Columbia Road is a street in Washington, D.C., that forks from

Connecticut Avenue Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It is one of the diagonal avenues radiating from the White House, and the segment south of Florida Avenue was on ...

north of

Dupont Circle Dupont Circle (or DuPont Circle) is a traffic circle, park, neighborhood and historic district in Northwest Washington, D.C. The Dupont Circle neighborhood is bounded approximately by 16th Street NW to the east, 22nd Street NW t ...

, and branches north and east through 16th Street to the

McMillan Reservoir The McMillan Reservoir is a reservoir in Washington, D.C. that supplies the majority of the city's municipal water. It was originally called the Howard University Reservoir or the Washington City Reservoir, and was completed in 1902 by the U.S. A ...

. Along its route, it marks the southern border of the Kalorama Triangle neighborhood, the principal east/west passage through the

Adams Morgan Adams Morgan is a neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., centered at the intersection of 18th Street NW and Columbia Road, about 1.5 miles (2.54 km) north of the White House. Notable establishments in the neighborhood include th ...

neighborhood, and is one of the primary thoroughfares in the Columbia Heights neighborhood. In Adams Morgan, it is bordered by a great deal of street-level retail, constituting (with

18th Street 18th Street may refer to: Los Angeles * 18th Street gang, an Hispanic street gang Manhattan, New York City * 18th Street (IRT Broadway – Seventh Avenue Line); a subway station serving the trains * 18th Street (IRT Lexington Avenue Line), an ...

) the main commercial area within Adams Morgan.

History

Much like the neighborhood of Columbia Heights, Columbia Road was not in fact named for the

District A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...

, but rather for

Columbian College , mottoeng = "God is Our Trust" , established = , type = Private federally chartered research university , academic_affiliations = , endowment = $2.8 billion (2022) , presid ...

, which would go on to be renamed to the present-day George Washington University. Previously located on Columbia Road, the Knickerbocker Theatre was a famous cinema built in 1917, and the site of a major disaster five years later when it collapsed during a

blizzard A blizzard is a severe snowstorm characterized by strong sustained winds and low visibility, lasting for a prolonged period of time—typically at least three or four hours. A ground blizzard is a weather condition where snow is not falling ...

, killing 98 and injuring 133 more.

References

Streets in Washington, D.C. Adams Morgan {{WashingtonDC-road-stub