Pennsylvania Avenue
Pennsylvania Avenue is a diagonal street in Washington, D. C. and Prince George's County, Maryland that connects the White House and the United States Capitol and crosses the city to Maryland. In Maryland it is Maryland Route 4 to MD-717 where it becomes Stephanie Roper Highway; the section between the White House and Congress is called "America's Main Street", it is the location of official parades and processions, as well as protest marches. Moreover, Pennsylvania Avenue is an important commuter road and is part of the National Highway System; the avenue runs for a total of 5.8 miles inside Washington, but the 1.2 miles of Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the United States Capitol building is considered the most important. It continues within the city for 3.5 miles, from the southeast corner of the Capitol grounds through the Capitol Hill neighborhood, over the Anacostia River on the John Philip Sousa Bridge. Crossing most of Prince George's County, Maryland, it ends 9.5 miles from the DC line at the junction with MD 717 in WUpper Marlboro where the name changes to the Stephanie Roper Highway, for a total length of 15.3 miles.
Stephanie Roper Highway used to be Pennsylvania Avenue, but was renamed in 2012. In addition to its street names, in Maryland it is designated as Maryland Route 4. At one point in the mid-20th century, Pennsylvania Avenue was designated DC 4, an extension of Maryland Route 4 that reached at least the east side of the White House. Northwest of the White House, Pennsylvania Avenue runs for 1.4 miles to its end at M Street NW in Georgetown, just beyond the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge over Rock Creek. From 1862 to 1962, streetcars ran the length of the avenue from Georgetown to the Anacostia River. Although Pennsylvania Avenue extends six miles within Washington, D. C. the expanse between the White House and the Capitol constitutes the ceremonial heart of the nation. Washington called this stretch "most magnificent & most convenient". Laid out by Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Pennsylvania Avenue was one of the earliest streets constructed in the Federal City; the first reference to the street as Pennsylvania Avenue comes in a 1791 letter from Thomas Jefferson.
One theory is that the street was named for Pennsylvania as consolation for moving the capital from Philadelphia. Both Jefferson and George Washington considered the avenue an important feature of the new capital. After inspecting L'Enfant's plan, President Washington referred to the thoroughfare as a "Grand Avenue". Jefferson concurred, while the "grand avenue" was little more than a wide dirt road ridiculed as "The Great Serbonian Bog", he planted it with rows of fast-growing Lombardy poplars. At one time Pennsylvania Avenue provided an unobstructed view between the White House and the Capitol; the construction of an expansion to the Treasury Building blocked this view, President Andrew Jackson did this on purpose. Relations between the president and Congress were strained, Jackson did not want to see the Capitol out his window, though in reality the Treasury Building was built on what was cheap government land. In an effort to tame dust and dirt, Pennsylvania Avenue was first paved using the macadam method in 1832, but over the years other pavement methods were trialed on the avenue: cobblestones in 1849 followed by Belgian blocks and in 1871, wooden blocks.
In 1876, as part of an initiative begun by President Ulysses S. Grant to see Washington City's streets improved, Pennsylvania Avenue was paved with asphalt by Civil War veteran William Averell using Trinidad lake asphalt. In 1959, Pennsylvania Avenue was extended from the DC line to Dower House Road. On September 30, 1965, portions of the avenue and surrounding area were designated the Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site; the National Park Service administers this area which includes the United States Navy Memorial, Old Post Office Tower, Pershing Park. Congress created the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation on October 27, 1972 to rehabilitate the street between the Capitol and the White House, an area seen as blighted; the new organization was given the mandate of developing Pennsylvania Avenue "in a manner suitable to its ceremonial and historic relationship to the legislative and executive branches of the Federal Government". In 2010, the District of Columbia designated Pennsylvania Avenue from the southwestern terminus of John Philip Sousa Bridge to the Maryland state line to be a "D.
