Benjamin Banneker Circle | |
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Location | |
Southwest Waterfront, Washington, D.C. | |
Coordinates | 38°52′54″N77°01′34″W / 38.88167°N 77.02611°W |
Roads at junction | L'Enfant Promenade SW G Street SW |
Construction | |
Type | Traffic circle |
Maintained by | DDOT |
Banneker Circle is a partial traffic circle in Southwest Washington, D.C. The name of the circle commemorates Benjamin Banneker, an African American astronomer and almanac author. In 1791, Banneker assisted in the initial survey of the boundaries of the District of Columbia. [1] [2] The circle is near the south end of L'Enfant Promenade and the intersection of Interstate 395 and Maine Avenue. Benjamin Banneker Park is located in the center of the circle.
Benjamin Banneker was an African-American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author. A landowner, he also worked as a surveyor and farmer.
Southwest is the southwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and is located south of the National Mall and west of South Capitol Street. It is the smallest quadrant of the city, and contains a small number of named neighborhoods and districts, including Bellevue, Southwest Federal Center, the Southwest Waterfront, Buzzard Point, and the military installation known as Joint Base Anacostia–Bolling.
L'Enfant Plaza is a complex of four commercial buildings grouped around a large plaza in the Southwest section of Washington, D.C., United States. Immediately below the plaza and the buildings is La Promenade shopping mall.
The history of Washington, D.C., is tied to its role as the capital of the United States. The site of the District of Columbia along the Potomac River was first selected by President George Washington. The city came under attack during the War of 1812 in an episode known as the Burning of Washington. Upon the government's return to the capital, it had to manage the reconstruction of numerous public buildings, including the White House and the United States Capitol. The McMillan Plan of 1901 helped restore and beautify the downtown core area, including establishing the National Mall, along with numerous monuments and museums.
Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It is one of the diagonal avenues radiating from the White House, and the segment south of Florida Avenue was one of the original streets in Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's plan for Washington. A five-mile segment north of Rock Creek was built in the 1890s by a real-estate developer.
National Mall and Memorial Parks is an administrative unit of the National Park Service (NPS) encompassing many national memorials and other areas in Washington, D.C. Federally owned and administered parks in the capital area date back to 1790, some of the oldest in the United States. In 1933, they were transferred to the control of the National Park Service. These parks were known as the National Capital Parks from their inception until 1965. The NPS now operates multiple park groupings in the D.C. area, including National Capital Parks-East, Rock Creek Park, President's Park, and George Washington Memorial Parkway. National Mall and Memorial Parks also provides technical assistance for the United States Navy Memorial.
The streets and highways of Washington, D.C., form the core of the surface transportation infrastructure in Washington, D.C., the federal capital of the United States. Given that it is a planned city, the city's streets follow a distinctive layout and addressing scheme. There are 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of public roads in the city, of which 1,392 miles (2,240 km) are owned and maintained by city government.
The Southwest Waterfront is a neighborhood in Southwest Washington, D.C. The Southwest quadrant is the smallest of Washington's four quadrants, and the Southwest Waterfront is one of only two residential neighborhoods in the quadrant; the other is Bellevue, which, being east of the Anacostia River, is frequently, if mistakenly, regarded as being in Southeast
The boundary markers of the original District of Columbia are the 40 milestones that marked the four lines forming the boundaries between the states of Maryland and Virginia and the square of 100 square miles (259 km2) of federal territory that became the District of Columbia in 1801. Working under the supervision of three commissioners that President George Washington had appointed in 1790 in accordance with the federal Residence Act, a surveying team that Major Andrew Ellicott led placed these markers in 1791 and 1792. Among Ellicott's assistants were his brothers Joseph and Benjamin Ellicott, Isaac Roberdeau, George Fenwick, Isaac Briggs and an African American astronomer, Benjamin Banneker.
The Francis Case Memorial Bridge is a steel beam bridge carrying Interstate 395 (I-395) over the Washington Channel in Washington, D.C. It is an eight-lane bridge with a bicycle/pedestrian lane on the inbound side. It has two spans that split into three on the north side of the channel. The bridge is often considered to be part of the "14th Street Bridges," but is also not counted among the five bridges in that group.
Benjamin Banneker: SW 9 Intermediate Boundary Stone, also known as an Intermediate Stone of the District of Columbia, is a surveyors' boundary marker stone. The stone is located on the original boundary of the District of Columbia The stone is now on the boundary of Arlington County, Virginia and the City of Falls Church. It is within the two jurisdiction's Benjamin Banneker Park at 6620 18th Street North, Arlington.
Washington, D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. Below is a list of Washington, D.C.-related articles.
The Hilton Washington DC National Mall The Wharf, previously known as the L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, is a 367-room hotel located on the top four floors of a 12-story mixed-use building in downtown Washington, D.C., in the United States. It was designed by architect Vlastimil Koubek, and was opened on May 31, 1973, as the Loews L'Enfant Plaza Hotel, named after Pierre Charles L'Enfant, the first surveyor and designer of the street layout of the city.
The Washington Family by Edward Savage is a life-sized group portrait of the Washington family, including U.S. President George Washington, First Lady Martha Washington, two of her grandchildren and a black servant, most likely an enslaved man whose identity was not recorded. The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., presently displays the large painting.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to District of Columbia:
The L'Enfant Plan for the city of Washington is the urban plan developed in 1791 by Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant for George Washington, the first president of the United States.
The National Museum of the American People is a proposed museum to be built in Washington, D.C. Its plan is to tell the story about the making of the American People including the migration and immigration stories of all Americans. The National Museum of the American People would use the museum story-telling approach used by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
According to accounts that began to appear during the 1960s or earlier, a substantial mythology has exaggerated the accomplishments of Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806), an African-American naturalist, mathematician, astronomer and almanac author who also worked as a surveyor and farmer.
A United States postage stamp and the names of a number of recreational and cultural facilities, schools, streets and other facilities and institutions throughout the United States have commemorated Benjamin Banneker's documented and mythical accomplishments throughout the years since he lived (1731–1806). Among such memorializations of this free African American almanac author, surveyor, landowner and farmer who had knowledge of mathematics, astronomy and natural history was a biographical verse that Rita Dove, a future Poet Laureate of the United States, wrote in 1983 while on the faculty of Arizona State University.