This past February 22nd marked the 150th anniversary of the dedication of this public work. The equestrian statue of George Washington in Foggy Bottom’s Washington Circle was dedicated in 1860 by President James Buchanan before an audience that included the vice president, cabinet secretaries, senators and military leaders.
“Altogether it was the finest military and civic display in Washington for many years,” according to a Harper’s Weekly article from the time. “The [parade] column, extending over half a mile in length, proceeded up Pennsylvania Avenue under pleasing auspices, except the mud.”
In a short but impressively verbose speech, President Buchanan proclaimed, “The honorable and important duty has been assigned to me of dedicating this statue of Washington, which is a noble production of native American genius. This welcome and grateful task I now proceed to perform.”
President Buchanan then characterized the dedication as an “act of pious devotion … in the name of the whole American people of the United States, one and indivisible, now and forever.” Despite the rhetoric, a year later the nation was torn apart by the Civil War. Continue reading →
Posted in: Foggy Bottom News.
The Organization of American States (OAS) is the world’s oldest regional organization, dating back to the First International Conference of American States, which was held in Washington, D.C. from October 1889 to April 1890. At that conference, the establishment of the International Union of American Republics was approved and the stage was set for the weaving together of a web of provisions and institutions that came to be known as the inter-American system. This oldest of the international institutional systems was preceded by the Congress of Panama convened by Simón Bolivar in 1826.
It was only in 1889 that the American States decided to meet periodically and to forge a shared system of norms and institutions. There were, in the meantime, conferences and meetings that attempted to give birth to the system, but it was only at the invitation of the U.S. Government that the process began and continued uninterruptedly until this day. Continue reading →
Posted in: Foggy Bottom News.
Lend a Hand’ Saturday, April 10, 9am–Noon
The largest regional event of its kind, the Cleanup provides a transforming experience that engages citizens and community leaders and generates momentum for change.
Since 1989, more than 50,000 volunteers have teamed with 375 partner organizations of the Alice Ferguson Foundation to pull over 3 million tons of trash from the watershed’s streams, rivers and bays. Last year´s haul of over 290 tons included more than 27 tons of recyclables, 41,122 Plastic bags, 2,095 tires, 17 bicycles, 16 shopping carts, 9 Metal and plastic barrels, 5 TVs and 5 refrigerators!
The 2009 Cleanup took place at over 500 sites in the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania and West Virginia – all part of the lands, or watershed, that drain into the Potomac with locations that included fields, forests, parking lots and other ‘inland’ sites, where the trash can be removed before it enters creeks and other waterways.
From the list of FB/GT locations and coordinates that follow, choose a spot and help the Potomac! Continue reading →
Posted in: Community Update, Foggy Bottom News.
This past February 22nd marked the 150th anniversary of the dedication of this public work. The equestrian statue of George Washington in Foggy Bottom’s Washington Circle was dedicated in 1860 by President James Buchanan before an audience that included the vice president, cabinet secretaries, senators and military leaders.
