Washington, DC Presidential Inaugural 2009

Come for the Inauguration,
Stay for the History

The staff of the National Register of Historic Places/ National Historic Landmark Survey welcome visitors to DC and we can recommend a few places that we enjoy, in no particular order. Some have been included in a Washington, DC Online Travel Itinerary we created a few years ago.

For more information: All listed properties in DC are in our new database
Find these properties on our map of DC

Please keep in mind that not all of these properties are open to the public.

Bowen, Anthony, YMCA NPS Photo taken by Stephanie Massaro and Christine Messing

Bowen , Anthony, YMCA (Twelfth Street YMCA Building) - 1816 12th St. NW: Right off the U Street corridor, this NHL was the home of the first African American YMCA chapter in the U.S. It's beautifully renovated and has a replica of the tiny room that young men would rent out while traveling in D.C. Thurgood Marshall was also a guest there while preparing the Brown v. BoE arguments. - Recommended by Turkiya
documentation / photographs / our new database

Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site- 1318 Vermont Ave., NW: NHL (and NHS) honoring the founder of Bethune-Cookman College in Daytona and the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), located at 1318 Vermont Ave, NW. Mrs. Bethune was also the first African American woman Cabinet member (in the F.D.R. Administration) and she and Eleanor Roosevelt were very close friends. The site also contains the National Black Women's Archives, which contains the largest collection of documents on black women's organizations and has very rare recordings of Mrs. Bethune and First Lady Roosevelt at joint speaking engagements. The House was the first national headquarters of NCNW.- Recommended by Turkiya
National Park* / our new database / travel itinerary

American National Red Cross (The Marble Castle) - 17th and D Sts., NW: Built with both Federal and private funds, this building illustrates the cooperation of government and
private efforts in carrying out the important duties of the Red Cross. They give tours there, and it's right off the Elipse. - recommended by Stephanie
documentation / photographs / our new database

Massachusetts Avenue Historic District - Both sides of Massachusetts Ave. between 17th St. and Observatory Circle, NW: In this linear district of unique Beaux Arts residential architecture the kinetic essence of Pierre L'Enfant's Baroque plan for the city of Washington is admirably realized.
Notable buildings in this district include: all of Embassy Row, The Phillips Collection, the Blaine Mansion and many others.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

St. Matthews Cathedral NPS Photo taken by Stephanie Massaro and Christine Messing

St. Matthew's Cathedral And Rectory - 1725--1739 Rhode Island Ave., NW: The cathedral, the principal church of the archdiocese of Washington since 1939, has been the site of a number of important services most notably the funeral of President Kennedy on November 25, 1963. The rectory which was designed by La Farge and erected in 1910 is a handsome Renaissance Revival brick townhouse.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Memorial Continental Hall (Daughters of the American Revolution) - 1776 D St., NW:During the early years of its existence, Memorial Continental Hall served not only as a meeting place for the annual DAR conferences, but, frequently, for other important occasions of both official and unofficial Washington.
documentation / photographs / our new database

Octagon, The - 1799 New York Ave., NW: The Octagon, constructed from 1799 to 1800, is the national headquarters of the American Institute of Architects. This three-story brick house, adapted to an irregular building lot, displays a dramatic break with the traditional, late Georgian and early Federal house planning that preceded it.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Corcoran Gallery of Art - 17th St. at New York Ave., NW: The Corcoran Gallery of Art is the oldest art museum in Washington, D.C. and one of the three oldest museums in the country. documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Lafayette Square Historic District - Roughly between 15th and 17th Sts. and H St. and State and Treasury Places: Facing the White House, Lafayette Park includes statues honoring American war heroes Gen. Andrew Jackson, General Lafayette, General Rochambeau, General Thaldeus Koscuiszko, and General von Stueben. Surrounding Lafayette Park and adjacent to it are a number of buildings of special historical and architectural interest..
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Blair House - 1651 Pennsylvania Ave., NW: Since 1942 the Federal government's Official Guest Residence, significant for the great number of dignitaries who have resided or been received there. Previous residents have included Francis P. Blair, Sr., a member of Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet," and George Bancroft.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Executive Office Building - Pennsylvania Ave. and 17th St., NW: Aggressively different from the more subdued government buildings in Washington, the State, War, and Navy Building has become a paradigm of post-civil war architecture and one of the three grandest structures in the United States in its style.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Ford's Theatre National Historic Site - 10th St., NW., between E and F Sts: This theater was the location of the assassination' of Abraham Lincoln on the night of April 14, 1865, while the President and Mrs. Lincoln were attending a performance of the play, "Our American Cousin."
documentation / photographs /National Park* / our new database / travel itinerary

Georgetown Market NPS Photo taken by Stephanie Massaro and Christine Messing

Georgetown Historic District & Georgetown Market - Roughly bounded by Whitehaven St., Rock Creek Park, Potomac River, and Georgetown University campus: Georgetown's history stretches back to 1621, when Henry Fleete, an- English colonist from Jamestown, sailed up the Potomac River with a small party of men in search of corn. Fleete and his men were captured by the Anacostan Indians at the village of Tohoga, near the site of the future Georgetown. Now its famous for its shopping, architecture, food, and home to Georgetown University. - recommended by Stephanie. Bonus points if you can find the steps from the Excorcist movie.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Dumbarton Oaks Park and Montrose Park - entrance from Lovers Lane, off R St. between 31 st and 32 nd Sts:The gardens as a whole are intimately related to the Blisses' mission for the Dumbarton Oaks Collections and their research programs, providing an idyllic oasis for scholars engaged in a wide range of humanistic study. - closed to visitors. - recommended by Stephanie
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Old Stone House in Georgetown - 3051 M St., NW: The Old Stone House is believed to be the oldest pre-Revolutionary building in Washington, DC - recommended by Stephanie
documentation / photographs / National Park* / our new database / travel itinerary

