Walking to The Passenger last night, my mind drifted toward thoughts about the development of the area north of H Street along 7th Street NW. Perhaps it was destiny, then, that I stumbled over this photograph of Mt. Vernon Square taken in 1992 by Jack Boucher for the Historic American Buildings Survey of the Library of Congress, which DCist flickr contributor rockcreek shared with our image pool yesterday. It’s a good reminder of how far the neighbohood has come in the last seventeen years.

This editor highly recommends taking a closer look at the photograph, where rockcreek has left several photographic links to what the overwhelming number of parking lots in this photograph have been transformed into — restaurants, the art walk, Verizon Center, and obviously, the new convention center. It’s a testament to the success of walkable spaces that such a parking utopia in 1992 could transform into such a bustling center of activity, instead of just a place for commuters to dump their hunks of metal for eight hours a day.

Certainly something to raise a specialized cocktail to.