Very Washington DC

Very Washington DC PDF Author: Diana Hollingsworth Gessler
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 161620298X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
A travel guide with character, this fact-filled keepsake offers all the history, beauty, charm, and culture of our nation's capital city. In eye-catching watercolors and detailed sketches, artist Diana Gessler captures the allure that makes Washington DC one of the most visited destinations in the country. In addition to the national landmarks, stirring memorials, and vibrant neighborhoods, there's the Cherry Blossom Festival, the Twilight Tattoo (a military pageant featuring the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps and the U.S. Army Drill Team), colorful row houses, famous hotels and restaurants, and more museums than you'll be able to visit in just one trip. Gessler covers the city's most popular attractions but also heads off the beaten path to share hidden gems, like the quirky Albert Einstein Memorial and Eastern Market, where you can dine on bluebucks and browse for flea market finds. Also included are an index of sites and a useful appendix of addresses, Web sites, Metro stops, and phone numbers. Very Washington DC is a picture-perfect guidebook—a one-of-a-kind memento for tourists and a cherished reminder of the city's riches for those who have always lived in America's hometown.

Very Washington DC

Very Washington DC PDF Author: Diana Hollingsworth Gessler
Publisher: Algonquin Books
ISBN: 161620298X
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 168

Get Book Here

Book Description
A travel guide with character, this fact-filled keepsake offers all the history, beauty, charm, and culture of our nation's capital city. In eye-catching watercolors and detailed sketches, artist Diana Gessler captures the allure that makes Washington DC one of the most visited destinations in the country. In addition to the national landmarks, stirring memorials, and vibrant neighborhoods, there's the Cherry Blossom Festival, the Twilight Tattoo (a military pageant featuring the Old Guard Fife and Drum Corps and the U.S. Army Drill Team), colorful row houses, famous hotels and restaurants, and more museums than you'll be able to visit in just one trip. Gessler covers the city's most popular attractions but also heads off the beaten path to share hidden gems, like the quirky Albert Einstein Memorial and Eastern Market, where you can dine on bluebucks and browse for flea market finds. Also included are an index of sites and a useful appendix of addresses, Web sites, Metro stops, and phone numbers. Very Washington DC is a picture-perfect guidebook—a one-of-a-kind memento for tourists and a cherished reminder of the city's riches for those who have always lived in America's hometown.

Classical Architecture and Monuments of Washington, D.C.: A History & Guide

Classical Architecture and Monuments of Washington, D.C.: A History & Guide PDF Author: Michael Curtis
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1625859716
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
For architecture aficinados and historians, this comprehensive view of the statues, monuments and architectural plans of Washington DC provides an exciting insight into our federal city. Author Michael Curtis guides this tour of the heart of the District of Columbia's buildings, statues, and monuments. Classical design formed our nation's capital. The soaring Washington Monument, the columns of the Lincoln Memorial and the spectacular dome of the Capitol Building speak to the founders' expansive vision of our federal city. Learn about the L'Enfant and McMillan plans for Washington, D.C., and how those designs are reflected in two hundred years of monuments, museums and representative government. View the statues of our Founding Fathers with the eye of a sculptor and gain insight into the criticism and controversies of modern additions to Washington's monumental structure.

The Evolution of Washington, DC

The Evolution of Washington, DC PDF Author: James M. Goode
Publisher: Smithsonian Institution
ISBN: 1588344983
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 199

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Book Description
The Evolution of Washington, DC is a striking volume featuring select pieces of the extraordinary collection of Washingtoniana donated by Albert H. Small to the George Washington University in 2011. It showcases treasures such as an 1860 lithograph of the equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson in front of the White House and a contemporary print of old Potomac River steamboats. Other unique pieces include early designs for the White House, the Capitol, and the Washington Monument as well as presidential portraits and Civil War memorabilia. Each object--from architectural plans and topographical maps to letters and advertisements--tells a fascinating story, and together they illustrate the history of our nation's capital and indeed our nation itself.

