History
See also: History of Washington, D.C., List of circles in Washington, D.C., and Lieutenant General George WashingtonWashington Circle became the first traffic circle in Washington, D.C., when Reservation 26 was enclosed and landscaped in 1856.
A bronze equestrian statue, sculpted by Clark Mills and depicting George Washington riding his horse during the Battle of Princeton, was installed in the center of the circle on February 22, 1860, at a total cost of $60,000. The National Park Service now maintains Washington Circle's park, the public space surrounding Washington's statue.
In 1862, streetcars tracks were laid around Washington Circle, but were not properly maintained during the turbulent years of the Civil War. Track improvements were made during the 1870s and the park was redesigned in 1885. To ease traffic congestion, Washington Circle was redesigned in 1932, followed by construction of the K Street underpass in 1961–1962.
Read more about this topic: Washington Circle
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
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“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)