Pierre L’Enfant, designer of the city, thought of it as the Capital City. Jefferson referred to it as Federal Town. Washington, however, considered this undignified, and instead used the name Federal City.

The initial plot of land authorized by the Constitution for the seat of the US government was a 100-square mile area. The first commissioners appointed to acquire the property for the new capital and construct the first government buildings made the obvious choice and named the city Washington. At the same time, they decided to call the entire 100 square-mile area the District of Columbia. Congress later went along with this decision through legislative references to the area.

The city of Washington as designed by L’Enfant did not, of course, fill the 100 square-mile area authorized by the Constitution for the seat of government. The area also included the cities of Georgetown (1751) and Alexandria (1749), which were already in existence. Congress designated the rest of the 10-mile by 10-mile portion outside the corporate limits of these three cities as the County of Alexandria, in the section given by Virginia, and the County of Washington, in the Maryland-ceded portion.

In 1846 Congress voted to give back to Virginia all the land that state had given to the government in 1790 for creation of the District of Columbia. This move returned about 32 square miles of territory to Virginia. Residents of Alexandria and what is now Arlington County, Virginia, thus lost District of Columbia residency and again became Virginia citizens.

If all this sounds confusing, think of Congress trying to enact legislation dealing with the local affairs of this area. Congress tried to clarify the jurisdictional muddle when it established a territorial form of government for the capital in 1871. It revoked the charters of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and also abolished a levy court for the County of Washington. All legal municipal functions were given to the District of Columbia.

Then Congress changed its mind again and decided that Georgetown and the County of Washington should be separate entities. In 1895, Congress legally ended Georgetown’s status as a separate city by merging it with the City of Washington, yet this act said nothing about the County of Washington. Technically, this Maryland-ceded portion of the District of Columbia is still a part of that namesake even though it operates as a separate identity. The slip-up, moreover, has never been corrected.

So, today, a resident of the District of Columbia may be living either in the old County of Washington or in the merged section made up of L’Enfant’s City of Washington and of Georgetown. Washington, D.C., however, is a city in name only - a mapmaker’s designation and the established pseudonym for the District of Columbia.

I asked
1.How long have you worked at The lower East Side Girls Club?

2.How did you start working here?Tell me about your career path?

3. What is your position at the girls club?

4. What are your main responsibilities?

5. What is a typical work day like for you?

6. What do you like best about your job?

7. What is the most challenging part of your job?

8. What advice do you have for young women who are thinking about their future careers?What can we do now to prepare for the work world?

9. What is the best professional advice that you ever received?

10. Are there any ways that Cascading Leadership members can help you with your work?

She said

1.I have been working here for six years it is about to be seven.

2. I started out as a girls club member then when i tuned eight teen they hired me.
3. My position at the girls club is program asociate and is also in charge of the baking goods and taking care of the bake shop.

4.My responsibilities are taking care of the bake shop.
5.My typical work day is baking all day cooking for afterschool programs taking orders and helping customers.
6. The best thing i like about my job is the baking.

7.The most challenging part of my job is Christmas time because there’s lots of orders.
8.My advice for young women is think wise about you careers,intern in an area that you would like to work in.
9.The best professional advice that i have ever received is that i am a good baker.
10.Yes they can help with retail and help bake.

I liked the movie Rebel it was unique. I have never seen anything like this before, but I sort of felt like the television remote was on fast forward. Everything went really fast and it did not give me a chance to think about what I was looking at. Everything got really confusing to me. I really did not like the introduction, but I loved the part where the girl is standing on the wall and as her face is being painted the wall is being painted. I also liked the part where the fish moved around the garden and then moved into the little pond that was in the garden. I liked the part when the girls where dancing but it would have been better if the movie would have shown them dancing a little slower. Overall, I think that the movie was good and that it did deserve to be in the Sundance Film Festival.

My name is Melissa I am 16 years old. I am currently attending high school for health professions and human services. I am in the 11 grade. I have been attending girls club programs since I was in the 5th grade. I first started out doing flamenco with blanca, then I attended trips, then I attended the art program, then I was picked to be in the cascading leadership program. It has been an amazing experience. I got to work at the Tiendita, I get to have Friday meetings and I got to see a very interesting movie which is called What Would Jesus Buy (you should watch it)
I also got to star in a girls club commercial with the other members of the cascading leadership program which promotes our fair trade products.