Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site

Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site is a National Historic Site in the city of Washington, D.C. Established on September 30, 1965, the site is roughly bounded by Constitution Avenue, 15th Street NW, F Street NW, and 3rd Street NW. The historic district includes a number of culturally, aesthetically, and historically significant structures and places, including Pennsylvania Avenue NW from the White House to the United States Capitol, the Treasury Building, Freedom Plaza, Federal Triangle, Ford's Theatre, the Old Patent Office Building, the Old Pension Office Building, which now houses the National Building Museum, Judiciary Square, and the Peace Monument.

Pennsylvania Avenue, the heart of the historic site, is sometimes called "America's Main Street", and the avenue plays a significant part in American political culture. A march or event held on the avenue is infused with a great deal of political meaning.

History of the site Construction of Pennsylvania Avenue

Prior to the settlement of the area by European colonists, the Piscataway tribe of Native Americans occupied the northeastern banks of the Potomac River, although no permanent settlements are known in the area now encompassed by the city of Washington.Humphrey and Chambers, Ancient Washington: American Indian Cultures of the Potomac Valley. George Washington University, 1977, p. 23. As the region began to be settled, David Burnes obtained the first title to the area which would become Pennsylvania Avenue NW in 1774.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 52-53.

Article One, Section 8, of the United States Constitution established a "District... [to] become the seat of the government of the United States..." The Residence Act of 1790 (as amended), established this district and gave to the President of the United States the authority to fix the location of the site somewhere along the Potomac River.Steward, "Early Maps and Surveyors of the City of Washington, D.C.," Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 1899, p. 4. President George Washington chose the current site of the city in 1791, and it was surveyed later that year.Hazelton, The National Capitol: Its Architecture, Art, and History, 1914, p. 2. At the time, it was not foreseen that the city of Washington would be coterminous with the District of Columbia, and Washington set the northern boundary of the city roughly where Pennsylvania Avenue is today.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 127, 137. Washington chose Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant to plan the new city.Steward, "Early Maps and Surveyors of the City of Washington, D.C.," Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 1899, p. 49-55. Although unnamed at the time,Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 178. Pennsylvania Avenue was designed in the L'Enfant plan as a critical thoroughfare for bringing existing roads into the heart of the new city.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 149.Berg, Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, 2008, p. 78. It was also designed to link the "president's palace" with the Capitol building planned for Jenkin's Hill (now Capitol Hill).Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, 2006, p. 12.; Reps, The Making of Urban America: A History of City Planning in the United States, 1992, p. 250; Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments, 1996, p. 349-350.

Pennsylvania Avenue was created on April 14, 1792, when the three commissioners then overseeing the District of Columbia ordered "the middle of the avenue from the president's palace to the capitol" cleared.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 192. The origin of the name "Pennsylvania Avenue" is somewhat obscure. The name was first applied to the avenue in a letter from surveyor and map-maker Benjamin Ellicott to the District's commissioners in December 1791.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 149.

The actual clearing of Pennsylvania Avenue did not begin until spring 1796.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 276. Much of Pennsylvania Avenue below 9th Street was swampy and nearly unusable, as Tiber Creek curved north to border the avenue at 9th Street and again at 5th and 4th Streets before actually crossing it at 2nd Street.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 262; Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments, 1996, p. 348. The damp earned the street the nickname of the "Great Serbonian Bog."Frary, They Built the Capitol, 1969, p. 58. (This marshy area was filled in and dried beginning in 1816.)Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 240. In the fall of 1800, Pennsylvania Avenue was cleared of underbrush, and a raised footpath covered in stone chips was built.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 358.Berg, Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, 2008, p. 204. A stone bridge over Tiber Creek at 2nd Street was also built during this time,Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 359. being replaced by a brick arch in 1817.Public Utilities Commission, Annual Report of the Public Utilities Commission of the District of Columbia, 1915, p. 94. On March 3, 1803, President Thomas Jefferson ordered that Pennsylvania Avenue be widened and the road completed.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 418. Benjamin Henry Latrobe, the architect newly hired to supervise the avenue's reconstruction, built three lanes separated by four rows of Black Poplars.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 456.Berg, Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, 2008, p. 219; Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 319.

