George Washington University

The university that shares the District’s namesake spreads all throughout the streets of Foggy Bottom. Known as ‘G-dub’ or ‘GW’, this school has been a bedrock of Washington identity since its founding in 1821. Besides shaping much of the American political landscape, GW has shaped the capital itself, buying-up townhouses on such a scale that it is now the city’s second-biggest landowner after the federal government. Plenty of famous alumni have studied here: Edgar Hoover, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Colin Powell, Brian Williams, Haddaway (you know, the guy who sang ‘What Is Love?’). The school is spread over several blocks between F, 20th and 24th Sts and Pennsylvania Ave in Foggy Bottom. The best bit of the campus is University Yard, between G, H, 20th and 21st Sts, where Colonial-revival buildings flank a green park bedecked with roses and a statue of – who else? –Washington.