Washington D.C.

Wayne was our tour guide in D.C., and he told us all about the city. It was the first city in the world to be planned specifically as a capitol in 1791. It is 100 square miles, and the land was hand selected by George Washington himself. It includes 64 miles of what was Maryland, and 36 miles of what was Virginia. The city's original designs were by Pierre L'Enfant, who designed the city into four quadrants: Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, and Southwest. But when L'Enfant tore down one of the Congressman's houses without their permission, he was fired. Benjamin Bonnica completed the plan for the Washington District of Columbia. The "city of memorials" as Wayne calls it, has no tall buildings, and each state is represented as a street, avenue, or drive. California is the only street, and Ohio is the only drive. The rest are avenues. The Washington Cathedral is the second largest cathedral in the United States, and it is here that the only president to be buried in D.C. is buried: Woodrow Wilson. D.C.'s population is 500,000, and D.C. has it's own mayor and congressman. The oldest neighborhood in D.C is Georgetown, which was founded in 1751, and was named for George Bell, who donated his land to tobacco farmers. Georgetown was home to president John F. Kennedy before he was president, and is also home ot the oldest Catholic University, which was established in 1789. Madeline Albright, the first woman Secretary of State, lives in D.C. as well.