WASHINGTON, a city and the capital of the United States of America, coterminous with the District of Columbia, on the north-east bank of the Potomac river at the head of tide and navigation, 40 m. S.W. of Baltimore, 135 m. S.W. of Philadelphia, and 225 m. S.W. of New York. Area, 60 sq. m. (exclusive of 10 sq. m. of water surface). Pop. (1890) 230,392; (1900) 278,718, of whom 20,119 were foreign-born and 87,186 were negroes; (1910) 331,069. The city proper covers only about 10 sq. m. lying between the Anacostia river and Rock Creek, and rising from the low bank of the Potomac, which is here nearly 1 m. wide; above are encircling hills and a broken plateau, which rise to a maximum height of 420 ft. and contain the former city of Georgetown, the villages of Anacostia, Brightwood, Tennallytown, and other suburban districts.
Streets and Parks.—The original plan of the city, which was prepared by Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant (1755-1825), under the supervision of President Washington and Thomas Jefferson,[1] was a masterpiece in landscape architecture and in the main it has been preserved. Besides streets running east and west, which are named by the letters of the alphabet, and streets running north and south, which are numbered, there are avenues named for various states, which radiate from two foci—the Capitol and the White House—or traverse the city without any fixed plan. North and south of the Capitol they are numbered; east and west from it streets are lettered, but streets are distinguished by annexing to the name or letter the name of the quarter: N.W., S.W., N.E. or S.E.—the city is divided into these four parts by North Capitol, East Capitol and South Capitol streets, which intersect at the Capitol. The width of the avenues is from 120 to 160 ft. and the width of the streets from 80 to 120 ft. More than one-half the area of the city is comprised in its streets, avenues and public parks. Among the principal residence streets are Massachusetts, especially between Dupont and Sheridan circles, New Hampshire, Connecticut and Vermont Avenues and 16th Street, all in the N.W. quarter of the city. The principal business streets are Pennsylvania Avenue (especially between the Capitol and the White House) and 7th, 9th, 14th and F streets. Streets and avenues for the most part are paved with a smooth asphalt pavement, and many of them have two and occasionally four rows of overarching shade trees and private lawns on either side. At nearly every intersection of two avenues is a circle or square in which is the statue of some notable American whose name the square bears. At the intersection of a street with an avenue there is usually the reservation of a small triangular grass plot at least. In L'Enfant's plan a park or mall was to extend from the Capitol to the White House. Instead of this the mall extends from the Capitol to Washington Monument, which stands near the intersection of lines west from the Capitol and south from the White House. In 1901, however, a commission (Daniel Hudson Burnham, C. F. McKim, Augustus St Gaudens and F. L. Olmsted, Jr.) was appointed by authority of the United States Senate to prepare plans for the beautification of the city and this body, seeking in the main to return to L'Enfant's plan, has submitted a design for a park-like treatment of the entire district between Pennsylvania and Maryland avenues from the Capitol to the White House and between lower New York Avenue and the Potomac, with an elm-shaded mall 300 ft. wide bisecting the park from the Capitol to the Monument, with a group of official and scientific buildings fronting the mall on either side, with a group of municipal buildings between the mall and Pennsylvania Avenue, and with a Lincoln memorial on the bank of the Potomac. Potomac Park (740 acres), a portion of which is embraced in this design, has already been reclaimed from the Potomac river. On Rock Creek, above Georgetown, is the National Zoological Park (under the control of the Smithsonian Institution), embracing 170 acres in a picturesque site. North of this and extending to the boundary of the District, and including both banks of Rock Creek, with its wild and picturesque beauty, is a tract of 1600 acres, known as Rock Creek Park.
Climate.—The climate of Washington is characterized by great humidity, long-continued and somewhat oppressive heat in summer, and mild winters. During a period of thirty-three years ending December 1903 the mean winter temperature (December, January and February) was 35° F. and the mean summer temperature (June, July and August) 75°; the mean of the winter minima was 27°, and the mean of the summer maxima 85°. Extremes ranged, however, from an absolute maximum of 104° to an absolute minimum of -15°. There is an average annual precipitation of 43.1 in., which is quite evenly distributed throughout the year. Although snowstorms are infrequent and snow never lies long on the ground, the average fall of snow for the year amounts to 22.5 in.