C. Great Street"; the city spent $430 million to improve the roadway. Since an impromptu procession formed around Jefferson's second inauguration, every United States president except Ronald Reagan has paraded down the Avenue after taking the oath of office. From William Henry Harrison to Gerald Ford, the funeral corteges of seven of the eight presidents who died in office and two former presidents followed this route. Franklin Roosevelt was the only president who died in office whose cortege did not follow this route. Lyndon B. Johnson and Ford were the former presidents. For LBJ, it was along the route from the Capitol to the National City Christian Church, where he worshiped because the funeral was held there. Ford's went up Pennsylvania Avenue because it paused at the White House en route to the Washington National Cathedral, where the funeral was held. Abraham Lincoln's funeral cortege solemnly proceeded along Pennsylvania Avenue in 1865.
George Washington
George Washington was an American political leader, military general and Founding Father who served as the first president of the United States from 1789 to 1797. He led Patriot forces to victory in the nation's War of Independence, he presided at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 which established the new federal government, he has been called the "Father of His Country" for his manifold leadership in the formative days of the new nation. Washington received his initial military training and command with the Virginia Regiment during the French and Indian War, he was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses and was named a delegate to the Continental Congress, where he was appointed Commanding General of the nation's Continental Army. Washington allied with France, in the defeat of the British at Yorktown. Once victory for the United States was in hand in 1783, Washington resigned his commission. Washington played a key role in the adoption and ratification of the Constitution and was elected president by the Electoral College in the first two elections.
He implemented a strong, well-financed national government while remaining impartial in a fierce rivalry between cabinet members Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton. During the French Revolution, he proclaimed a policy of neutrality while sanctioning the Jay Treaty, he set enduring precedents for the office of president, including the title "President of the United States", his Farewell Address is regarded as a pre-eminent statement on republicanism. Washington utilized slave labor and trading African American slaves, but he became troubled with the institution of slavery and freed them in his 1799 will, he was a member of the Anglican Church and the Freemasons, he urged tolerance for all religions in his roles as general and president. Upon his death, he was eulogized as "first in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his countrymen." He has been memorialized by monuments, geographical locations and currency, many scholars and polls rank him among the top American presidents. Washington's great-grandfather John Washington immigrated in 1656 from Sulgrave, England to the British Colony of Virginia where he accumulated 5,000 acres of land, including Little Hunting Creek on the Potomac River.
George Washington was born February 22, 1732 at Popes Creek in Westmoreland County and was the first of six children of Augustine and Mary Ball Washington. His father was a justice of the peace and a prominent public figure who had three additional children from his first marriage to Jane Butler; the family moved to Little Hunting Creek to Ferry Farm near Fredericksburg, Virginia. When Augustine died in 1743, Washington inherited ten slaves. Washington did not have the formal education that his older brothers received at Appleby Grammar School in England, but he did learn mathematics and surveying, he was talented in draftsmanship and map-making. By early adulthood, he was writing with "considerable force" and "precision."Washington visited Mount Vernon and Belvoir, the plantation that belonged to Lawrence's father-in-law William Fairfax, which fueled ambition for the lifestyle of the planter aristocracy. Fairfax became Washington's patron and surrogate father, Washington spent a month in 1748 with a team surveying Fairfax's Shenandoah Valley property.
He received a surveyor's license the following year from the College of Mary. He resigned from the job in 1750 and had bought 1,500 acres in the Valley, he owned 2,315 acres by 1752. In 1751, Washington made his only trip abroad when he accompanied Lawrence to Barbados, hoping that the climate would cure his brother's tuberculosis. Washington contracted smallpox during that trip, which immunized him but left his face scarred. Lawrence died in 1752, Washington leased Mount Vernon from his widow. Lawrence's service as adjutant general of the Virginia militia inspired Washington to seek a commission, Virginia's Lieutenant Governor Robert Dinwiddie appointed him as a major in December 1752 and as commander of one of the four militia districts; the British and French were competing for control of the Ohio Valley at the time, the British building forts along the Ohio River and the French doing between Lake Erie and the Ohio River. In October 1753, Dinwiddie appointed Washington as a special envoy to demand that the French vacate territory which the British had claimed.
