Washington, D. C., 1989

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Excerpt from Washington, D. C., 1989: A Traveler's Guide to the District of Columbia and Nearby AttractionsRunning through the city is Rock Creek Park, of which Lord Bryce, a British ambassador some 80 years ago, asked in wonderment: In what other city in the world can you walk in ten minutes into the middle of a glen? The busy thoroughfare that now runs its length has hardly changed that aspect.All of this and more is the backdrop to the capital city, and you should keep reminding yourself to notice it. Not only does the green soften the hard edges of what might otherwise be too monumental a city, it also helps to create an atmosphere that subdues temptations to the arrogance of power. Neither the old palaces of Europe nor the Kremlin today display any of the informality that is created by this green.The people who exercise power and serve it are affected by this ease in their surroundings. Some of the residential districts, so close to the center of the city, are like garden suburbs: Cleveland Park, the area around Foxhall Road, and Spring Valley, which in spring lives up to its name. Across some of the streets of Georgetown the high old trees meet over head like the nave of a cathedral. I know no great city in the world that is lovelier in the spring.If you can spare the time, I suggest you visit Theo dore Roosevelt Island, in the Potomac on the edge of the city. There used to be a ferry to it, but now you cross to it by a footbridge from the Virginia side. Since Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to really care about the environment and conservation, it was decided to keep the island in its natural state as a memorial to him. If a tree falls, it is left to rot as it would in nature, where the ground is swampy, low down by the river, it is left swampy. You can walk around the island not knowing you are near the heart of a great city.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.