Washington, D.C.
Volta Laboratory & Bureau
Helen Keller once broke ground on this historic center for the study of technologies to benefit the hearing impaired.
Places chip520 Wants to Go
672
Places I want to go
Places on this traveler's wishlist.
Washington, D.C.
Sharpshooter's Tree
A diminutive plaque recalls the treetop sniper who almost killed Abe Lincoln.
Washington, D.C.
C&O Boat Elevator Ruins
This forgotten boat elevator was an engineering marvel in its heyday.
Washington, D.C.
Eritrean Cultural Civic Center
Daily lunch spot for many of Washington, D.C.'s cab drivers.
Washington, D.C.
National Cathedral Bell Tower
There’s a special club house at the top for the bell ringers.
Washington, D.C.
Library of Congress Book Conveyor Tunnel
A fantastic array of trays and cables once whisked books over to the Capitol at 600 feet per minute.
Washington, D.C.
Arizona Avenue Trestle
The span is crooked and made from two older recycled bridges.
Washington, D.C.
The National Gallery's Art Materials Collection
The institution is sitting on a goldmine of 21,000 paints, varnishes, pigments, and primers preserved for posterity.
Washington, D.C.
Mary's Garden
An overlooked oasis of quiet on the grounds of Washington's monumental basilica.
Washington, D.C.
NIST Newton Apple Tree
A clone of a cloned tree that was so important it allegedly had its own guards.
Washington, D.C.
Capitol Tile Room
In the basement of the U.S. Capitol Building is a hidden storage room full of ornate floor tiles leftover from the 1850s.
Washington, D.C.
Alferd Packer Cannibal Plaque
A brass plaque dedicated to a convicted cannibal hangs in the National Press Club, and that's not even the craziest part of the story.
Washington, D.C.
Godey Lime Kilns
A historic ruin just 20 feet away from a busy highway onramp.
Washington, D.C.
Serenity Statue
This poor little statue is the most vandalized memorial in Washington.
Washington, D.C.
U.S. Naval Observatory Library
A hoard of sky catalogs, astrophysical journals, even the works of Galileo and Copernicus.
Washington, D.C.
Treasury Department Cash Vault
Where the U.S. government kept its actual treasure, before Fort Knox.
Washington, D.C.
Historic Elevator at Potbelly
This sandwich shop has a century-old elevator behind a sheet of plexiglass.
Washington, D.C.
Fort Reno Park
The only Civil War battle in Washington D.C. took place near this highest natural point in the city.
Permanently Closed
Washington, D.C.
United Brick Corporation Ruins
Once the supplier for noteworthy projects like the National Cathedral, this old brickworks now lies abandoned.
Washington, D.C.
Peirce Mill Spy Station
Cold War intelligence agents monitored communist embassies from an attic in a former pigeon coop.
Washington, D.C.
The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations' Millennium General Assembly
Light bulbs, scrap wood, and tinfoil comprise this homemade throne of the gods.
Washington, D.C.
Ruins of the McMillan Sand Filtration Site at Reservoir Park
An Industrial Revolution-era public work that purified water using nothing but sand.
Permanently Closed
Washington, D.C.
Site of the Knickerbocker Disaster
You could be standing at the site of one of D.C.'s most fatal tragedies and not even know it.
Washington, D.C.
Carnegie Library of Washington, D.C.
D.C.'s first central library was born out of a chance encounter with the philanthropist whose name it bears.