Dinwiddie appointed him to make peace with the Iroquois Confederacy and to gather intelligence about the French forces. Washington met with Half-King Tanacharison and other Iroquois chiefs at Logstown to secure their promise of support against the French, his party reached the Ohio River in November, they were intercepted by a French patrol and escorted to Fort Le Boeuf where Washington was received in a friendly manner. He delivered the British demand to vacate to French commander Saint-Pierre, but the French refused to leave. Saint-Pierre gave Washington his official answer in a sealed envelope after a few days' delay, he gave Washington's party food and extra winter clothing for the trip back to Virginia. Washington completed the precarious mission in 77 days in difficult winter conditions and achieved a measure of distinction when his report was published in Virginia and London. In February 1754, Dinwiddie promoted Washington to lieutenant colonel and second-in-command of the 300-strong Virginia R
Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
The Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus known as the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus was the most important temple in Ancient Rome, located on the Capitoline Hill. It had a cathedral-like position in the official religion of Rome, was surrounded by the Area Capitolina, a precinct where certain assemblies met, numerous shrines, altars and victory trophies were displayed; the first building was the oldest large temple in Rome, can be considered as Etruscan architecture. It was traditionally dedicated in 509 BC, but in 83 BC it was destroyed by fire, a replacement in Greek style completed in 69 BC. For the first temple Etruscan specialists were brought in for various aspects of the building, including making and painting the extensive terracotta elements of the Temple of Zeus or upper parts, such as antefixes, but for the second building they were summoned from Greece, the building was essentially Greek in style, though like other Roman temples it retained many elements of Etruscan form. The two further buildings were evidently of contemporary Roman style.
The first version is the largest Etruscan temple recorded, much larger than other Roman temples for centuries after. However, its size remains disputed by specialists. Whatever its size, its influence on other early Roman temples was long-lasting. Reconstructions show wide eaves, a wide colonnade stretching down the sides, though not round the back wall as it would have done in a Greek temple. A crude image on a coin of 78 BC shows only four columns, a busy roofline. With two further fires, the third temple only lasted five years, to 80 AD, but the fourth survived until the fall of the empire. Remains of the last temple survived to be pillaged for spolia in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, but now only elements of the foundations and podium or base survive. Much about the various buildings remains uncertain. Much of what is known of the first Temple of Jupiter is from Roman tradition. Lucius Tarquinius Priscus vowed this temple while battling with the Sabines and, according to Dionysius of Halicarnassus, began the terracing necessary to support the foundations of the temple.
Modern coring on the Capitoline has confirmed the extensive work needed just to create a level building site. According to Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, the foundations and most of the superstructure of the temple were completed by Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome. Livy records that before the temple's construction shrines to other gods occupied the site; when the augurs carried out the rites seeking permission to remove them, only Terminus and Juventas were believed to have refused. Their shrines were therefore incorporated into the new structure; because he was the god of boundaries, Terminus's refusal to be moved was interpreted as a favorable omen for the future of the Roman state. A second portent was the appearance of the head of a man to workmen digging the foundations of the temple; this was said by the augurs to mean. Traditionally the Temple was dedicated on September 13, the founding year of the Roman Republic, 509 BC according to Livy. According to Dionysius, it was consecrated two years in 507 BC.
It was sacred to the Capitoline Triad consisting of Jupiter and his companion deities and Minerva. The man to perform the dedication of the temple was chosen by lot; the duty fell to one of the consuls in that year. Livy records that in 495 BC the Latins, as a mark of gratitude to the Romans for the release of 6,000 Latin prisoners, delivered a crown of gold to the temple; the original temple may have measured 60 m × 60 m, though this estimate is hotly disputed by some specialists. It was considered the most important religious temple of the whole state of Rome; each deity of the Triad had a separate cella, with Juno Regina on the left, Minerva on the right, Jupiter Optimus Maximus in the middle. The first temple was decorated with many terra cotta sculptures; the most famous of these was of Jupiter driving a quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses, on top of the roof as an acroterion. This sculpture, as well as the cult statue of Jupiter in the main cella, was said to have been the work of Etruscan artisan Vulca of Veii.
