Pennsylvania Avenue runs straight from the Capital to the White House - or at least it used to. Legend has it that Andrew Jackson so hated looking out his window and seeing the House of Congress that he had the Treasury Department building (behind me in this shot) built in between so he couldn’t see it any longer.
If transportation is the life blood of a city, then this is DC’s Axilary Artery…
Interstate 66
If you have looked at my personal blog, you know I lead a double life, of sorts. While I work in the heart of the city, I live at nearly the furthest limits of the DC suburbs - where I can smell mountain air and hear the birds sing. This picture (from near my home) seems to say it all.
Freedom Plaza appears at first to be an open area paved with a strange selection of odd sized marble blocks. Some of them apear at first to have been vandalized by someone scratching words into them.
But if you take the time to walk around the plaza and pay attention to the pattern and the etching a picture begins to form. It is not random at all. It is, in fact, a map. Or rather a plan.
The plaza is a large scale rendering of the plan drawn by Major Charles L’Enfant for the design of the new federal city. It is oriented and positioned so that the spot where I took this photo is the “You Are Here” spot. The white strip pointing toward the Capital Building - down Pennsylvania Avenue - represents… well, Pennsylvania Avenue. You can even make out the faded street designation on the pavement.
The plaza is just one of the many details of the city that even its residents look at and pass by every day without even knowing it is there. These are the things that fascinate me.
