In Case You Missed Them
Explore DC: Eight Days, Eight Wards, One City!
Historic Alleyways
Saturday, July 27, 2024
The alleyways of DC served a distinct purpose as a city planning feature, but they also provided a hidden safe space where escaped enslaved people and the economically disadvantaged could find inexpensive housing and live their lives away from prying eyes. While city officials condemned life in the alleyways as dangerous, dirty and diseased, they were in fact a place where communities sustained each other and provided security. This walking tour takes you through the Blagden Alley/Naylor Court Historic District and reveals their secrets.
Tour Guides: Katie Fitzpatrick (Off the Mall Tours) and Briana Thomas (Black Broadway)
- Duration: 90 minutes
- Location: Tour Check-in: Lost and Found's Alley Bar (1240 9th Street, NW 20001)
- Additional Information: A History Resource Fair and Author Meet and Greet will begin at 3:30 p.m.
Photos Coming Soon
Art at the Center
Monday, July 29, 2024
The Walter E. Washington Convention Center’s art collection is the best kept secret in the nation’s capital. In addition to being a state-of-the-art Convention Center, the building is home to one of the largest public art collections in Washington, DC outside of any DC museum with 137 works by 93 artists. One highlight is Sol LeWitt's Wall Drawing #1103, encompassing a two-story staircase. Another is the Shaw Wall, a 72-foot wall of dynamic artwork that honors and celebrates the Shaw community, the neighborhood that is home to the Convention Center. The hour-long tour of selected artworks is free of charge.
- Duration: 60 minutes
- Location: Walter E. Washington Convention Center (Grand Lobby Entrance), 801 Allen Y. Lew Place, NW 20001
- Tour Guide: Robin Moore
Photos Coming Soon
The History of Shaw and U Street NW
Thursday, August 8, 2024
This walking tour traces the history of the U Street/Shaw area from the late 19th century to the present. Sites featured include, among others, the Civil War Memorial, and the history of how it got its name; the Howard Theatre and Duke Ellington statue; Camp Barker's role in protecting the "Contraband," i.e., the runaway enslaved, the circumstances of which created many subsequent organizations and places, including Howard University. Participants will also walk the U Street corridor, to include the history of Ben's Chili Bowl, the Lincoln and other theatres, various clubs and speakeasies and the long-standing presence of certain Black businesses in the corridor.
- Start Time: 3 p.m. (90 minutes)
- Location: African American Civil War Memorial (1925 Vermont Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001)
- Tour Guide: Judge Rohulamin Quander, life-long DC resident, licensed and certified tour guide and author
Photos coming soon
DC in the National Gallery of Art
Sunday, August 11, 2024
Join this interior tour of the Gallery's West and East buildings and see works by renowned artists such as Gilbert Stuart and Augustus St. Gaudens that touch on moments in D.C. history. Discover a surprising number of artists who called Washington, D.C. home, including Alma Thomas, Sam Gilliam, and Anne Truitt. Like the museum where their work is on display, they connected D.C. to the national art scene!
- Start Time: 9:30 a.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: Andrew W. Mellon Memorial Fountain (401 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC, 20002)
- Tour Guide: Carolyn Crouch, tour guide, founder of Washington Walks
Congress Heights - The Soul of the City That We All Should Explore
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Dubbed The Soul of the City, Congress Heights has deep neighborhood roots, particularly among creatives and long-time small business owners. It is a community anchored by neighbor-owned legacy retail, service and creative business and the new developments in the St Elizabeth's campus complex. We will explore the venerable and architecturally enticing Sycamore & Oak, a music, food and street art outpost; Congress Heights Arts Center; historic fire Engine Company 25; Gateway DC and Players Lounge, a hotbed for DC political dialog, and see some of the multi-use restorations of former St Elizabeth's hospital buildings, and an array of colorful murals. We will also address the five Jewish cemeteries that were consecrated here in the early 1900s.