Additional improvements to the street were made throughout the 19th century: The avenue was macadamized in 1832 (and the poplars removed), repaved with round stones in 1852, and repaved with wooden blocks from 1st to 15th Streets in 1870.Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, 2006, p. 20; Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 241, 344. The wooden blocks required such extensive repair, however, that between 1876 and 1877 they were replaced with rock from 1st to 6th Streets NW, and with grahamite asphalt from 6th to 15th Streets NW. The avenue was repaved in 1890 and again in 1907.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 242.

Growing development of the Pennsylvania Avenue district

The Pennsylvania Avenue area of the city saw limited growth prior to the 1850s, although a number of firsts also occurred in the area. James Greenleaf, an early land speculator in the city, erected the first buildings, including six row houses, on Pennsylvania Avenue in the spring and summer of 1794 at the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue NW and 22nd Street NW, and another seven similar buildings were erected about the same time by Walter Stewart, a Continental Army general during the American Revolutionary War.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 233. The "Six Buildings" erected by Greenleaf served as the first headquarters of the United States Department of State and the United States Department of the Navy in 1800, while one of the buildings across the street housed the United States Department of War.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 351. Two of the city's first three street lamps were established in the area near Capitol Hill in December 1801.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 419.

Center Market, the city's first food market, was built the same year on a lot on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 8th Streets. It became the hub of the city's early commercial district.Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, 2006, p. 15.Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: Its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments, 1996, p. 351; Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 344. Over time, the business district moved north, but its southern boundary continued to be marked by Pennsylvania Avenue.Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, 2006, p. 23. Center Market moved a block west along Pennsylvania Avenue to larger, more modern facilities in 1872.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 383. The second inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, which occurred on March 4, 1805, was the first to host an inaugural procession down Pennsylvania Avenue.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 457; Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 323.

The city's first school, the Western School, opened on the south side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 17th and 18th Streets NW in January 1806.Bryan, A History of the National Capital..., 1914, p. 481. The city's first sewer pipe was laid under Pennsylvania Avenue in 1829.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 243. By 1835, Pennsylvania Avenue was largely lined by two- to four-story Federalist row houses.Bednar, L'Enfant's Legacy: Public Open Spaces in Washington, 2006, p. 16. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad converted a house at the corner of 2nd Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue into the city's first train station.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 345; Dilts, The Great Road: The Building of the Baltimore and Ohio, the Nation's First Railroad, 1828–1853, 1996, p. 375. It was abandoned in 1851 when the station moved to a more long-lasting location at New Jersey Avenue and C Street NW.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 364-365. The same year, the National Theatre opened on December 7.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 500. It was followed by the 400-seat Odeon in 1846, the 1,000-seat Adelphi in 1847, and Metzerott Hall in the 1860s.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 500, 507. President Andrew Jackson approved the construction of the Treasury Building in 1836 (it was completed the following year), but the size and height of the building forced a rerouting of Pennsylvania Avenue and blocked the view of the White House from L'Enfant's "Grand Avenue."Newton, Design on the Land: The Development of Landscape Architecture, 1971, p. 403; Berg, Grand Avenues: The Story of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the French Visionary Who Designed Washington, 2008, p. 253. The city's first stock brokerage was opened by William W. Corcoran at 15th and Pennsylvania Avenue in 1837.Tindall, Standard History of the City of Washington From a Study of the Original Sources, 1914, p. 555. The city blocks where the National Gallery of Art now stands became a fashionable residential area in the 1830s.Savage, Monument Wars: Washington, D.C., the National Mall, and the Transformation of the Memorial Landscape, 2009, p. 172.