"Virtual Tour of DC" Kentbein's Profile

Greetings, Everyone

Best wishes to you
from
Washington, D.C.

White House from South Lawn

Here, for your use, is a reprint of a letter to Tim from Cincinnatti asking me for a general description of DC. It covers my favorite information about the city and gives a pretty good overview that you may find helpful. Feel free to email additional questions you may have and I'll be happy to answer them directly or look them up for you.

Here's the letter to Tim:
..............................................................
Hi Tim, and welcome to DC. I think you'll enjoy your visit here.

You are coming at what I consider to be an excellent time to visit DC. The height of the tourist season is past by the time September - November arrives, so you won't have to deal with horrible crowds and long lines, and that is a VERY good thing.

I never have to stay at hotels, so may not be the best resource for you on inexpensive but good places to stay. Here though, is something very worth looking into. Another VT friend (Robert Werner, alias RMDW@virtualtourist.com) visited us during the 2003 summer at the height of the tourist season, and found a GREAT hotel, the Wyndham City Centre on New Hampshire Avenue, for $69.00 per night. Great price for a DC hotel. I don't know if they are still running that great deal, but certainly check on them. It's in a very central, very good location, and you will enjoy being there, especially for that cost.

There are better hotels along Connecticut Avenue, but you pay dearly for them. The Wyndam is located in a decent spot, more or less in between Georgetown, Connecticut Ave and Dupont Circle and is a great place to base yourself while in town. Here's a website of other DC hotels for you that may be helpful: http://www.washington-landmarks.com/hotels.html

And here's a website for DC landmarks:
http://www.washington-landmarks.com/landmarks.html
with great descriptions provided by Lonely Planet:
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/north_america/washington_dc/

There's not much near Arlington Cemetery on the DC side where you were considering. That area is called Roslyn, a business district and a few crappily designed apartment buildings are the only things you'll find there. There may be the odd hotel or two, but it's primarily business oriented and no one else ever goes there. I wouldn't recommend it as a base camp. If you do find a place there though, which would only be decided by price, there's a very nice bridge into Georgetown from Roslyn, so at least you'd have a nice vista walking into town.

As for touring DC, it's really one of the easiest places around for that sort of activity. The Mall, where all the Smithsonian buildings are located, is easily accessible by subway, getting off at the Smithsonian stop. It is fabulous, with nearly everything forming an outstanding monument. It stretches from the Lincoln to the Capitol, which I believe is a three mile (+/-) distance. When I worked at the Pentagon, just across Memorial Bridge and a bit to the south, it was an eight mile round trip run for me to jog from the Pentagon, across the Bridge, by the Lincoln Memorial, up to the Washington Monument, down the Mall, around the Capitol and back. That, my friend, is THE way to see DC! Life gets no better than that.

From the Wyndham City Centre on New Hampshire Avenue you would walk north a few blocks to the Dupont Metro Station to access the subway. Dupont's a riot anyway, so you would definitely want to go there. It's great for shopping, restaurants, cafes, people watching,... it's just great. It's an exciting site in the city, with college kids, young biz types, art, great shops, and an all around interesting place. It's also gay city center, and that tends to liven things up a lot. I'm not gay, but they do add a lively character to the place. There are clubs along that whole area down Connecticut Avenue from Dupont to M street, so it's a hopping little area for nightlife. Day life around Dupont is great too, so don't miss it. Kramer Books and Afterwards is one of the hippest places around Dupont. Be surre to go there.

Keep your wits about you around all these places as you approach 11:00 pm, especially around Dupont. I've never had any problem with it, but we do have predators in the city, and hot spots like Dupont attract them.

We also have "war zones", primarily focused around southeast DC. It's a good rule of thumb to stay clear of anything with an "east" address here in the city, and a cardinal rule to stand well clear of anything with a southeast address. That is where 99% of the DC violence you read about occurs. Interestingly enough, it's been a depressed area since prior to the Civil War, with increased violent intensity after the 1960's. Generally speaking, all the cool stuff is in the northwest.

Look at the map of DC, you'll notice that the street grid begins at the Capitol Building. Draw a cross hair at the Capitol, bisecting the map into quadrants, providing sectors labeled Northwest, Northeast, Southwest, Southeast. All streets running north and south are numbered. All streets running east/west are lettered. An address such as 1101 K Street NW tells you that you are 11 blocks west of the Capitol and ten blocks north. ('I' was omitted from the alphabetic grid so as not to confuse it with the number '1'). The same applies with SE, SW, NE.

Another note, after running through the alphabet A-Z, the following streets are also alphabetized with one syllable words A-Z, then two syllable A-Z's. It's a good system designed by George Washington's city planner/surveyor, Pierre L'Enfant. He laid out the city plan at Washington's bequest, with the basic geometry remaining today.

