Call Box Honors D.C. Leader W. N. Tobriner

By: Miriam Edelman

A newly restored call box memorializes the late Washington, D.C., leader Walter Tobriner  near his former house at 33^rd and Rittenhouse Streets in the Chevy Chase neighborhood of Washington, D.C. According to the Washington Post’s obituary, Tobriner had “always been a strong advocate of some form of home rule for the city.” This piece follows up on DCNOW’s blog post, entitled “Some of D.C.’s Renovated Call Boxes Honor Women.”

Tobriner was a prominent Washingtonian. Born in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1902, he attended Sidwell Friends School in the District of Columbia. After attending Princeton University, he earned a law degree from Harvard University. He got married and had two children. During World War II, Tobriner was a legal officer with the Army Air Forces. He led boards of hospitals and the Lisner Home, a charity for women in the District of Columbia.

Tobriner helped govern D.C. In 1952, District Court judges appointed Tobriner to the D.C. Board of Education (Board). He became President of the Board in 1957. On the Board, he guided schools after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision that mandated the desegregation of public schools.

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy appointed Tobriner to the Board of Commissioners, which governed D.C. The Washington Post supported this appointment:

“It honors a Washingtonian who has served his community with exceptional ability and devotion: and it gives this colonial dependency of the United States a native-born governor sympathetic to its aspirations and exceptionally qualified to advance them."

During Tobriner’s first term, he brought more political freedom to D.C. In 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson reappointed Tobriner to the Board. Tobriner held other prominent roles relating to the nation’s capital.

In an interview, Tobriner recalled his work on a D.C. home rule bill:

“Yes. I had no direct relationship with the President [Kennedy] on that matter. However, we spent a number of hours with the White House staff going over the provisions of a home-rule bill which subsequently was adopted as part of the Administration’s program and was accompanied by a special Presidential message when it was presented to the Congress.”

“The problems were those involved in a possible presidential veto of acts of the city council which would affect adversely the federal interest, whether it would be better to have a territorial form of government with a mayor or governor appointed by the President, or whether it would be better to have a popularly elected mayor. Then the question of the type of primary election was also discussed, and the qualifications of voters. As I recall the President was in favor of reducing the age of voting to eighteen on the theory that men were compelled to serve their country in the draft at eighteen and therefore, because of that, should be eligible to take part in elections.”

Tobriner served as the U.S. Ambassador to Jamaica and practiced law. In 1979, he died of cancer.

Tobriner’s call box, which was dedicated at a ceremony on June 7, 2025, is located in a quiet residential neighborhood. Visitors to this box can read a biography and see photographs of Tobriner.

In an interview with Historic Chevy Chase D.C., Tobriner’s daughter Connie Tobriner Povich fondly remembers the call box, “To this day, there is the relic of an old firebox alarm on the NW corner. We were told to report anybody who was tampering with it. But many times, boys would break into it and the fire engines would come.”

Let’s honor Tobriner by protecting D.C. home rule. D.C. must not go back to pre-home rule days. As Tobriner said about the pre-D.C. home rule governance structure, “The present administration of the city, divided in responsibility and dispersed in power, make only for delay and inaction and for frustration on the part of the governors and those governed.”