engineering

Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.)

Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) rather than just read about it. In short: Kirkwood House was a 19th-century building in Washington, D.C., located at the northeast corner of the intersection of 12th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue. Opened in 1848, it was initially called Fuller House, and then the Irving Hotel, before becoming known as the Kirkwood House in 1854.

Key takeaways

Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Kirkwood House was a 19th-century building in Washington, D.C., located at the northeast corner of the intersection of 12th Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue. Opened in 1848, it was initially called Fuller House, and then the Irving Hotel, before becoming known as the Kirkwood House in 1854. Kirkwood House was the site of the inauguration of Andrew Johnson as President of the United States following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865. The building was demolished in 1874.

History

An inn stood at the site that became Kirkwood House as early as the 1820s. The building that became Kirkwood House was designed for Azariah Fuller by architect John Haviland and opened to the public on December 1, 1847. A. and E. H. Fuller had previously operated a Fuller's Hotel at 14th and Pennsylvania Avenue. The name was shortly thereafter changed to Irving House or the Irving Hotel. In 1849, Millard Fillmore and his family were to stay at the Irving Hotel after leaving the White House while attending Zachary Taylor's inauguration and festivities before leaving the city. In 1853, Senator William Upham of Vermont died of smallpox at Irving House, and this apparently prompted a name change and/or a change of ownership. After an apparent brief interlude as French's Hotel, the building was closed up for a time and then acquired and renovated by the "Messrs. Kirkwood." The interior was repainted white (previously having been a dull red), and new furniture was made of rosewood and green velvet. The Kirkwoods installed gas lighting and new furnaces for heat. They slightly rearranged the ground floor, the resulting layout had an office for the managers, a large public room, and a barroom. "Inconvenient staircases and passages" were restructured. Above, perhaps on the second floor, there was a ladies' room, which was wallpapered and had a frescoed ceiling. Also upstairs were two dining rooms, a reading room, reception rooms, and "lounging-saloons." Purpose-built coaches were organized to collect guests from the railroad station and steamboat wharves. The renovated building was reopened for business as the Kirkwood House, with 110 rooms available for guests, on Monday, July 3, 1854.

Circa 1859, the Kirkwood was recommended for "the more retiring and unostentatious...The limited capacity and admirable regulations of this establishment give it much of the quiet of a well-ordered private family." During the Lincoln administration, Kirkwood's was considered one of the principal hotels of the city, along with Willard's, the National, and the Metropolitan, all located along Pennsylvania Avenue. Circa 1864, J. H. Kirkwood and A. W. Kirkwood sold out and moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where they took over management of the Weddell House, supposedly called the "Astor House of the Lakes." The Kirkwood House hotel then came under the control of one Christopher C. Sprague (and company). In 1864, Sprague advertised in the Boyd's Directory for Washington, D.C. that "The comfortable and convenient hotel, long established and well known, is still in operation. The patronage of the public is invited." Circa 1865, it would have cost between $3 and $4.50 a day to stay at a place like the Kirkwood in D.C. As Vice President of the United States under Lincoln, Andrew Johnson made Kirkwood House his residence in Washington, D.C. Vice President Johnson apparently had a ground-floor suite at the hotel at the time of Lincoln's assassination. According to Leslie's Illustrated News Johnson took the oath of office, administered by Salmon P. Chase, in a room called the small parlor.

By 1868 the building had changed hands again; a D.C. tourist guide described it at that time: "It contains about 200 rooms, and can accommodate about 350 guests. It is spacious, elegantly appointed, and its table and attendance is altogether unexceptionable. These, with the advantage of its central location, will always render the Kirkwood a distinguished and fashionable resort. Hendley & Greene, proprietors." In spring 1874 the Kirkwood was put up for sale to real-estate investors. The footprint of the building was said to be 7,362 ft2 (684.0 m2) and there were about 120 rooms. Demolition of the Kirkwood took place in November 1874. By January 1875 workers were excavating the site for a new building foundation. The Kirkwood was replaced with the Centennial Building, which in turn became the Raleigh Hotel. The Raleigh stood until 1966 when it was taken down and replaced with an office building.

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.)

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.)

In research: Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Buildings and structures completed in 1848, Buildings and structures demolished in 1875, Demolished hotels in Washington, D.C., so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) in simple terms?

Why does Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.) matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.)?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Kirkwood House (Washington, D.C.).