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The Neighborhood Inside a Building

D.C.’s massive Woodner apartment building has lived many lives—from fancy hotel to one of the last bastions of affordable housing in a gentrifying neighborhood. Now, it’s on the brink of another change.
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Postcards showing the Woodner when it used to be a luxury apartment-hotel in the '50s and '60s, from the collection of John DeFerrari.
Postcards showing the Woodner when it used to be a luxury apartment-hotel in the '50s and '60s, from the collection of John DeFerrari. Madison McVeigh/CityLab

I’d come to expect Eddie Carrera in the lobby when I returned from work.

Down the steps, past the round carpet with the big, cursive “W”—he’d be reading in his usual spot by the elevators. People who knew him would stop to chat. And kids would swirl around his wheelchair, like Tasmanian devils. Not wanting to interrupt, I’d smile at him and wave from a distance. And he’d wave back. For months after I’d moved into the Woodner Apartments, this was our ritual.