An image of Summanus, a thunder god, was among the pedimental statues. The original temple decoration was discovered in 2014; the findings allowed the archaeologists to reconstruct for the first time the real appearance of the temple in the earliest phase. The wooden elements of the roof and lintels were lined with terracotta revetment plaques and other elements of exceptional size and richly decorated with painted reliefs, following the so-called Second Phase model, that had its first expression with the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus; the temple, which rose to fame, established a new model for sacred architecture, adopted in the terracotta decorations of many temples in Italy up to the 2nd century BC. The original elements were replaced with other elements in different style in the early 4th century BC and anew at the end of 3rd – beginning 2nd cent
Federal architecture
Federal-style architecture is the name for the classicizing architecture built in the newly founded United States between c. 1780 and 1830, from 1785 to 1815. This style shares its name with the Federalist Era; the name Federal style is used in association with furniture design in the United States of the same time period. The style broadly corresponds to the classicism of Biedermeier style in the German-speaking lands, Regency architecture in Britain and to the French Empire style. In the early American republic, the founding generation consciously chose to associate the nation with the ancient democracies of Greece and the republican values of Rome. Grecian aspirations informed the Greek Revival. Using Roman architectural vocabulary, the Federal style applied to the balanced and symmetrical version of Georgian architecture, practiced in the American colonies' new motifs of neoclassical architecture as it was epitomized in Britain by Robert Adam, who published his designs in 1792. American Federal architecture uses plain surfaces with attenuated detail isolated in panels and friezes.
It had a flatter, smoother façade and used pilasters. It was most influenced by the interpretation of ancient Roman architecture, fashionable after the unearthing of Pompeii and Herculaneum; the bald eagle was a common symbol used in this style, with the ellipse a frequent architectural motif. The classicizing manner of constructions and town planning undertaken by the federal government was expressed in federal projects of lighthouses, harbor buildings, hospitals, it can be seen in the rationalizing, urbanistic layout of L'Enfant Plan of Washington and in the Commissioners' Plan of 1811 in New York. The historic eastern part of Bleecker Street in New York, between Broadway and the Bowery, is home to Federal-style row houses at 7 to 13 and 21 to 25 Bleecker Street; this American neoclassical high style was the idiom of America's first professional architects, such as Charles Bulfinch and Minard Lafever. Robert Adam and James Adam were leading influences through their books. In Salem, there are numerous examples of American colonial architecture and Federal architecture in two historic districts: Chestnut Street District, part of the Samuel McIntire Historic District containing 407 buildings, the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, consisting of 12 historic structures and about 9 acres of land along the waterfront.
Asher Benjamin Charles Bulfinch John Holden Greene James Hoban Thomas Jefferson Minard Lafever Benjamin Latrobe Pierre L'Enfant Samuel Lewis John McComb, Jr. Samuel McIntire Robert Mills Alexander Parris William Strickland Martin E. Thompson William Thornton Ithiel Town Ammi B. Young Lachlan PowerModern reassessment of the American architecture of the Federal period began with Fiske Kimball, Domestic Architecture of the American Colonies and the Early Republic, 1922. Adam style Boscobel Federal furniture Hamilton Grange National Memorial List of houses in Fairmount Park Lyre arm Morris–Jumel Mansion Craig, Lois A; the Federal Presence: Architecture and National Design. The MIT Press: 1984. ISBN 0-262-53059-7. Definition of Federal-style architecture Introduction to Federal-style architecture Federal Style, 1780-1820 - Coleman-Hollister House Federal Style Patterns 1780-1820 Bibliography for federal style research, photographs of federal houses, federal style pattern book
Flea market
A flea market is a type of street market which provides space for vendors to sell previously-owned merchandise. This type of market is seasonal, however in recent years there has been the development of'formal' and'casual' markets which divides a fixed-style market with long-term leases and a seasonal-style market with short-term leases. There tends to be an emphasis on sustainable consumption whereby items such as used goods, collectibles and vintage clothing can be purchased. Flea market vending is distinguished from street vending in that the market itself, not any other public attraction, brings in buyers. There is a variety of vendors. Vendors require skill in following retro and vintage trends as well as selecting merchandise which connects with the culture and identity of their customers. Different English-speaking countries use various names for flea markets. In Australian English, they are called'trash and treasure markets'. In Philippine English, the word is tianggê from the word tianguis via Mexican Spanish, supplanting the indigenous term talipapâ.
