Bipeds of Brookland: Rick Naylor

Bipeds of Brookland: Rick Naylor


Rick Naylor  was born and raised in DC to a family that has been here since the 1820’s. When his father worked as a projectionist at the Howard Theater, he used to play poker with Duke Ellington. In 1954, his father bought a house in Brookland. Five years ago, Rick and his wife moved into the house he grew up in. “In every square inch, there’s a memory.” When he was 4 or 5 years old “the National Guard was camped out across the street after Martin Luther King, Jr., got shot.” Rick talks of playing basketball and riding sleighs behind Holy Name College, now Howard Divinity, and remembers his father talking about losing a framed newspaper article from the day Lincoln was shot. During his renovations, Rick found the article in the attic. He says it is fun now to see his daughter playing where he played.

After completing his MBA at the University of Michigan, Rick came home to DC to work for the Federal Reserve. He’s worked at the Fed for over 26 years, and has responsibility for foreign banks with operations here in the United States. He notes the coincidence that his father worked on the board of a national bank in the exact same office building on K Street where he and his sister now work for the Federal Reserve, and another sister once worked for IBM.

Rick has enjoyed being a member of the Greater Brookland Garden Club and once organized a subgroup focused on edible gardening named ‘Bhive’ (B for Brookland). His wife manages most of their garden but he grows strawberries, garlic and saffron beside her vegetables.  He likes the small town feel of Brookland as well as his 25 minute commute to the office and says that he runs every morning.  “I typically take a different path just to go down different streets because I see so much I wouldn’t see in a car.”  He appreciates the diversity of architecture as well as the diversity of people in Brookland.

Bipeds of Brookland is a weekly series introducing the people who make Brookland their home, one step at a time.
Article and photo by Tom Sabella