Walking in Washington

As many of you know, I have spent the last 20-25 years driving...everywhere. When I was in high school I started my treks into Massachusetts, traveling about 130 miles each way for voice lessons. When I was finishing college, I commuted 135 miles each way. Grad school? I had it down to about 100 miles each way. My first two years at Bridgewater State University, I traveled from Saco, Maine to Bridgewater, MA -- 120 miles each way. When we moved to Massachusetts we knocked 50 miles off my commute to Bridgewater, so now it's only 70 miles each way. To further complicate this, for decades, Neil commuted 30,000-50,000 miles a year, like most free lance musicians living in New England (and likely other places) do.

Now I'm in Washington for 12 months and I have been driving about 10 miles a week. Our Camry just sits in the garage where I am renting an apartment. I drive it each week 4 miles to Catholic University for wind ensemble rehearsal and every other week I drive it 12 blocks to get groceries. Talk about a change! Boy, is everything still new!

Otherwise, I pretty much walk everywhere. I live 1 mile from my fellowship position in the Senate. It takes me 20 minutes to walk to work. Twenty minutes! Half of the time I walk to get groceries in my neighborhood. When I need to venture further, I walk to Union Station and pick up the Metro and then I walk some more. I really am not a city person, but I do love being able to walk places. No doubt about that.

So, I am enjoying walking around Washington and slowly, I'm getting to know the city. Many days I take a different route home, usually only one or two streets out of my way, so that I learn more about the layout of the city. Sometimes when I am out walking, I'm texting with my friend and colleague, Lars, who is in Germany. I take pictures for him of my surroundings and send them while we "chat." Here are some of those pictures.

Capital Bike Shares - about two blocks from my apartment. They are all over the city. 

The row houses with pointy roofs are called "Victorians" in Washington. This is my street. 

This is the library that is closest to my apartment, the Northeast Library. 

E Street, NE

This was taken somewhere in the northeast part of the city; maybe along Constitution Street?

I loved the arched doors here. 

This actually looks very European to me. It makes me think of the visit that I took to France in the 1990s. 

The layout of the city is pretty interesting, actually, but I am just beginning to learn about it. The city is largely laid out into quadrants: northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest. Northwest is by far the largest. The streets consist of numbers, letters, diagonals, and circles. Everything is laid out relative to the Capitol building, which is in the original part of the city. As one moves east or west from the Capitol, the numbers increase. If you go north or south from the Capitol, the letters increase. Here's a map where I try to explain this.

First, take a look at the orange circles. These all designate 3rd Street of some various kind. On the right hand side of the map you can see East Capitol NE running west to east - this is actually the diving line for the northeast and southeast quadrants of the city. You can see that 3rd Street changes from SE to NE as it crosses over East Capitol NE. On the left middle side of the map, there is another orange circle, this time for SW. Apparently, when it crosses Constitution it become NW. So, those are the numbers.

The lettered streets actually start over as they move away from East Capitol Street NE. Again, look at the right side of the map and you will see circled in blue, two A Streets in relatively close proximity to each other. This is because one is in the northeast quadrant and the other is in the southeast quadrant. You can also find C Street NE in the upper right and C Street NW, as this street crossed North Capitol, which is another important diving street.

Thank goodness for Google maps and smartphones! The first week of our training, all of the AAAS fellows commented that when they were out navigating the city, they were pulling out their phones, opening a map app, and then seeing if "the blue dot" (meaning them!) was moving away from or toward the desired destination as they walked. (I did this yesterday, in fact! I was out on my 21 mile distance run and coming out of West Potomac Park, I completely missed the Lincoln Memorial and hence, accidentally cut 2 miles out of my run and had to circle back to get them!)

Okay, I'm almost done trying to explain the layout of the city. When the single letter system for street names runs out, the alphabet begins again, but with words, and two syllable words at that, such as "Adams." When the alphabet runs out again, the street names move to three syllable words, such as "Albermarle." There are no X, Y, and Z streets. There are also no J Streets. Further, "I" Street is designated as "Eye" Street everywhere I see it. In addition to this, there are diagonal streets, which are the names of states: Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, South Carolina, and so on. When these diagonals intersect with lettered and numbered streets, it creates a circle, such as Dupont Circle.

In addition, there are many, many city parks in Washington. I love to walk through them on my way home from work. They are filled with happy dogs, dog owners, children, families, and people bustling all around. I tend to frequent Stanton Park and Lincoln Park (not Lincoln Memorial, mind you). The final thing that I will say is that in addition to all of this, there are neighborhoods, for example Adams Morgan, Foggy Bottom, Embassy Row, and the like. I live in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. My favorite neighborhood name is NOMA, which stands for "North of Mass Ave."

That's it. If you've lasted through this blog post, you're doing pretty well. I've just barely figured it all out myself! If you want to read more about the layout of the city, there is a great guide here.