Buildings.—In a dignified landscape setting on the brow of a hill that is itself nearly 100 ft. above the Potomac stands the Capitol[2] (built 1793-1827; architect, William Thornton (d. 1827), superintendent of the Patent Office, whose designs were modified by B. H. Latrobe and Charles Bulfinch; wings and dome added 1851-1865). It consists of a central building of Virginia sandstone, painted white, and two wings of white Massachusetts marble. Its length is 751 ft., and its breadth ranges in different parts from 121 to 324 ft. The main building is surmounted with an iron dome, designed by Thomas Ustic Walter, which rises to a height of 268½ ft., and on the dome is a statue of Liberty (1863; 19½ ft. high) by Thomas Crawford. The Capitol faces east, and on this side is a richly sculptured[3] portico with Corinthian columns leading to the rotunda under the dome, a sculptured Corinthian portico leading to the Senate Chamber in the north wing, and a plain Corinthian portico leading to the Hall of Representatives in the south wing; there is also a portico at each end and on the west side of each wing. The rotunda, 96 ft. in diameter and 180 ft. high, is decorated with eight historical paintings: “Landing of Columbus” (1492), by John Vanderlyn; “De Soto discovering the Mississippi” (1541), by William Henry Powell; “Baptism of Pocahontas” (1613), by John Gadsby Chapman; “Embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delft-Haven” (1620), by Robert Walter Weir; “Signing the Declaration of Independence” (1776), by John Trumbull; “Surrender of Burgoyne at Saratoga” (1777), by Trumbull; “Surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown” (1781), by Trumbull; and “Washington resigning his Commission at Annapolis” (1783), by Trumbull. Between the rotunda and the Hall of Representatives is the National Hall of Statuary (formerly the Hall of Representatives), in which each state in the Union may erect statues of two “of her chosen sons”; and between the rotunda and the Senate Chamber is the room of the Supreme Court, which until 1859 was the Senate Chamber.[4]
The Executive Mansion, more commonly called the White House, the official residence of the president, is a two-storey building of Virginia freestone, painted white since 1814 to hide the marks of fire—only the walls were left standing after the capture of the city by the British in that year. It is 170 ft. long and 86 ft. deep. It is simple but dignified; the principal exterior ornaments are an Ionic portico and a balustrade. The White House was built in 1792-1799 from designs by James Hoban, who closely followed the plans of the seats of the dukes of Leinster, near Dublin, and in 1902-1903, when new executive offices and a cabinet room were built and were connected with the White House by an esplanade, many of the original features of Hoban's plan were restored. East of the White House and obstructing the view from it to the Capitol stands the oldest of the departmental buildings, the Treasury Building (architect, Robert Mills (1781-1855), then U.S. architect), an imposing edifice mainly of granite, 510 ft. long and 280 ft. wide; on the east front is a colonnade of thirty-eight Ionic columns, and on each of the other three sides is an Ionic portico. On the opposite side of the White House is a massive granite building of the State, War and Navy Departments, 567 ft. long and 342 ft. wide. The Library of Congress (1889-1807; cost, exclusive of site, over $6,000,000), south-east of the Capitol, was designed by Smithmeyer & Pelz, and the designs were modified by Edward Pearce Casey (b. 1864), the architect; it is in the Italian Renaissance style, is 340 by 470 ft., and encloses four courts and a central rotunda surmounted by a flat black copper dome, with gilded panels and a lantern. The exterior walls are of white New Hampshire granite, and the walls of the
- ↑ The actual surveying and laying out of the city was done by Andrew Ellicott (1754-1820), a civil engineer, who had been employed in many boundary disputes, who became surveyor-general of the United States in 1792, and from 1812 until his death was professor of mathematics at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
- ↑ See Glenn Brown, The History of the United States Capitol (2 vols., 1900-1903).
- ↑ The allegorical decorations here are by Persico and Horatio Greenough; those on the Senate portico are by Thomas Crawford, who designed the bronze doors at the entrances to the Senate and House wings. At the east door of the rotunda is the bronze door (1858; modelled by Randolph Rogers). At the west entrance are elaborate bronze doors (1910) by Louis Amateis (b. 1855).
- ↑ Connected with the Capitol by subways, immediately S.E. and N.E. of the Capitol respectively, are the marble office buildings (1908) of the House of Representatives and of the Senate. The Capitol is connected by subways with the Library of Congress also.
