Adams Morgan has been one of Washington’s most vibrant and changeable neighborhoods for more than a century. Known as Washington Heights before it was renamed in the 1950s as a symbol of racial integration, the neighborhood has seen waves of immigration, the birth of DC’s go-go scene, and a transformation from divided enclave to one of the city’s most cosmopolitan addresses.
In 1928, Prohibition agents raided an oyster house on 18th Street in Adams Morgan. The raid led to legal complications, a trial, and the bizarre disappearance of a jury member.
Just after 9pm on January 28, 1922, the Knickerbocker’s roof caved in mid-comedy. Ninety-eight died. It is still DC’s deadliest disaster.
Take a journey through history with us and explore the historical entrance to the National Zoo in Rock Creek Park. Learn more about the area and its past with us today.
Take a look back in time to 1892 and see what Adams Morgan looked like before the jumbo slices. Explore a topographic map from the Library of Congress showing the area with no 18th St. and 16th St. and a much more rural landscape.
D.C. architect George Oakley Totten Jr. spent 16 years fighting to see his 1917 Calvert Street Bridge design built. Here’s why it never happened.
From an 1820 Nourse farmhouse to a Masonic temple that never got built to the Washington Hilton of 1965, three entirely different DC landmarks used the same ten acres.
1907 map of Washington Heights, the area which would become Adams Morgan.
Today, 2461 18th St. NW is one of the more popular late-night destinations in the rowdy Adams Morgan neighborhood. Far from it’s days as a store where you could buy a crib.
Explore what Washington Heights (Adams Morgan) and Kalorama looked like in 1903 with this map of the area just north of Boundary Street (Florida Avenue).
