I’ve taken Metro’s Red and Blue Lines since they opened in ’76 and only began discovering the Green Line since moving to Greenbelt three years ago.  Now with both Green and Yellow Lines coming all the way to us, the possibilities have doubled.  Choices!

But back to Green, and where that line can take us without changing to another color.  My most frequent is the Archives, where I disembark when I’m visiting the Mall just a block south of there.  It’s our convenient gateway to the Smithsonian and associated attractions beyond.  Lucky us to live here.

But last weekend I visited Columbia Heights by Metro for the first time and am here to tell you it was the most fun I’d had leaving a Metro station in a long time.  Above, the trains and the iconic platform architecture look like they do all over the system, but quickly I discovered something we have far too little of in our otherwise lovely system – art!

Here’s part of a very cool mural (I guess you’d call it?) that’s between the turnstiles and the escalators that take you to street level. They made me want to study them for a while, and take some iPhone shots.

Metro’s outdoor canopies, so helpful in preventing weather damage to the escalators, are good-looking, thanks to at least one of DC’s design-review agencies telling Metro they needed to look good, not off-the-shelf.  (I happened to attend the meeting where the first canopy designs were presented and promptly rejected, with instructions to go back to the drawing board.)

At the top of the escalator I turned around and wowzer – there’s stained glass!  The shot below taken from the sidewalk shows how pretty it is on both sides.

The Metro station is on 14th Street at Irving and just a block north along 14th is the thankfully preserved Tivoli Theater.  Now it’s home to the GALA Theatre.

I was there on the Saturday morning of Thanksgiving weekend, and this open-air market was happening.

Above, my destination that morning was The Heights, a hip watering hole/restaurant at 14th and Kenyon where I met an old college friend for brunch.

And look what else is in the same one-block area as Metro, the Tivoli Theatre and The Heights?  Shopping!  An assortment of big national chains have been opening here, and now there’s quite a hub.  In the city.  Nice to see!

Other Destinations?

Got any Green/Yellow Line trips to recommend?  Or more faves in the Columbia H eights neighborhood?  Tell us in a comment.