Diamond Construction Co. Sites

The Washington Channel is a two-mile long body of water that sits between East Potomac Park and the Southwest Waterfront. There had been a decades-long attempt to improve and modernize the area, but little had been done before the New Deal redeveloped the entire place from 1935 to 1943. Several pieces of New Deal legislation were needed for this massive project, including the River and Harbor Act of 1935 and the War Department Civil Appropriations Act of 1939.  These granted approval and provided initial and supplemental funding for a grand modernization and beautification of the Washington Channel and Southwest Waterfront. This...

Yacht Basin No. 2 was part of a large-scale New Deal redevelopment of the Washington Channel and Southwest Waterfront area.  The Diamond Construction Company started building the basin in 1938, supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. The basin was completed t in 1941 and leased to the Yacht Club in 1942.  The location of the new Yacht Basin #2 was described as “downstream of the fish wharf, at the foot of Tenth and H Streets SW” (Evening Star, May 26 1938). Further, it was said to have “570 feet of street frontage,” slips for about 100 vessels, and included the area of...