Road read
Posted on Sunday, May 4, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Travel/224770/
How D. C. came to be For visitors to the nation’s capital, Washington From the Ground Up is a study of Washington’s architectural development, which adds depth to the monuments and neighborhoods that we see today. James H. S. McGregor tells a tale of two cities, that of official Washington, whose neoclassical buildings express America’s power and reach, and that of the District of Columbia’s fragmented urban neighborhoods, home to blacks and other minorities who have seldom shared in that power. The chapters move chronologically and geographically from the Capitol outward, explaining how the monuments, museums, churches and squares were created and sometimes re-created.
For visitors to the White House, the Congress, the Senate, the Library of Congress, the National Mall and scores of other federal buildings, institutions and attractions, this guide brings to life the architecture of the capital, placing each piece in a historical perspective that is national in scope. The writing, crisp and direct, is enlivened with anecdotes about our leaders and their often unruly subjects who made history in these same buildings.