This may look like the grounds of a European palace, but it’s actually Meridian Hill Park (aka Malcolm X Park) in Northwest. The park was so named because it once straddled was next to the Washington meridian, the American version of the Greenwich meridian. We liked the sharpness and vivid colors of the grass and gravel in the shot by allyzay — it feels like a nice, cool day. And if you view the…

Today activists around the country are planning demonstrations supporting immigrantions. You’ll recall that last year organizers staged a national boycott to highlight immigrants’ contribution to the American economy. In D.C. several demonstrations are slated. The National Immigrant Solidarity Network sponsors a few of the events. WTOP has a fairly exhaustive list: A May Day Asian American rally is planned for noon at Taft Memorial Park, north of the Capitol. A hunger strike and rally at…

By now it is Chamber of Commerce cliché to write of “U Street’s revitalization.” Most residents have read the historical postings along U Street NW and know, by way of slogan at least, that “before Harlem, there was U Street.” At the height of Washington’s segregated past, a few decades after segregation was imposed by Congress against the will of a vocal many white and black District residents, U Street NW was the city’s celebrated…

D.C. has one, Chris Rock joked about them and there are entire books about them: streets named for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Yesterday CNN posted an article about streets named for the civil rights leader, saying there are at least 777 in the country. The article says that Rock’s joke and the stereotype about King streets, that they’re poor and dangerous, may not be true. It quotes Matthew Mitchelson, a University of Georgia…

This early evening shot over Malcolm X park was takin by Flickr user kezee. The bottom-lit clouds, gradiant sky color, and silhouetted trees are perfectly lovely. Find the EXIF data here….

What is D.C.’s motto? Any idea who’s always riding a horse in Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park? More importantly, who doesn’t love a good online quiz? They are spectacular for passing the time as the hours creep and crawl towards the weekend. Today’s D.C. edition of Daily Candy brings us a little “How much do you know about D.C.?” quiz. It’s a mix of classic questions (when was D.C.’s flag adopted?) and ones that are slightly…

Long before Thelma and Louise and Charlie’s Angels, the first “action-babe” was a 19-year-old cross-dressing French girl who claimed she could see angels, gave the French one of their few military victories, and altered the course of English history before — not much later — getting executed. For this bizarre-but-true story, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920 and immortalized on film by Hollywood dozens of times, most famously by the “Fifth Element”…

For this Presidents Day installment of DCist’s ongoing series featuring overlooked local monuments, we asked ourselves: Who was the worst president of all time? It is always popular to maintain that the current officeholder is it, especially these days. But it’s worth looking a bit further back to consider the legacy of James Buchanan, our 15th president, who nonetheless managed to rate a memorial. Buchanan can be found along the eastern wall of the Italian-inspired…

Today the whole world counts lines of longitude away from Greenwich, England. But the globally accepted prime meridian running through the Royal Greenwich Observatory is a relatively new development. At one time, most every important city had its own line: Rome, Jerusalem and St. Petersburg, among others. Of course, for a meridian line to be taken seriously by navigators and mapmakers, one had to publish an ephemeris, viz. an almanac of points on the ground…

Last Friday were were sad to hear of the passing of legendary actor and civil rights leader Ossie Davis. Davis and his wife, Ruby Dee, were recognized at the 27th Kennedy Center Honors in December. We’ll remember him not only for his great acting but also the times when we saw him interviewed – including this powerful interview we saw him give with Bill Moyers on NOW. The news program Democracy Now! has dedicated today’s…