Historic Georgetown, in the northwest section of Washington, D.C., is one of the most prestigious neighborhoods in the nation’s capital. Founded as a commercial trading hub along the banks of the Potomac River before the American Revolution, it boasts the oldest home in Washington, along with many other eighteenth-century brick town houses. Over the past two centuries, many distinguished Americans—congressmen, senators, judges, federal officials, military officers, authors, and one man who would become president—have called Georgetown home. In its long history, no public figure has been more connected to the neighborhood than John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth president of the United States.
He lived in several homes there beginning in 1946, during the time when he gained national recognition as a U.S. congressman and senator, married Jacqueline Bouvier, and in November 1960 was elected president. Between his election and his inauguration on January 20, 1961, the circa-1811 three-story Federal-era brick town house at 3307 N Street NW, his last home in Georgetown, served as a nerve center where Kennedy hired staff and planned for his forthcoming administration, which he called the New Frontier. Even before the election, the photographers Mark Shaw and Jacques Lowe had already made the house an iconic symbol of the Kennedy style.
For two and a half months, the lights inside the house burned late as the president-elect gathered his closest advisers around him. Journalists camped outside the home to photograph or film Kennedy. They were there whenever he opened the front door, stood on the top step, and walked down to the public sidewalk a few feet in front of the house to announce the appointment of a new person to his administration.
On January 19, the night before his inauguration, a heavy snowstorm paralyzed the nation’s capital. The glow from the pair of clear glass and black metal lamps flanking John Kennedy’s front door made the crystals layering the surface of the deep snow twinkle in the night. Undeterred by the weather, the Kennedys ventured out to attend the long-planned pre-inauguration parties, including the Democratic Gala, scheduled for 8:45 P.M. at the National Guard Armory.
Jacqueline Kennedy wore a shimmering white satin floor-length ball gown that mirrored the soft, thick snowy carpet that covered the capital. Photographs captured her as she walked through her front door and stepped into the night: surrounded by darkness, she shone as bright as a glimmering star. The next morning, John and Jacqueline Kennedy left their town house for the last time and embarked on a journey he would not complete, from which he would never return.