Posts about History
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Where is Silver Spring? It depends who you ask
You could ask five residents what Silver Spring’s boundaries are and receive five different answers, ranging from a neighborhood near the DC line to a city the size of the District of Columbia itself. But how did it end up this way to begin with? The answer involves a railroad, zip codes, and possibly Marion Barry. Keep reading…
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How does street naming work in DC?
Most out-of-towners and even many residents don’t understand the full ingenuity of the District’s street naming system. Keep reading…
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What if we’d followed a 1912 plan to build streetcar tunnels around the White House?
As GGWash looks forward to celebrating our 18th birthday, we’re also looking back on some posts from our history. This one considers a streetcar idea that is more than a century old. Keep reading…
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Frequently asked questions about the missing Georgetown Metro station
Following the 20th anniversary of Zachary Schrag’s The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro, and the 50th anniversary of the first Metrorail service, Schrag offers his best answers to key questions about Georgetown and Metro. Keep reading…
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How the J. Edgar Hoover Building changed Pennsylvania Avenue
The creation of the soon-to-be-former building reshaped the landscape of Pennsylvania Avenue. Keep reading…
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In the 1940s, a hand-me-down bridge ran over the Potomac
The second span of Long Bridge will double rail capacity across the Potomac. It’s not the first attempt to increase capacity by building a second rail crossing of the river in the District: During World War II, the US Army Corps of Engineers built an “Emergency Bridge” across the Potomac to increase capacity and provide a back-up if Nazi saboteurs damaged or destroyed Long Bridge. Keep reading…
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How has DC’s built environment changed in the past 50 years? Watch “All the President’s Men” to find out
If we take a look at what “All the President’s Men” filming locations look like now, we can see changes to the streetscape and built environment that tell us a lot about how DC has changed, and stayed the same, over the past half century. Keep reading…
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“No gentleman”: A history of violence and resistance on Swann Street
Swann Street is where a former member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency was beaten and bloodied by two teenagers in August 2025. Before that, Swann Street and the surrounding neighborhood witnessed more than a century of violence and resistance, espionage and counterintelligence, state power and defiance, arrivals and forced departures. Keep reading…
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GGWash Picks 2025: How, in 2016, we got less of Lanier Heights
GGWash Picks 2025: While the District’s population went up by 15% between 2010 and 2020, Lanier Heights’ population increased only 3%. A downzoning is a big part of the reason the neighborhood hasn’t grown. Keep reading…
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In the years after the Civil War, Washington became a junction between northern and southern railroads
Washingtonians in 1860 could take trains directly to Baltimore and from there to Philadelphia, Harrisburg, or the trans-Appalachian West. A journey from Alexandria to Richmond, however, required a 50-mile detour through Gordonsville, Virginia. Keep reading…