History
Service began on December 15, 1976, as part of the original Red Line that ran from Farragut North to Rhode Island Avenue–Brentwood. The opening of the station was delayed by a court order over lack of handicapped access (it was originally supposed to open with the rest of the first stations on March 27, 1976). WMATA provided assurance that such access would be available by June 1, 1977.
Yellow Line service began on April 30, 1983, adding service to the Pentagon and National Airport. Green Line service began in 1991, adding service (at the time) to U Street and Anacostia.
Originally named "Gallery Place" after the nearby National Portrait Gallery and Smithsonian American Art Museum, "Chinatown" was added to the station name in 1986 (although the station's signage was not replaced until 1990) and in 2000, a large Chinese-style fan, entitled The Glory of the Chinese Descendants, was installed over the 7th and H Street entrance. The station reverted to its original name, "Gallery Place", on November 3, 2011, with "Chinatown" listed as a subtitle.
This station has been a testing ground for new features in Metro stations. In 1993, the station was one of the first Metro station to receive tactile edging on its platforms. Since 2004, the station has been the site of testing for new signage. As a result, there is far more signage in this station than most others, including lighted signs, as well as signage that isn't found anywhere else in the system. In 2007, red LEDs were tested for the platform edge lights on the upper level. Orange LEDs were tested at the platform edge on the lower level, before being replaced by red LEDs in 2008.
Read more about this topic: Gallery Place (WMATA Station)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We don’t know when our name came into being or how some distant ancestor acquired it. We don’t understand our name at all, we don’t know its history and yet we bear it with exalted fidelity, we merge with it, we like it, we are ridiculously proud of it as if we had thought it up ourselves in a moment of brilliant inspiration.”
—Milan Kundera (b. 1929)
“Regarding History as the slaughter-bench at which the happiness of peoples, the wisdom of States, and the virtue of individuals have been victimized—the question involuntarily arises—to what principle, to what final aim these enormous sacrifices have been offered.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“There is a constant in the average American imagination and taste, for which the past must be preserved and celebrated in full-scale authentic copy; a philosophy of immortality as duplication. It dominates the relation with the self, with the past, not infrequently with the present, always with History and, even, with the European tradition.”
—Umberto Eco (b. 1932)