- Start Time: 9:30 a.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: Sycamore & Oak (1112 Oak Drive, SE, Washington, DC, 20032)
- Tour Guide: Andrea Seiger, guidebook author, tour guide and curious Washingtonian
Penn Branch – A View from the Top
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Stately detached homes, quiet tree-lined streets and striking vistas that can stretch from Downtown to Silver Spring are just a few of the charms of this neighborhood. Discover the area’s history as part of a sprawling resort and planned development by a syndicate of prominent businesspeople that included Sen. George Hearst, President of New York Central Railroad Chauncey DePew and the Havemeyer family that owned Domino Sugar. Along the route, we'll pass a diverse array of homes that include works by notable DC architects.
- Start Time: 10 a.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: The Shops at Penn Branch (3200 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20020)
- Tour Guide: Jim Byers, neighborhood historian, author, former ANC commissioner and WPFW radio personality
Origins of Brookland: In Buildings, Topography and Stories of Early Residents
Saturday, August 24, 2024
Learn how Brookland developed from a farming community, producing vegetables and fruit for the center city markets in the 1880s, to a suburban development in the 1890s and then a bustling trolley car suburb in the 1920s. It will consider the influence of real estate investors such as Jesse Sherwood and John B. Lord and builders like George Heider and the architect, George Santmyers. We’ll also explore how early African American landowners acquired property during the 1890s and beyond, showing acreage. The tour will begin by showing the back acreage of the Franciscan Monastery and proceed south to see how suburban Brookland gradually grew.
- Start Time: 11 a.m. (90 minutes)
- Location: Brookland/CUA Metro Station (801 Michigan Avenue NE, Washington, DC 20017)
- Tour Guide: John Feeley Jr., historian, author and long-time resident of Brookland
1941 Prequel to the
1963 March on Washington: FDR's
Executive Order 8802
Thursday, August 29, 2024
Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin's effort to organize the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was foreshadowed by people demanding to have a march in 1941. At that time, the issues were integrating the military and allowing African Americans to get war production jobs. Who would Eleanor Roosevelt recruit to get Franklin Delano Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 8802?
- Start Time: 5:30 p.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (entrance near West Basin Drive SW)
- Tour Guide: Joseph Mohr, Ranger, National Park Service
1941 Prequel to the
1963 March on Washington: FDR's
Executive Order 8802
Friday, August 30, 2024
Phillip Randolph and Bayard Rustin's effort to organize the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was foreshadowed by people demanding to have a march in 1941. At that time, the issues were integrating the military and allowing African Americans to get war production jobs. Who would Eleanor Roosevelt recruit to get Franklin Delano Roosevelt to sign Executive Order 8802?
- Start Time: 12:30 p.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial (entrance near West Basin Drive SW)
- Tour Guide: Joseph Mohr, Ranger, National Park Service
Southwest Heritage Trail
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Until the 1950s, the neighborhood known as Southwest was Washington’s largest working-class, waterfront neighborhood. Then nearly all of Southwest was razed to create an entirely new city in the nation’s first experiment in urban renewal . Experience both the old and the new Southwest in the company of the first colonial settlers ; migrants and immigrants ; fishmongers, domestic workers, laborers, government clerks and congress members: all passengers on the journey from river farms to urban towers.
- Start Time: 9:30 a.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: Waterfront (399 M Street Southwest Washington, DC 20024)
- Tour Guide: Carolyn Crouch, tour guide and founder of Washington Walks
Art & History Are Alive in the Cemetery
Saturday, August 31, 2024
Historic Rock Creek Cemetery was established around 1726 & is one of the oldest cemeteries in the Mid-Atlantic. The churchyard has a history dating back to almost 75 years before the District of Columbia was established. On our tour, we will wander through portions of this 86-acre Nationally Registered Landmark known for its beautiful parklike settings and magnificent pieces of funerary sculpture, including the famous Augustus Saint-Gaudens Adams Memorial, nicknamed "Grief". We will also talk about famous -- and infamous -- luminaries that helped to shape not only DC, but the very nation itself. Art and History are truly alive in the Cemetery!
- Start Time: 11 a.m. (120 minutes)
- Location: Rock Creek Cemetary - Meet by the main gate (Webster Street, NW & Rock Creek Church Road, NW, Washington, DC, 20011)
- Tour Guide: Donald Harrell, amateur historian who loves Rock Creek Cemetery