In India, it is known as gurjari or shrukawadi bazaar or as juna bazaar. In the United Kingdom, they are known as "car boot sales" if the event takes place in a field or car park, as the vendors will sell goods from the'boot' of their car. If the event is held indoors, such as a school or church hall it is known as either a "jumble sale", or a "bring and buy sale". In Quebec and France, they are called Marché aux puces, while in French-speaking areas of Belgium, the name Brocante or vide-grenier is used. In German there are many words in use but the most common word is "Flohmarkt", meaning "flea market". In the predominantly Cuban/Hispanic areas of South Florida, they are called pulgero from pulga, the Spanish word for fleas. In the Southern part of Andalusia, due to the influence of Gibraltar English, they are known as "piojito", which means "little louse". In Chile they can be called persas or mercados persa and ferias libres, if selling fruit and vegetables. While the concept existed in places such as what are now India and China for millennia, the origins of the term "flea market" are disputed.
According to one theory, the Fly Market in 18th-century New York City began the association. The Dutch word vlaie was located at Maiden Lane near the East River in Manhattan; the land on which the market took place was a salt marsh with a brook, by the early 1800s the "Fly Market" was the city's principal market. A second theory maintains that "flea market" is a common English calque from the French "marché aux puces" which translates to "market of the fleas", labelled as such because the items sold were owned and worn containing fleas; the first reference to this term appeared in two conflicting stories about a location in Paris in the 1860s, known as the "marché aux puces". The traditional and most-publicized story is in the article "What Is a Flea Market?" by Albert LaFarge in the 1998 winter edition of Today's Flea Market magazine: "There is a general agreement that the term'Flea Market' is a literal translation of the French marché aux puces, an outdoor bazaar in Paris, named after those pesky little parasites of the order Siphonaptera that infested the upholstery of old furniture brought out for sale."
The second story appeared in the book Flea Markets, published in Europe by Chartwell Books, has in its introduction: In the time of the Emperor Napoleon III, the imperial architect Haussmann made plans for the broad, straight boulevards with rows of square houses in the center of Paris, along which army divisions could march with much pompous noise. The plans forced many dealers in second-hand goods to flee their old dwellings; these dislodged merchants were, allowed to continue selling their wares undisturbed right in the north of Paris, just outside the former fort, in front of the gate Porte de Clignancourt. The first stalls were erected in about 1860; the gathering together of all these exiles from the slums of Paris was soon given the name "marché aux puces", meaning "flea market" translation. There are flea markets in Japan. However, because the words "flea" and "free" are transcribed in the same Japanese katakana phonetic letters, they have mistaken them and started to use "free market" instead of "flea market."
Braderie Car boot sale Charity shop Farmers' market Garage sale Hamfest MASP Antique Market Pasar malam White elephant sale Flea market directories at Curlie World's best flea markets directory at fleamapket Flea market stories and tips at Flea Market Insiders
Pierre Charles L'Enfant
Pierre Charles L'Enfant, self-identified as Peter Charles L'Enfant while living in the United States, was a French-American military engineer who designed the basic plan for Washington, D. C. known today as the L'Enfant Plan. L'Enfant was born in Paris, France on August 2, 1754, the third child and second son of Pierre L'Enfant, a painter with a good reputation in the service of King Louis XV of France, Marie L'Enfant, the daughter of a minor official at court. In 1758, his brother Pierre Joseph died at the age of six, Pierre Charles became the eldest son, he studied art at the Royal Academy in the Louvre, as well as with his father at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He left school in France to enlist in the American Revolutionary War on the side of the rebelling colonials. L'Enfant was recruited by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais to serve in the American Revolutionary War in the United States, he arrived in 1777 at the age of 23, served as a military engineer in the Continental Army with Major General Lafayette.
