The Dupont Underground comprises 75,000 sq.ft. of repurposed infrastructural space less than a mile from the White House. It lies beneath the city’s iconic Dupont Circle, a nexus of Washington’s cultural, civic, and commercial life. There is no other space like it in the District. ​ Opened in 1949 as a trolley station, 75,000 sq.ft. of underground platforms and tunnels were closed off in 1962, when the city’s streetcar system shut down. Other than designation as fallout shelter in the late 1960s and hosting a short-lived food court on the west platform in the mid-1990s, the space has remained empty.