Ghosts of DC

Try an address, a neighborhood, a name or a year, like “14th and U” or “1968.”

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The Best OfThe stories readers come back to If Walls Could TalkWho lived in that house? Why Is It Named…?How DC places got their names This Day in HistoryWhat happened on today’s date
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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.

597 stories
Washington Daily News front page of October 13, 1926, headlined Ace of D.C. Detectives Slain on Wedding Day, with a portrait of Detective Arthur B. ScrivenerArthur Scrivener: Murder or Suicide in a Georgetown Alley, 1926Oct 18Lewis Hine, "Red light resorts on Ohio Avenue near 14th St.," Washington DC, April 1912. Library of Congress, National Child Labor Committee Collection. Colorized by AI.Five Forgotten Murders in DC’s Murder BayJun 292321 18th Street NW painted red as Death Punch bar in 2025Before Death Punch and Bourbon, 2321 18th St NW Was the Blue RoomJun 12

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The Big Hunt at 1345 Connecticut Avenue NW in July 2008, mid-run, with the striped circus-tent awning and the jungle murals that defined the storefront for nearly three decades. Photo by Kevin Harber, used under Creative Commons.Inside The Big Hunt: How a 1928 Dupont Storefront Became DC’s Weirdest BarJun 11Erol's Video Club logo, red on yellow, 'The First Name In Video'Erol’s Video Club: The DC Empire Before BlockbusterJun 11Before Heaven and Hell: 2327 18th St NW Was the First DC Black Panther Party HQJun 7Nellie Grant’s 1874 White House Wedding and the Father Who Wept UpstairsMay 13Boss Shepherd: The Man Who Paved Washington and Cost It Home RuleMay 11Black and white portrait of Madame Marcia, a Washington DC astrologer, in the 1920s.The DC Astrologer Who Ran the White House: Madame Marcia, Florence Harding, and the Prediction That Came TrueMay 8
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