He was commissioned as a captain in the Corps of Engineers on April 3, 1779 to rank from February 18, 1778. Despite his aristocratic origins, L'Enfant identified with the United States, changing his first name from Pierre to Peter when he first came to the rebelling colonies in 1777. L'Enfant served on General George Washington's staff at Valley Forge. While there, the Marquis de Lafayette commissioned L'Enfant to paint a portrait of Washington. During the war, L'Enfant made a number of pencil portraits of George Washington and other Continental Army officers, he made at least two paintings of Continental Army encampments. L'Enfant was wounded at the Siege of Savannah on October 9, 1779, he recovered and became a prisoner of war at the surrender of Charleston, South Carolina on May 12, 1780. He was exchanged in November 1780 and served on General Washington's staff for the remainder of the American Revolution. L'Enfant was promoted by brevet to Major in the Corps of Engineers on May 2, 1783, in recognition of his service to the cause of American liberty.
He was discharged when the Continental Army was disbanded in December 1783. Following the American Revolutionary War, L'Enfant established a successful and profitable civil engineering firm in New York City, he achieved some fame as an architect by redesigning the City Hall in New York for the First Congress of the United States. L'Enfant designed furniture and houses for the wealthy, as well as coins and medals. Among the medals was the eagle-shaped badge of the Society of the Cincinnati, an organization of former officers of the Continental Army of which he was a founder. At the request of George Washington, the first President of the Society, L'Enfant had the insignias made in France during a 1783-1784 visit to his father and helped to organize a chapter of the Society there. L'Enfant was a friend of Alexander Hamilton; some of their correspondences from 1793 to 1801 now reside in the Library of Congress. While L'Enfant was in New York City, he was initiated into Freemasonry, his initiation took place on April 1789, at Holland Lodge No.
8, F & A M, which the Grand Lodge of New York F & A M had chartered in 1787. L'Enfant took only the first of three degrees offered by the Lodge and did not progress further in Freemasonry; the new Constitution of the United States, which took effect in March and April 1789, gave the newly organized Congress of the United States authority to establish a federal district up to ten miles square in size. L'Enfant had written first to President George Washington, asking to be commissioned to plan the city, but a decision on the capital was put on hold until July 1790 when the First Congress passed the "Residence Act", setting the site of the new federal district and national capital to be on the shores of the Potomac River; the Residence Act was the result of an important early political compromise between northern and southern congressional delegations, brokered by new cabinet members, Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton of New York and political opponent, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, of Virginia.
It specified the new capital would be situated on the northern and southern banks of the Potomac River, at some location, to be determined by the president, between the Eastern Branch near Washington's estate of Mount Vernon and the confluence with the Conococheague Creek, further upstream near Hagerstown, Maryland. The Residence Act gave authority to President Washington to appoint three commissioners to oversee the survey of the ten mile square federal district and "according to such Plans, as the President shall approve," provide public buildings to accommodate the Federal government in 1800. President Washington appointed L'Enfant in 1791 to plan the new "Federal City" under the supervision of the three Commissioners, whom Washington had appointed to oversee the planning and development of the federal territory that would become designated the "District of Columbia". Included in the new district were the river port towns of Georgetown and Alexandria. Thomas Jefferson, who worked alongside President Washington in overseeing the plans for the capital, sent L'Enfant a letter outlining his task, to provide a drawing of suitable sites for the federal city and the public buildings.
Though Jefferson had modest ideas for the Capital, L'Enfant saw the task as far more grandiose, believing he was not only locating the capital, but devising the city plan and designin
H Street
H Street is a set of east-west streets in several of the quadrants of Washington, D. C, it is used as an alternate name for the Near Northeast neighborhood, as H Street NW/NE is the neighborhood's main commercial strip. In the 19th century, H Street around North Capitol was the center of a small settlement called Swampoodle which became an entire neighborhood by the 1850s, it played an important role in the construction of Washington, D. C. by providing the workforce needed to build projects such as Union Station.. H Street was separated in two with the railway track where it intersected with Delaware Avenue when Union Station started to be built in 1907; this split created distinct neighborhoods east and west of the railway which have grown independently. In 1902, it was planned that H street NE would be cut for 600 ft at Delaware Avenue. Thanks to involvement of the Northeast Washington Citizens' Association, the plan was changed to having a 750 ft tunnel built to retain the connection between the two sides of the track.
