Columbus Fountain

Columbus Circle, also known as Union Station Plaza or Columbus Plaza, is a traffic circle at the intersection of Delaware, Louisiana and Massachusetts Avenues and E and First Streets, Northeast in Washington, D.C. It is located in front of Union Station right next to the grounds of the United States Capitol. Union Station and its access roads interrupt this circle on one side, forming an arc. The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building is located on the eastern side and the National Postal Museum is on the western side of the plaza next to Union Station. Both buildings are on the northern side of Massachusetts Avenue NE.

Washington Union Station, known locally as Union Station, is a major train station, transportation hub, and leisure destination in Washington, D.C. Designed by Daniel Burnham and opened in 1907, it is Amtrak's headquarters, the railroad's second-busiest station, and North America's 10th-busiest railroad station. The station is the southern terminus of the Northeast Corridor, an electrified rail line extending north through major cities including Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York City, and Boston, and the busiest passenger rail line in the nation. In 2015, it served just under five million passengers.An intermodal facility, Union Station also serves MARC and VRE commuter rail services, the Washington Metro, the DC Streetcar, intercity bus lines, and local Metrobus buses. It carries the IATA airport code of ZWU.At the height of its traffic, during World War II, as many as 200,000 passengers passed through the station in a single day. In 1988, a headhouse wing was added and the original station renovated for use as a shopping mall. As of 2014, Union Station was one of the busiest rail facilities and shopping destinations in the United States, visited by over 40 million people a year. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors caused a sharp decline in retail and dining; by late 2022, more than half its commercial space was vacant, but Amtrak is attempting to regain control of the station and plans a major renovation and expansion.

The National Visitor Center was an ill-fated attempt to repurpose Washington, D.C.'s Union Station as an information center for tourists visiting the United States Capitol and other Washington attractions. It opened for the Bicentennial celebrations in 1976, but it never was able to attract enough crowds to sustain its operating costs, and it closed in 1978.

Swampoodle Grounds aka Capitol Park (II) was the home of the Washington Nationals baseball team of the National League from 1886 to 1889. The name refers to the one-time Swampoodle neighborhood of Washington. The ballfield was located on a block bounded by North Capitol Street NE and tracks (west); F Street NE (south); Delaware Avenue NE (east); and G Street NE (north); a few blocks north of the Capitol building. Spectators faced toward the south and could see the Capitol dome. They could also see the McDowell and Sons Feed Mill, visible behind right field in the picture, and which was across F Street to the south. The club moved a few blocks north, from Capitol Park (I) to the Swampoodle location, upon joining the National League. Local papers reported that the new grounds had more space and a more favorable lease. The papers often referred to the new grounds as Capitol Park, even as the previous Capitol Park was still in use, under the same name, for various types of entertainment. When referencing the previous park, the reports would general specify its location, to minimize possible confusion. Portions of the site were eventually annexed as the site of the Union Station and of the Main Post Office, which is now the National Postal Museum. Swampoodle Grounds held 6,000. The Washington Statesmen folded after the end of the 1889 season.

Union Station is a Washington Metro station in Washington, D.C., on the Red Line. It has a single underground island platform. The station is located in the Northeast quadrant of the city under the western end of Union Station, the main train station for Washington, where connections can be made to Amtrak intercity trains, as well as Virginia Railway Express and MARC commuter rail trains to suburbs in Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia. The station was originally named "Union Station–Visitor Center" but when the National Visitor Center there failed, it was renamed Union Station. One or two pylons still read "Union Station-Visitor Center", and a number of older stations still display this name on signage. Service began on March 27, 1976, with the opening of the Red Line. It is the busiest station in the Metrorail system, averaging 29,197 passengers per weekday as of May 2017.

