-
The Avalon Theatre in Chevy Chase DC: 100 Years of Movies
In 1923 the Chevy Chase Theatre opened at 5612 Connecticut Avenue NW. Renamed the Avalon in 1929, it survived 78 years of Hollywood and one Loews bankruptcy that gutted it in 2001. Neighbors raised roughly $750,000 and reopened it in…
-
1627 Lamont Street NW: A 1908 Walk-Up With a 1927 Front-Page Tragedy
On the evening of September 21, 1927, a Washington attorney named Alexander G. Bentley walked into a room at the Houston Hotel on E Street near Ninth and shot himself. He was 52. The Washington Post ran it on page one the next morning. His home address, given in the second sentence: 1627 Lamont Street Northwest. This one came in as a tip. David flagged the building on Facebook, and once we started pulling records, 1627 Lamont turned into one…
-
The General Scott Apartments: A 1940 Deco Landmark on Scott Circle
Robert O. Schultz’s 1940 General Scott Apartments at 1 Scott Circle NW, the mansions it replaced, the WPA underpass beneath, and the 1982 tenant buyout that saved it.
-
The Skyline Plaza Collapse: 14 Workers Killed at Bailey’s Crossroads, 1973
It is 2:18 p.m. on Friday, March 2, 1973. The top floors of a 26-story apartment tower under construction at Bailey’s Crossroads are about to fall floor by floor. Fourteen of the men working there will not go home.
-
The Metro Stations Washington Almost Built: The 1967 Fight Over the “Coal Mine” Under Your Feet
Everyone knows Metro’s concrete vaults. Almost nobody knows the Commission of Fine Arts called Harry Weese’s rejected station designs “a refined coal mine shaft.”
-
Carter Barron Amphitheater: The Golden Age of Concerts in Rock Creek Park
For a generation, a 4,200-seat bowl on a Rock Creek Park hillside was the summer stage of Washington. Nat King Cole sang there. So did Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, Danny Kaye, Stevie Wonder. Silent since 2017,…
-
Stetson’s on U Street Was Once a Speakeasy Raided Five Times
Long before Stetson's Famous Bar & Grill filled 1610 U Street NW with punk shows and cheap beer, the same storefront was a Prohibition speakeasy. Federal agents raided it five times between 1921 and 1924. Then…
Recently Updated
Refreshed from the Archive
Swipe for more
Pulled at Random
From the Vault
-
Historic Views from the Top of the Washington Monument, 1894 to 1942
-
1877 View of the Washington Monument Under Construction as Seen from the Smithsonian
-
Private Paul J. McDuff: Rescued from the Ninth-Floor Ledge of the Willard Hotel in 1949
-
Looking Down New Jersey Avenue in 1863: The Washington Navy Yard and Eastern Branch
Swipe for more