Читать книгу Walking Washington, D.C. - Barbara J. Saffir - Страница 12

1 FRIENDSHIP HEIGHTS: BAUBLES AND BOUNDARIES

BOUNDARIES: Western Avenue NW, Wisconsin Avenue NW, Jenifer Street NW, and Fessenden Street NW

DISTANCE: 1.5 miles

DIFFICULTY: Easy

PARKING: Limited free and metered street parking, multiple parking garages

PUBLIC TRANSIT: Friendship Heights Metro Station is served by numerous buses.

Tourists don’t typically flock to Friendship Heights, but they might if they knew about its disparate trove of treasures. They can buy a bauble or a beaded evening gown and then saunter down a tree-lined road to sample the capital’s slowly disappearing history: D.C.’s original boundary markers and a Civil War fort. Most of Washington’s boundary stones are still around, but they’re typically inaccessible and are slowly disintegrating in the rain, snow, and pollution. But this stone is easy to ogle in a public park. Practically across the street is Fort Bayard. Although no visible remnants remain of this Civil War fort, it’s still a green oasis with towering persimmon trees and chirping birds—and it makes one heck of a sledding hill. A whole ring of similar forts once circled the city, modeled after European fortifications of the 17th and 18th centuries. Washington had one lone fort when the Civil War commenced in the spring of 1861. By the war’s end four years later, that number had skyrocketed to 68. These days there are more than 68 shops and restaurants around the junction of Wisconsin and Western Avenues.

 Start at the Metro station on the southwestern side of Western Avenue NW. Unlike most stations, it sports a cool circular foyer with a vaulted ceiling, and “the most important spy you’ve never heard of” plied her tradecraft there, according to FBI documents and The Washington Post. In June 2001, FBI agents tracked Cuban spy Ann Belen Montes when she drove her red Toyota to Friendship Heights. The Defense Intelligence Agency analyst walked to the Metro station to call her handlers on a pay phone. She was arrested September 21 and pled guilty to espionage in 2002 in exchange for a 25-year sentence.

 Walk southwest on Western Avenue NW to the Boundary Park Neighborhood Conservation Area. To the right, in a pint-size park, one of Washington’s original 40 boundary stones is ensconced in an iron-barred cage. A Maryland historical marker proclaims that it was erected in 1792. It’s called NW #6 because it’s 6 miles from the western cornerstone. It marks the dividing line between D.C. and Maryland.

 Reverse direction to walk northeast on Western Avenue NW for Fort Bayard Park on the right. It was named for Brig. Gen. George Dashiell Bayard of the First Pennsylvania Cavalry. The soldiers who lived in its troop barracks defended the important River Road entrance into the city with four 20-pounder Parrott rifles and two 12-pounder field howitzers, the National Park Service says.

 Continue northeast on Western Avenue NW. Just before Wisconsin Avenue NW, turn right into Mazza Gallerie, a keystone of consumerism since 1978. Shoppers can snag a pair of $1,000 boots at Neiman Marcus or pay $100 for a complete outfit at discounter T.J. Maxx.

 Exit Mazza Gallerie and turn right to walk southeast on Wisconsin Avenue NW to the traffic light at Jenifer Street NW. Cross Wisconsin Avenue NW for designer deals on the right at the Nordstrom Rack outlet, Marshalls, and DSW Designer Shoe Warehouse. Inside 5335 Wisconsin Avenue NW is Range, one of several restaurants in the corral of James Beard Foundation Award finalist and TV’s Top Chef alum Bryan Voltaggio. It serves such delicacies as Muscovy duck rillettes and sweetbreads.

 Continue northwest on Wisconsin Avenue NW to the Metro—or shoppers with Champagne tastes can amble a couple of blocks farther to Chevy Chase, Maryland, to pick up some trinkets at Tiffany & Co., Cartier, Gucci, and other posh stores.

BOUNDARY STONES: FROM DUST TO DUST?

Dying. Washington’s oldest federal monuments are dying—of neglect. Forty boundary stones were erected in 1791 and 1792 to mark the original 100-square-mile boundary of the new federal capital. Now all the sandstone monuments still embedded in the ground are decomposing, and several are just little nubs, missing entirely, or have been moved from their original locations. These lesser-known landmarks will be lost forever, unless the government steps in to preserve them permanently.

For the past century, volunteers and other advocates have fought to protect them. In 1915, the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) began erecting iron-barred cages around the markers. But at least three fences are missing, one from an inaccessible stone and two on private property, according to the volunteer website, boundarystones.org.

The 40 stones were laid at 1-mile intervals along a 10-mile diamond by surveyor Maj. Andrew Ellicott after the District was selected for the capital by President George Washington. Maryland and Virginia ceded land to form the new capital, but in 1846 Virginia took back its land and its 14 boundary stones along with it.

The DAR still helps individually, and now also as part of a volunteer coalition called the Nation’s Capital Boundary Stones Committee. The coalition includes more than two dozen groups, such as the National Park Service, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the District Department of Transportation, and the D.C. Surveyor’s office. Co-chairman Stephen Powers of ASCE organizes biannual cleanups and is attempting to get the orphan stones recognized as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark.

When the stones were laid, each was typically 1 foot wide and 4 feet long, except for the 5-foot-long cornerstones, according to a U.S. Geological Survey report. The same Aquia Creek sandstone that the survey stones are made of was also used to build the Capitol and the White House. It was dug from a quarry roughly 40 miles south of D.C. in Stafford County, Virginia. That rock pit is now part of “Government Island,” and it’s protected as a public park.

POINTS OF INTEREST

Friendship Heights Metro Station 5337 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-637-7000, wmata.com/rail/station_detail.cfm?station_id=11

Washington, D.C., Boundary Stone NW6 in Boundary Park Neighborhood Conservation Area 5000 Western Ave., Chevy Chase, MD; montgomeryparks.org/parks_facilities_directory/boundarypnca.shtm

Fort Bayard Western Avenue NW and River Road NW, nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/fort-bayard.htm

Mazza Gallerie 5300 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-966-6114, mazzagallerie.com

Shopping Centers 5333 and 5335 Wisconsin Ave. NW

ROUTE SUMMARY

1 Exit the Metro station at Western and Wisconsin Avenues.

2 Walk southwest on Western Avenue NW.

3 Turn right into Boundary Park Neighborhood Conservation Area.

4 Reverse direction.

5 Turn right into Fort Bayard park.

6 Walk northeast on Western Avenue NW.

7 Turn right just before Wisconsin Avenue NW into Mazza Gallerie.

8 Exit Mazza Gallerie onto Wisconsin Avenue NW.

9 Turn right to continue southeast on Wisconsin Avenue NW for one block.

10 Turn left to cross Wisconsin Avenue NW at Jenifer Street NW.

11 Turn left to head back northwest on Wisconsin Avenue NW.

Shoppers’ paradise at Friendship Heights Metro