Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-06-25

00 WALKING north on 18th street
MAN. from the river front and
NN coming to Maryland avenue.
the Rambler was impressed
with the changes that have come upon
that neighborhood. Once section of
the city in which the finest houses
stood, II was cut off from the rest of
the city by the railroad tracks that
were laid along Maryland avenue. and
the railroads came to use that noble
street as a freight yard and a switch
ing yard
That part OF Washington was not only
blockaded against the central business
section of the city. but Embarrassing
casualties were of frequent. almost
daily occurrence. The whole section
which had been a residence district of
wealth and fashion was made grimy
with locomotive smoke and the region.
night and day. was too noisy for peo-
pie to live in with comfort. Now the
trains pass through an open cut eight
tracks wide and stone walled. deep
down below what was the old bed of
Maryland avenue. and 18th street
crosses the cut on a massive and hand
some cement bridge. from which an
extensive view to the west may be en-
joyed.
West of 18th street and south of the
through tracks is clean and orderly
railroad freight yard, the bumpers be-
ing on the west line of the street. To
the south the Washington channel is
but two squares away. and looking to
the west the view passes over the
tidal basin. Potomac Park. the George
town channel and the Virginia fiat
lands to the heights of Arlington:
where, shining in the great expanse of
green, one sees, in addition to the white
columns of Arlington House, white
stone structure being raised to the
south of the Lee mansion. 1t is the
new amphitheater to replace the old
vine-clad amphitheater which was has
tily built in the spring of 1873.
Standing on Maryland avenue. with
so many railroad improvements Wis
ible, the Rambler recalled that sew
eral years ago he wrote the history
of steam railroads and steam railroad
legislation in the National Capital. ana
in the introduction to that story wrote
the following:
The site of the old Pennsylvania railroad sta
ton on which it is proposed TO erect the George
Washington memorial. suggests long line Of Of
railroad usurpation of public property and
ruthless disregard of peoples rights. and 1t
also recalls the greatest campaign against cor
poration arrogance and official wrongdoing ever
waged in defense of city and its people by n
newspaper. That newspaper was The Evening
Star. The strangehold of the railroads on the
streets. avenues and government reservations OF
the american capital and the desperate and pro-
longed contest By which this iron grip was
broken Is story that touches every home
and every interest in the District of Columbia.
The man who looks upon the grand Union sta
ton, sees trains rushing along steel and stone
yiaducts and hears them rumhing through
tunnels should think back to the time when
locomotive smoke foated over Pennsylvania ave
nue., when one Of the worlds great
public parks used railroad
terminal. when freight and passenger trains
Numbered through the streets crossing other
streets at grade. disrupting city traffic and
killing and manning victims by the hundred,
and when magnificent avenues and government