Empire of Mud

Empire of Mud PDF Author: J. D. Dickey
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493013939
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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Book Description
Washington, DC, gleams with stately columns and neoclassical temples, a pulsing hub of political power and prowess. But for decades it was one of the worst excuses for a capital city the world had ever seen. Before America became a world power in the twentieth century, Washington City was an eyesore at best and a disgrace at worst. Unfilled swamps, filthy canals, and rutted horse trails littered its landscape. Political bosses hired hooligans and thugs to conduct the nation's affairs. Legendary madams entertained clients from all stations of society and politicians of every party. The police served and protected with the aid of bribes and protection money. Beneath pestilential air, the city’s muddy roads led to a stumpy, half-finished obelisk to Washington here, a domeless Capitol Building there. Lining the streets stood boarding houses, tanneries, and slums. Deadly horse races gouged dusty streets, and opposing factions of volunteer firefighters battled one another like violent gangs rather than life-saving heroes. The city’s turbulent history set a precedent for the dishonesty, corruption, and mismanagement that have led generations to look suspiciously on the various sin--both real and imagined--of Washington politicians. Empire of Mud unearths and untangles the roots of our capital’s story and explores how the city was tainted from the outset, nearly stifled from becoming the proud citadel of the republic that George Washington and Pierre L'Enfant envisioned more than two centuries ago.

The Great Society Subway

The Great Society Subway PDF Author: Zachary M. Schrag
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421415771
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 380

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Book Description
As Metro stretches to Tysons Corner and beyond, this paperback edition features a new preface from the author. Drivers in the nation's capital face a host of hazards: high-speed traffic circles, presidential motorcades, jaywalking tourists, and bewildering signs that send unsuspecting motorists from the Lincoln Memorial into suburban Virginia in less than two minutes. And parking? Don't bet on it unless you're in the fast lane of the Capital Beltway during rush hour. Little wonder, then, that so many residents and visitors rely on the Washington Metro, the 106-mile rapid transit system that serves the District of Columbia and its inner suburbs. In the first comprehensive history of the Metro, Zachary M. Schrag tells the story of the Great Society Subway from its earliest rumblings to the present day, from Arlington to College Park, Eisenhower to Marion Barry. Unlike the pre–World War II rail systems of New York, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the Metro was built at a time when most American families already owned cars, and when most American cities had dedicated themselves to freeways, not subways. Why did the nation's capital take a different path? What were the consequences of that decision? Using extensive archival research as well as oral history, Schrag argues that the Metro can be understood only in the political context from which it was born: the Great Society liberalism of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations. The Metro emerged from a period when Americans believed in public investments suited to the grandeur and dignity of the world's richest nation. The Metro was built not merely to move commuters, but in the words of Lyndon Johnson, to create "a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community." Schrag scrutinizes the project from its earliest days, including general planning, routes, station architecture, funding decisions, land-use impacts, and the behavior of Metro riders. The story of the Great Society Subway sheds light on the development of metropolitan Washington, postwar urban policy, and the promises and limits of rail transit in American cities.

The Washington National Mall

The Washington National Mall PDF Author: Peter R. Penczer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780962984136
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 128

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Book Description
The first general history of the National Mall in Washington, America's most important urban park. The Mall is home to the Smithsonian Institution, the largest museum complex in the world, and it is the location of memorials to America's most important heroes. It has become the nation's center stage as well, the venue for the country's largest demonstrations. The Washington National Mall details the history of the National Mall and its institutions, then tells the stories behind each of the monuments and museums.

