Landscape Information
Laid out in Pierre L'Enfant's 1791 plan for Washington, D.C., this 2.19-acre circle, originally known as Reservation No. 26, at the intersection of Pennsylvania and New Hampshire Avenues and 23rd and K Streets NW was the first of the city's circles to be landscaped as a park. Implemented through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by three successive agencies: The Commissioner of Public Buildings (1853-1860); the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds (1884-1886); and the Office of Public Buildings and Public Parks (1931-1933) the park’s central feature, an equestrian statue of George Washington at the Battle of Princeton by Clark Mills resides in a central circular lawn panel. It was dedicated in 1860.
Today, the circle retains its historic layout with two concentric paths encircling the equestrian statue in a central lawn panel. The interior path is paved in concrete, while the exterior is paved in a decorative flagstone pattern There is no perimeter pathway. Pedestrian paths radiate outwards from the park’s central lawn panel, providing access in multiple directions from the perimeter roadways. Uniform fencing, benches, and lighting, are located throughout the park, which also has a number of mature deciduous canopy and flowering cherry trees in both its interior and exterior lawn panels. Washington Circle is listed as a contributing feature in the L’Enfant Plan of the City of Washington, D.C. National Register nomination (1997) and was documented by HABS as part of The Plan of Washington, D.C., project from 1990-93.
