DDOT’s historical photo archive contains this photo taken at Florida Avenue, Ninth Street, and V Street in 1958.

Here is the same view today.

Today one of the gas stations is gone, but several high-rises dot the skyline.

“Of course, the storm is the big story, it is unbelievable. It actually paralyzed Washington more than Joe Lieberman. In fact, there was so much white powder in D.C., people thought Marion Barry was mayor again.”  — Jay Leno, Dec. 21, 2009

We turned on our camera to discover a few more photos of LeDroit Park after the Snowpocalyse that ended the weekend before Christmas.  Enjoy.  (Click each photo to view a larger version)

* * *

Looking south on Fourth Street:

Anna J. Cooper Circle under snow:

LeDroit Park’s own painted ladies:

Icicles to kill!

View all our LeDroit Park photos— spring, summer, and fall, too!

We should have mentioned this earlier: the ANC1B monthly meeting will be held at 7 p.m. tonight on the second floor of the Reeves Building (pictured above) at 14th and U Streets. The meetings are typically an hour and give you sneak previews of upcoming businesses and renovations in the area.  Liquor licenses and renovation of historic buildings usually require ANC notification, hence the parade of U Street business owners.

Truxton Circle, Lincoln Road is at the top of the photo.

You’ve seen the streetpole banners on Florida Avenue designating the area around North Capitol Street as Truxton Circle.  But exactly where is the circle?  The circle, pictured above, used to sit right there at the convergence of North Capital Street, Florida Avenue, Q Street, and Lincoln Road.

Urban planning blogger Richard Layman spotted a diagram of the old circle posted on the wall at the offices of DDOT.

Truxton Circle Diagram, Source: Richard Layman

In 1940 the District removed the circle and replaced it with a traditional intersection that failed, and continues to fail, to match the elegance of the original circle pictured at the top of this post.

View Larger Map

A quick perusal of the DC Atlas, the District’s main online map product, reveals the circle’s imprint on the properties just north of Florida Avenue.  It seems that the property lines still accommodate the circle.

Great Truxton's ghost! Proptery lines still show outer limit of the old circle.

Perhaps DDOT will one day resurrect the circle after its seventy-year absence.  In 2006, DDOT restored downtown’s Thomas Circle to its original shape, eliminating the almond-shaped cut-through for Fourteenth Street.  In the 1980s the District similarly restored Logan Circle, eliminating the Thirteenth Street cut-through.  Here in LeDroit Park, Third Street bisected Anna J. Cooper Circle until the District in 1984 restored it to its original circular shape.

We’ve been busy for Christmas and we forgot to wish everyone a merry Christmas.

Here are some Christmasy photos we’ve taken around town lately.

At the Willard:

At the U.S. Botanic Garden:

The National Christmas Tree:

Stay tuned— more posts to follow!

DC’s Urban Forestry Administration has released its tree-planting list for early 2010.  UFA aims to plant 3,000 trees between the curbs and the sidewalks in the coming year to help expand the city’s tree canopy.  Trees prevent erosion, lower cooling bills, absorb pollutants, and just look pretty.

We have plotted each planned tree for LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale on the map below.

View LeDroit Park-Bloomingdale Tree Planting Schedule in a larger map

These trees will be added to public space, which typically stretches from one sidewalk’s outer edge and across the street to the outer edge of the other sidewalk.

If you would like a tree planted in your private yard in the coming spring, the District Department of the Environment is offering tree-plantings for $50. Order your tree now!

A fractal is a shape that is composed entirely of smaller versions of itself.  While glancing at a map of Shepherd Park yesterday, we discovered the shape of the District within the District.

The area is bounded by North Portal Drive (corresponding to Western Avenue), Rock Creek Park (corresponding to the Potomac), Alaska Avenue (corresponding to Southern Avenue), and Eastern Avenue (as itself).

We learned that many years ago the LeDroit Park Civic Association meetings used to get heated.  How times have changed; every meeting we’ve attended this year was calm and polite.

This contrasts with some neighboring Shaw and Mount Vernon civic associations, which, as the blog The Other 35 Percent reports, have involved member blacklists, police-escorted ejections, membership schisms, and restraining orders.  Sounds like the plot of a novel!

The LeDroit Park Civic Association will meet tomorrow night at 7pm in the basement of the Florida Avenue Baptist Church.  Enter through the back entrance at U and Bohrer Streets NW and descend the stairs.

On the agenda:

• Representative from Florida Avenue Baptist Church on community involvement
• Gage Park Update on delayed construction
• Representative from North Capital Collaborative on the group’s activities
• Committee business
• Your updates, ideas, questions

Please join us, get informed and meet your neighbors. We hope to see you there!

The National Park Service just launched this impressive new site for the Lincoln Memorial.