PREDICTION: SOMEONE WITH POLITICAL CONNECTIONS WILL MAKE A LOT OF MONEY OUT OF THIS. One of D.C.’s Most Contentious Pieces of Real Estate is 25 Feet Underground.

In the upscale Washington, D.C. neighborhood of Dupont Circle, where galleries, bars, and bookshops jostle for room, a 75,000-square-foot expanse in the heart of the quarter has been almost untouched for 20 years. That’s because in order to access it, you have to grab a flashlight and descend 25 feet below ground, into the vast, abandoned streetcar tunnels that flank Connecticut Avenue.

For the past 60 years, the city and its residents have wondered what to do with this vast subterranean space, whose history features a long list of failed attempts to repurpose it, including plans to make it into a gym, a greenmarket, and a storage facility for funeral urns.

Well, the way things are going it should probably be stocked as a fallout shelter.