23 Ways to Support Historic Preservation in DC (during National Preservation Month and Year Round)

1. Become a member of the DC Preservation League, your neighborhood preservation group (such as Capitol Hill Restoration Society, Historic Takoma, or Historic Mount Pleasant), and join the National Trust for Historic Preservation while you're at it. (If you join that National Trust, you can visit affiliate organization museums at a discount, and I think NT owned facilities for free. And discounts on items purchased.)

2. Volunteer. Get involved in a preservation issue in your neighborhood or the city at large, which could include attending meetings of the Historic Preservation Review Board, or joining the Main Street commercial district revitalization group in your neighborhood.

3. See a movie or play at a historic theater. There aren't many historic cinemas in DC proper any more, but the Uptown Theater in Cleveland Park is one. (Help the Takoma Theatre Conservancy get ownership of the Takoma Theatre.) For "legitimate" theaters you have many choices, such as the Warner, the National, the Studio Theatre, the Lincoln Theatre, the Shakespeare Theatre at the Landsburgh, the Atlas Performing Arts Center, the H Street Playhouse, ...

4. Shop at stores in commercial districts that are historically designated: i.e., Cleveland Park; Georgetown; Capitol Hill; Dupont Circle.

5. Eat in a restaurant in a historic building/historic district. It's not that old, only 50 years, but Ben's Chili Bowl is one of the few remaining restaurants in the city that is truly old...


5. Explore a place in the city that you don't know. Go on a neighborhood tour, such as those sponsored by Cultural Tourism DC or neighborhood groups, a house tour, or building tour. Check out a talk (not all of them cost money) at the National Building Museum.

6. Shop at Eastern Market, the city's last remaining public food market, built in 1873.

Photo by Keith Stanley. The building is undergoing restoration due to last years's fire, but will reopen. The Market is still going, with the inside food vendors still going strong, in a temporary building across the street.

7. Check out the resources at the Washingtoniana Collection at the Martin Luther King Central Library, the Kiplinger Library at the Historical Society of Washington, the Jewish Historical Society.

8. Learn. Read Dream City: Race, Power, and the Decline of Washington, D.C., 1964 -1994 and Between Justice and Beauty, and more...

9. Such as going to a conference such as Preservation Maryland, the annual meeting of the National Trust for Historic Preservation (this year it's in Tulsa), the National Main Street conference, and when you visit other places, check out how they deal with historic preservation matters, and offer that learning to us when you come back.

10. Read at least one of the historic district brochures, available online or in hard copy at the Historic Preservation Office.

11. And follow the path of one of the many Heritage Trails "produced" by CulturalTourismDC.


12. Take a walk or bicycle ride along the C&O Canal.

13. Visit one of the historic cemeteries in the city, such as Congressional Cemetery or the Rock Creek Church Cemetery at St. Paul's Episcopal Church.

14. Explore historic preservation matters in the region, beyond the borders of DC. Go to the Bladensburg Waterfront Park in Bladensburg, Maryland and consider the time when this was a major port, when tobacco was king, and DC was still part of Prince George's County, Maryland. They offer river rides on the weekends, including a jaunt into DC to the National Arboretum.

15. The Anacostia Community Museum has an exhibit that I still haven't gone to see, "East of the River: Continuity and Change."

16. Check out the architecture of a historic church, especially the stained glass windows. (St. Mark's on Capitol Hill has a Tiffany stained glass window. My friend Daniel Wolkoff repairs and restores stained glass windows, including spectacular windows at Catholic University

17. Encourage your friends to stay at a historic hotel in the city or a bed and breakfast located in one of the city's historic districts. Now, I don't think Tabard Inn is in a historic district, but it's one of the most romantic places in the city to have weekend brunch--out on the patio, during the spring, summer, and fall.

18. Walk on the grounds of one of the universities (CUA, Trinity, Georgetown, Howard, Gallaudet). E.g., Kendall Green at Gallaudet was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.

19. Visit Union Station. Last year was its 100th anniversary. Designed by Daniel Burnham, it's an incredible example of the City Beautiful Movement. Check out chapters from Bill Wright's dissertation on Union Station. He's a great writer!

And when the National Museum of American History reopens, go see the exhibit on transportation history, "America on the Move." Part of it uses Washington as an example specifically. But in any case, it explains the role of transportation in urban and regional development, and will give you a lot of insight into these issues as they relate to the DC region.


20. Ride Amtrak, MARC, or VRE along rail lines in the region. And check out the B&O Railroad Museum (Baltimore) and the National Capital Trolley Museum (Montgomery County, Maryland).

21. Visit one of the Fort Circle Parks in the city, sites of Civil War forts erected to protect the city from the Confederates. Fort Stevens, hidden behind a church on Georgia Avenue, around Quackenbos Street NW, was attacked by Confederate forces, and President Lincoln was up there and watched.

22. Learn about the L'Enfant Plan and the McMillan Commission, so that you can understand the antecedents of the city, and make better land use decisions going forward, for your neighborhood and for the city. Start with Washington in Maps by Iris Miller and Washington: Through Two Centuries by Joseph Passonneau. And see the "Washington: Symbol and City" exhibit at the National Building Museum.

23. Visit the Lincoln Cottage on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home. Or the Octagon House, or the Scottish Rite Temple on 16th Street, or ...?

24. A number of DC's libraries were built with support from the Carnegie Foundation (Northeast, Southeast, the old Carnegie Library downtown, Takoma, and Mount Pleasant, which is particularly gorgeous). Visit one.


25. what suggestions do you have?