Sheridan Circle is a

traffic circle A roundabout is a type of circular intersection or junction in which road traffic is permitted to flow in one direction around a central island, and priority is typically given to traffic already in the junction.''The New Shorter Oxford Eng ...

in the Washington, D.C. neighborhood of

Embassy Row Embassy Row is the informal name for a section of Northwest Washington, D.C. with a high concentration of embassies, diplomatic missions, and diplomatic residences. It spans Massachusetts Avenue N.W. between 18th and 35th street, bounded ...

. A number of embassies ring Sheridan Circle, including the former Turkish chancery, and the Romanian embassy on the southern side, and the Embassy of Pakistan to the northwest.

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 ...

is visible down

Massachusetts Avenue Massachusetts Avenue may refer to: * Massachusetts Avenue (metropolitan Boston), Massachusetts ** Massachusetts Avenue (MBTA Orange Line station), a subway station on the MBTA Orange Line ** Massachusetts Avenue (MBTA Silver Line station), a stati ...

; in the other direction, the avenue rises toward a bridge over

Rock Creek Park Rock Creek Park is a large urban park that bisects the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. The park was created by an Act of Congress in 1890 and today is administered by the National Park Service. In addition to the park proper, the Rock Cr ...

History

In 1888, the traffic circle was named for General

Philip Sheridan General of the Army Philip Henry Sheridan (March 6, 1831 – August 5, 1888) was a career United States Army officer and a Union general in the American Civil War. His career was noted for his rapid rise to major general and his close as ...

, Union general of the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by state ...

and later general of the

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land warfare, land military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight Uniformed services of the United States, U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army o ...

Sheridan Monument

A statue to honor General Sheridan was originally proposed to stand on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue NW near 13th Street NW, at what is now Freedom Plaza. Gen. Sheridan's widow advocated to erect the statue at Sheridan Circle instead, with which the statue commission agreed.

John Quincy Adams Ward John Quincy Adams Ward (June 29, 1830 – May 1, 1910) was an American sculptor, whose most familiar work is his larger than life-size standing statue of George Washington on the steps of Federal Hall National Memorial in New York City. Early ye ...

was selected to sculpt the statue. Mrs. Sheridan rejected his original model, saying it was not a good likeness of Gen. Sheridan, and the statue commission rejected Ward's model. The commission and Mrs. Sheridan both approved of a model created by

Gutzon Borglum John Gutzon de la Mothe Borglum (March 25, 1867 – March 6, 1941) was an American sculptor best known for his work on Mount Rushmore. He is also associated with various other public works of art across the U.S., including Stone Mountain in Georg ...

. The statue was dedicated on November 27, 1908.

Letelier Monument

On September 21, 1976,

Orlando Letelier Marcos Orlando Letelier del Solar (13 April 1932 – 21 September 1976) was a Chilean economist, politician and diplomat during the presidency of Salvador Allende. A refugee from the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, Letelier ...

and Ronni Karpen Moffitt were killed by a car bomb in the circle. Letelier had been foreign minister in the ousted

Allende Salvador Guillermo Allende Gossens (, , ; 26 June 1908 – 11 September 1973) was a Chilean physician and socialist politician who served as the 28th president of Chile from 3 November 1970 until his death on 11 September 1973. He was the fi ...

government of Chile. The bombing was blamed on Chilean DINA agents. Michael Townley, a DINA U.S. expatriate among those convicted for the crime, confessed that he had hired five anti-Castro Cuban exiles to booby-trap Letelier's car. According to Jean-Guy Allard, after consultations with the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations leadership (including

Luis Posada Carriles Luis Clemente Posada Carriles (February 15, 1928 – May 23, 2018) was a Cuban exile militant and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent. He was considered a terrorist by the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the ...

and Orlando Bosch), those selected to carry out the murder were Cuban-Americans José Dionisio Suárez, Virgilio Paz Romero, Alvin Ross Díaz and brothers Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll.
According to the '' Miami Herald'',

was at the meeting that decided on Letelier's death and also about the '' Cubana'' bombing two weeks later. Letelier and Moffitt are commemorated with a small plaque embedded in the grass along the curb where they died, near the Irish and Romanian embassies.

Clashes

On May 16, 2017, dozens of PKK supporters and Kurdish separatists clashed with Turkish security officials at Sheridan Circle. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, visiting the Ambassador's residence that sits on Sheridan Circle, watched the clashes from a distance.

References

External links