Georgetown Law Alumni Magazine - Res Ipsa Loquitur
Spring/Summer 2009 - Online Volume 1
Alumni
Alumni Essay
Living and Learning at 421 6th Street
By Class of 1951 Alumni John D. Crawford, Thomas J. McElligott and Joseph T. Kivlin
The war was over, the veterans had returned and legal education was on the cusp of change.
In the fall of 1948, a large number of World War II veterans had finished college and obtained their bachelor’s degrees at various colleges throughout the country, thanks to the G.I. Bill, and had decided to continue their education by obtaining a law degree. Georgetown Law received its share of those future lawyers. Since the $75 monthly G.I. Bill allowance didn’t permit us to rent rooms at the Mayflower or the Shoreham hotels, some of us inquired about living quarters when we registered at the Law School. The registrar, Marie Stoll, told us that Georgetown owned two buildings with rooms available for a reasonable price, one at the southeast corner of 6th and E Streets, N.W., right next to the old Law School building at 506 E Street. This had been owned for several years as a dormitory and was known as the “little White House.” The second building, 421 6th Street, had just been purchased that summer, and was directly south of the Law School annex, which housed the library.
A happy group of students, about 20 of us, arranged with Mrs. Caulk, who managed the two buildings for the Law School, to share rooms at 421 6th. Many of us spent most of the next two or three years there. We have kept in touch over the years, and decided to pool our reminiscences to give readers an idea of the quality of life and legal education for a typical group of law students 60 years ago.
The 421 building was a three-story brownstone, probably built around the time of the Civil War, but it had fallen on hard times by the time Georgetown Law bought it in 1948. It had been built as a single-family residence, but had long since been subdivided into single rooms or suites and operated as a rooming house. Wooden panels, which were not soundproof, separated the rooms, and there were flimsy wooden doors opening into the hallways. Faded wallpaper and paint, linoleum or wooden floors set the tone for the decor. It was far from luxurious or ornate. In fact, we always called it the “Roach House,” not in honor of any former owner, but in honor of the bugs that were still being evicted by the new owner when we moved in. Several rooms shared bathrooms, and almost all the beds were single cots, probably Army issue, but sufficient for a good night’s sleep.
No doubt about it, the Roach House was Spartan, but we didn’t expect luxury when we moved in. The principal virtue of the Roach House was its location. Besides being right around the corner from the Law School, we were in the heart of Washington, D.C., within walking distance of the White House, the Mall, the Supreme Court, the Capitol and the congressional office buildings. We were better situated to explore Washington than most tourists, and they had to pay a lot more money.
Those of us who lived in the Roach House didn’t do everything together, but we were friendly, our rooms were always open and we were always ready to help one another when needed. From Monday through Friday, we were busy attending classes and studying. Our legal education in those days was obtained through the seat of our pants, sitting at tiered benches in lecture halls. The Law School followed the Harvard case study method. Students were called on to summarize the facts and issues of the assigned cases, followed by questions from the professor, using the Socratic method. The only exceptions we recall were the classes on legal ethics, taught by the Law School regent, Rev. Francis E. Lucey, S.J., and library science with librarian Joe Gaghan.
For meals, we could get coffee and a doughnut for breakfast at the Squire Grill on the corner just east of the Law School, on E Street, or have something stashed away in our room. The Law School had no dining facilities, not even vending machines! At lunch, we liked to go to a restaurant run by Maurice on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks south of us, across from the Justice Department and other federal office buildings. We called the place “Dunk-Your-Top.” Maurice had gone to Georgetown Dental School, but had to drop out for financial reasons during the Depression. He had a soft spot in his heart for us students and would always ask “Dunk your top?” as he served us a big roast beef sandwich from behind his counter. For dinner we would go west to 14th Street, to various reasonably priced restaurants or cafeterias catering to tourists in that neighborhood. At night, around 9 or 10 p.m., after studying for a few hours, we would frequently take a break and go down to Pennsylvania Avenue to a pancake house for something light.
On weekends, we’d always find some recreation. Some of us had been officers, or were still in the reserves, and we could go out to Anacostia Naval Air Station or Bolling for dinner. They were great places for drinks, because the slot machines at the officers’ clubs subsidized the bar, and you could get a scotch or bourbon for a dollar. Then some abstemious official at the Pentagon decided that it was wrong to permit gambling on federal property, so the slot machines had to go, and so did the cheap drinks. There were still many young women in Washington who had staffed Army and Navy offices during the war and stayed on for peacetime jobs. We courted them, because they had their own apartments and could cook, knew we were poor law students and were generous to us freeloaders. Women were permitted to enroll in the Law School in the summer of 1951, right after we graduated. We were born a few years too soon.
On Sundays, we usually went to St. Matthew’s for Mass (most of us were Catholic), and after Mass we’d have brunch at a hotel cafeteria near 12th and D. Sometimes we’d go out to Bolling for their huge Sunday brunch for only a few dollars, and we’d fill up like pack rats, to last until Tuesday. We also spent some pleasant Sunday afternoons at concerts at the Mellon Museum, at the foot of 6th Street on Pennsylvania.
We attended a lot of sporting events, too. We went to the Uline Arena to see the Washington Capitals play basketball, and on Saturdays we watched Notre Dame or some other football power on the largescreen television at the Willard Hotel. It was probably about a 36-inch screen, but that was big in those days.
Probably the only vice we indulged in at the Roach House was some moderate gambling. We had as many experts as we had residents. The Holy Cross alumni avidly followed and bet on the Celtics. The Canisius alumni supported the Buffalo teams. We all had our favorite hometown NFL football team, and we followed the Redskins’ fortunes with interest but not enthusiasm. There was one student who overdid it, spending almost as much time placing bets or handicapping on the public telephone on the second floor as he did on his books. He didn’t return for his second year.
Our Law School experience was quite different from what students enjoy now. We had no clinics, no hands-on, actual experience counseling or defending indigent clients and performing a public service in addition to learning the law. These clinics (for which we were also born a few years too soon) were the first real advancement in legal education since the case study method was introduced in 1870 to replace the lectures that had been the accepted system until then. We had to learn the fundamentals the hard way, as clerks in law firms or fledgling practitioners.
Those of us who attended the summer sessions of 1949 and 1950 will never forget the enervating, wilting heat of July and August in D.C. The classrooms at 506 E Street had very high, wide windows, but no air conditioning. There was seldom a breeze, so the wide-open windows did nothing but admit the heat boiling up from the pavement outside. Attending classes on evidence taught in the evening by Edward Bennett Williams, we were usually thinking more about how soon we could get out of our wringing wet clothes than about the admissibility of some piece of evidence, which frequently was something involved in Ed’s currently headlined court case. He always wore a hand-tied bow tie, which he opened during class in the summer. It was always fascinating to watch him retie the thing without the use of a mirror.
In addition to Williams, we had many other outstanding professors like Paul Dean, John Bulman, Robert Maurer, Heinrich Kronstein, Walter Jaeger, Joe Gaghan, Dean Fegan and Father Lucey. We remember how Doc Jaeger would frequently accuse us of relying on the law of Tierra del Fuego in our errant answers to his questions. In our classes in civil procedure, John Bulman’s standard joke on jurisdiction was that no, for that case you can’t just file it at the nearest courthouse. His exams on agency or sales always included a pawnbroker named “Three-Ball Snide.”
Sixty years ago, we lacked some of the amenities and comforts now available to law students in the 21st century, but we still treasure our memories of Georgetown Law, especially the friends we made. We hope the law students of today will have as many pleasant recollections 60 years from now.
