Readers’ pick: Dupont Circle
Good things come in threes.
One such “good thing” is the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro station escalator. The escalator is the third-tallest out of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority’s 588 total escalators and the tallest in D.C., coming in at a soaring 204 feet.
In order to experience the architectural feat, riders must first ascend a pair of smaller sister escalators from the Metro platform, resembling a brief trek to base camp. From there, passengers take the notoriously steep side-by-side escalators to the summit (or Connecticut Avenue).
The design of the Woodley Park station is textbook brutalist, with uniform concrete craters pocketing the escalator’s steep enclosure. Most GW students likely know the station from ventures down the Red Line — which houses nine of 10 of WMATA’s tallest escalators — to classic D.C. attractions, like Porchfest or the National Zoo.
In fact, a failed attempt to report on the zoo’s holiday “Zoolights” production in the winter most recently brought me to the station. Reaching the journey’s destination was ultimately unsuccessful, but the Woodley Park-Zoo/Adams Morgan Metro station served as the setting for soul-searching conversations about The Hatchet’s future between me and a fellow editor. I still remember the crisp blast of winter air freezing my cheeks as the escalator emerged from the earth.
But my fondness for the escalator came a year before that, when the escalator’s wind tunnel brought autumn leaves instead of flecks of snow. My friend and I often visited Adams Morgan that fall to interview passersby for a journalism class. The long, slow ascent up the metal moving staircase often offered a moment of reflection amid lively discussion between two friends. And after a few hours worth of interviewing and a break for a sweet treat, the descent felt like a signal my job was done.
My reasons for appreciating the escalator are evidently nostalgic, so I accept that not everyone will share my affinity. But next time you take a trip down the Red Line, try to savor your moments on D.C.’s best “third-best” piece of machinery.
