Funkstown – DC History Center to Host FBA Map Project
By Frank Leone The Foggy Bottom Association History Project House History Map has a new home at the DC History Center (formerly the...
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Funkstown Blog
by Frank Leone
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Funkstown – New Washington Row Houses Book Features Foggy Bottom
By Frank Leone An excellent new book, The Row House in Washington DC – A History (U.Va. Press 2023) provides fascinating information on...
Funkstown – Reinventing Washington Circle
By Frank Leone Washington Circle is at the heart of Foggy Bottom/West End and a gateway to our Nation’s Capital. Yet too few people seem...
GWU Student Awarded Prize for Paper on Foggy Bottom
By Denise Vogt Here at the FBA History Project, we’ve long hoped a GWU student would be interested in our neighborhood’s history, use our...
Funkstown: The Body-Snatcher of Foggy Bottom
By Frank Leone Hughes Mews is a picturesque alley today, but at the turn of the 20th century, it housed “the most infamous professional...
Funkstown – Foggy Bottom’s Own C&O Canal Branch
By Frank Leone (The final part of our three part Washington Canal series – see Washington’s Canals and Washington’s Lost City Canal) The...
Funkstown – Oppenheimer and Foggy Bottom’s Einstein
By Frank Leone This summer’s hit film Oppenheimer gives us an excuse to talk about not only Edward Teller, but also about one of our...
Funkstown: Birth of The New West End
By Frank Leone Where and what is the “West End?” The “New West End” is approximately north of Foggy Bottom (K Street), south of Dupont...
Funkstown Plus: Washington’s Lost City Canal
By Frank Leone (part two of our three part Washington Canal series – see Washington’s Canals) Constitution Avenue now covers the path of...
Funkstown Plus – The Springs of Franklin Square Park
By Frank Leone Franklin Square Park is not in Foggy Bottom. But it is the area where I spent most of my 35 year working life and it was...
Funkstown Plus – Washington’s Canals
By Frank Leone The C&O canal is a historic and natural gem of the D.C. area. The canal, and its towpath, runs 184.5 miles from...
Funkstown Plus – Oppenheimer: Edward Teller and GWU
By Frank Leone Oppenheimer is a beautifully filmed and thought-provoking movie about the “father of the atomic bomb.” Among the...
Funkstown Plus - German-American Friendship Garden
By Frank Leone The FBA Newsletter and our regular Funkstown column is on summer break until September 2023, but we will provide these...
Funkstown – Foggy Bottom’s Own Walt Whitman Park
By Frank Leone In recognition of LGBTQ+ Pride Month, we want to call attention to the little-known Walt Whitman Park, in Foggy Bottom....
Funkstown – Foggy Bottom’s Hidden Landmark: Braddock’s Rock
By Frank Leone As you take the on-ramp to the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge to Arlington, you may notice what appears to be a round stone...
Funkstown - The Real Story of Jacob Funk
We are thrilled to provide this Guest Column by Virginia R. Nuta, a descendant of Jacob Funk, who recently presented at the D.C. History...
Funkstown: Slavery in Foggy Bottom
By Frank Leone April 16 marked D.C.’s Emancipation Day – the date in 1862 when President Lincoln signed legislation freeing enslaved...
FUNKSTOWN – FBHD House History Map launched at DC History Network!
By Frank Leone and Denise Vogt The FBA History Project shared its new Foggy Bottom Historic District House Map with many of the 675...
Funkstown – The Magnolias of Foggy Bottom’s Rawlins Park
By Frank Leone They are not as well-known as the Cherry Blossoms at the Tidal Basin, but Foggy Bottom shelters its own pink blooms in...
Funkstown – Geo. Washington Slept in Foggy Bottom: The Peter House
By Frank Leone In the late 1700s, George Washington would occasionally ride up from Mt. Vernon to visit the brand new national capital...
JOIN US AT THE DC HISTORY CONFERENCE - March 23-25, 2023
At the Martin Luther King Public Library. The DC History Conference is a FREE interdisciplinary, community conference with presentations...
Funkstown: Foggy Bottom’s Outstanding Women Leaders
By Frank Leone In honor of Women’s History month, we profile just a few of the women citizen activists who provided leadership to the...
GW Hatchet Op-ed: "Enrich your time in Foggy Bottom"
By Frank Leone and Denise Vogt Feb 13, 2023 3:01 AM Denise Vogt and Frank Leone are the co-chairs of the Foggy Bottom Association...
Funkstown – Foggy Bottom’s Lost African American Churches and Community
By Frank Leone During Black History Month, we recognize that Foggy Bottom is blessed to have St. Mary’s Episcopal Church [1] (728 23rd...
Funkstown: Find Foggy Bottom on this Extraordinary 1802 Embroidered and Painted Map
By: Frank Leone and Denise Vogt City of Washington maps from the early 1800s do not identify Foggy Bottom by name, but you can still see...
