". . . In early 1791, President Washington appointed Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant to devise a plan for the new city in an area of land at the center of the federal territory that lay between the northeast shore of the Potomac River and the northwest shore of the Potomac's Eastern Branch. L'Enfant then designed in his "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of the United States..." the city's first layout, a grid centered on the United States Capitol, which would stand at the top of a hill (Jenkins Hill) on a longitude designated as 0:0. The grid filled an area bounded by the Potomac River, the Eastern Branch (now named the Anacostia River), the base of an escarpment at the Atlantic Seaboard Fall Line along which a street (initially Boundary Street, now Florida Avenue) would later travel, and Rock Creek.
North-south and east-west streets formed the grid. Wider diagonal "grand avenues" later named after the states of the union crossed the grid. Where these "grand avenues" crossed each other, L'Enfant placed open spaces in circles and plazas that were later named after notable Americans.
L'Enfant's broadest "grand avenue" was a 400 feet (122 m)-wide garden-lined esplanade, which he expected to travel for about 1 mile (1.6 km) along an east-west axis in the center of an area that the National Mall now occupies. A narrower avenue (Pennsylvania Avenue) connected the "Congress house" (the Capitol) with the "President's house" (the White House). In time, Pennsylvania Avenue developed into the capital city's present "grand avenue". . . ."
And for all it's architectural grandeur, significant history, natural beauty and political, governmental and international relevance one cannot help but think that all the shady, greedy, manipulative, unconscionable, corrupt game-playing that takes place there casting a tarnishing pall over all the aforementioned attributes that the city itself does possess.
What do YOU think?
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