as wasʜɪɴɢtoɴ deveʟoped , Southwest became its main working, waterfront community. Its wharves received travelers, food and building materials, slaves and migrants, and weapons for the new City of Washington. Ships were built and repaired here. The port was particularly busy during the Civil War, when Washington served as the Union Army’s headquarters and supply center. By 1900 this bustling neighborhood was densely built, with a working-class community of some 35,000. They were modest people of all backgrounds: European immigrants, urban African Americans, and migrants from nearby rural areas. The waterfront was a major marketplace, where Chesapeake Bay watermen tied up and sold fresh seafood and farmers delivered fresh produce. Waterfront warehouses held these commodities for distribution throughout the city. With its small town atm o s ph ere , and mode s t bri ck and wooden bu i l d i n gs and shop s , So ut hwe s t was homey and self-sufficient. As real estate devel opers open ed other areas of t h e c i ty, So ut hwest qu i et ly aged . Its modest rowh o u ses, elegant older homes, and cramped alley dwellings became run down and overcrowded. By the 1930s, reformers called Southwest obsolete. News stories declared it was located “shamefully . ..in the shadow of the Capitol.” The Washington Post led a campaign to tear down Southwest a n d start over. The press published photographs of urban blight,” ironically situated next to the nearby U.S. Capitol. Consequently nearly all of Old Southwest— 560 acres of buildings and trees— was ra zed bet ween 1954 and 1960. In its place a much-admired “new town in the city” was built. But the forced dispersal of 23 , 500 people con ti nu e s to raise important questions about the benefits of urban renewal.