Call Box Refurbishment in Tenleytown and Chevy Chase

Speakers: Ed Hayes, Chair of HCCDC Call Box Committee & Ken Faulstich, (Former) Project Manager, Tenleytown Neighbors Association

Have you noticed decaying or refurbished call boxes in your neighborhood? What’s the history of the call boxes and what’s the story of the refurbishment?

Police call boxes and fire alarm boxes were placed in neighborhoods all over Washington in the late 1800’s. By the mid-1900’s, with the development of home and commercial telephones and, later, with the availability of phones in police cars and fire trucks, the boxes fell into disuse. The boxes were stripped of their inner working parts and were abandoned by the 1970’s, ignored and allowed to rust.

In the early 2000s, (the former) Cultural Tourism DC created “Art on Call,” a program to restore the city’s abandoned police and fire call boxes as public art. In Tenleytown, 11 call boxes depicting the neighborhood’s history were restored.

And in 2022 Historic Chevy Chase DC (HCCDC) began an initiative to restore call boxes in its area.

Join us to hear about the Tenleytown and Chevy Chase projects.

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