Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor: Cultural Landscape Inventory, National Capital Parks- East, National Park Service

Garrison, Shannon

Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor is a cultural landscape located in the southeast quadrant of Washington, DC. The segment of the avenue included in this cultural landscape inventory runs diagonally, northwest to southeast, for 1.3 miles from Second Street, SE to Barney Circle. The Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor cultural landscape is comprised of National Park Service reservations 037 – 043, 044A, 047A, 047B and 050 ‑ 054. These reservations include the 16 traffic medians that run down the center of the avenue and 13 surrounding triangle parks. Located in the heart of the historic Capitol Hill neighborhood, Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor has served as a local commercial route since the mid‑19th century. The avenue was first laid out as part of Pierre L’Enfant’s plan for the city of Washington, in 1791. Despite its proximity to the Capitol building, the surrounding neighborhood remained largely undeveloped until after the Civil War. Pennsylvania Avenue, SE was unpaved until the 1870s, though the blocks immediately southeast of the Capitol building were graveled in 1858. Installation of the city’s first streetcar line in 1862 stimulated increased commercial investment along the avenue and citywide improvements to infrastructure led to the eventual paving of the avenue between Capitol Hill and 11th Street SE in the 1870s. The city installed sewers under the street at this time, streetlights installed and trees planted along sidewalks and traffic medians. In the 1880s, the triangle parks surrounding the avenue were delineated and improved with landscaping. Streetcars ran through the center of the Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor for 100 years before bus service replaced this mode of transportation in 1962. The Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor streetcar line was the last line in operation in the 1960s. The tracks were pulled up, sodded, and planted over with turf grass, flowering trees, and shrubs as part of Phase I of Lady Bird Johnson’s Beautification Project. In the 1970s, many of the squares along Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor were excavated during construction of the city’s Metrorail. The Eastern Market and Potomac Avenue Metro Stations opened below Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor in 1977. Reservations surrounding the Eastern Market Metro Station were transferred to Washington, DC in the 1970s. In 2001, squares and parks along Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor, were identified as potential sites of future memorials in the National Capital Planning Commission’s Comprehensive Plan. This CLI finds that Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor retains integrity from all three periods of significance: the L’Enfant Plan (1791‑1792), the streetcar era (1862‑1962) and the Lady Bird Beautification Project (1965‑1968). Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor has retained many of its landscape characteristics and features and displays many of the seven aspects that determine integrity as defined by the National Register of Historic Places including: location, design, setting, feeling and association.

Pennsylvania Avenue, SE Corridor: Cultural Landscape Inventory, National Capital Parks- East, National Park Service

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