DC -- MT Vernon Triangle -- US Reservation 196 (NJ Ave between 1st and F St NW):
- Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.
- Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
- Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.
- Accessing as Spider: The system has identified your IP as being a spider.
IP Address: 18.227.24.209 -- Domain: Amazon Technologies
I love well-behaved spiders! They are, in fact, how most people find my site. Unfortunately, my network has a limited bandwidth and pictures take up bandwidth. Spiders ask for lots and lots of pages and chew up lots and lots of bandwidth which slows things down considerably for regular folk. To counter this, you'll see all the text on the page but the images are being suppressed. Also, some system options like merges are being blocked for you.
Note: Permission is NOT granted for spiders, robots, etc to use the site for AI-generation purposes. I'm sure you're thrilled by your ability to make revenue from my work but there's nothing in that for my human users or for me.
If you are in fact human, please email me at guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can check if your designation was made in error. Given your number of hits, that's unlikely but what the hell.
- Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]
|
[1] USR196_160227_01.JPG
|
[2] USR196_160227_06.JPG
|
[3]
 USR196_160227_10.JPG
|
[4] USR196_160227_17.JPG
|
[5] USR196_160227_27.JPG
|
- Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
- USR196_160227_10.JPG: L'Enfant Plan for the Federal City
U.S. Reservation 196
"No nation perhaps had ever before the opportunity offer'd them of deliberately deciding on the spot where their Capital city should be fixed..."
-- Peter C. L'Enfant to George Washington, September 11, 1789
A new nation faced dissolution. As threats of secession permeated Congressional debates, a new Administration sought resolution. What-or who-possibly could prevent disunion, while simultaneously creating a lasting legacy?
A great American compromise saved the day. Accepting the northern states' proposal to federalize Revolutionary War debts, southern states demanded a new capital city along the Potomac River. The United States Congress ingeniously authorized President George Washington -- the principal unifer -- to choose the exact location. Washington selected the Potomac and Anacostia River confluence and appointed three commissioners to oversee land development.
While the District of Columbia boundary survey progressed, the President tapped Peter Charles L'Enfant to design a revolutionary federal city. L'Enfant boldly stretched intersecting diagonal avenues across a landscape dotted with grand public edifices. When merged with a uniform street grid, these avenues formed circular, square, and triangular parks that L'Enfant envisioned as homes for statues and memorials to American heroes. Conceived in crisis and born of compromise and ingenuity, these early federal parks developed into stages for witnesses to American history.
One such federal park, later designated as Reservation 196, emerged here in Northwest Washington, at the intersection of First and F Streets with New Jersey Avenue. The timeline at right highlights historical episodes witnessed from this historic piece of ground.
Neighborhood Scenes Around Reservation 196:
1792 - Development of the Federal City, following the master plan of Peter L'Enfant, commenced.
1799 - To spur commercial development as well as signal confidence in the city, George Washington commissioned construction of a double townhouse that stood on North Capitol Street.
1814 - British troops marching from Bladensburg, Maryland entered the city, burning the Capitol, George Washington's double townhouse, and the President's House (the White House).
1850 - Between G and H Streets in Northeast Washington, Irish immigrants named their Tiber Creek neighborhood, "Swampoodle," after its many swamps and puddles.
1861 - From the old Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station, President-Elect Abraham Lincoln entered Washington City on the eve of Civil War; thousands of new residents followed in search of housing and employment.
1865 - After shooting President Lincoln at Ford's Theater on April 14, actor John Wilkes Booth raced through this area during his escape.
1870s - Natural gas and sewer lines, street regrading and paving, and park landscaping greatly improved conditions within adjoining neighborhoods.
1880s - "Swampoodle" emerged as one of Washington's notorious and dangerous neighborhoods, while, just to the west, fashionable Judiciary Square residences housed prominent citizens and politicians.
1890s - Electric streetcar rails appeared along First Street, encouraging expansion beyond L'Enfant's planned neighborhoods into other parts of the District of Columbia.
1892 - Benjamin Harrison, the first United States President to attend a professional baseball game, joined Washington Nationals fans at Swampoodle Grounds (now the sites of the National Postal Museum and Union Station).
1907 - Union Station successfully consolidated the city's several railroads, but required the destruction of several historic buildings and neighborhoods.
1927 - Throughout Washington, the Federal government initiated some urban renewal efforts, but this immediate residential area survived.
1945-present - Postwar Washington remains characterized by numerous large-scale urban renewal and highway construction projects that obliterated entire neighborhoods. Judiciary Square remains a shadow of its former self, now serving as home to government and commercial structures. The "Swampoodle" name and neighborhood vanished into history.
- Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.)
I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com
and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
- Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
- Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].
