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Dupont Circle is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood, and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The traffic circle is located at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue NW, Connecticut Avenue NW, New Hampshire Avenue NW, P Street NW, and 19th Street NW. The Dupont Circle neighborhood is bounded approximately by 16th Street NW to the east, 22nd Street NW to the west, M Street NW to the south, and Florida Avenue NW to the north. The local government Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC 2B) and the Dupont Circle Historic District have slightly different boundaries.〔〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Dupont Circle ANC2B: Maps ) 〕 ==History== (詳細はPierre Charles L'Enfant—but remained largely undeveloped until after the American Civil War, when there was a large influx of new residents. The area that now constitutes Dupont Circle was once home to a brickyard and slaughterhouse. There also was a creek, Slash Run, that began near 15th Street NW and Columbia Road NW, ran from 16th Street near Adams Morgan, through Kalorama and within a block of Dupont Circle, but the creek has since been enclosed in a sewer line.〔 Improvements made in the 1870s by a board of public works headed by Alexander "Boss" Shepherd transformed the area into a fashionable residential neighborhood.〔When the White House's roof and upper floor were under construction in 1927, President Calvin Coolidge and his wife lived at 15 Dupont Circle for six months.〕 In 1871, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began construction of the traffic circle, then called Pacific Circle, as specified in L'Enfant's plan. On February 25, 1882, Congress renamed it "Dupont Circle", and authorized a memorial statue of Samuel Francis Du Pont, in recognition of his service as a rear admiral during the Civil War. Unveiled on December 20, 1884, the statue was sculpted by Launt Thompson,〔 and the circle was landscaped with exotic flowers and ornamental trees. Several prominent duPont family members deemed it too insignificant to honor their ancestor, so they secured permission to move the statue to Rockford Park in Wilmington in 1917, and commissioned Henry Bacon and Daniel Chester French to design the fountain that sits in Dupont Circle today.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Dupont Circle )〕 In 1920, the current double-tiered white marble fountain replaced the statue. Daniel Chester French and Henry Bacon, the co-creators of the Lincoln Memorial, designed the fountain, which features carvings of three classical figures symbolizing the sea, the stars and the wind on the fountain's shaft.〔 During the 1870s and 1880s, mansions were built along Massachusetts Avenue, one of Washington's grand avenues, and townhouses were built throughout the neighborhood. In 1872, the British built a new embassy on Connecticut Avenue, at N Street NW. By the 1920s, Connecticut Avenue was more commercial in character, with numerous shops. Some residences, including Senator Philetus Sawyer's mansion at Connecticut and R Street, were demolished to make way for office buildings and shops. The Patterson House, at 15 Dupont Circle, served as a temporary residence for President Calvin Coolidge while the actual White House was being repaired in 1927.〔 In 1933, the National Park Service took over administering the circle, and added sandboxes for children, though these were removed a few years later. Connecticut Avenue was widened in the late 1920s, and increased traffic in the neighborhood caused a great deal of congestion in the circle, making it difficult for pedestrians to get around. Medians were installed in 1948, in the circle, to separate the through traffic on Massachusetts Avenue from the local traffic, and traffic signals were added.〔 In 1949 traffic tunnels〔http://www.ddot.dc.gov/ddot/cwp/view,a,1250,q,639677,ddotNav,|32399|.asp〕 and an underground streetcar station were built under the circle as part of the now-defunct Capital Transit project. The tunnels allowed trams and vehicles traveling along Connecticut Avenue to pass more quickly past the circle. When streetcar service ended in 1962, the entrances to the underground station were filled in and paved over, leaving only the traffic tunnel.〔The Dupont Circle Metro Station is completely separate from the abandoned underground streetcar station; Metrorail trains operate nearly underground, far deeper than the original streetcars. In 1995, developer Geary Simon renovated the streetcar station as a food court called "Dupont Down Under"; the project failed, and was shut down a year later. In 2007, plans circulated to transform the underground area into a number of adult clubs, possibly to replace several gay bars that were forced out by the building of the Nationals Park baseball stadium. However, opposition from the community largely stalled any further planning, and the space remains unused.〕 The neighborhood declined after World War II and particularly after the 1968 riots, but began to enjoy a resurgence in the 1970s, fueled by urban pioneers seeking an alternative lifestyle. The neighborhood took on a bohemian feel and became popular among the gay and lesbian community. Along with The Castro in San Francisco, Hillcrest in San Diego, Greenwich Village in New York City, Boystown in Chicago, Oak Lawn in Dallas, Montrose in Houston, and West Hollywood in Los Angeles, Dupont Circle is considered a historic locale in the development of American gay identity. D.C.'s first gay bookstore, Lambda Rising, opened in 1974 and gained notoriety nationwide. In 1975, the store ran the world's first gay-oriented television commercial.〔Muzzy, Frank. ''Gay and Lesbian Washington D.C.'', Arcadia Publishing, 2005. ISBN 0-7385-1753-4〕 Gentrification accelerated in the 1980s and 1990s, and the area is now a more mainstream and trendy location with coffeehouses, restaurants, bars, and upscale retail stores. Since 1997, a weekly farmers market has operated on 20th Street NW. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Dupont Circle」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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