As I mentioned last week, a new exhibit at the National Building Museum — "Architecture of an Asylum: St. Elizabeths, 1852-2017" — is a fascinating look at Washington's famous mental hospital. If you've never been to St. Elizabeths, go see it.
Mike McGill of Alexandria, Va., was among readers who shared their memories of St. E's. Mike worked for the General Services Administration, where he was involved in the conversion of the west campus of St. Elizabeths into the new home for the Department of Homeland Security.
“It is an absolutely fascinating place,” wrote Mike. Spooky, yes, but endowed with surprising beauty. Mike’s favorite building was the 900-seat theater, complete with a full proscenium stage, padded seats, a balcony and gorgeous Beaux-Arts detailing. It seems fitting that the theater is called Hitchcock Hall.
The first superintendent at St. Elizabeths was Charles Nichols. (Until it was renamed in 1971, Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue was called Nichols Avenue in his honor. And before it was Nichols Avenue, it was called Asylum Avenue.)
Mike pointed out that a later superintendent, Winfred Overholser Sr., stirred controversy when Ezra Pound was held at St. Elizabeths, the result of the pro-fascist radio broadcasts the poet made from Italy during World War II. Overholser adjudged Pound insane, sparing him from punishment for treason.
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“The superintendent was so respected in his field that no one dared challenge his judgment on this matter,” Mike wrote. “In the meantime, he had Pound over to dinner in his quarters frequently, a short trip for Pound from the room where he was confined nearby.”
Overholser's relationship with Pound was criticized in 1981 in an article by a St. Elizabeths staff psychiatrist, E. Fuller Torrey.
Overholser “dominated” other members of the hospital board who felt that Pound was sane, Torrey wrote, and he “had the power to stop an otherwise normal legal course of events.” Torrey believed that without the intercession of Overholser, Pound would have been tried and found guilty of treason “and spent a few years in prison.”
As it was, Pound lived in relative luxury at St. Elizabeths, working on his poetry, visited by such literary friends as T.S. Eliot and Thornton Wilder, and carrying on sexual affairs with female devotees. Nice work if you can get it.
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Dave Shea of Springfield, Va., said that in 1960 he was stationed at Andrews Air Force Base, where he directed "Harvey," the 1944 play about a giant invisible rabbit seen only by Elwood P. Dowd (played by Jimmy Stewart in the 1950 movie).
“We invited patients from St. Elizabeths to see the show,” Dave wrote. “As our guests arrived, I instructed them as to seating arrangements. ‘The even-numbered tickets are on the left side, and the odds are on the right,’ I said.
“I’ll never forget the response from one lady: ‘We’re from St. Elizabeths,’ she said. ‘We’re all odd.’ I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”
I’m on a boat
Mike Nardolilli corrected a mistake I made last week in my column about the new floating vessel destined for the Georgetown stretch of the C&O Canal. Mike is the former head of the C&O Canal Trust. On his first day on the job, he learned that the canal was serviced by canal boats, not canal barges, the word I used.
“A boat can be steered, while a barge cannot be,” Mike wrote. “All boats on the canal had to be steered. ... Boats towed by mules had to be steered away from the tow line in order to keep the canal boats from being pulled to one side of the canal.”
It’s in the bag
Look away now if you prefer not to have dog poop with your breakfast. Jennifer Rutherford of Laytonsville, Md., read my recent columns on that subject and agreed that too many dog owners don't pick up after their pooches.
"Just yesterday I went with my husband to Rachel Carson Park in upper Montgomery County to walk our three dogs," she wrote. "I took extra bags with me and picked up every dog poop I could see on the first quarter mile of the paths which I frequent. Yes, I picked up after other people's dogs!"
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The harvest: five bags. Wrote Jennifer: "If everybody picked up their own dog's poop it would be a perfect world, but if we all stooped to scoop at least one other poop we could poop it forward and make a difference."
To that end, Jennifer composed an inspirational ditty, “sung to the obvious tune”:
Ta Rah Rah BOOM Dee AY
I picked up POOP today
Not my pup’s POOP — But HEY!
I scooped it ANYWAY!
Ta Rah Rah BOOM Dee AY
Let’s all be good today
And POOP IT FORWARD — Yay!
Keep our park clean, HURRAY!
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
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