Thomas Jefferson | Historic District

Capital Coffee

Posted on December 17, 2012 by Historic District

Anyone who knows me knows that my love of history is perhaps only matched by one other abiding past time – finding and drinking really good coffee.

Shaw’s newest coffee shop, The Coffee Bar.

The District used to be a veritable desert for quality java, but the past few years has seen the birth of a serious coffee community in the nation’s capital.

And while I used to have to travel far to get my fix, now I have a number of great choices in my own backyard – the historic district of Shaw.

Yesterday morning I had the chance to visit the newest addition to the neighborhood with the soft opening of The Coffee Bar.

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Filed under: Coffee, Shaw, Thomas Jefferson | Tagged: Blind Dog Cafe, coffee, Kafe Bohem, M.E. Swing's, Peregrine, Shaw, The Coffee Bar, Thomas Jefferson | 4 Comments »

Capitol(ine) Hill

Posted on August 8, 2012 by Historic District

What better way to start the comparisons between Rome and Washington, D.C. than at the center of it all – Capitol Hill.

In Rome, it’s called the Capitoline Hill – or Capitolium in the original Latin, and Campidoglio in the modern Italian.

Ancient Rome was famously settled around seven hills. Although the Capitoline was the smallest, it was the symbolic center of the ancient city, both spiritually and politically.

On its peak was the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, dedicated to the king of the gods. And just behind it was the Forum, where all official political business took place.

A 19th Century drawing depicting the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill during the Roman Republic.

During the peak of the Roman empire, this small hill was literally the power center of the world.

So how did Washington end up with it’s very own Capitol Hill?

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Filed under: Capitol Hill | Tagged: Capitol Hill, Capitoline, Francis Pope, George Washington, Goose Creek, Jenkins Hill, Pierre Charles L'Enfant, Rome, Thomas Jefferson, Tiber | 2 Comments »

A Drum-Major Misquote

Posted on January 16, 2012 by Historic District

On this MLK Day, there was finally a place in the District where you could pay your respects to the fallen civil rights hero.

King’s thirty-foot granite statue now stands prominently on the Tidal Basin, in sight of monuments and memorials to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt.

It was unveiled last fall, in a ceremony postponed because of the arrival of Hurricane Irene.

But that wasn’t the only storm to hit the memorial – there was also a firestorm of criticism over a monumental misquote carved on the north side of King’s statue.

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Filed under: Thomas Jefferson, Uncategorized | Tagged: Jeanne D'Arc, Joan of Arc, Martin Luther King Jr., Thomas Jefferson | Leave a Comment »

Unbuilt Washington

Posted on November 21, 2011 by Historic District

In conversation, some things are better left unsaid – and in the Historic District, some things are better left unbuilt.

That’s the unspoken commentary behind a new exhibit that opened at the National Building Museum this past weekend. “Unbuilt Washington” explores the monuments and buildings – and occasional Venetian-style canal – that might have graced the District, if only they had made it past the drawing board.

There’s the colossal pyramid honoring Abraham Lincoln, or the medieval-style Memorial Bridge dedicated to Ulysses S. Grant, or the new executive mansion built further up 16^th Street, atop Meridian Hill.

The U.S. Grant Memorial Bridge

As a D.C. guide, I thought this exhibit was a pretty fascinating tour of an alternate Washington. And with Thanksgiving approaching, I was also left feeling grateful that some of these outlandish structures were left unbuilt – either through lack of funds, shifting priorities, or public outcry.

The exhibit reminds you that from its inception, the federal capital has presented a veritable blank slate for architectural imaginations and often competing notions of national expression.

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Filed under: Abraham Lincoln, Architects, Architecture, Capitol, Congress, Dupont Circle, Kennedy Center, McMillan Plan, Monuments and Memorials, Museum Exhibits, National Mall, Public Spaces, Ulysses S. Grant, White House | Tagged: Abraham Lincoln, Andrea Palladio, Cairo Hotel, Capitol, Congress House, Dolphin America, John Russell Pope, Lincoln Memorial, Meridian Hill, National Aquarium, National Building Museum, President's House, T.F. Schenider, Thomas Jefferson, Ulysses S. Grant, Unbuilt Washington, White House | 2 Comments »

The Capitoline Venus in the Nation’s Capital

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Historic District

My European visitors are usually a little bit surprised when we tour downtown Washington and they get a first glimpse of our federal office buildings.“All of your architecture, it looks like Rome,” one of them told me, more than a little amused.

