FRANK: Foggy Bottom has been inhabited from about 5,000 years ago.

Native Americans lived along the river until about the 1600s.

Then in 1765, Jacob Funk established a town he called Hamburgh, which is also referred to as Funkstown.

He laid out a town that basically goes from H Street to what's now Constitution Avenue and that in 1791 it was incorporated into the new city of Washington.

About 1850 through 1940 is the industrial period for Foggy Bottom.

And that's why it's called Foggy Bottom.

Part of it was the fog coming from the river, but part of it was the soot and the smoke that was put out from these industries that were around here.

The most interesting one is probably the Heurich Brewery, Christian Heurich built in 1896.

When we get to the 1950s period, everything changes.

The federal government decides to put the National Cultural Center, which became the Kennedy Center at the site of the old Heurich Brewery and the neighborhood becomes desirable.

SOPHIA: The planning for what is now the Kennedy Center goes back until the 1940s under Eisenhower, who also signed the National Cultural Center Act in 1958.

And President Kennedy helped really amp up efforts.

At the time, the United States didn't have a major cultural center so the idea was to really elevate the role of the arts and to also ensure that the nation's capital had a, a broad world-class facility for all of the performing arts.

(applause) KENNEDY: For art is the great Democrat calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color.

SOPHIA: The Kennedy Center was designed by Edward Durell Stone.

The original design was kind of reminiscent of what the Watergate buildings are today.

You might call it a spaceship, almost.

Unfortunately, logistically and financially, it turned out to be not feasible.

So he still came up with a second grand vision, which is the rectangular building that we are in today.

A lot of the special features here at the Kennedy Center actually came from other countries.

One iconic element that you can't miss comes from Italy.

It's the Carrara marble that is the distinctive exteriors and interiors of the main building.

The building officially opened to the public on September 8th, 1971, with the world premiere of Bernstein's Mass.

The Kennedy Center as a living memorial is a hub.

It's an incubator.

It's a place that brings together artists and audiences from all walks of life.

VICTORIA: The Reach is really a space that is meant to imbue and imbibe the community.

And so you see that represented in a number of different ways, uh, through our culture caucus, our millennium stage programming, our office hours program, which is a National Residency Program, our local theater residency, which is specifically for local theaters here in the DMV area.

Those programming vehicles allow us space to be able to offer opportunities for our artists and our communities to really take curatorial control.

I think the Kennedy Center is definitely, uh, a neighborhood staple.

We see a lot of our neighbors from the Foggy Bottom area come and participate in that program again and again as audience members.

What we're really working towards is trying to create a space where folks are really represented and included and feel a sense of belonging.

(blowing trombone)