Introduction
working Under the direction of President George Washington and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Pierre L’Enfant designed a plan for the new capital city of the United States of America in 1791. The plan overlaid broad diagonal avenues on a street grid, reserving certain areas for major buildings and parks. The most important avenue — later named for Pennsylvania — connected the sites where the president and the Congress would work. The federal government moved from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800. Soon after, the blocks between the White House and the U.S. Capitol began to fill with markets, small businesses, and boarding houses. Low lying and subject to flooding, the area bordered the Washington Canal, once a key transportation route linking the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. By the 1860s, this section of the city had declined and the canal had degenerated into an open sewer. Saloons and hotels flourished, especially following the arrival of thousands of soldiers and civilians to Washington
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