Capitol Hill Gets Its Library Back the Same Fall It Gives Up Its Pool

Within three weeks this fall, the blocks around Eastern Market gained one public building and were set to lose another. The Southeast Library reopened on Sept. 10. The William H. Rumsey Aquatic Center was scheduled to close on Oct. 1 for demolition, with a replacement targeted for early 2028. Until the new pool opens, a Saturday around the market works differently. The pool-front plaza becomes a fenced work site, food vendors are set to move toward North Hall, and the free indoor space on the block is now two blocks south on Seventh Street.

A Carnegie building, nearly three times larger

The Southeast Library at 403 Seventh St. SE first opened in October 1922 and cost $75,000 to build. Its renovation cost $41 million. It is one of the District's four original Carnegie libraries, and all four have now been renovated and reopened.

The size of the old building explains the price. Councilmember Charles Allen pointed out that the branch was one of the system's busiest and also one of its smallest, at 7,493 square feet on a 6,431-square-foot lot. The renovation brings it to 17,547 square feet without changing the historic footprint above ground. Most of the new space was dug out beneath the building. The children's library now fills the largest floor, which sits below the old basement. A shaft of light runs from a skylight on the main floor, past a middle level for computers and meetings, down to the children's floor. A new accessible entrance on South Carolina Avenue has a small "peek-a-boo" window that looks down on children playing one floor below.

At the ribbon-cutting, DC Public Library Executive Director Richard Reyes-Gavilan described the building in terms that matter more with the pool coming down:

"People still need environments where they can be together in real life, without barriers, without expectations, and without having to buy anything."

DCPL lists the branch's hours as follows:

On Saturdays, the library opens an hour after the outdoor market, which runs 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and stays open later. On Sundays it opens at 1 p.m., well into the afternoon of the flea market's 9-to-4 day. So far the branch lists two recurring programs. Toddler Explorations is a play session for children from six months to five years, aimed at early literacy and social skills. Tabletop Tuesday is a weekly game club. Both are on the calendar for Oct. 6, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. Tabletop Tuesday is open-play board games through Oct. 13, and other kinds of games come after that. The branch's events listing shows no storytime yet.

What the Oct. 1 closure sets in motion at 635 North Carolina Avenue

The Rumsey closure only starts a fixed sequence of steps. At a Sept. 22 meeting in Eastern Market's North Hall, Department of Parks and Recreation and Department of General Services officials said the city could not apply for a raze permit while the pool was open. First the building has to be emptied, the pool drained and the power cut by Pepco. Officials estimated four to six weeks for the move-out and draining. Demolition should then take four to five months once it starts. Counting from Oct. 1, that puts the permit application somewhere between late October and mid-November, and a four-to-five-month demolition would run into 2027.

DPR's own notice set the closure for Thursday, Oct. 1. At the time of writing, neither DPR nor DGS had posted an update confirming that the building closed on schedule. Swimmers got about two weeks' notice. Allen called that frustrating, and said he had a "pretty hot phone call" with DPR director Thennie Freeman about it.

Regular swimmers have these temporary options:

1. Fall classes run Oct. 13 to Nov. 6 at Barry Farm Aquatic Center, Joy Evans Therapeutic Recreation Center, Deanwood Aquatic Center and Turkey Thicket Aquatic Center. DPR said special registration would open Sept. 25 at noon.
2. Morning and evening lap swimming has moved to the Ballou Senior High School Aquatic Center, and Dunbar was later added as a second school-pool option.

The $44.5 million replacement is a full two-story aquatic and community center on the same lot. It will have an eight-lane, 25-yard lap pool, a separate leisure and learn-to-swim pool, a senior center, community rooms, a fitness room, a tech lounge and a sauna. After water-aerobics users raised concerns, the lap pool's shallow end was changed to start at three and a half feet. The lobby will include art honoring Dr. William H. Rumsey. His grandson, William H. Rumsey III, attended the September meeting and called the design "wonderful."

How the market weekend rearranges itself

This change reaches people who never swim. The construction logistics plan shown in September puts a fence around the site and uses part of the North Carolina Avenue plaza as a laydown area and construction entrance. It also moves the sidewalks and the bike lane into the parking lane. The plan still needed approval from DDOT's public space committee.

Weekend vendors who set up on the plaza in front of the pool will have to move. According to the plan officials described, most food-service vendors go to the plaza in front of North Hall. Vendors displaced from that spot move into North Hall itself or onto the 200 block of Seventh Street SE, and DGS will work out the details with them. No published source yet confirms where each vendor actually set up after Oct. 1. Eastern Market posts weekly outdoor maps, and those are the best place to check before you go. The market's Fall 2026 Saturday listing for Oct. 3 showed 61 vendors.

Officials also addressed some smaller details around the site.

• Capital Bikeshare: the station stays, moved to the end of the parking area.
• Compost drop-off: the logistics were not yet settled.
• The market alley: vendors should keep roughly the access they have now, with the fence set near the existing wall.
• The heritage tree near North Carolina Avenue: its critical root zone is protected, and crews have already used air spading to locate the major roots.
• Trucks: deliveries enter from North Carolina Avenue, unload inside the site and leave, rather than lining up on the street.

For the length of the project, North Hall and Seventh Street will carry more of the market's weekend traffic. The new library two blocks down that same street is the nearest free indoor space for anyone who wants one. When the library opened, Allen grouped it with the rebuilt plaza, the playground and the new pool as places that "quite literally… knit our fabric and community together." Until the early-2028 target, only some of those places will be open.

"Communication, communication, communication is going to be key." Councilmember Charles Allen, on the Rumsey construction period

The fall calendar, mapped to the market

Several of the season's events take place in the very buildings that will absorb the displaced activity. North Hall hosts Pottery Jam. Eastern Market hosts Hill-O-Ween, during the stretch when the pool site next door should be in move-out or permitting.

Soul Strolls has changed for 2026. Tours now leave about every 10 minutes instead of the usual 15. There is also a new, shorter tour on paved paths for guests with limited mobility.

Other rooms that reopened this year

Away from the construction fence, a few smaller public spaces came back over the summer. Mott's Market at 233 12th St. SE reopened in August with groceries and a community patio. On the south edge of Garfield Park, beneath I-695, the Robert M. Krughoff Pickleball Center opened five new courts. In August, Hill Rag reported daily open play from 9 a.m. to noon and 5 to 8 p.m. Closer to the Capitol, a new all-way stop at Sixth and A streets SE was installed after neighbors and the ANC asked for it.

DGS posts updates and slides on the pool rebuild at dgs.dc.gov/page/rumsey-aquatic-center. Christopher Dyer, DPR's community liaison for the project, can be reached at [email protected].

A long civic project like this one changes how the streets around a home feel, and it can change how the home itself is described when it's time to sell. If your house sits near Eastern Market and you'd like a discreet read on how the Rumsey work and the new library fit into its story, the Fleur Howgill Team can prepare a Confidential Home Valuation on your schedule.