This is a terrific old photograph of East Capitol St., before a street was even there. This was from the Library of Congress, and apparently was mislabeled as Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park. This too was taken by William M. Chase. Don’t forget to compare this with the East Capitol shot we posted the other day. Read More »
This is a great view down East Capitol St. from the Dome, taken around 1880. UPDATE: GoDCer Leonard sent along this great shot (a little blurry), from the same vantage point today. So cool! Read More »
The hospital still exists, but it’s no longer in the original location. Providence Hospital once stood between 2nd and 3rd St. and D and E St. Southeast. The block is now Providence Park, which is an awesome place to spend a sunny Saturday afternoon. The former hospital used to occupy square 735 and was subdivided into 14 lots (see map ... Read More »
Here’s a great 1903 map of Eastern Market, as requested by GoDCer Orestes. Hope you enjoy it! And below is the Google Map of the area today. Read More »
This map is a little difficult to see, but it’s a great old plan of Washington on Capitol Hill. The streets are laid out and the lots and marked. (To orient yourself, up on the map is west.) Read More »
Now this is a truly historic and fascinating story from the annals of untold D.C. history. About a week ago, GoDCer Kicha sent us a great tip on a story from 1869. The story includes an interracial love affair, a complicated love triangle, rife with jealousy, and a gruesome murder. The latter leads to this historic trial, the first in ... Read More »
This is an incredible view down New Jersey Ave. in 1863. The caption reads: Southeast view with New Jersey Ave. on the right and A Street and B Street (i.e., Independence Ave.) in the foreground; view includes the Washington Navy Yard, the Eastern Branch (i.e., Anacostia River), the Ebenezer United Methodist Church (i.e., Mount Joy Baptist Church), “Duddington” house, temporary ... Read More »
This is the first guest post by GoDCer Tim. Given that we have “ghosts” in our name and with today being Halloween, it’s appropriate to have a post about the paranormal. Also, don’t forget to check out Tim’s recently released book on Amazon about haunted Capitol Hill. On Capitol Hill a few blocks from the Eastern Market Metro Station is ... Read More »
Real estate ads are one of our favorite things to post. Here is a great one from Saturday, December 13th, 1919. Pull together $7,300 and you can have a nice home near Lincoln Park. Read More »
![1943. On maneuvers in wartime Washington. "A soldier and a woman in a park, with the Old [Russell] Senate Office Building behind them." 4x5 Kodachrome transparency, photographer unknown. Office of War Information.](http://ghostsofdc.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1a35462u_0-150x150.jpg)
We’re sharing a ton of great old photos this week and this is a great moment, frozen in time from 1943. It’s a shot of a soldier, sitting near a woman posing for a photograph. If you look closer at the man, it appears that he’s eyeing the woman. Read More »
Workers were digging a sewer trench beneath a Capitol Hill street in 1898. They came upon a few fossil fragments — among them, a 6-inch bone that now represents the largest piece of the District’s controversial “official dinosaur,” the Capitalsaurus. The contractor on that sewer project, J. K. Murphy, presented his workers’ discovery to Smithsonian scientists on January 28, 1898. Here’s how ... Read More »
It’s map Friday! Hopefully you liked the last map we posted, because maps seem to be super popular among GoDCers. Check this one out and click on it for greater detail. Related articles 1907 Map of LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale (ghostsofdc.org) 1851 Map of the City of Washington, D.C. (ghostsofdc.org) Old Columbia Heights: Where the Streets Have New Names (ghostsofdc.org) Read More »
It has been over two months since our last “If Walls Could Talk” post (Shaw’s Tavern), so it’s high time we crank out another one. We’re going to head down to Barrack’s Row on Capitol Hill to do a little research on one of Bryce Harper’s favorite haunts and a place where the President popped in for lunch with some ... Read More »
This is one of the most popular weekend spots in the city. Who doesn’t love to wander through the aisles of Eastern Market and take in the sights, sounds and smells of the old market? And to think that they wanted to knock this beautiful building down in the 1960s to replace it with some crappy suburban-style grocery store. The ... Read More »
If you work on Capitol Hill, you’re going to find this one fascinating. This is the underground subway that many of you take between buildings. Okay, it’s changed a little bit since then, but check it out. Click on it for the high-resolution version and then share this with your Hill friends on Facebook. What’s up with the kid’s white ... Read More »
Ghosts of DC The lost and untold history of Washington