![]() ![]() The station’s name could conceivably change again. Washington Technical Institute merged with Federal City College and DC Teachers College in 1977 to form the University of the District of Columbia, or UDC, and that was the abbreviation appended to the new station when it opened on December 5th, 1981. Perhaps it should be noted here that average weekday usage in 1991 was 7,657. The release said the station entrances would be located at Connecticut Avenue and Veazey Terrace, and Metro projected that 24,000 people would be using the station each day by 1990. In January 1973, Metro sent out a press release referring to the station as Van Ness-WTI. Dennard wrote to Mathew Platt, the assistant planning director of WMATA, to request that the Van Ness station be called Institute/Van Ness. This change was most likely a result of a letter from Cleveland Dennard, the president of WTI, and an architect of the Van Ness we know today. At the request of Deputy Mayor Graham Watt, the stop would be called Van Ness/WTI for Washington Technical Institute, one of UDC’s predecessors. Besides, Van Ness Centre was the name of the new local mall that opened atop the future station’s location in 1967.īy the end of October 1971, the Metro board had approved the names of 72 stations, with one slight change for the Van Ness stop. Shari Barton, a past president of the Forest Hills Citizens Association, remembered being told that Forest Hills would be the name of the station.įrom a careful reading of Metro’s naming policy it seems Van Ness, being a longer and better known street than Veazey Terrace, and being easier to find on a map than Forest Hills, became the WMATA board’s choice. A sentimental choice, certainly, but not a name widely recognized outside of our immediate neighborhood. Someone, nameless, suggested that our future stop be named Soapstone. This appeal for suggestions from riders elicited an interesting response from our nearby community. Names had to be geographical and were to be “derived from that of a city, community, neighborhood, square, circle, Metro-intersecting street, etc., or from a center of activity such as a school, stadium, park, hospital, airport, shopping center, government installation, etc… should be distinctive and evoke imagery in the mind of the patron… and should be relatively brief because only 19 letters and spaces will fit on the pylons at most stops.” ![]() In August 1971, Metro decided to deal with this problem by asking people to mail suggestions for station names to its office at L’Enfant Plaza. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority found early on that the names chosen for new stations were often controversial. And while the construction of these Red Line Metro stations certainly took time, so did the process of naming them. The stations’ opening was years in the making. Then-Mayor Marion Barry at the Decemopening of the Van Ness Metro station. ![]()
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