By Frank Leone
The FBA Newsletter and our regular Funkstown column is on summer break until September 2023, but we will provide these approximately biweekly blog posts over the summer.
At 1600 Constitution Ave., in the shadow of the Washington Monument, stands the four-bed German-American Friendship Garden. It was established in 1988 to commemorate 300 years of immigration and friendship between the two nations. The garden contains native plant species from the U.S. and Germany. It was renovated in 2012 and again in 2022, although when recently visited the two fountains (like many in DC) were not operating. It is the typically the site of the annual German-American Day (October 6). The “300 year” history refers to the first German settlement in Pennsylvania in 1683. The site descriptions, unfortunately, do not refer to Jacob Funk’s establishment of Hamburg (Funkstown), just to the northwest of the garden, in 1765.
For more information: Trust for the National Mall, German-American Friendship Garden; German-American Heritage Society of Greater Washington; Funkstown – The Real Story of Jacob Funk; Funkstown – Why Funkstown? The German Days of Foggy Bottom; FBA History Project.