US Department of the Interior Building - Eighteenth and C Sts. NW: The Interior Building is an excellent example of Federal government architecture that, in both conception and design, reflects the humanisitic concern and "progress!vism" which characterized Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Administration.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

C & O Canal PNPS Photo taken by Stephanie Massaro and Christine Messing

Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park (and the $5 ride!) - 1057 Thomas Jefferson St NW, Georgetown: One of the most intact and impressive survivals of the American canal-building era.- recommended by Stephanie
documentation / photographs / National Park* our new database / travel itinerary

Army Medical Museum (National Museum of Health and Medicine): 6900 Georgia Avenue, N.W. at Walter Reed Army Medical Center: If you are tired of the history and the culture, and just want to look at a freak show, there is some seriously disturbing medical oddities in this museum. - recommended by Paul
documentation / photographs / our new database

Old Ebbitt Grill - 675 15th Street, NW, in the Fifteenth Street Financial Historic District (not in its original location), but it's in the old Galt and Co. Building -- Woodrow Wilson's second wife was a Galt and part of why he lived in DC post Presidency - recommended by Brian
documentation / photographs / our new database

Meridian Hill Park - Bounded by 16th, Euclid, 15th, and W Sts., NW: for the view of the White House and Washington Monument, plus there are bonus army encampments in the park - recommended by Brian
documentation / photographs / National Park* / our new database / travel itinerary

Douglass , Frederick, National Historic Site (Cedar Hill) - 1411 W St., SE: in Anacostia, the city's first suburb -- plus you can see the Big Chair (if you have to ask, then you haven't seen it yet) - recommended by Brian
documentation / photographs / National Park* / our new database / travel itinerary

Andrew Rankin Memorial Chapel, Frederick Douglas Memorial Hall, Founders Library - 2441 and 2365 6th St. NW; and 500 Howard Place NW: A portion of the Howard University campus is nationally significant as the setting for the institution's role in the legal establishment of racially desegregated public education and for its association with two nationally recognized leaders of that fight: Charles Hamilton Houston and Thurgood Marshall.- recommended by Patty
documentation / photographs / our new database

Anderson, Larz, House NPS Photo taken by Stephanie Massaro and Christine Messing

Anderson , Larz, House (The Society of the Cincinnati National Headquarters, Museum and Library) - 2118 Massachusetts Ave., NW:George Washington was the society's first president.
Pierre L' Enfant designed the Order of the Cincinnati. Membership in the Society, based on primogeniture, is now reserved to one male descendant of each qualified officer of the Revolutionary War. - recommended by Patty
documentation / photographs / our new database

Eastern Market - 7th and C Sts., SE: It's east of and fairly close to the Capital. Suggested for the food. The original building is under construction. The building was damaged from a recent fire. In the meantime, the vendors have moved into a temporary location (tent) across the
street from the original building.- recommended by Ricah
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Capitol Hill Historic District/Barracks Row - Roughly bounded by Virginia Ave., SE., S. Capitol St., F St. NE., and 14th Sts. SE & NE: In accordance with the 1791 L'Enfant Plan for the Federal City, the United States Capitol Building was situated upon the crest of the hill facing the city. Stretching easterly behind the Capitol building along the wide avenues and around the squares of the L'Enfant Plan lies the residential area wlich is today called "Capitol Hill.". - recommended by Ricah
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Sumner, Charles, School - 17th and M Sts., NW:Named for Charles Sumner, a major figure in the fight for abolition of slavery and the establishment of equal rights for Blacks, it was one of the first public school buildings erected for the education of Blacks in Washington and encompasses in its history a sense of the evolving educational opportunities for Blacks in the District of Columbia since that time.
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Pennsylvania Avenue National Historic Site - On PA Ave. roughly bounded by Constitution Ave.. 15th, F. and 3rd streets: Parade Route: Over its 200-year history, Pennsylvania Avenue and its environs have undergone a tremendous physical transformation from L'Enfant's 1791 plan for connecting the "President's House" with the "Congress House" with a broad diagonal avenue to its current thriving twenty-first-century presence. There are a few NRHP listings along the way.
documentation / photographs / National Park* / our new database / travel itinerary

Ben's Chili Bowl - 1213 U Street N.W (Greater U Street Historic District): Washington's most famous chili dog, but the shakes are just as good. - recommended by Jeff
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

Artemus Ward at Ward Circle, Darth Vader Gargoyle at the National Cathedral Ward photo from Flickr, courtesy of M. V. Jantzen, Vader photo from Flickr, courtesy of Laura Padgett

Darth Vader in DC??? Ward Circle - intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska Aves. When approaching Ward Circle at night, you may, like countless American University students wonder why the city put a a statue of Darth Vader in DC, but no, its not the Dark Lord of the Sith, it's Artemus Ward, the commander of American forces at Bunker Hill. However, there really is a Darth Vader gargoyle up the block on the National Cathedral at Wisconsin and Massachusetts Ave., NW. - recommended by Jeff
documentation / photographs / our new database / travel itinerary

* We use "National Park" to encompass National Parks, Monuments, Preserves, Sites, Memorials, Cemeteries, Parkways, and other units of the National Park Service.

• Welcome to Washington, DC
• Washington, DC Travel Itinerary
• American Presidents Travel Itinerary (covers the entire country)
• Find historic sites in DC - with maps and our database
• Places recommended by the National Register Staff
• Photo gallery of historic properties in DC
• Links to Related Websites