Black Broadway in Washington, DC

Black Broadway in Washington, DC PDF Author: Briana A. Thomas
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
ISBN: 1467139297
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
"Before chain coffeeshops and luxury high-rises, before even the beginning of desegregation and the 1968 riots, Washington's Greater U Street was known as Black Broadway. From the early 1900s into the 1950s, African Americans plagued by Jim Crow laws in other parts of town were free to own businesses here and built what was often described as a "city within a city." Local author and journalist Briana A. Thomas narrates U Street's rich and unique history, from the early triumph of emancipation to the days of civil rights pioneer Mary Church Terrell and music giant Duke Ellington, through the recent struggle of gentrifiction" --

Tudor Place

Tudor Place PDF Author: Leslie L. Buhler
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781931917568
Category : Georgetown (Washington, D.C.)
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Released to mark the bicentennial of Tudor Place, this new title is the first comprehensive record of this important National Historic Landmark in the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Two grand houses were under construction in the young Federal City in 1816: one the President's House, reconstructed after it was burned by the British in 1814, and the other Tudor Place, an elegant mansion rising on the heights above Georgetown. The connection between these two houses is more than temporal, as they were connected through lineage and politics for generations. The builders of Tudor Place were Thomas and Martha Parke Custis Peter, Martha Washington's granddaughter. In the 1790s George Washington had been a frequent guest at the Peters' town house when he was in the nascent Federal City, attending to its planning and selecting sites for the U.S. Capitol and the President's House. In 1817, when President James Monroe moved back into the reconstructed President's House following the fire of 1814, the Peters were completing their own grand home, Tudor Place, designed in concert with their friend, Dr. William Thornton, architect for the first U.S. Capitol Building. The White House and Tudor Place each represent the spirit and aspirations of the early Republic. Little more than two miles apart, each survives as a national architectural landmark. While the White House is perhaps the most well known building in the world, Tudor Place remained a family home until 1983 and very private, although the Peters welcomed some of the nation's foremost leaders as their guests and were themselves guests at the White House.

Washington's U Street

Washington's U Street PDF Author: Blair A. Ruble
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9781421405940
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book traces the history of the U Street neighborhood in Washington, D.C., from its Civil War–era origins to its recent gentrification. Home throughout the years to important scholars, entertainers, and political figures, as well as to historically prominent African American institutions, Washington’s U Street neighborhood is a critical zone of contact between black and white America. Howard University and the Howard Theater are both located there; Duke Ellington grew up in the neighborhood; and diplomat Ralph Bunche, Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, and medical researcher Charles Drew were all members of the community. This robustly diverse neighborhood included residents of different races and economic classes when it arose during the Civil War. Jim Crow laws came to the District after the Compromise of 1877, and segregation followed in the mid-1880s. Over the next century, U Street emerged as an energetic center of African American life in Washington. The mid-twentieth-century rise of cultural and educational institutions brought with it the establishment of African American middle and elite classes, ironically fostering biases within the black community. Later, with residential desegregation, many of the elites moved on and U Street entered decades of decline, suffered rioting in 1968, but has seen an initially fitful resurgence that has recently taken hold. Blair A. Ruble, a jazz aficionado, prominent urbanist, and longtime resident of Washington, D.C., is uniquely equipped to undertake the history of this culturally important area. His work is a rare instance of original research told in an engaging and compelling voice.

Washington at Home

Washington at Home PDF Author: Kathryn S. Smith
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Washington, D.C., conjures images of marble monuments, national memorials, and world-class museums. To many, the world beyond the National Mall is invisible. Yet within an area of only 68 square miles lies a residential city of diversity, beauty, and charm. In the long-awaited update of her 1988 classic Washington at Home, Kathryn Schneider Smith and a team of historians, journalists, folklorists, museum professionals, and others who know the city intimately offer a fresh look at the social history of this intriguing city through the prism of 26 diverse neighborhoods. Lavishly illustrated with engaging historical photographs and maps, Washington at Home introduces readers to the famous residents, colorful characters, distinct flavors, and important events that helped shape the city beyond the federal façade. This second edition adds six new neighborhoods from all parts of the city. Extensive notes make the book invaluable for those doing their own research as well as the more casual reader. Journalists, historians, politicians, residents, real estate agents, and students regularly consult Washington at Home as the standard resource on the social history of Washington, D.C. This expanded and updated edition will appeal to residents, both new and old, as well as to visitors eager to deepen their experience in the nation’s capital.