I think they’re expecting to see something a little more “American.”

But in the early days of the republic, both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson helped set the tradition of looking back to antiquity for civic symbolism.

As president, Washington was responsible for planning the new federal capital along with his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson. They encouraged the use of Roman architecture for all of our new buildings – including the White House and the Capitol – to link the new American republic with the ancient Roman one.

Even today, visitors can find traces of Rome throughout Washington, D.C. That symbolic link was made more official last month as the District signed a sister-city relationship with the Eternal City.

As one of the first cultural exchanges in the relationship, Rome lent Washington one of its treasures: the Capitoline Venus.

The Capitoline Venus will be at the National Gallery of Art through September. (Photo: Robert Yule)

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Filed under: Capitol, Museums, White House | Tagged: Capitoline Venus, George Washington, National Gallery of Art, Rome, Sister City, Thomas Jefferson | 1 Comment »

The Capital of Macaroni

Posted on April 3, 2011 by Historic District

Historical trends come and go in the District, and food trends are no exception.

After a history of culinary neglect, Washington is now considered to be a foodie haven, with new restaurants, star chefs, and now food trucks coming to the city in droves.

Season 7 of Top Chef was set in the District.

It’s currently home to two Top Chef stars – recent All-Star runner-up Mike Isabella, who is opening his Italian restaurant Graffiato in Chinatown, and Spike Mendelsohn, who helms a burger joint (Good Stuff Eatery) and pizza place (We, the Pizza) next door to each other on Capitol Hill.

The District even hosted a season of Top Chef, just a block away from where I live.

But for a town that used to be known only for its steakhouses and formal French restaurants, D.C. has had to import much of its food culture from other cities.

Recent food fads like upscale burgers and cupcakes (not served together, luckily) have their origins in nearby New York.

Right now, macaroni and cheese is having a resurgence of popularity in the

District, as evidenced by the success of the gourmet food truck CapMacDC.

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Filed under: Capitol Hill, Chinatown, Restaurants, Thomas Jefferson, Uncategorized, White House | Tagged: Bistro Bis, Capitol Hill, CapMacDC, Chinatown, food truck, France, Good Stuff Eatery, Graffiato, ice cream, Italy, macaroni, Mammoth Cheese, Meriwether Lewis, Mike Isabella, Monticello, Paris, Spike Mendelsohn, The History Chef, The Virginia Housewife, Thomas Jefferson, Top Chef, We the People | 1 Comment »

The Lost (and Found) Library of Thomas Jefferson

Posted on February 21, 2011 by Historic District

It’s not often that the discovery of a collection of rare books makes national news – but when those books are Thomas Jefferson’s, even the Today Show takes notice.

This morning – on President’s Day – there was an announcement on the NBC news program that a large number of books belonging to our third president were discovered among the collections of Washington University in St. Louis.

That makes the university the third largest holder of Jefferson’s surviving book collection, after the Library of Congress in the District, and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.

After a bit of sleuthing, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation - located at Jefferson’s home Monticello in Charlottesville – discovered 74 of those books at Washington University’s library. They had been donated in 1880 from the collection of a husband of one of Jefferson’s granddaughters, but lost to historians for 130 years.

It turns out that they took a circuitous route there – from Charlottesville to Washington, D.C. to Boston, and finally to St. Louis. Missouri was a fitting repository for the collection – it was part of the territory in the Louisiana Purchase bought by Jefferson during his presidency.

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Filed under: Capitol, Capitol Hill, Congress, Library of Congress, Presidents, Thomas Jefferson, White House | Tagged: British, Charlottesville, Jefferson Memorial, Library of Congress, Monticello, Pantheon, Rotunda, St. Louis, Thomas Jefferson, Today Show, University of Virginia, War of 1812, Washington University | 4 Comments »