Beat this heat with the technology of the 1880s

If you are on Capitol Hill in this heat wave, you can find a little relief in a strange piece in the history of DC.

“Oh yeah, it’s much cool, outside, he’s just hot,” he said.

Julio Ndaogmo, who works nearby, told Wop that he was going all the time and swears: “Look at the weather, it’s about 98 at the moment. Here, he is about 80 years old.”

The summer house is built in the form of an open France. In its center is a bubbling fountain that people were drinking – But no more now. But it is certainly good to immerse your hands in the hot days as we did.

Alexa Bautista, from Woodbridge, stopped and dropped her hands into the freshly bubbling fountain. “It’s incredible,” she said. Her friend Ariana Lopez thinks it’s a “really cool place”.

“It’s like the 80s outside, but here about 20 degrees fresher,” she said.

In 1879, the Congress appointed Frederick Law OlmstedWho also developed Central Park in New York, to improve the field of the Capitol. THE Capitole website architect said Olmsted included the Summerhouse because visitors to the Capitol Building complained that they do not find water or a place to rest during their visits.

The fountain in the center of the building originally provided drinking water at the source. He has six small metal fittings around the upper perimeter of the fountain, with chains that would have held cups or ladles to drink.

Now the site has three drinking fountains linked to the city’s filtered water supply which provides drinking water. The central fountain is used only for display.

Diane Morris de Wop has contributed to this report.

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