Roger Smith Hotel, Washington, D.C., circa 1960

About this postcard

The Roger Smith Hotel fills a Washington street corner as a large, multi-story brick building with rows of windows, several holding window air conditioners. Trees shade the sidewalk, cars sit at the curb, and the hotel name is mounted above the entrance. The caption names the corner Roger Smith Square. Downtown hotels like this one lodged visitors and business travelers in the capital during the mid-twentieth century. The window units and parked cars place the scene in an era when older city hotels often relied on room-by-room cooling rather than central air.