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Southwest (SW or S.W.) is the southwestern quadrant of D.C., located south of the National Mall and west of South Capitol Street. It is the smallest quadrant of the city. Southwest is small enough that it is frequently referred to as a neighborhood in and of itself.
Geography Southwest is actually composed of four separate sections: the Southwest Employment District, the area between the National Mall and the Southeast/Southwest Freeway (Interstate 395) that contains the Smithsonian museums along the south side of the Mall — including the Hirshhorn Museum, the National Air and Space Museum, the U.S. Holocaust Museum, and the Museum of the American Indian — as well as L'Enfant Plaza and a large concentration of federal office buildings for Executive Branch departments and the U.S. House of Representatives; the Southwest Waterfront, between I-395 and the Potomac River, a residential neighborhood that is home to the Maine Ave Fish Market, Arena Stage, the Washington Marina, and Hains Point; East and West Potomac Park, a conjunction of two national park between I-395 and the National Mall that contain the Tidal Basin, the Jefferson Memorial, and the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (West Potomac Park continues into Northwest and includes the Lincoln Memorial and World War II Memorial, both of which straddle the Southwest/Northwest boundary); and the area south and east of the Anacostia River containing Bolling Air Force Base, the military installation which together with Naval District Washington, Naval Research Laboratory, and Blue Plains Sewage treatment plant occupies all of the Southwest land between South Capitol Street (to the east) and the Anacostia River (to the west). History Southwest is part of Pierre L'Enfant's original city plans and includes some of the oldest buildings in the city, including the Wheat Row block of townhouses, built in 1793, and Fort McNair, which was established in 1791 as "the U.S. Arsenal at Greenleaf Point." Prior to 1847, much of the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia, including the town of Alexandria, was included in Southwest. After the Civil War, the Southwest Waterfront became a neighborhood for the poorer classes of Washingtonians. The neighborhood was divided in half by Fourth Street SW, then known as 4 1/2 Street; Scotch, Irish, German, and eastern European immigrants lived west of 4 1/2 Street, while freed blacks lived to the east. Each half was centered around religious establishments: St. Dominic's Catholic Church and Temple Beth Israel on the west, and Friendship Baptist Church on the east. (Also, each half of the neighborhood was the birthplace of a future American musical star — Al Jolson was born on 4 1/2 Street, and Marvin Gaye was born in a tenement on First Street.) Waterfront developed into a quite contradictory area: it had a thriving commercial district with grocery stores, shops, a movie theater, as well as a few large and elaborate houses (mostly owned by wealthy blacks). However, most of the neighborhood was a very poor shantytown of tenements, shacks, and even tents. These places, some of them in the shadow of the Capitol Building, were frequent subjects of photographs that were published with captions like, "The Washington that tourists never see." In the 1950s, city planners working with the U.S. Congress decided that Southwest should undergo a significant urban renewal — in this case, meaning that the city would declare eminent domain over all land south of the mall (except Bolling Air Force Base and Fort McNair); evict virtually all of its residents and businesses; destroy all streets, buildings, and landscapes; and start again from scratch. Only a few buildings were left intact, notably the Maine Avenue fish market, the Wheat Row townhouses, and the St. Dominic's and Friendship churches. The Southeast/Southwest Freeway was constructed where F Street, SW, had once been. The rebuilt Southwest featured a large concentration of office and residential buildings in the brutalist style that was then popular. It was during this time that most of the Southwest Federal Center was built. The heart of the urban renewal of the Southwest Waterfront was Waterside Mall, a small shopping center/office complex mostly occupied by a Safeway grocery store and satellite offices for the Environmental Protection Agency. The Arena Stage was built a block west of the Mall, and a number of hotels and restaurants were built on the riverfront to attract tourists. Southeastern University, a very small college that had been chartered in 1937, also established itself as an important institution in the area. However, urban renewal was largely a failure in Southwest. Although some upscale apartment buildings and a fairly affluent townhouse complex, Capitol Park, was built in the 1970s, most of the neighborhood remained run-down, low-income, and somewhat dangerous. This situation intensified in the 1980s and the 1990s, when Washington had among the lowest per capita incomes and highest crime rates in the nation. Starting around 2003, however, the Southwest Waterfront began gentrifying. H20, an enormously popular nightclub, opened on the riverfront, while a number of the decrepit and unattractive apartment buildings began extensive renovations and condominium conversions. Residential and commercial developers began to take a more serious interest in Southwest with the announcement in 2004 that the city would build the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium just across South Capitol Street from Southwest. The Southwest Waterfront has now been earmarked as the site of the next wave of cityside gentrification. Miscellaneous Politically, Southwest includes most of Ward 2, as well as parts of Wards 6 and 8. Most of the residential section of Southwest lies in Ward 6. Residents include Police Chief Charles Ramsey and Supreme Court Associate Justice David Souter. Southwest is accessible via the Blue, Orange, Yellow, and Green Lines of the Washington Metro. Stations servicing the quadrant include the Smithsonian, L'Enfant Plaza, and Federal Center SW stations on the Orange and Blue Lines, as well as Waterfront-SEU on the Green Line and L'Enfant Plaza on the Green and Yellow Lines. (L'Enfant Plaza is the transfer point between the Orange, Blue, Green, and Yellow Line trains.) | ||||||||
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