Luke and Helen Wilson purchased the land that would become their Tree Tops estate in the 1920s, during a period of growth for Washington suburb Bethesda. The Wilsons were philanthropists and interested in donating land for government use. Over the 1930s and 1940s they donated parcels of land to the National Institutes of Health, and eventually donated the Tree Tops house as well. The Tree Tops mansion, an English rustic style structure designed by Edward Clarence Dean and Arthur B. Heaton, is also known as the Wilson building. It is designated as Building K or Building 15K in NIH documents and maps.
Building 2 was built for the NIH’s Division of Industrial Hygiene. It contained the first labs in the U.S. built solely for the study of the health and safety of workers in the workplace, responsibilities which now belong to OSHA, NIOSH, and the EPA. Construction of Building 2 was handled by the George A. Fuller Company and completed on December 15th, 1938. The red-brick walls, slate roof, and double chimney “pents” are based on colonial Maryland architecture. Currently, there are no labs in Building 2. Instead, the building houses the Office of Intramural Training and Education, the Office of Loan Repayment and Scholarship, the Office of AIDS Research, and the Office of Equal Opportunity.
Building 1 is the administrative center of the NIH. It was built in 1938 by the George A. Fuller Company and its red-brick construction, colonnade, and slate roof is based on colonial Maryland architecture. From the top of the staircase on October 31, 1940, President Franklin Roosevelt dedicated the NIH to “…the underlying philosophy of public health, to the conservation of life, to the wise use of the vital resources of our nation” (audio and video links below). The building currently houses the Office of the NIH Director and provides space for many of NIH’s administrative offices. The first floor hallway is lined with portraits of every NIH director since its founding as the Hygienic Laboratory in 1887, as well as portraits of a few early scientists. Special attention is given to the portrait of Dr. James A. Shannon (NIH Director, 1955-1968), under whose leadership NIH staff doubled and the budget grew 20-fold, and for whom the building was renamed in 1983.
The National Library of Medicine began as a small collection of medical texts in the office of the U. S. Army Surgeon General in 1836. This collection grew into a library for use by military personnel until a 1956 act of Congress established the library under civilian authority. This library building on the National Institutes of Health's campus in Bethesda was completed in 1962 and reflects the Cold War environment with foot-thick limestone walls, underground book storage, and a collapsible roof. In addition to maintaining a massive print collection, the library has been at the forefront of computer innovations in medical information sharing, including MEDLINE, PubMed, and ClinicalTrials.gov. The National Library of Medicine is the world's largest biomedical library.
This tree along the Bethesda Trolley Trail near the National Library of Medicine building is a clone of the tree on the island of Cos, Greece, under which Hippocrates, the "father of medicine" is believed to have taught his students. In 1961, the Greek Ambassador gave a cutting from this parent tree to the National Institutes of Health on the occasion of the opening of the new National Library of Medicine Building. That tree died in 2013, but the NIH planted a new clone of the parent tree at the same site in 2014. A second clone of the Cos tree was planted in front of the NIH Clinical Center at the same time.
Designed by renowned architect John Eberson, this art deco-style theater was completed in 1938 and is one of the only remaining art deco theaters in the region constructed during Hollywood's Golden Age. Known as the Boro Theatre during some of its years in business, this theater was part of an independent movie house chain owned by Sidney Lust. The theater's establishment was integral to the development of the business center of Bethesda and therefore also part of the suburbanization of the DC metro area. Though the theater has undergone some renovations, name changes, and new business models over its history, it has operated almost continuously since 1938. In 1999, the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places and now serves as the home of Bethesda Blues and Jazz Supper Club.
For over 300 years, this intersection has been at the heart of trade and travel in the area that is now Bethesda, Maryland. Originally the roads that meet here were trails used by Native Americans which evolved into five major streets in Bethesda. In 1985, not long after the construction of Bethesda Metro Station underneath this spot, Rozansky & Kay Construction Company placed a stone historic marker at the crossroads to commemorate three centuries of travel along these routes. One of the streets named in the historical marker inscription, Edgemoor Lane, no longer meets the intersection with the other four streets.
The easternmost of 12 identical statues depicting white pioneer women migrating along 19th-century western trails. Commissioned by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), they were dedicated in 1928-29 in 12 states stretching from Maryland to California. The Bethesda monument has been shifted to accommodate urban renewal and is featured on the city's logo.
This Tour is a Walking Tour.
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This tour starts in downtown Bethesda with monuments and historic buildings before moving north to landmarks related to the National Institutes of Health such as the Tree of Hippocrates and the National Library of Medicine.
