History and Mystery...

Friday, I needed to go into the city for a few reasons. I am trying to establish a routine that allows me to do the things I need to do to survive here – look for a permanent job, stay in touch with my advertising clients back in Gainesville, and get some work done for Push Button Productions. I had only been in my hovel for five days when I packed up last Thursday to spend a week in Atlanta, so everything is still new to me. And, yes, I got lost again Thursday night when I drove downtown to watch the Gator girls in the first round of the College World Series, and then tried to find my way back. In the dark. In the rain. Again. It didn’t take nearly as long to get unlost as it did last time, so I guess that’s a good sign. The cable is out at our house for some reason (lightning/storm), so I needed to go somewhere to get online, and I want to get in the habit of getting out even when my goal is to sit somewhere and work. You never know who you’ll bump into on the Metro or in Starbucks or on the street. Even though it’s more distracting, it’s far more pleasant and interesting than sitting in my room. And I learn something every minute that I’m out and about.

Every city has its share of history and mystery, I suppose, but Washington DC is different. As you walk or drive around, it is difficult to not be overcome by a feeling of fascination and awe. Everywhere I go, I want to stop and look and ask questions. The familiar landmarks are there, of course; the monuments, museums and government buildings that we all recognize. But you can’t help wondering if every building has a story. Many of them do. Even if it’s a story that can’t be found in history books, I wonder about the people that built the place. Was it a family of immigrants? Freed slaves? Diplomats? Congressmen? Criminals? (I know, I repeat myself). I wonder who has been there and what has happened there. Who knows?

Let me give you a couple of examples…

1) I have discovered that 16th Street is the best way for me to go straight into the city if I am driving. Click on the link and bear in mind that I live at the very top of the map off of Layhill at Georgia Ave (Route 97). Follow Georgia Ave down through Silver Spring, under the beltway (I-495), and you’ll see (where the “A” is) that I can turn on to 16th Street near the place labeled Colonial Village. Double click there to zoom in, and you notice that 16th Street goes straight into the city from there, and ends at Lafayette Square, literally a block behind the White House.

Map Link --> HERE <--

I was driving this route yesterday – down 16th Street - and suddenly saw a building feature that looked familiar to me. A distinctive wall. Then I looked up at the building. The Washington DC Hilton. Not ringing a bell?
Watch the video below (you don’t have to watch the whole thing)...



Yes. It was THAT wall. The one you see as they pin John Hinckley against it and wrench the gun from his hand. It was strange that I recognized it instantly, but how many times have you seen that video and not really thought about the location? The Washington DC Hilton. I drove right by it. Who knew?

2) I have been reading a great book called The Day of Battle by Rick Atkinson. It’s the second installment of a planned trilogy about World War II. This one focuses on the Allied campaigns in Sicily and Italy. It’s a fantastic book. As I was reading the latter section of the book, I noticed a paragraph describing a high level meeting during the war. Here is the description from the book:

Before returning to Italy, Clark (General Mark Clark, commander of the Fifth Army) was whisked one evening from the basement garage of Renie’s (his wife) apartment on Connecticut Avenue to the private entrance of a nineteenth-century town house at 1806 I Street in downtown Washington. Here in the Alibi Club, the well-heeled and well-connected of Washington’s elite gathered to “cook oysters, lobsters and duck to suit themselves, play poker, and put away a lethal sort of drink based on Medford rum,” as Marshall’s (General George C. Marshall, Army Chief of Staff) biographer wrote. To hear Clark’s progress report on the war in Italy, Marshall had assembled a dozen powerful figures, including Vice President Henry A. Wallace and Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. For more than an hour, while his auditors slurped oysters around the table and tossed the shells into a bowl, Clark in his deep, mellifluous voice described campaigns past and future; the desperate fight at Salerno, the struggle at the Winter Line, the Anzio gamble, and, now, soon, the great thrust that would carry Fifth Army into Rome. None of these men, Clark concluded, had any inkling of what it was like to wage war in mountainous Italy.

I searched the location on Google maps, and the street view showed that the building is still there. --> Google Map Link HERE <--

So, when I took the Metro downtown, I decided to head there just to take a peek, and then look for a good place to sit and get some work done. Farragut West is the nearest Metro stop, and, as soon as I got off the train and rode the ascending escalator, I saw this:



The Google Map street view is accurate. It is an old-looking, but fairly nondescript building, appropriately “sandwiched” between a Subway and a copy shop with office space on the floors above. If I hadn’t read the passage in my book, I’d have no idea that this was the site of the Alibi, and a semi-clandestine gathering place for highly-placed citizens and government officials back in the day. How many of these plain old buildings have secrets like this one? Who knew?

Conveniently, there was a Starbucks almost directly across the street. I got a cup of coffee and sat down with my laptop to get some work done. A couple of hours later, I looked up and saw this:



A gigantic limo. Could it be? Is it STILL a semi-clandestine gathering place for highly-placed citizens and government officials? I Googled “the Alibi, Washington DC, “and look what I found. Wikipedia Link HERE Who knew?

How many secret meeting places are there that nobody knows about? Many buildings in Washington DC have a story to tell. I want to know them all!