›› Directions to Capital Memorial Church

3150 Chesapeake Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20008

Washington, D.C., is laid out in a grid pattern, which will help you find your way around. The center of the grid is the U.S. Capitol Building, which divides the city into tremendously unequal sections named Northwest (the largest), Northeast, Southwest, and Southeast. CMC is located in Northwest. The street due north of the Capitol Building is North Capitol Street; south is South Capitol Street. East of the Capitol Building is East Capitol Street; to the west is the Mall (there is no West Capitol Street). The streets running north-south on either side of North and South Capitol Streets are numbered streets beginning at duplicative First Streets on either side of North and South Capitol Streets and counting up as you move out, mirrored on either side. [Thus, you can have two identical addresses, except for “Northeast” or “Northwest,” etc.]

Streets running east-west run alphabetically, as one travels northward or southward from East Capitol Street or the Mall, from single letters, to two-syllable streets, to three-syllable streets, then flowers and trees, also in alphabetical order. [Note: Although there are A Streets and C Streets, there are no B Streets. In place of B to the south of the Mall is Independence Avenue and to the north is Constitution Avenue.]

Slashing through this neat grid are large diagonally running avenues, which are all named after States. In several spots in D.C., where these diagonal streets meet an alphabetical street running east-west and a numbered street running north-south, there is often a traffic circle. These can be confusing, so it’s important to look for the signs for the street on which you want to continue on the other side of the circle. One of the largest of these circles, which figures in many of the directions, is Dupont Circle, which is at the intersection in Northwest of two diagonal streets, Connecticut and New Hampshire, plus north-south running 19th Street and east-west running P Street. If you’re already travelling north on Connecticut Avenue, there’s an underpass for traffic under Dupont Circle, so you can bypass it easily.