Culture
More Cities Should Make Mythbusting Maps Like This
An interactive map takes down D.C.'s urban legends. Expanded, it could offer a hyperlocal look at the lore of cities across the country.
Maybe the most persistent myth about Washington, D.C., is the one that "explains" why there's no Metrorail stop in Georgetown. As the legend has it, residents rejected a Georgetown station because they didn't want the poors pouring into their neighborhood. Not terribly charitable to Georgetown—and not true at all.
As far as urban legends go, that one's pretty sticky. It's right up there with the one about how an Illuminati shadow cabinet of puppet-masters runs the government based on a secret Masonic scheme cooked up by our Founding Fathers (that old chestnut).