One of America's largest chairs, 19.5 feet tall, has been removed, disassembled, and its pieces stored in a garage. The massive mahogany Duncan Phyfe was once the biggest in the world. It stood atop a concrete pedestal on the corner of V St. and Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. in Anacostia, just across the river from Washington DC.

The chair was built in 1959 for the Curtis Bros., which at the time had a furniture store across the street. Mahogany is one of the strongest woods in the world, and the chair survived the 1968 riots and the demise of the Curtis furniture business. But it could not withstand the ravages of Washington DC air. A recent inspection of the chair by its caretaker, John Kidwell, found rot eating away at its legs and back. Fearing that the chair could collapse at any moment, Kidwell decided to take it down. Local residents were startled to see workmen pulling apart the chair with a backhoe on Tuesday morning, August 23.

Kidwell hopes to repair the chair with its surviving pieces, but estimates that it will take several months and $30,000. An article in the Washington Post quotes him as saying that restoring the chair will be "a serious test of my abilities." [09/11/2005]