16th Street is a prominent street in Washington, D.C.
16th Street may also refer to:
16th Street Northwest is a prominent north-south thoroughfare in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. Part of the street is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Sixteenth Street Historic District.
Part of Pierre L'Enfant's design for the city, 16th Street begins just north of the White House across Lafayette Park at H Street and continues due north in a straight line passing K Street, Scott Circle, Meridian Hill Park, Rock Creek Park, and the Walter Reed Army Medical Center before crossing Eastern Avenue into Silver Spring, Maryland, where it ends at Georgia Avenue. From K Street to the District line, 16th Street is part of the National Highway System. The Maryland portion of the street is designated Maryland State Highway 390. The entire street is 7 1⁄2 miles (12.1 km) long.
The Washington meridian, a prime meridian once in use in the United States, follows the street.
Significance
Early in the city's history, many foreign countries opened their embassies on 16th Street because of its proximity to the White House. Many religious denominations followed with churches, earning the street the nickname "Church Row." These include Foundry Methodist (attended by Presidents Hayes and Clinton), First Baptist (attended by Presidents Truman and Carter), the Nineteenth Street Baptist Church which was originally named the First Colored Baptist Church of Washington, D.C. (visited twice by President Barack Obama), St. John's ("Church of the Presidents"), All Souls Unitarian, Universalist National Memorial Church, St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Cathedral,founded in 1949 and built in 1958, and Third Church of Christ, Scientist, which was designed by an associate of I.M. Pei in 1972.Shrine of the Sacred Heart is located just off of 16th Street. After most of the embassies moved to Embassy Row and other parts of the city, the churches became more prominent in 16th Street's identity.
16th Street was a station on the demolished section of the BMT Fifth Avenue Line. It was served by trains of the BMT Culver Line and BMT Fifth Avenue Line and had 2 tracks and 1 island platform. The station was built on August 15, 1889, at the intersection of Fifth Avenue and 16th Street, and had a connection to the 15th Street Line trolleys. The next stop to the north was Ninth Street. The next stop to the south was 20th Street. It closed on May 31, 1940.
References
This article covers numbered east-west streets in Manhattan, New York City. Major streets have their own linked articles; minor streets are discussed here. The streets do not run exactly east–west, because the grid plan is aligned with the Hudson River rather than with the cardinal directions. "West" is approximately 29 degrees north of true west.
The numbered streets carry crosstown traffic. In general, even-numbered streets are one-way eastbound and odd-numbered streets are one-way west. Several exceptions reverse this. Most wider streets carry two-way traffic, as do a few of the narrow ones.
Streets' names change from West to East (for instance, East 10th Street to West 10th Street) at Broadway below 8th Street, and at Fifth Avenue from 8th Street and above.
Although the numbered streets begin just north of East Houston Street in the East Village, they generally do not extend west into Greenwich Village, which already had streets when the grid plan was laid out by the Commissioners' Plan of 1811. Streets that do continue farther west change direction before reaching the Hudson River. The grid covers the length of the island from 14th Street north. 13th Street would be the southernmost numbered street to span the entire width of Manhattan without changing direction, but it is interrupted by Jackson Square Park.