Connecticut Avenue

Connecticut Avenue
Connecticut Avenue NW
	Connecticut Avenue, looking north, from Farragut Square
Maintained by	DDOT
Location	Washington, D.C., U.S.
Coordinates	38°58′07″N 77°04′38″W / 38.96861°N 77.07722°W
South end	Lafayette Square
Major; junctions	US 29 / Farragut Square; Dupont Circle; Florida Avenue; Columbia Road; Calvert Street; Tilden Street; Nebraska Avenue; Military Road
North end	MD 185 / Chevy Chase Circle

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 one of the original streets in Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant's plan for Washington.^[1] A five-mile segment north of Rock Creek was built in the 1890s by a real-estate developer.^[2]

^ L'Enfant identified himself as "Peter Charles L'Enfant" during most of his life, while residing in the United States. He wrote this name on his "Plan of the city intended for the permanent seat of the government of t(he) United States ...." Archived 2016-01-11 at the Wayback Machine (Washington, D.C.) and on other legal documents. However, during the early 1900s, a French ambassador to the U.S., Jean Jules Jusserand, popularized the use of L'Enfant's birth name, "Pierre Charles L'Enfant". (Reference: Bowling, Kenneth R (2002). Peter Charles L'Enfant: vision, honor, and male friendship in the early American Republic. George Washington University, Washington, D.C. ISBN 978-0-9727611-0-9). The United States Code states in 40 U.S.C. 3309 Archived 2021-04-02 at the Wayback Machine: "(a) In General.—The purposes of this chapter shall be carried out in the District of Columbia as nearly as may be practicable in harmony with the plan of Peter Charles L'Enfant." The National Park Service identifies L'Enfant as Major Peter Charles L'Enfant Archived 2014-04-05 at the Wayback Machine and as Major Pierre (Peter) Charles L'Enfant Archived February 28, 2010, at the Wayback Machine on its website.
^ French, Roderick S. (1973). "Chevy Chase Village in the Context of the National Suburban Movement, 1870-1900". Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. 49: 300–329. ISSN 0897-9049. Archived from the original on 2022-05-23. Retrieved 2022-05-24.