3. NW COULD MEAN NOWHERE
The first question asked by members of the new Seventh Congress, after taking the oath in the draughty and unfinished Capitol in 1801, was “where is a saloon with dames?” or the early 19th century equivalent thereof.
The chief usher escorted them to the steps on the Hill, which overlooked what there then was of the young city, a collection of boxes resembling nothing so much as a rude Oklahoma oil-boom town on a rainy day, and pointed northwest. “There,” he replied. Ever since that historic moment, anything that matters and much that doesn’t is in that part of the city known by its postal address as “NW.”
“North West” is the only section of Washington which counts. It is the capital of the capital. NW is the works.
When Major Pierre L’Enfant accepted the commission to plan the capital, he went Caesar’s Gaul one better and divided it into four parts. These he laid out like spokes around a wheel, with the hub “The Hill,” on which he built the Capitol. He named each section after compounded cardinal points of the compass, NW, SW, NE and SE. The others you can throw into the garbage-can—NW is the city.
Other municipalities have distinctive sectors. In Washington everything, the rialto, marts of commerce, homes of the wealthy, are piled into this one corner, where they rub shoulders with the lowly, the dirty and the wicked, not to overlook Washington’s No. 1 problem, the colored.
Washington’s Main Drag is F St. if you could call it such. The crossing at 14th Street is its Times Square, its State and Madison—an insult to both. Most of the 1,500,000 who live in the District and environs, plus a half-million tourists, pass it daily.
Here are the movie palaces, but its sole legit theatre is almost a mile away. Its best-known restaurants are around the corner. Any night, Saturday included, the heart of America’s heart is dark and quiet.
Washington’s Main Stem is somewhat more somnolent than those of most villages. Don’t get us wrong—things do happen after dark. But—those who do them don’t want them seen.