Stories about the neighborhoods, buildings, and places that once defined Washington, DC and have since disappeared.
AI anxiety isn’t new. In 1949, an MIT professor turned down a corporate contract because he feared machines would replace human judgment. A year later, Washington had its own “electronic brain” on Connecticut Avenue. We’ve been having this argument for 75 years.
In 1931, gold-topped columns were killed for being too tall for airplanes. Now a 250-foot arch is proposed at the same spot. The full history since 1886.
How Count von Bernstorff left the German Embassy at 1435 Massachusetts Avenue in 1917, and what became of the seventy-room mansion before and after.
Before L’Enfant Plaza’s Brutalist towers, Southwest DC was a thriving neighborhood. We dug into the Evening Star archives to trace the full story, from the 1954 demolition to the Fedlandia proposals reshaping the area today.
In the 1950s, the top entertainers in the country performed on 14th Street NW. By the early 1980s, it was known as Washington’s “combat zone,” lined with topless bars and adult bookstores. By 1986, it was rubble. What happened in between reveals how gentrification works when moral crusades and economic interests perfectly align.
Washington tables still held ashtrays until a 1997 Clinton order and a decade-long fight at the Wilson Building cleared the air.
The stone arches near the Kennedy Center are the Godey Lime Kilns, Washington’s last 19th-century industrial ruin.
Explore the visionary plan for revitalizing Pennsylvania Avenue, blending history with modernity to reimagine “America’s Main Street” for the future.
In 1807, two brothers named Andrew and George Way opened a glass factory on the Potomac, where the Lincoln Memorial stands today.