The H Street NE/NW neighborhood was one of Washington's earliest and busiest commercial districts, was the location of the first Sears Roebuck store in Washington. H Street NE went into decline after World War II and businesses in the corridor were damaged during the 1968 riots; this part of the street did not start to recover until the 21st century. In 2002, the District of Columbia Office of Planning initiated a community-based planning effort to help revitalize the H Street NE corridor; because it is nearly 1.5 miles long, the resulting H Street NE Strategic Strategic Development Plan divided H Street into three districts: the Urban Living district, the Central Retail District, the Arts and Entertainment District. In the mid-2000s, the Arts and Entertainment District began to revitalize as a nightlife district; the Atlas Theater, a Moderne-style 1930s movie theater that had languished since the 1968 riots—was refurbished as a dance studio and performance space, is now the anchor of what is now being called the Atlas District.
H Street NE became home to the H Street Playhouse, a black box theater where Theater Alliance and Forum Theatre are in residence. H Street NE re-developed after 2007; the median sales price of houses on or near H Street NW from July to September 2009 was $417,000. H Street NE was voted the sixth-most hipster place in America by Forbes magazine in September 2012; this process of gentrification led to tensions with some previous residents, who felt that they were becoming less welcome as the neighborhood changed and worried about being priced out. In Northwest Washington, H Street is the main street in Chinatown and one of the major east-west streets downtown; when Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House was closed to vehicular traffic in the 1990s, crosstown traffic that had used Pennsylvania Avenue was rerouted to H and I streets. The street passes Lafayette Park and through the George Washington University campus and the Foggy Bottom neighborhood before terminating at Rock Creek. In Northeast Washington, H Street continues uninterrupted from North Capitol Street to 15th Street NE, where it terminates in what is known as the "starburst intersection", where it meets Bladensburg Road, 15th Street, Benning Road, Maryland Avenue, Florida Avenue.
After this intersection, there is a gap of two blocks where the street is interrupted by Hechinger Mall. H Street continues for a short segment between 17th and 24th Streets NE as part of the Carver Langston neighborhood; the road does not continue east of the Anacostia River. The H Street Corridor is the part running from 2nd Street NE to Starburst Plaza and is known as the Atlas District and Near Northeast, it includes the part north of H Street NE to Florida Ave NE and south to F Street NE. The second portion of H Street is not considered part of the H Street Corridor; some of the significant buildings included: 1872: the Home for the Aged Men and Women on H Street NE between 2nd and 3rd Street NE. 1897: the Northeast Temple and Market at 1119-1123 H Street NE, an indoor marketplace and a Masonic Temple. The first buildings electrified on H Street NE, it was replaced by another smaller building. 1913: the Apollo Theater at 624-634 H Street NE. It was replaced by the Ourisman Chevrolet Service Center.
Today, the "Apollo" building stands there. 1938: the Atlas Theater at 1313-33 H Street NE. A former movie theater repurposed as a Performing Art Center; this building was an important part in the revitalization of the neighborhood. The city plan on which D. C. was laid out provides for a parallel H Street in the southwest and southeast quadrants of the city. Subsequent government actions, most notably the construction of I-395/I-295, disconnected the southern H Street in several places. In its current form, it does not run consecutively for more than two blocks at any point except for its easternmost extremity, near Fort Dupont Park. Notable residents who lived on H Street include: George B. McClellan, on the south side, between 4th and 5th Streets NW Phil Radford, Greenpeace Executive Director Mary Surratt, near the southwest corner of Sixth Street NW Anthony A. Williams, D. C. mayor from 1999 to 2007 Notes Citations United States Congress. The Statutes at Large of the United States of America F
Capitol Hill
