Caroline Street and the City’s Plan

Major L’Enfant’s 1791 Plan for the City of Washington covered an area that stretched northward from the confluence of the Potomac River and its Eastern Branch (today’s Anacostia River), to an escarpment that had been the edge of a vast prehistoric lake.[1]  L’Enfant named the roadway that he planned along the escarpment’s base Boundary Street; we know it today as Florida Avenue. L’Enfant’s plan called for the creation of numbered north/south streets and lettered east/west streets radiating outward—north, south, east, and west—from the location of the future capitol building. His planned street grid reflected variations in the existing terrain which accounts for the difference in the size of the resultant city blocks.[2]  On this orthogonal street grid L’Enfant superimposed a series of diagonal avenues. The squares, triangles, and reservations thus created were numbered consecutively.

L'Enfant Plan, 1820 edition
Square 190 marked by "x"

original 1820 proposal for development of block 190

Above is a copy of part of an 1874 map by E. F. M. Faehtz and F. W. Pratt showing the original platting for Square 190. The lots were much larger than today’s are, and a proposed alley system was planned to access the backs of planned parcels all of which fronted on at least one of the streets bordering the square. The proposed main access alley went through the center of the square from 15^th to 16^th Street, the approximate location of today’s Caroline Street.[3]