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Search - The Rough Guide to Washington DC, 2nd (Washington, D.C. (Rough Guides))

The Rough Guide to Washington DC 2nd - Washington, D.C. Rough Guides
Author: Jules Brown

Introduction As a nation's capital, Washington DC - showtown USA - takes some beating. Along its triumphant avenues stand historic buildings that define a world-view, while on either side of the central Mall sit the various museum buildings of the planet's greatest cultural collection, the Smithsonian Institution. For an introduction to America... more » or a crash course in politics, portraiture or paleontology look no further than the spacious, well-ordered, Neoclassical sweep that is downtown DC. Just don't expect Washington to fulfill any reasonable expectations of a living, breathing, warts-and-all American city. Born of compromise, it was built as an experiment, and in many ways continues as one - careering along in political turmoil, without representation, bankrupt, neglected, socially psychotic: a federal basket case. These attributes don't necessarily preclude a city from greatness - look at New York - but in Washington's case, history and politics have combined to produce a city full of fine buildings, soaring monuments and improving experiences but short on soul and long on contradictions. Its very foundation - the result of political wrangle - proved a harbinger of what was to come. In the late eighteenth century, Congress acceded to the demands of the Northern states to assume their Revolutionary War debts, but squeezed a key concession for the South: rather than being sited in one of the big Northern cities the new federal capital would be built from scratch on the banks of the Potomac River, midway along the eastern seaboard. And while not actually in the Deep South, Washington - named for the republic's first president - in the Territory (later District) of Columbia, was very definitely of the South. French architect Pierre L'Enfant planned the city on a diamond-shaped piece of land donated by the tobacco-rich states of Virginia and Maryland; slave-labor drained the floodlands and erected the public buildings, and Virginian high society frequented the townhouses and salons which flourished after the government moved in during 1800. Capital of all America it may have been, but in its early years Washington rejoiced in its southern proclivities - bolstered by the fact that during the first fifty years of its existence, eight out of eleven presidents (and their entourage), between the administrations of John Adams and Zachary Taylor, were from the South. But to paint DC as a Southern city is to miss the point. John F. Kennedy, a resident before he was president, famously pointed out its contradictions in his waspish comment that Washington was "a city of southern efficiency and northern charm". Even more important than its geographical character or location was its unique experimental nature - a modern, planned capital built for a disparate collection of states seeking security in unity. As a symbol of union, its finest hour came within a generation of its foundation when the city that was built largely by slaves became the frontline headquarters of the fight against slavery, as Abraham Lincoln directed the Union troops from the capital's halls and offices. With Virginia and the Confederate states only a river crossing away, DC was secure only when peace was at hand: relief was palpable in the unconfined joy of the victorious Union Army parade down Pennsylvania Avenue in May 1865. After the Civil War, thousands of Southern blacks arrived in search of a sanctuary from racist oppression: to some extent they found one. Racial segregation was banned in public places and Howard University, the only US institution of higher learning that enrolled black people, was set up in 1867. By the 1870s African-Americans made up over a third of the population, but economic resources were soon stretched to breaking point. As poverty and squalor worsened, official segregation was reintroduced in 1920, banning blacks from government buildings and the jobs they had come to find. For much of this century, DC has been both a predominantly black city and a federal fortress. Shunned by the white political aristocracy, the city is run as a virtual colony of Congress, where residents have only non-voting representation and couldn't even participate in presidential elections until the 1970s. Suffering an endless cycle of boom and bust, the city has one of the country's highest crime rates, and appalling levels of unemployment, illiteracy and drug abuse - much bandied-about statistics usually dub it the nation's "murder and crack cocaine capital". Federal government money props up the city, pays its administrators and affects virtually every aspect of local commerce and industry - galling in the extreme to the majority of American citizens to whom Washington is a dirty word, inhabited only by self-seeking politicians isolated within the fabled Beltway, the ring road which circles the city and is used as a metaphor for all that's different about DC. Meanwhile, twenty million visitors come to Washington each year for fun, making it one of the most visited destinations in the country. Kept away from the city's peripheral dead zones, they tour a scrubbed, policed and largely safe downtown swathe where famous landmark follows world-class museum with unending and uplifting regularity. Politics and power are the daily spectacle in the White House, US Capitol and Supreme Court, as well as the FBI and Arlington's military Pentagon building - all open to the general public. Overpowering memorials and monuments to George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Vietnam and Korean War veterans punctuate the magnificent showpiece Mall; the National Gallery of Art or any of the thirteen Smithsonian museums (and its zoo) hold collections unrivaled in their field; while just outside the city, Arlington National Cemetery - most famously, burial place of the Civil War dead and the Kennedys - and Mount Vernon, George Washington's birthplace, elevate DC to pilgrimage center. Even better, most of what you see in Washington is free, and getting around (on a subsidized transport system that has few equals in the United States) is easy. True, a sense of community, or even neighborhood, is rare - especially downtown, where like in so many American cities the entire place falls strangely silent after 6pm and on weekends. But pockets of vitality do stand out, in historic Georgetown, arty Dupont Circle or trendy Adams-Morgan, where what nightlife there is shakes its fist at the otherwise conservative surroundings. You wouldn't necessarily choose to come shopping or clubbing in DC, but you'll eat well, from a bounty of different cuisines, and nowhere will you be better informed about what's happening in America. Pick up the paper, switch on the TV or radio, and tune in to the thousands of broadcasters, lobbyists, journalists and politicians who shape the views of the world from a medium-sized east coast city of glorious compromise and dubious future.

ISBN-13: 9781858284651
ISBN-10: 1858284651
Publication Date: 1/1/2000
Pages: 384
Edition: 2nd
Rating:

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Publisher: Rough Guides
Book Type: Paperback
Members Wishing: 0
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Genres:

Travel >> Reference >> Guidebooks
Travel >> Travel Writing
Travel >> Guidebook Series >> Rough Guide
Travel >> United States >> Regions >> General
Travel >> United States >> Regions >> South >> South Atlantic
Travel >> United States >> Washington, D.C.
Travel >> North America

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