Posts tagged L'enfant Plan
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The lessons of DC’s circles and squares
From the 1870s up to the present day, competing interests — erecting monuments and memorials, preserving space for civic recreation, and catering to vehicular traffic — have led to drastic changes in our shared public spaces. Keep reading…
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What we can learn from the history of DC’s circles and squares
From the 1870s up to the present day, competing interests — erecting monuments and memorials, preserving space for civic recreation, and catering to vehicular traffic — have led to drastic changes in our shared public spaces. Keep reading…
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This is why some of DC’s avenues have states as names
From A Street to Verbena Street and from Half to Sixty-Third, DC’s lettered and numbered streets make it difficult to get lost with their logical progressions. But DC’s transverse diagonal avenues confound everyone from tourists to suburban motorists. Keep reading…
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Have you ever wondered why this federal building is missing a corner?
The Department of Agriculture South Building an archetypal federal building: big, beige, and boxy. But it’s missing a corner. Why? The L’Enfant Plan and a street that no longer exists. Keep reading…
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What we can learn from the history of DC’s circles and squares
From the 1870s up to the present day, competing interests—erecting monuments and memorials, preserving space for civic recreation, and catering to vehicular traffic—have led to drastic changes in our shared public spaces. Keep reading…
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Building of the Week: Washington Union Station
At its peak, nearly 200,000 people traveled through Union Station daily. Then it was so ill-used that railroad executives considered razing it. Here's everything you wanted to know about the storied history of Union Station. Keep reading…
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Here’s how DC’s state-named avenues got their names
Earlier in the summer, we re-visited the reasoning behind why Washington, DC’s street naming system. From A Street to Verbena Street and from Half to Sixty-Third, DC’s lettered and numbered streets make it difficult to get lost with their logical progressions. But DC’s transverse diagonal avenues confound everyone from tourists to suburban motorists. Keep reading…
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Here’s why DC’s streets have the names they do
Earlier this month, we looked at Arlington’s street naming system. There might be even more ingenuity behind the way the District’s streets are named. Washington is partially a planned city. The area north of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers and south of Florida Avenue (originally Boundary Street) is known as the L’Enfant City. This area of Washington was… Keep reading…
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This federal building is missing a corner. Here’s why
The Department of Agriculture South Building an archetypal federal building: big, beige, and boxy. But it’s missing a corner. Why? The L’Enfant Plan and a street that no longer exists. Keep reading…
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Could Longfellow Triangle be more of a real park?
Longfellow Triangle is one of many lightly used, leftover spaces on the L’Enfant grid. With some creative thinking, the city could turn it into a more useful and enjoyable public space. The triangle is bounded by Connecticut Avenue, Rhode Island Avenue, 18th Street, and M Street. While it would make sense to have a circle there, one never developed, likely because Rhode… Keep reading…