Grant Circle: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Rock Creek Park, National Park Service

Garrison, Shannon

Grant Circle is a cultural landscape located in the Northwest Quadrant of Washington, DC, at the intersection of New Hampshire and Illinois Avenues NW and 5th and Varnum Streets NW. The cultural landscape includes Reservation 312, a 1.8‑acre urban park, located within a traffic circle, and reservations 312A and 312I, two .20‑acre triangle parks located directly north and south of the circle. Grant Circle, named after Ulysses S. Grant, is located in the heart of the Petworth neighborhood, in northern Washington, DC. Petworth was the first suburb in the District to conform to the pattern of the L’Enfant Plan for the City of Washington. In accordance with an 1888 law mandating that new streets and avenues in the city be laid out in alignment with those of the historic core, Petworh developers hired DC surveyor, William Forsyth, to plan the neighborhood based on L’Enfant’s pattern of broad avenues, streets and circles. Despite its design and subdivision in 1889, Petworth’s development stalled during the 1890s. Streets were unpaved until the early 1910s, when houses finally began to populate the parcels around Grant Circle. In 1916 Commissioners of the District of Columbia made several recommendations for improving the neighborhood, including grading Grant Circle, laying a concrete sidewalk around its perimeter and paving the traffic rotary surrounding it. Between 1920‑ and 1924, Irving W. Payne, architect for the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds of the National Capital, produced a plan for landscaping the circle and its surrounding triangle parks. Construction and planting was completed between 1925 and 1928. Upon its completion in the 1930s, the Petworth neighborhood became the only area in Washington, D.C. where the 18th century design for the capital was faithfully extended outside the city’s original boundaries. Grant Circle was the major impetus for development in the area, and it remains an important feature in the neighborhood. This CLI finds that the Grant Circle Cultural Landscape, which includes US Reservations 312, 312A and 312I, is eligible for listing in the National Register under Criteria A, in the area of Community Planning and Development. The Grant Circle Cultural Landscape represents a significant period in the development and expansion of Washington, DC. It is an important and singular example of the attempt to reconcile the legacy of the planned Federal City with the suburban expansion necessary to support its growing population. This CLI finds that Grant Circle Cultural Landscape retains integrity from both periods of significance: the period of its initial platting (1889) and the period during which it was finally designed and built (1916‑1928). Grant Circle has original landscape characteristics and features and displays many of the aspects that determine integrity as defined by the National Register of Historic Places, including: location, design, setting, materials, feeling and association.

Grant Circle: Cultural Landscape Inventory, Rock Creek Park, National Park Service

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