Looking at the map, and DO look at the map, you will notice that the street grid is interrupted by broad avenues running diagonally across the grid. These are denoted by U.S. state names such as Connecticut Avenue or Pennsylvania Avenue. These boulevards are connected to the grid by circles at intersecting streets. Newcomers to the city find the grid interruption confusing, but after you understand the geometry and traffic patterns produced, you find these diagonal intersections to be very helpful getting from one side of the town to another.

There are lots of one way streets in DC too, which can confuse you if driving through the city. Good luck if driving is all I can say.

Inside Union Station

Places to see. There are the general tour sites, pretty thoroughly described on that website above: http://www.washington-landmarks.com/landmarks.html
The site seems to leave out wonderful places such as Union Station, the Old Post Office Museum (Capitol City Brewery is inside this old, renovated beauty of a building) and the Dubliner Bar/Pub for great Irish food and a few pints. The Dubliner was mentioned not too complimentary in Tom Clancy's "Patriot Games". It has been the site of sedition and treason to the Crown, and is a source of Republican fund raising. (Irish republican, as opposed to US Republican Party republican). All three of these places are near the Capitol.

National Cathedral, a very beautiful Gothic Cathedral in the city rivaling some of Europe's gems, was not listed on the website. National Cathedral is worth a visit, but is not easily accessed without a car. If you do want to walk to it, take the subway (called the Metro)

http://www.wmata.com/metrorail/systemmap.cfm

to Cleveland Park Station. Walk back south one block to Ordway Street (I lived on this street and LOVED it). Note that O-r-d-w-a-y is a TWO syllable word and, for the test portion of this lesson, means what?

Stop in Ireland's Four Provinces just before Ordway for a good little oasis, then walk west on Ordway, where a few houses up and on the left you will notice a green little fellow with a large port hole window in front. This was Admiral Byrd's (Antarctic explorer) house. Around the curve in the street and on the right you will see my old digs, a large white, three story place I was able to rent for five years. Life was GOOD back then! I loved living there.

Continue up the street about four or five wonderful residential blocks, and turn left (south) two streets before Wisconsin Ave. Two more blocks and you begin to glimpse the spire of Washington Cathedral. It's magnificent approaching from this direction.

Master stone carvers from Italy were brought over for the approximately seventy year construction of the Cathedral. It's a beautiful building. Be sure to see the frieze at the front entrance, walk through the gardens on the south side of the building, and go through the greenhouse at the east (back) of the building. They at one time opened the building for a tour of the roof once a year, but after Sept 11, 2001 I doubt they still do. Helen Keller is buried in the Cathedral crypt and there are some glorious stained glass windows along the nave.

Leaving the Cathedral to the south on Wisconsin Avenue, drive one block (there's no left turn directly onto Mass Ave at this point) and one street, turn left onto the Massachusetts Avenue intersect, and drive down Embassy Row. Many of the nicest foreign embassies in the city are located along this Avenue, all the way into Dupont Circle. It's a beautiful and very interesting drive well worth the time.

A block or so into the drive you pass the National Observatory grounds, which also houses the Vice Pres of the USA's home. Adjacent to the National Observatory is the British Embassy. Just to the south of that is a cool statue of the bulldog himself, Winston Churchill, replete with cigar in one hand, upraised "V" saluting in the other. Great statue. Don't miss it.

Georgetown is straight down Wisconsin Avenue from the Cathedral, and I'll leave it to you if you want to visit there or not. I view it as the "Temple Bar" area of Dublin, and if you read Lochlainn@virtualtourist.com's opinion (no better pages anywhere on VT than Lochlainn's, by the way, they are EXCELLENT) of Temple Bar, substitute his comments about Temple Bar with the word "Georgetown", and you get a good feel for my opinion on this area of the city. It's ok, and there are some interesting historic sites along the way, including Jackie Kennedy's house, Georgetown University and very good garden. To me though, it's not worth the effort. Dupont Circle is a better place to hang.

I hope this helps. I'll post this on my page somewhere for future reference. Feel free to ask any other questions I can help with and I'll be happy to forward you what I either know or can find out.

Have a great visit and enjoy yourself!

Hosell, Visi and Lola at my house.

One of the highlights of being on VT is having my good VT friend Manuel from Alicante, Spain spend some of his visit with me while here in DC in 2002. Manuel, his sister and their friend spent a nice evening with my family at our home and then went for a rainy, drizzly car ride tour of DC later that night. I had an extremely good time developing a close friendship with this wonderful VT'er. Once again I have to say just how much I love this website. I've met the greatest people through VT. It's the best, and meeting Manuel has been one of the very best aspects of it.