Join Washington Walks on an exploration of one of D.C.’s oldest–and newest–neighborhoods. For 150 years Southwest Washington was a working waterfront community. Then urban renewal changed the landscape forever.
Consequently, the Southwest waterfront has morphed from a small collection of late 18th-century brick buildings along the Potomac River to a large group of mid 1960s structures of steel and concrete. During its history, this riverside community has been home to:
- elegant rowhouses builit in the 1790s
- the city’s first military post and eventual site of the “Lincoln Conspirators” execution
- a memorial to men who sacrified their lives aboard the doomed ocean liner Titanic
- the wharf where 77 enslaved women, men and youth attempted to sail to freedom aboard the schooner Pearl.
These touchstones to Washington’s earliest years just so happen to exist alongside one of its newest place-making developments, The Wharf. The walk concludes here, affording participants a chance to browse the shelves of Politics & Prose bookstore’s Water Street location or enjoy a post-tour gelato from Pitango.
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