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Foggy Bottom
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Foggy Bottom is one of the oldest 19th-century neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. The area is thought to have received the name because its low elevation made it susceptible to concentrations of fog and industrial smoke, an atmospheric trait that did not prevent the neighborhood from becoming the original location of the United States Naval Observatory. Foggy Bottom is west of downtown Washington, in the Northwest quadrant, bounded roughly by 17th Street to the east, Rock Creek Parkway to the west, Constitution Avenue to the south, and Pennsylvania Avenue to the north.
The name Foggy Bottom often is used as a metonym for the United States Department of State, whose Harry S Truman Building headquarters is in the neighborhood.
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Encyclopedia
Foggy Bottom is one of the oldest 19th-century neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. The area is thought to have received the name because its low elevation made it susceptible to concentrations of fog and industrial smoke, an atmospheric trait that did not prevent the neighborhood from becoming the original location of the United States Naval Observatory. Foggy Bottom is west of downtown Washington, in the Northwest quadrant, bounded roughly by 17th Street to the east, Rock Creek Parkway to the west, Constitution Avenue to the south, and Pennsylvania Avenue to the north.
The name Foggy Bottom often is used as a metonym for the United States Department of State, whose Harry S Truman Building headquarters is in the neighborhood. The main campus of George Washington University also is in Foggy Bottom, as are the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts; Friendship Lodge Odd Fellows Hall; and the infamous Watergate complex, site of the Watergate burglaries which led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. George Washington University has grown significantly over the past decades and now covers much of the neighborhood, which has numerous mid-rise apartment buildings.
Just on the edge of Foggy Bottom are the United States Department of the Interior, the gigantic World Bank office building, the Office of Personnel Management, Constitution Hall, the American Red Cross headquarters, the Federal Reserve Board, the Pan American Health Organization, and the Organization of American States.
Foggy Bottom was once a community of Irish, German, and Black laborers employed at the nearby breweries, glass plants, and city gas works. These industrial facilities are also cited as a possible reason for the neighborhood's name, the "fog" being the smoke given off by the industries. The historic neighborhood is preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Foggy Bottom area was the site of one of the earliest settlements in what is now the District of Columbia, when Jacob Funk subdivided near the meeting place of the Potomac River and Rock Creek in 1763. The settlement officially was named Hamburgh, but colloquially was called Funkstown, and attracted few settlers until the 1850s, when more industrial enterprises came into the area.
Foggy Bottom is served by the Foggy Bottom-GWU Washington Metro station, with service by the Blue and Orange Metro Lines.
Foggy Bottom was also the name of a line of beer by the Olde Heurich Brewing Company, which was founded near Dupont Circle in 1873 by German immigrant Christian Heurich. In addition to its main brand, Heurich, Olde Heurich's most successful products bore such local names as Senate and Old Georgetown. During the 1950s, Heurich Brewing also sponsored the city's professional baseball team, the Washington Senators. Industry consolidation led the brewery to cease operations in 1956. In 1961–1962, the brewery buildings were razed to make way for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Heurich, Jr., and his two sisters donated a portion of the brewery land to the Kennedy Center in memory of their parents, and established the Christian Heurich Family as one of the Founders of the national cultural center. Although the firm was founded in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood, the modern beer was brewed in Utica, New York.
Economy
Grupo TACA operates a Washington, D.C.-area TACA Center in Suite 103 at 1776 G Street NW.
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