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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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Before she was the Duchess: Wallis Simpson in DC
Before the abdication crisis, the future Duchess of Windsor spent four quiet years in Washington as a young, separated Navy wife. She shared a small house in Georgetown, lunched at the Hotel Hamilton on K Street,…
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