Before Death Punch and Bourbon, 2321 18th St NW Was the Blue Room
A few doors south of Heaven and Hell, 2321 18th Street NW in Adams Morgan was the Blue Room lounge, then Bill Thomas’s Bourbon whiskey bar, and now Death Punch.
Faces & Places of Yesterday
Vintage photos of Washington, DC. Ordinary people on stoops, sidewalks, and streetcars. Faces and corners of a city most of us would no longer recognize.
Inside The Big Hunt: How a 1928 Dupont Storefront Became DC’s Weirdest Bar
The Big Hunt opened in 1992 inside a 1928 storefront at 1345 Connecticut Avenue NW and closed for good in 2020. Inside Dupont Circle’s three-story dive bar with the safari kitsch, the hidden patio, and the Hell’s Kitchen basement.
Erol’s Video Club: The DC Empire Before Blockbuster
Before Blockbuster, the DC area had Erol’s Video Club. Turkish immigrant Erol Onaran arrived in 1960 with $16, opened a Georgetown TV shop in 1963, started renting tapes in 1980, and built the largest privately owned video chain in America before selling to Blockbuster for $40 million in 1990.
Before Heaven and Hell: 2327 18th St NW Was the First DC Black Panther Party HQ
Heaven and Hell is the name people remember at 2327 18th Street NW. But the building’s first life as a political address began in December 1969 with the Black Panther Party.
Nellie Grant’s 1874 White House Wedding and the Father Who Wept Upstairs
When the cake was being cut, the President was upstairs sobbing. The story of Nellie Grant’s 1874 White House wedding, the East Room Grant rebuilt for her, and the marriage that fell apart.
Boss Shepherd: The Man Who Paved Washington and Cost It Home Rule
Alexander Robey “Boss” Shepherd paved Washington, lit its gas lamps, and planted 64,000 trees, then bankrupted the territorial government in 1874 and cost the city home rule for 99 years.
The DC Astrologer Who Ran the White House: Madame Marcia, Florence Harding, and the Prediction That Came True
From a parlor near Dupont Circle, Madame Marcia told Florence Harding her husband would die in office. Three years later he did.
The Surprising History of Luther Place Memorial Church on Thomas Circle
The congregation built pews dedicated to Generals Grant and Lee, in the same sanctuary, five years after the war ended.
Gas Rationing in Washington, D.C.: The Long Lines of 1942
In June 1942, Washington D.C. gas stations on upper Wisconsin Avenue ran dry by 8:30 a.m. These Office of War Information photos show how the city lived through wartime gas rationing.