Ford’s Theatre is recognizable by its brick facade on Tenth Street Northwest, which features several altered window openings where brick colors differ due to repairs. Originally built in eighteen thirty-three as the First Baptist Church,…
Penn Quarter and Chinatown
This walking tour circles through the heart of historic downtown Washington, D.C., visiting sights associated with Abraham Lincoln's final hours, Civil War relief efforts, and Chinatown's landmark gateway.
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1. Ford's Theatre
2. Petersen House
The Petersen House is a plain red brick townhouse that stands three stories high with a basement. Built in eighteen forty-nine by a German tailor named William Petersen, the house functioned as a boarding house for residents and visitors…
3. Smithsonian American Art Museum
The Smithsonian American Art Museum occupies a massive, block-long structure of grey stone defined by its classical Greek Revival columns. This building, which covers the entire space between seventh, ninth, F, and G Streets, was…
4. Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office
The Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office is a slender, unassuming brick building on Seventh Street that narrowly escaped destruction. In nineteen ninety-six, it was a derelict structure slated for demolition when a government carpenter…
5. National Building Museum
The National Building Museum is a massive structure composed of over fifteen million red bricks. It features a terra cotta frieze, twelve hundred feet long, that wraps around the entire exterior. This detailed band of sculpture, created by…
6. Mary E. Surratt Boarding House
The building at six hundred four H Street Northwest is a three-and-a-half-story brick row house, distinguished today by the storefront of a Chinese restaurant at street level. Built in eighteen forty-three, this structure once served as…
7. Friendship Archway
The Friendship Archway spans H Street at 7th Street Northwest, recognizable by its seven pagoda-style roofs covered in seven thousand glazed tiles. This ceremonial gate, or paifang, stands forty-seven feet tall and seventy-five feet wide,…