Tune Inn Capitol Hill: 79 Years of a DC Dive Bar
Three blocks from the Capitol dome sits a 1947 dive bar with deer butts on the wall and a Nardelli behind the counter.
Notable People & Places
Famous and infamous Washingtonians and the buildings tied to their names. Presidents, mobsters, madams, and the corner addresses that outlasted them.
Hechinger Started as a Demolition Company in 1911
The Hechinger hardware empire began in 1911 as a Southwest DC wrecking crew. The story of Sidney Hechinger, the navy-blue H, and the bankruptcy that ended it in 1999.
Marilyn Monroe’s Secret 1957 Visit to Forest Hills DC
In late May 1957, Marilyn Monroe slept on a sofa bed in a Forest Hills den while her husband Arthur Miller stood trial in Federal Court for contempt of Congress. She bicycled the neighborhood in sunglasses, sat by a backyard pool, and held one news conference on the front lawn at 3625 Appleton Street NW. For seven days, the biggest movie star in the world was a houseguest in Northwest DC.
Dallas Williams, the Bad Man of Swampoodle
On January 31, 1958, the Evening Star started calling Dallas O. Williams “the Bad Man of Swampoodle.” The nickname stuck through five trials, three vacated convictions, and a 1961 double murder that exposed the broken machinery of DC’s insanity defense.
O. Roy Chalk and the Last Days of D.C. Transit
Just after 2 a.m. on January 14, 1973, WMATA condemned D.C. Transit and its suburban sister company out of existence. The owner was a New York lawyer named O. Roy Chalk, and he had run Washington’s bus system for sixteen and a half years.
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.
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.
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, and met an Argentine diplomat who would change her mind about her marriage. Her mother ran a boarding house on Woodley Road.
Army and Navy Club: 140 Years at 17th and I in DC
The Army and Navy Club has held the corner of 17th and I Streets NW since 1891, in a building that opened in 1912. In 1987 Shalom Baranes gutted everything behind that facade. The facade survived. Almost nothing else did.