The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building (TMFJB) at the crossroads of the Capitol Hill and NoMA neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., houses offices that support the work of the United States Courts, including the Administrative Office of the United States Courts, the Federal Judicial Center, the United States Sentencing Commission, and the Office of the Clerk of the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation. The building was named after Thurgood Marshall, the first African-American justice of the Supreme Court; and is part of the United States Capitol Complex under the Architect of the Capitol's Supreme Court Building and Grounds jurisdiction which it shares in common with the United States Supreme Court Building that houses the Supreme Court of the United States.It is located at One Columbus Circle NE in Washington D.C. adjacent to Union Station, a few blocks from the United States Capitol. It was completed in 1992 and was designed by architecture firm Edward Larrabee Barnes and partner John Ming Yee Lee. It features a dramatic five-story tall glass atrium at its main entrance with a signature indoor bamboo forest. A jury unanimously selected the firm of Barnes/Lee & Partners as the architects and Boston Properties as the developer. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist approved the selection on January 13, 1989.The Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building is an administrative center for the federal court system located next to Union Station. Its construction completed the Columbus Circle area and was considered a long overdue addition to the Washington DC's Union Station and post office.

The Monocle is a restaurant in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Washington, D.C.

The National Postal Museum, located opposite Union Station in Washington, D.C., United States, covers large portions of the Postal history of the United States and other countries. It was established through joint agreement between the United States Postal Service and the Smithsonian Institution and opened in 1993.

Owney (ca. 1887 – June 11, 1897), was a terrier mix adopted in the United States as a postal mascot by the Albany, New York, post office about 1888. The Albany mail professionals recommended the dog to their Railway Mail Service colleagues, and he became a nationwide mascot for nine years (1888–1897). He traveled over 140,000 miles throughout the 48 contiguous United States and around the world as a mascot of the Railway Post Office and the United States Postal Service. He was the subject of commemorative activities, including a 2011 U.S. postage stamp.

The Postal Square Building (formerly the City Post Office) served as the main post office for the city of Washington, D.C., from the building's completion in 1914 to 1986. It now houses the National Postal Museum, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and offices of the United States Senate. Architect Daniel Burnham designed the building in the Beaux-Arts style—the same style Burnham used for the neighboring Union Station. Construction for the Postal Square Building began in 1911 on a lot near the Capitol. Planning began with a 1901 proposal by the Senate Parks Commission. The commission called for three buildings to mark the northern end of the Capitol complex. While the first two buildings in the plan, Union Station and the Postal Square Building, were completed early in the 20th century, the 1901 plan would not be fully implemented until the completion of the Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building in 1992. A major renovation from 1929 to 1935 expanded the building for increased mail processing and service capacity. By the 1950s, renovations had removed many of the Beaux-Arts features of the building. The main hall and lobby area only showed traces of their former grandiose design with modernist elements replacing the Beaux-Arts style. The building received another major renovation in the early 1990s, during which the original appearance of the lobby and main hall area was restored. The National Postal Museum moved into the building in 1993 following the renovations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Capitol City Brewing Company also moved into the building during the 1990s. (Capitol City Brewing Company closed in 2011 to make room for an expansion of the National Postal Museum.)

The 1953 Pennsylvania Railroad train wreck occurred on January 15, 1953, when a passenger and mail train from Boston to Washington DC (the Federal) failed to brake sufficiently on its approach to Union Station, Washington, jumping the platform and plunging through the floor of the concourse. There were no deaths, but 43 people were injured. The cause of the accident was a design flaw that allowed a brake-valve to close without human intervention.

The National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), founded in 1904, is the oldest non-partisan professional organization of public officials in the United States, composed of the secretaries of state of U.S. states and territories. Currently, all secretaries of state, including Washington D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and Guam are members of NASS. NASS maintains its office in Washington, D.C., and promotes positions on issues of interest to secretaries of state: voter turnout, voting procedures, business services, electronic government, securities, and government archives. Pennsylvania secretary of the commonwealth Pedro A. Cortés became the first Puerto Rican president of the organization, and the last one to hold the position for a full one-year term, followed by Maine secretary of state Matthew Dunlap, whose term was cut short by his electoral defeat in the 2010 midterm elections. Minnesota secretary of state Mark Ritchie filled the remainder of Dunlap's term. During the organization's annual summer meeting in San Juan in July 2012, Alabama secretary of state Beth Chapman turned over the presidency to Nevada secretary of state Ross Miller.