St. Elizabeths Hospital, Linden, 2700 Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, Southeast 519-543 Redwood Drive, Southeast, Washington, District of Columbia, DC

For an overview of the Dix Group, see HABS DC-349-BU

Significance: Linden (Building 28) is significant for its association with the treatment of mental illness on the St. Elizabeths Campus. As one of the cottage-type buildings built on the campus in the 1880s and 1890s, Linden formed an integral part of the function and use of the campus for the treatment of mental illness and related disabilities. The cottage group was a series of three buildings constructed in the 1890s that were meant to be specifically adapted to the needs of epileptic patients. This group was typical of development on the campus in the 1880s and 1890s, when smaller-scale and specialized buildings were constructed to better care for the larger and more diverse patient population.

Linden is also significant for its architectural design, which reflects the principles of treatment embraced at the time of its construction, and includes features typical of the cottage group of buildings: broad wrap-around wood-framed porches, eclectic masonry detailing, and building massing with projecting bays expressed as vertical towers. The Queen Anne-style details of the building were meant to create a residential scale for the cottage group, while the use of red brick masonry connected the building to earlier Gothic Revival-style buildings on the campus.

Survey number: HABS DC-349-AD

Building/structure dates: 1893 Initial Construction

National Register of Historic Places NRIS Number: 79003101

hospitals medicine institutional care health care health care facilities mental institutions brick buildings hip roofs queen anne revival architectural elements namrata barbhaiya ita ekanem mike ford william godding government hospital for the insane historic american buildings survey kenneth itle tim penich leslie schwartz scott schwartz deborah slaton us department of health and human services education us department of health us department of the interior us federal security agency us general services administration us national institute of mental health photo elizabeths hospital martin luther redwood drive washington dc architectural plan architectural diagrams floor layout plan library of congress national register of historic places historic landmarks

1933 - 1970

Library of Congress

https://www.loc.gov/

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