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“North West” is the only section of Washington which counts. It is the capital of the capital. NW is the works.

When Major Pierre L’Enfant accepted the commission to plan the capital, he went Caesar’s Gaul one better and divided it into four parts. These he laid out like spokes around a wheel, with the hub “The Hill,” on which he built the Capitol. He named each section after compounded cardinal points of the compass, NW, SW, NE and SE. The others you can throw into the garbage-can—NW is the city.

Other municipalities have distinctive sectors. In Washington everything, the rialto, marts of commerce, homes of the wealthy, are piled into this one corner, where they rub shoulders with the lowly, the dirty and the wicked, not to overlook Washington’s No. 1 problem, the colored.

Washington’s Main Drag is F St. if you could call it such. The crossing at 14th Street is its Times Square, its State and Madison—an insult to both. Most of the 1,500,000 who live in the District and environs, plus a half-million tourists, pass it daily.