Dupont Circle is a traffic circle in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., at the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue, Connecticut Avenue, New Hampshire Avenue, P Street and 19th Street. The name is also given to the public park within the circle, as well as the surrounding neighborhood, which is bounded approximately by 15th Street to the east, 22nd Street to the west, M Street to the south, and Florida Avenue to the north. A lot of embassies line DuPont Circle, and a couple statues and fountains.
Construction of the traffic circle, originally called Pacific Circle, began in 1871. In 1882, Congress authorized a memorial statue of Samuel Francis Du Pont (I missed taking his photo sorry) in recognition of his service as a rear admiral during the Civil War. A bronze statue was erected in 1884 in a park at the center of the circle. The Du Pont family moved the sculpture to Wilmington, Delaware in 1920, and commissioned the current double-tiered, white marble fountain from sculptor Daniel Chester French and architect Henry Bacon (the co-creators of the Lincoln Memorial). The fountain was installed in 1921. Three classical nude figures symbolizing the sea, the stars and the wind are carved on the fountain's shaft.
