It’s that time of year again.
This is me standing at the very center point in D.C.
Washington D.C. is actually very nicely designed by Pierre L’Enfant (his last name is actually a metro stop on the green & yellow line).
L’Enfant was pretty OCD about having D.C. shaped very rectangular and grid-like. There are four quadrants: NW, NE, SW, SE. The axes for the quadrants are from the Capitol building.
L’Enfant was very particular about the city’s geometry, so particular that Jefferson was not in the mood for the drama and therefore fired him.
He replaced him with another planner who finished off the construction of the city. However, L’Enfant did all the core design, and no one really remembers the second guy because in the end, who has a metro stop named after him?
