Walking Washington, D.C.. Barbara J. Saffir
as their more common gray-colored cousins, but they have a mutant color gene. D.C. is also home to some less common white squirrels (leucistic or partially lacking color) and rarer albinos (white with pink eyes). All four colors hang out on the National Mall. They’re smart critters. Once a squirrel near the White House waited by a crosswalk and didn’t cross until humans began walking across the street, said Richard W. Thorington Jr., curator of mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and co-author of Squirrels of the World. Thorington said it “may have been accidental but gray squirrels are bright enough that this may have been a conscious strategy.”
POINTS OF INTEREST
Woodley Park–Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro Station Connecticut Avenue NW and 24th Street NW, 202-637-7000, wmata.com/rail/station_detail.cfm?station_id=7
Omni Shoreham Hotel 2500 Calvert St. NW, 202-234-0700, omnihotels.com
Lebanese Taverna 2641 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-265-8681, lebanesetaverna.com
Wardman Tower 2660 Woodley Rd. NW (southwest corner of Connecticut Avenue NW and Woodley Road NW, part of the Washington Marriott Wardman Park Hotel), 202-328-2000, wardmantowerdc.com
Smithsonian National Zoological Park 3001 Connecticut Ave. NW, 202-633-4888, nationalzoo.si.edu
Embassy of Switzerland 2900 Cathedral Ave. NW, 202-745-7900, www.eda.admin.ch/washington
Tregaron Conservancy Klingle Road NW and Cortland Place NW, tregaronconservancy.org
Washington National Cathedral 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW, 202-537-6200, nationalcathedral.org
ROUTE SUMMARY
1 Start at the Woodley Park–Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro station, Connecticut Avenue NW and 24th Street NW.
2 Walk south on 24th Street NW.
3 Turn right on Calvert Street NW.
4 After the Omni Shoreham Hotel, reverse direction on Calvert Street NW.
5 Turn left on Connecticut Avenue NW.
6 After the zoo, reverse direction on Connecticut Avenue NW to head south.
7 Turn right on Cathedral Avenue NW.
8 Turn right on 29th Street NW.
9 Turn left on Cortland Place NW.
10 Exit Tregaron and turn right to head west on Klingle Road NW.
11 Turn right on Woodley Road NW.
12 Turn left into the National Cathedral’s side entrance at 36th Street NW.
CONNECTING THE WALKS
For Walk 8 (Embassy Row), walk south four blocks on Wisconsin Avenue NW to the Embassy of the Russian Federation on the right.
Panda-monium at Smithsonian’s National Zoo
4 FOXHALL AND BEYOND: THE HIGH LIFE, HIGHER ED, AND U-BOATS
BOUNDARIES: Nebraska Avenue NW, 42nd Street NW, Reservoir Road NW, and Foxhall Road NW
DISTANCE: About 2.7 miles
DIFFICULTY: Easy
PARKING: 2-hour free and metered street parking along the route; Metro recommended
PUBLIC TRANSIT: At start: Metrobus M4 runs from the Tenleytown-AU Metro Station to Nebraska Avenue NW. At end: Metrobus D6 runs along Reservoir Road NW to the Dupont Circle Metro Station.
What an eyeful. This beautiful stroll, most of it along gardenlike Foxhall Road NW, rolls downhill past the homes of diplomats and other bigwigs. One of the honchos who used to live there was David Lloyd Kreeger, a former chairman of Government Employees Insurance Company. Luckily for art and architecture lovers, his modern-style mansion, about midway through this trek, is now a museum. The walk starts near American University (D.C. native Goldie Hawn’s alma mater), passes The George Washington University’s lesser-known Mount Vernon Campus (Boston Celtics coach Arnold “Red” Auerbach is a GW alum), and winds up at Georgetown University (President Bill Clinton is its most famous grad). The most private stop is the most historic: the building that now houses the headquarters of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is where the U.S. Navy broke secret codes during World War II.
Start at 4000 Nebraska Avenue NW, the private residence of the ambassador of Japan since 1977. Behind the taupe fence surrounding this 12-acre estate is a flat-roofed concrete and stone home with picture windows. It overlooks a traditional Japanese garden and a teahouse that seems to float on a pond.
Next door at 3900 is the ambassador of Sweden’s 1923 Spanish-style home. The Nordic diplomat and his Asian neighbor both have tennis courts.
Across the street at 4001 Nebraska Avenue NW are the NBC television studios. The public can’t visit, but it’s cool to see where Meet the Press is taped. It’s the longest-running TV show in history. NBC is also where the Muppets’ Kermit the Frog debuted and where the second of the four Nixon-Kennedy debates was held. They were the nation’s first televised presidential debates.
NBC’s next-door neighbor at 3801 is the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. DHS was created from 22 diverse federal departments and agencies in 2002. It chose a very historic home: the Mount Vernon Seminary, the first school of higher education open to women in D.C. The school moved there in 1917. In 1942, the U.S. Navy took over its Georgian Revival dorms and classrooms, so the school moved to Foxhall Road NW. By the end of World War II, more than 5,000 civilians and soldiers worked at the Navy’s communications security section (OP-20-G) breaking Japanese and German codes, according to the National Security Agency (NSA).
Across Massachusetts Avenue NW is American University, which was chartered by Congress in 1893. Alice Paul is a three-time graduate of American University and the Washington College of Law, the school says. Paul wrote the original Equal Rights Amendment, founded the National Women’s Party, and played a key role in securing women’s right to vote. These days the school is home to WAMU, American University Radio, a member of National Public Radio.
At the end of American University, turn left onto Foxhall Road NW. Walk past tall oak trees and vintage brick, Tudor, and fieldstone homes for six blocks. On both sides of the road at Edmunds Street NW are entrances descending to the Wesley Heights Trail. Managed by Rock Creek Park, this ivy-covered stream-valley trail links Battery Kemble and Glover Archbold parks.
A bit farther down this shady, two-lane road on the right is the walled residence of Spain’s ambassador. This contemporary-style brick building was built in 2003 by Pritzker prize–winning architect José Rafael Moneo.
Across the street is the Kreeger Museum. David and Carmen Kreeger jointly amassed their modern and African art collection, which includes works by Monet, Picasso, and Van Gogh, the museum says. “I never bought art as an investment,” said David, GEICO’s former chairman. “I bought it for love, and I was lucky.” Washington is lucky that the Kreegers chose Philip Johnson to design their modern, travertine home. When he was awarded the Pritzker Architecture Prize, the group called him “one of architecture’s most potent forces.” He designed the home in 1963, and it became a museum in 1994.
Downhill on the right is the wooded estate of Belgium’s