When it was passed in 1789, the Constitution set out the boundaries not only for a new government but for a new capital city as well. At the time, the new District of Columbia covered 5,000 acres, dominated by marshland on the south, pastureland on the area that is now the National Mall, farms near the White House and Capitol Hill, and undeveloped woods throughout.
Covering Capitol Hill, the Old Downtown area, the Ellipse, Lafayette Square, and Foggy Bottom, this engaging photographic history and walking tour documents how the Federal City grew from farmland to world capital. Striking images and detailed captions tell the fascinating stories behind many of the famous and the not so famous buildings and monuments that cover the D.C. landscape, from Union Station and the Capitol to the White House and Watergate Hotel and many important sites in between.
In total there are seven different walking tour routes:
- Tour A: Capitol Hill features 32 different historic stops including the well known: the U.S. Capitol, Union Station, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the Libraries of Congress, and the lesser known sites such as: homes of orator and abolitionist Frederick Douglass and artist in the U.S. Capitol Constantino Brumidi along with the Capital Grotto where Watergate figures met on the Capitol grounds, and others.
- Tour B: Old Downtown features 33 different historic stops including Chinatown, home of Civil War conspirator Mary Surratt, statue of Abraham Lincoln, the Trylon of Freedom sculpture, the Embassy of Canada, the workshop of Civil War photographer Matthew Brady, Clara Barton's boarding house and the Metropolitan Theatre site where Al Jolson's 'talkie' 'The Jazz Singer' premiered in Washington DC, and others.
- Tour C: The East Mall features 21 different historic stops including the Smithsonian Castle and most of the museums including Air & Space, American History, and Natural History, but also the Galleries of Art, the Washington Monument, the Bureau of Printing of Engraving, and even smaller, unknown sites such as Jefferson's Pier, Andrew Jackson Downing's Urn, and others.
- Tour D: Lafayette Square was the epicenter of the new federal city and this tour features the White House, of course, but also a total of 24 historic stops such as the statues of Generals Lafayette, von Steuben, Kosciusko, and Rochambeau, Revolutionary War heroes all, along with famous residences belonging to Frances Blair, now a White House guest house, the Philip Lee House, Decatur House and other landmarks such as St. John's Church, a memorial to Jackie Kennedy, and others.
- Tour E: The Ellipse features 25 historic stops just south of the White House to include the site of the National Christmas Tree, the Boy Scout Memorial, the Zero Milestone where all distances from the US are calculated, a memorial to Titanic casualties, the national headquarters of the Red Cross, the Daughters of the American Revolution, and the Organization of American States, and others.
- Tour F: The West Mall is more spread out featuring16 historic sites, not including the newly dedicated Martin Luther King Monument and the World War II Memorial, but does include the memorials to FDR, the Vietnam War, the Korean War, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln and even Commodore John Paul Jones, among others.
- Tour G: Foggy Bottom features 23 historic sites in and around the original Town of Funkstown as laid out in 1765. The company that would become IBM was located here, the Watergate Complex, the Kennedy Center, the embassy of Saudia Arabia, the Naval Observatory, the wonderful statues of Albert Einstein, Don Quixote, and Benito Juarez, and others are located throughout this 130 acres.
In total there are 174 well known and little known historic sites throughout this historic area of Washington, D.C. with 8 different maps, and 214 images. All of the sites were reviewed for historic accuracy by Keith Melder, chairman emeritus of the Division of Social History of the National Museum of American History. Many images were from the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King Library.
Some concerns regarded the quality of some of the photographs and images and that some of the sites such as the congressional office buildings didn't show the office buildings themselves, but for the person for whom they were named. The cost of nearly $20 for a black and white tour book was considered rather high, but at about 11.5 cents per site it could be a bargain tour that will be used again and again.
ISBN: 0-7385-0049-6, by Thomas J. Carrier, Arcadia Publishing, soft cover book, cost, http://www.arcadiapublishing.com
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