| District of Columbia (Washington), Chinatown — e.6 — Chinatown — "Dragons to bring rain, prosperity and friendship" — Civil War to Civil Rights - Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | More than 280 dragons, crowned by 700 glazed tiles, look down from the Chinatown Friendship Archway before you. Symbols of the spirits that bring rain and prosperity in China, these painted and carved dragons are fitted together like a giant jigsaw puzzle in the ancient Chinese building tradition of "gong" balancing. Seven roofs of weighing nine tons each are cantilevered, with no nails almost 50 feet above the street.
This is the largest single-span Chinese archway in the world, designed . . . — Map (db m12651) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Chinatown — e.5 — Mary Surratt's Boarding House — Downtown Heritage Trail - Civil War to Civil Rights |
| | "The nest in which the egg was hatched."President Andrew Johnson, April 1865. The building at 604 H Street, today Golo’s Chinese Restaurant, is intimately connected with the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at Ford’s Theater, just five blocks from here. During the Civil War this modest brick house was occupied by a Maryland-born widow, Mary Surratt, who took in boarders. Like many in this Southern history, she was quietly sympathetic to the Confederacy, . . . — Map (db m16585) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Downtown — W.3 — Asbury United Methodist Church — Civil War to Civil Rights — Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | Stories of slavery and freedom, of struggle and achievement are woven through the history of this African American congregation. Founded in 1836, by the time of the Civil War Asbury United Methodist Church was the preeminent Black church in the city, its membership of 600 making it the largest of 11 African American congregations in Washington. Today, Asbury counts among its members descendants of District slaves who tried a dramatic escape to freedom in 1848 aboard the ship Pearl. . . . — Map (db m10904) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Downtown — W.7 — Freedom Plaza — Civil War to Civil Rights — Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | “I have a dream.” Martin Luther King, Jr. August 1963
The block-long plaza at 13th and Pennsylvania Avenue just ahead to your left honors civil rights leader Martin Luther King with the name Freedom Plaza. King completed his historic “I Have a Dream” speech in the Willard Hotel adjacent to the plaza, before delivering it to a crowd of 200,000 at the Lincoln Memorial.
Freedom Plaza also recalls Washington’s first city planner, Major Pierre L’Enfant, with . . . — Map (db m17943) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Downtown — e.2 — Old City Hall — Civil War to Civil Rights — Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | "--witness to the end of slavery in the nation’s capital."
This imposing Greek Revival building was Washington’s first city hall, designed by George Hadfield and built between 1820 and 1850. It house the city court and an elected mayor and city council until 1871. Its prestigious high site overlooked Pennsylvania Avenue and bordered Judiciary Square, then as now, a hub of community life.
This building also stood witness to the end of slavery in the District of Columbia. President . . . — Map (db m21758) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Downtown — W.6 — Willard Inter-Continental Hotel — Civil War to Civil Rights — Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | "This hotel, in fact, may be much more justly called the center of Washington and the Union than either the Capitol, the White House or the State Department. . ." Nathaniel Hawthorne, Civil War reporter for the Atlantic Monthly At 6:30 a.m. in late February 1861, President-elect Abraham Lincoln and his security team headed by Alan Pinkerton slipped into what was then called Willard's Hotel, an earlier version of the hotel now at this site. Assassination threats dictated this quiet . . . — Map (db m10905) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Northwest — W.2 — Franklin Square - "Going into the country" — Civil War to Civil Rights — Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | This urban oasis exists because President Andrew Jackson needed water. The site of excellent springs (a rare commodity in the early city when everyone was dependent on private wells), this square was purchased by the federal government in 1832 so that it could pipe fresh water to the White House. It was an arrangement that lasted until 1898, well after the city had a piped water supply from above Great Falls on the Potomac River. In July of 1861, as the nation prepared for war, soldiers of the . . . — Map (db m17571) |
| District of Columbia (Washington), Northwest — W.5 — The United States Treasury — Civil War to Civil Rights — Downtown Heritage Trail |
| | Billions for the war, and a bunker for the president The grand, pillared United States Treasury building that stands before you, its first section designed by Robert Mills in 1836, was the financial command center for the Union. It was here between 1861 and 1865 that the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase raised the unprecedented sum of $2.7 billion to finance the government and the war. Chase issued bonds, instituted internal revenue taxes, printed paper money called "greenbacks" . . . — Map (db m10190) |
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