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O. Roy Chalk and the Last Days of D.C. Transit
Just after 2 a.m. on January 14, 1973, WMATA condemned D.C. Transit and its suburban sister company out of existence. The owner was a New York lawyer named O. Roy Chalk, and he had run Washington’s bus system for sixteen…
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Swampoodle: The Lost Irish Neighborhood Union Station Erased
A rough, all-Irish neighborhood called Swampoodle once stood where Union Station is now. The railroad cleared it, and DC forgot.
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The 1963 Report Where DC Begged Washington to Pave Over the City
In April 1963, DC’s three appointed commissioners begged the federal government to build every freeway on the map: the Three Sisters Bridge, the Inner Loop, the East Leg, the North-Central. Almost none of it survived the decade.
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Frank Lloyd Wright’s Crystal Heights: DC’s Lost Glass City
Frank Lloyd Wright drew Washington a glass city of twenty-one towers on a Connecticut Avenue hill. The height limit refused to let it rise.
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Engine Company No. 4: DC’s First All-Black Firehouse
Gordon Parks photographed Engine Company No. 4 in 1943: men trusted to run into a fire, and made to eat off separate plates.
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Suburban Gardens: DC’s Black Amusement Park in Deanwood
Suburban Gardens opened at 50th and Hayes NE in June 1921, built by a Black-owned company. It was the only major amusement park ever inside the District, born because the region's white parks barred Black Washingtonians.
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Glen Echo Park: From Chautauqua to Carousel Sit-In
It started as a one-summer Chautauqua on the Potomac, built by twin brothers who had cashed in on an egg beater patent. By 1933 it was a streetcar amusement park with a Spanish ballroom and a…
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Trolling the Internet? Here’s a 1922 D.C. Fire Department Car to Brighten Your Sunday Night
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A Look Back at the Methodist Church on Market St. in Leesburg, VA
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Mapping Grover Cleveland’s Second Cabinet: Where His 53rd Congress Officials Lived
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Exploring the Historic Point of Rocks Railroad Station: Journey Back to 1873
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