What city is this?

August 30, 2009 10:59 AM

Anyone know what city this is? I believe it's from the 1940s or '50s.
posted by xmutex to Travel & Transportation (13 answers total)

Response by poster: Big version here.
posted by xmutex at 11:01 AM on August 30, 2009

Looks like Washington, D.C. That huge building would be the Dep't of Agriculture.
posted by elisabethjw at 11:08 AM on August 30, 2009 [1 favorite]

taken from the Washington Monument maybe?
posted by minkll at 11:09 AM on August 30, 2009

Google Maps
posted by elisabethjw at 11:09 AM on August 30, 2009

Gotta be DC.
posted by littlerobothead at 11:11 AM on August 30, 2009

Definitely DC. Great matching map find, elisabethjw. Impressive.
posted by rokusan at 11:13 AM on August 30, 2009

Current bird's eye view of that area.
posted by grouse at 11:15 AM on August 30, 2009

I think its a bit later than the 50s tho. looks like 60s or 70s to me from the buses and cars
posted by Palerale at 11:23 AM on August 30, 2009

The Holocaust museum now occupies in the gap next to the red brick building in the bottom right.

The building at front-left is notable mainly for being the one non-museum on the Mall.
posted by smackfu at 11:41 AM on August 30, 2009

I was coming in to say DC, so I think if it isn't actually DC, it surely masquerades as DC when the occasion calls for it.
posted by crush-onastick at 12:02 PM on August 30, 2009

It must be after 1970, because it shows the Forrestal Building (USDOE) and the 475 L'Enfant Plaza building that houses the Postal Service, which seems to have gone up in the 1970s and been operational by 1978 at the latest.
posted by dhartung at 1:52 PM on August 30, 2009

Response by poster: Thanks all- it looks like it is indeed DC.
posted by xmutex at 3:24 PM on August 30, 2009

I'm late, but that's DC. As smackfu said, the Holocaust Museum is in the foreground, bottom right.
posted by armage at 5:59 PM on August 30, 2009