community held a mock funeral for its streetcars. The date for the end of streetcars coincided with the 100th anniversary of the founding of the community, which predated streetcar service but was nevertheless known as one of the city’s preeminent streetcar suburbs. A vintage 1918 streetcar that had been preserved for special events led an elaborate hour-long parade of twenty-five marching bands that brought dancing to the streets of Mount Pleasant. A week later, the cars were gone.
That left just the 50/54 and 90/92 routes, which were shut down on January 28, 1962, the final day of streetcar service in the District of Columbia. By the time they were finally converted to bus operations, they were in very poor condition, having suffered from many years of neglect. U Street residents complained in December 1961 that the 90/92 streetcars were so noisy and poorly maintained that the racket kept them up at night and the vibration damaged their houses. D.C. Transit’s track maintenance chief admitted that the company had not been maintaining its tracks: “It’s like owning an automobile. You wouldn’t buy a new motor if you knew you were going to sell the car next year.”213
The end came with a mixture of nostalgia, emotion and relief. The date had been moved up for fear that the system wouldn’t be able to survive another late winter snowstorm. Many commuters were relieved that the streetcars were finally out of the way and the streets could be freely salted if a storm came. Others had trouble letting go. Washington Post reporter Jack Eisen summed up the mood: “Some will cheer. Most will ask, ‘So what?’ More than a few will see [streetcars] go with a passing twinge of nostalgia, recognizing that a piece of their lives has faded away.”214
Over the last days of service, ridership surged as sentimentalists took extra trips. Streetcar fans from around the country converged on Washington to ride the doomed cars and snap countless photographs as souvenirs. D.C. Transit allowed children to ride for free so that they could experience streetcars one last time with their parents. On the final day of service, the same vintage 1918 car that had led the Mount Pleasant parade took a ceremonial farewell trip, creaking its way around the entire remaining network of tracks. It was appropriately packed to standing room only, as so many cars had been over the system’s hundred-year history. A massive “Last Day of Streetcars” banner was draped across its side, and a funeral wreath and black crepe festooned its lone headlight.215 When it completed its run and returned to the Navy Yard car barn at 4:45 a.m., an era in Washington history came to a quiet close.
An eloquent editorial in the Washington Post, reflecting the automobile-centric attitude so common at the time, served as the streetcars’ epitaph:
Historic PCC car no. 1101 passes the Peace Monument on Pennsylvania Avenue on the last day of streetcars, January 28, 1962. National Capital Trolley Museum.
Yes, we know that streetcars are a hopeless anachronism and there is no need to tell us that times have changed, that progress must be served, etc. We freely concede that the trolley was a nuisance to motorists as it clanked along at a matronly gait, clogging traffic and fraying nerves. And those islands [the loading platforms] were a menace—the little poultices of concrete wedged on the street so that they practically invited motorists to scar up fenders.
And what about the rails? Horrible things. In wet weather, it was a menace for drivers to glide down the streetcar tracks, wobbling like a waterbug whenever tires touched slippery steel. We also remember the discomfort of riding along inside those teetering boxcars, so warm in summer and so draughty in winter.
Were the sounds pleasant? Emphatically not. There was the annoying ding-ding-ding whenever the streetcar encountered an uncooperative obstacle. Moreover, the clacking sound of the trolleys as they traversed switches and turnoffs was in that peculiar range of decibels that affects the spine unpleasantly. Indeed, there is not a single redeeming thing that can be said about streetcars—they were bumpy, balky and as uselessly old-fashioned as the bustles of Victorian days.
As of Sunday, the streetcars of Washington clunked their last. We miss them.216
Chapter 11
LOST AND FOUND
NOSTALGIA FOR THE STREETCAR ERA, 1962–2015
The demise of streetcars in Washington, D.C., marked a turning point in the city’s transit history; the long love/hate relationship that had evolved over one hundred years between Washingtonians and their traditional mass transit system came to an abrupt end. Psychologically speaking, the slate was wiped clean. The struggles over cost, service and fairness receded into the past as the public shifted its attention, and complaints, to the bus system that was supposed to be such a technological advance. Plans for a new subway system—the ultimate solution in many commuters’ eyes—drew attention further away from the streetcar past. Yet reminders of that past were all around. Vestiges of the elaborate network of rails, conduits, cars and buildings still linger to this day, and the thriving National Capital Trolley Museum in suburban Maryland keeps the city’s streetcar legacy from being forgotten.
Louis Wolfson may have left the city on bad terms, but he was never found guilty of any wrongdoing in connection with Capital Transit. He continued to acquire and trade in companies, some proving more profitable than others. Half a century after his departure from the District, it was still possible to find at least one economist arguing that what he did for Washington’s streetcar company was a good thing.217 When he died in 2008, he was remembered chiefly for events that happened long after the D.C. episode. He was convicted of federal securities violations in 1967 and 1968 and served nine months in prison. Payments by his charitable foundation gave the impression that he tried to buy influence with Supreme Court justice Abe Fortas (1910–1982) to help clear him of these charges. Tainted by the scandal, Fortas resigned from the court in 1969. Meanwhile, Wolfson put his legal troubles behind him and continued to indulge a lifelong passion for racehorses. He is perhaps best remembered as the owner of Affirmed, the horse that won the Triple Crown in 1978.
As for O. Roy Chalk, he fared little better in D.C.’s court of public opinion. Buses did not prove to be any speedier than streetcars on congested downtown streets, nor more pleasant to ride. Although they were less costly to operate than streetcars, they were certainly not inexpensive. Ridership le
vels stabilized temporarily when Chalk took over but soon resumed their long-term decline. Chalk found that, like Wolfson, his costs continued to climb, and he, too, petitioned the PUC for numerous fare increases. By the late 1960s, D.C. Transit had developed a reputation for high costs and poor service. Fares went up three times in 1968 alone. In 1970, the standard fare rose to forty cents, twice what it was when Chalk took over.218
In 1973, the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, a public entity chartered to develop the city’s new subway system, seized the buses from Chalk, paying him $45 million. Chalk remained in Washington, running the remains of the D.C. Transit System (chiefly real estate), as well as his other various business assets, from his ornate office suite in the former Capital Traction Car Barn at the foot of Key Bridge in Georgetown. Regarding losing the buses, Chalk told Washington Post reporter Jack Eisen in 1978, “I’m not an unhappy man. I’ve got a load off my shoulders.”219 As late as the early 1990s, shortly before his death, Chalk was still wheeling and dealing from his car barn office, attempting to broker trade agreements between Russia and the United States.
THE BARGAIN OF THE WEEK
Even before the last D.C. streetcar pulled into the Navy Yard car barn in January 1962, excess PCC cars had been piling up in storage as streetcar lines were discontinued. D.C. Transit tried to sell the cars to other transit systems, but most North American cities were busy getting rid of their own streetcars, and the market was glutted. In addition, the D.C. cars were slightly shorter than standard PCC cars, making them less attractive to most North American buyers. Nevertheless, D.C. Transit was eventually able to sell 190 of its cars to other transit systems, representing more than one-third of the 489 PCC cars it had originally acquired. Their short length turned out to suit European systems well, and 74 of D.C.’s cars eventually went to Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, while another 101 were put in service in Barcelona, Spain. And 15 were sold to a department store in Fort Worth, Texas, which used them for a shuttle service between an outlying five-thousand-car parking lot and its sprawling downtown store.220
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