Answer Man Surveys the Meridian Capital of the World

Your March 22 column said that in 1926, the Park Police commented on vandals who "ringed the top of the fountain at Truxton circle at North Capitol street and Florida avenue with a barrel hoop." The traffic circle and the statue of Commodore Thomas Truxton were demolished in 1947. Even though your article wasn't about Truxton Circle, I think you should have noted that if we look for it today we won't find it. What you will find are small pennants hanging on light poles at the intersection of Florida and New York avenues advertising Truxton Circle. It seems that the city has decided to move the circle to a place down the road where there is, in fact, no circle at all.

-- Kenneth Barnes, Silver Spring

When the city built a new circle at North Capitol and Q streets in 1900, there was a question about whom to name it after: Gen. Meade or Commodore Truxton. As it was the Truxton family that donated the land, the choice seemed obvious.

There was never a statue of Truxton there, but there was an ornate cast-iron fountain that had originally stood at Mount Vernon Place at Eighth and K streets NW. It was moved to Truxton Circle when the D.C. public library was built at Mount Vernon Place.

When North Capitol Street was widened after World War II, the Truxton fountain was put into storage.

The last reference Answer Man finds to it is in the first edition of James Goode's "Outdoor Sculpture of Washington, D.C.," where it was said to be in Park Service storage in Fort Washington and in dilapidated condition.

Can that neighborhood fairly be called "Truxton Circle"? It depends how generous your definition is. Dupont Circle stretches on for blocks. Of course, there still is a Dupont Circle, while Truxton Circle is but a memory.

Questions? Write answerman@washpost.com.