Exploring the Capital City
With so many historic structures, neighborhoods, and an elaborate transit infrastructure, D.C. is a prime location to engage in a little urban exploring. Urban exploring, which some refer to as infiltrating, is the practice of entering, exploring, and usually photographing places closed to the public.
An Aug. 15 Post story, titled "Caverns and Canyons of the Capital," has plenty of ideas for even the most amateur urban explorer: a "massive, darkened basement" under the Lincoln Memorial, a 495-space parking garage beneath the Air and Space Museum, and restrooms dating from the 1900's under Mount Vernon Square.
After making a few inquiries, we found there are a few urban explorers in the capital city ...
Also worth mentioning however, is "one of the largest abandoned underground spaces that [city officials] know of," the former Dupont Circle trolley station. Constructed in the 1940s and closed in the 1960s, the underground station housed two sets of semicircular tracks accessable by stairways located around the circle. (Photo is from the DC Trolley website) In 1995 the space was opened briefly as the Dupont Down Under food court, but the business closed soon after. Although the Washington Business Journal reported about one year ago that the space may re-open, little has been heard recently about anything new under Dupont Circle. In fact, the Dupont Down Under canopy was removed from the west side of the circle earlier this year.
Although small, the urban explorers community in D.C. seems to be growing. The D.C. Urban Explorers Meetup group has twenty members, and a newly-launched Yahoo Group only has a handful of members thus far. According to messages on the Yahoo Group, the group is working with city officials to arrange for a tour of the Dupont Underground space.
The only D.C. based urban exploring blog we've been able to find is Nascent City, a blog operated by two D.C. area college students who go by the names "redline" and "greenline". Their recent explorations of the Forest Glen Seminary in Silver Spring got them a lengthy write-up in the Takoma Park Gazette. (For more on the seminary site, see saveourseminary.org). A quick perusal of their blog's index show's they've visited a Canada Dry bottling plant, an abandoned quarry near D.C., storm drains at the Post's printing facility, and a rather prosaic visit to a East Anacostia-Glenvale Parkway drain. (Where the photo above was taken)
Urban explorers without websites but with interesting photos to share are invited to e-mail us. DCist also knows of a never-completed passageway from the Union Station metrorail station under First Street NE toward H Street. We've heard D.C. stores snowplows down there. If anyone has more info about the passageway, we'd be most appreciative.