Foggy Bottom

Foggy Bottom is one of Washington, D.C.'s oldest 19th century neighborhoods. The neighborhood is thought to have been named because, as a low-lying area, fog (widespread in the swamps of early Washington) or industrial smoke tended to concentrate there. (Ironically, this setting was the original location for The United States Naval Observatory.) It is located to the west of downtown D.C. in the Northwest quadrant, bounded roughly by 17th Street to the east, Rock Creek Park to the west, Constitution Avenue to the south, and Pennsylvania Avenue to the north.



"Foggy Bottom" is often used as a metonym for the United States Department of State, whose Harry S Truman Building headquarters is located in the neighborhood. The main campus of George Washington University is also located in Foggy Bottom, as well as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Friendship Lodge Odd Fellows Hall, and the infamous Watergate Hotel, site of the Watergate burglaries which led to President Richard Nixon's resignation. George Washington University has grown significantly over the past decades and now covers much of the neighborhood. The neighborhood has numerous mid-rise apartment buildings.

Just on the edge of Foggy Bottom are the U.S. Department of Interior, the gigantic World Bank office building, Office of Personnel Management, Constitution Hall, American Red Cross headquarters, Federal Reserve Board, Pan American Health Organization, and Organization of American States.

Foggy Bottom was once a community of Irish, German, and Black laborers employed at the nearby breweries, glass plants, and the city gas works. These industrial facilities are also cited as a possible reason for the neighborhood's name, the "fog" being the smoke given off by the industries. The historic neighborhood is preserved and listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The Foggy Bottom area was the site of one of the earliest settlements in what is now D.C., when Jacob Funk subdivided 130 acres near the meeting place of the Potomac River and Rock Creek in 1763. The settlement was officially named Hamburgh, but was colloquially known as Funkstown, and attracted few settlers until the 1850s when more industrial enterprises came into the area.

Foggy Bottom is served by the Foggy Bottom-GWU Washington Metro station, with service by the Blue and Orange Metro Lines. "Foggy Bottom" was also the name of a line of beer by the Olde Heurich Brewing Company. The firm was founded in the neighborhood, but the modern beer was actually brewed in Utica, New York.