January 17, 2010 - 5:41 pm

Lane Champlain

Photo by M.V. Jantzen

The District recently renovated and reopened Champlain Street to cars under the Marie Reed Center.  The new street is one-way southbound for cars and includes a northbound contraflow bike lane.  The reopened street will improve street connectivity between Adams Morgan and the U Street corridor.  Currently, much of the car traffic is forced onto Ontario Road on the east and Eighteenth Street on the west.

The northbound contraflow bike lane will connect nicely to the westbound bike lane on V Street (mapped below).  Though bicycles are entitled to ride on all District streets, LeDroit residents who prefer bike lanes will find a more relaxed route along V Street (from Vermont Avenue) westward to Florida Avenue, then northward on Champlain Street.

Champlain Street and vicinity. The blue line marks the northwestern edge of the L'Enfant Plan

The roadway just south of the Marie Reed Center has been renamed Champlain Street to signify its continuation from the north.  Its old namesake, Old Morgan School Place,  has since been shortened from its former L-shape to its one remaining block between the Reed Center and the PEPCO substation.

We applaud DDOT and Councilmember Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), who spearheaded the reopening, for accommodating cyclists and connecting the street grids.  Connected streets alleviate traffic jams as they provide more alternatives routes when the main streets become unexpectedly crowded.

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January 11, 2010 - 7:40 am

Eye in the Sky (1988 – 2009)

What a difference twenty-one years make. Below are two satellite photos of LeDroit Park— one taken in 1988 and the other taken in 2009.  Toggle back and forth between the two to see how the neighborhood’s footprint has changed.

Toggle

There are a few noticeable changes:

  1. Howard University Hospital built an annex behind the main hospital building.
  2. The entire block bounded by Fourth Street, Fifth Street, V Street, and Oakdale Place is now a multi-level parking garage.
  3. In 1988, the 500 block of U Street looked gap-toothed; new houses have since been built to fill out the entire north side of the street.
  4. Street intersections have been replaced with concrete while the roadways remain asphalt.
  5. The tree canopy is much more expansive now (or the 1988 photo was taken in the winter).
  6. Houses have been built on the once-vacant land around the northeast corner of Fourth and U Streets.
  7. The intersection of T Street, Sixth Street, and Florida Avenue has been reconfigured, making way for the pocket park home to the LeDroit Park entrance arch.
  8. The Schoolhouse Lofts condo building has since been built at Second and V Streets.

Did we miss anything?

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November 29, 2009 - 1:10 am

Old Street Names

Old Harewood Ave Sign

Careful observers occasionally spot the old street signs adorning a few of the light poles in LeDroit Park.  When the neighborhood was originally planned, most of the streets were named after trees.  LeDroit Park’s street system didn’t fit with the L’Enfant Plan in either name or alignment—much to the dismay of the District commissioners—and the street names were eventually changed to fit the naming and numbering system.

A perusal of old maps reveals that the street names changed over time, not all at once.  Elm Street is the only street that has retained its name.  Since your author lives on Elm Street he has learned to respond to puzzled faces that know that Elm doesn’t fit the street naming system: “It’s kinda like U-and-1/3 Street”.

Anna J. Cooper Circle didn’t have a name at all until 1983, when it was restored to its circular form after a decades-long bisection by Third Street.

Just outside of LeDroit Park, the city renamed a few streets as well: 7th Street Road became Georgia Avenue and Boundary Street, the boundary of the L’Enfant Plan, became Florida Avenue.

Here is a table matching the current street names with their previous names.

Old Name Current Name
Le Droit Avenue 2nd Street
Harewood Avenue 3rd Street
Linden Street 4th Street*
Larch Street 5th Street
Juniper Street 6th Street
Elm Street (same)
Boundary Street Florida Avenue**
7th Street Road Georgia Avenue**
Oak Court Oakdale Place
Maple Avenue T Street
Spruce Street U Street
Wilson Street V Street**
Pomeroy Street W Street**
(unnamed before 1983) Anna J. Cooper Circle
* For a short period, 4th Street was called 4½ Street.
** Though these streets were just outside the original LeDroit Park, we have included them for reference.

Signs bearing the old street names have reappeared in the neighborhood, and according to the Afro-American, were put up in 1976:  “The LeDroit Park Historic District Project was instrumental in getting the D.C. Department of Transportation to put up the old original street names for this Historic District Area under the present street name signs”.1

Unfortunately, some of the signs are showing their 33 years of weather, as this sign at Third and U Streets shows.

Old Spruce St Sign

Eventually these signs will have to be replaced, but rather than placing the old names onto modern signs using a modern typeface, we suggest something that evokes the history without being mistaken for the current street name:

New Historic Sign

White text on a brown background is the standard for street and highway signs pointing to areas of recreation or cultural interest.  Seattle started using the color scheme to mark its historic Olmsted boulevards and New York has long used the combination for street signs in its historic districts.  The adoption of this style of sign would alert visitors and residents to the neighborhood’s historic identity while the different color and typeface would prevent confusion with the actual street names (U St NW in this case).  Typographers would be pleased by the use of Big Caslon Medium, a serif typeface based on the centuries-old Caslon typeface.


  1. Hall, Ruth C. “Historic Project”. Washington Afro-American. 1 May 1976.
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