Washington, D.C. (southwest)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
[edit] 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).
[edit] 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.
- Prior to the Retrocession of 1847, most of the Virginia portion of the District of Columbia, including the town of Alexandria and much of present-day Arlington, was part of Southwest.
- 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.)
