Walking Washington, D.C.. Barbara J. Saffir
Indiana Jones,” discovered the Incan ruins with a team of seven explorers in 1911, the Senate website says.
Turn right on 30th Place NW, where at least two famous feds once lived. On the right at 4936 is the two-story brick home of Washingtonian J. (for John) Edgar Hoover, who headed the FBI from 1924 until his death in 1972. This lifelong bachelor bequeathed his home to FBI associate director and fellow bachelor Clyde A. Tolson. They are buried near each other at Congressional Cemetery. On the left at 4921 is a similar house, where President Lyndon Baines Johnson lived when he was senator, says the “Forest Hills” guidebook. Immediately after President Kennedy was assassinated, then Vice President Johnson phoned his former neighbor. According to taped conversations posted by Southern California Public Radio, LBJ asked Hoover if any of the three bullets was fired at him. “No,” Hoover assured him. LBJ later asked the legendary G-man if he should have a bulletproof limousine. Hoover, who was chauffeured around in one himself, replied, “You most certainly should.”
Turn right on Ellicott Street NW, past more elaborate-looking homes, and then turn right onto a commercial strip of Connecticut Avenue NW. On the right is the purple awning that marks Politics and Prose bookstore and coffeehouse. Started in 1984 by Carla Cohen and Barbara Meade, it seems like every novelist, politician, and journalist who has ever penned a newsworthy tome has conducted a book signing there. The shop is owned by two former Washington Post reporters, Bradley Graham and Lissa Muscatine. Muscatine was Hillary Clinton’s speechwriter and a spokesperson at the White House and at the State Department. Some of the couple’s news colleagues live in the neighborhood. It was also home to muckraker Isidor “Izzy” Feinstein Stone, who wrote an exposé of Hoover’s FBI in the 1940s, the Forest Hills Connection newsletter says.
A few doors down on the right is Buck’s Fishing & Camping restaurant. Some of the world’s most powerful people have dined there, such as (according to the Post) Supreme Court justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor.
Turn left on Nebraska Avenue NW. Walk three blocks and turn right on Fort Drive NW. Fort Reno Park is on the left, and Alice Deal Middle School is on the right. Multibillionaire Warren Buffett, a Nebraska native and the fourth-richest person in the world (in 2014), graduated from Deal and Woodrow Wilson High School. He lived in D.C. during his father’s six years in the U.S. House of Representatives.Washingtonians know Fort Reno Park chiefly for its tennis courts, soccer fields, and summer concerts. But it is also a reservoir, with fortifications that have long protected the capital, and it’s the apex of Washington. After years of controversy over D.C.’s highest natural point due to decades of construction and artificial berming on the hill, the summit was officially declared in 2007. GPS users can reach Point Reno with these coordinates from the Highpointers Club and the District of Columbia Association of Land Surveyors: 38.95198 North and 77.075922 West. Non-techies can start at Fort Drive NW, facing uphill toward the water towers, with the southwestern edge of the school on the right. Turn left onto the gravel trail and walk to the end of the tree line on the left. Make a U-turn and walk back along the opposite side of the trees for roughly 50 steps. Turn right and walk about 16 steps to the small, round, metal survey disk embedded in the middle of a grassy field. When you reach the 409-foot marker, a huge oak tree will be alone downhill to the right.
Return to the gravel trail and follow it left to the sidewalk on Chesapeake Street NW. Turn right on Chesapeake; turn left on 41st Street NW, which merges with Wisconsin Avenue NW. Walk south two blocks on Wisconsin to the Tenley-Friendship branch of the DC Public Library on the right. Pop in to learn more about the U.S. capital, including the D.C. adventurers who first reached the top of the world—the North Pole. District residents Capt. Robert Peary and his African American assistant, Matthew Henson, are credited as the first men to reach the pole in 1909. Frances “Fran” Phipps, of Ottawa (Canada’s capital), was the first woman there in 1971.
Exit the library and cross Wisconsin Avenue NW to descend into the Tenleytown-AU Metro. Stay to the right on Metro escalators so Type A Washingtonians can zip past. Don’t even think about eating or drinking on the subway. Washingtonians learned the hard way. On Oct. 23, 2000, a 12-year-old girl was handcuffed and arrested there for eating a French fry. In 2004, then U.S. Court of Appeals Judge John G. Roberts wrote in the court’s ruling that no one was happy that a plainclothes Metro Transit Police officer arrested a “frightened, embarrassed and crying” Alice Deal Middle School student, but Metro acted within its constitutional rights. Metro has changed its policy, Roberts noted. Roberts has changed his robe. Now he’s the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court—America’s highest tribunal.
The Peruvian coat of arms announces the ambassador’s compound.
FORT RENO PARK: IT’S NOT ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS
The castle towers and Tudor-style home that perch atop Fort Reno Park appear to be a vestige of America’s British roots. But, as the saying goes in our spy-crazed capital, things are not always as they seem. These structures surrounded by a fence are part of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority’s water pumping station and reservoirs. The two Norman-style stone water towers were built in 1929, and the flat-top brick water tower in 1903, says Judith Beck Helm’s book, Tenleytown, D.C. However, the modern-looking brick tower in the adjacent fenced compound conceals a Cold War relic and some 21st-century secrets. The John F. Kennedy Presidential Library says this once top-secret White House Army Signal Agency structure was code-named “Cartwheel.” At least part of it was built from 1961 to 1962, when the country was on the brink of a nuclear disaster during the Cuban Missile Crisis, according to the library’s online photos. “This was one of several Presidential Emergency Facilities scattered throughout the mid-Atlantic to provide a quick and safe refuge in the event of nuclear war,” says historian David S. Rotenstein. Like similar hideaways at Camp David and Mount Weather, this 24/7 bunker provided “communications equipment to handle the continuity of government.” Today a sign declares it a communications site for the Federal Aviation Administration, which joined the newly formed Department of Homeland Security after 9/11. During the Civil War, the city’s highest point served as a fort. Originally called Fort Pennsylvania, it was built in 1861, but no apparent remnants exist.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Carnegie Institution for Science 5241 Broad Branch Road NW, 202-387-6400, dtm.carnegiescience.edu
(Private) residence of Peru’s ambassador 3001 Garrison St. NW, 202-833-9860 (embassy), embassyofperu.org
(Private) former home of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover 4936 30th Place NW
(Private) former home of President Lyndon B. Johnson 4921 30th Place NW
Politics and Prose 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-364-1919, politics-prose.com
Buck’s Fishing & Camping 5031 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-364-0777, bucksfishingandcamping.com
Alice Deal Middle School 3815 Fort Dr. NW, 202-939-2010, alicedeal.org
Fort Reno Park Chesapeake Street NW and Nebraska Avenue NW, 202-895-6000, nps.gov/cwdw/historyculture/fort-reno.htm
Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library 4450 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-727-1488, dclibrary.org/tenley
Tenleytown-AU Metro 4501 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-637-7000, wmata.com/rail/station_detail.cfm?station_id=10
ROUTE SUMMARY
1 Start at Military Road NW and 32nd Street NW.
2 Walk south on 32nd Street NW.
3 Turn left on Linnean Avenue NW.
4 Turn