Funkstown – Urban Change in the 1950s and the Birth of the Foggy Bottom Association
By Frank Leone The 1950s transformed Foggy Bottom through renovation of historic buildings, new apartment construction, urban renewal...
Funkstown – The Three St. Mary’s Courts
By Frank Leone St. Mary’s Episcopal Church is the Renwick-designed, Tiffany-windowed gem of Foggy Bottom. The historic church (728 23rd...
Reclaiming the Foggy Bottom Waterfront
By Frank Leone We have the opportunity to reclaim the area west of the Foggy Bottom Historic District to the Potomac River, that “dense...
FUNKSTOWN – The Highway that Ate Foggy Bottom
by Frank Leone The area stretching from the Foggy Bottom Historic District west to the Potomac River is a maze of expressways, ramps,...
Funkstown – Ward 2 Heritage Guide – including Foggy Bottom – Published!
By Frank Leone The excellent D.C Historic Preservation Office has been issuing Heritage Guides of Washington’s eight wards over the past...
Funkstown – Foggy Bottom’s John J. Earley – The Man Who Made Concrete Beautiful
By Frank Leone The GW Deli is a well-known cultural landmark, but right next door is an unrecognized historic landmark – the John J....
Who’s Been Sleeping in Your House? (Researching House Histories)
By Denise Vogt The 1950 census is available for everyone to view on a free, dedicated website from the National Archives:...
Funkstown: You’re Invited! Foggy Bottom Historic District Walking Tour Presentations
By Frank Leone Join us for free in-person and/or zoom presentations of the Foggy Bottom Historic District walking tours featuring...
Funkstown: Foggy Bottom honors US Revolutionary War Hero Gálvez of Spain
By Frank Leone George Washington isn’t the only U.S. Revolutionary War hero recognized in the Foggy Bottom area. Spanish General and...
Funkstown: The Underwood House - A Couple Who Died on the Titanic, an Anti-Klan Alabama Senator, an
By Frank Leone The impressive Second Empire style brick house with a mansard roof at 20th and G Streets is the former home of...
Funkstown: GWU’s Lisner Auditorium – Distinctive Design, Desegregation, and Dylan
By Frank Leone The George Washington University’s most significant architectural landmark is the limestone-clad cube of Lisner Auditorium...
FB Historic Preservation Updates: GWU's Staughton Hall Gone and a New House for Snows Court
GWU’s Staughton Hall – 1916-2022 Last Fall, we posted a Funkstown article on GWU’s Staughton Hall – the building, named for the first...
Funkstown: The Watergate Break-In at 50
By Frank Leone June 17, 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of the Nixon campaign break-in at the Democratic National Committee offices at...
Funkstown: Foggy Bottom’s Monumental Northwest Rectangle
By Frank Leone The Federal Triangle gets all the attention. That sliver of federal buildings (15th to 6th Streets, where Constitution...
Funkstown – Asian Americans in Foggy Bottom – The Manila House
By Frank Leone One of the oldest buildings in the Foggy Bottom Historic District is a distinctive Italian Villa style house, which is...
Funkstown: Foggy Bottom’s “Avenue of the Americas”
By Frank Leone When Major Pierre L’Enfant laid out the new City of Washington, he called this street Virginia Avenue NW. But it now...
Funkstown – Capitol Hill Alleys
By Frank Leone Foggy Bottom is justifiably proud of Snows Court and Hughes Mews and their 1880s-era brick alley houses. See...
Funkstown – Foggy Bottom’s Lost African American Churches: Liberty Baptist
By Frank Leone The Foggy Bottom African American community was anchored in its churches. From about 1910-1960, such churches offered not...
Funkstown: Pete the Goat and Irish Foggy Bottom
By Frank Leone The Foggy Bottom area, especially the Historic District, is known for the Irish immigrant workers who settled there during...
Funkstown: Martha B. Briggs and her Lost Schools
By Frank Leone Martha Bailey Briggs (1838-1889) was an African American educator who served D.C. as principal of the Miner Normal School...
GWU Student Creates FBA History Project Video
Ethan Benn, a GWU Journalism major, has prepared a 2 1/2 minute video on the Foggy Bottom History Project. The video uses comments...
Funkstown – Colbert King Remembers Foggy Bottom
Colbert King, Pulitzer prize-winning columnist for the Washington Post, grew up in Foggy Bottom in the 1940s and 1950s, when the area was...
Funkstown: What Do the Underground Railroad and the GWU President’s House Have in Common?
By Frank Leone On the night of April 15, 1848, 13-year old Emily Edmondson left Foggy Bottom to join her sister and four brothers who...
Funkstown: Foggy Bottom Discovers the Moons of Mars
The two moons of Mars were discovered by astronomer Asaph Hall, looking through the then largest refracting telescope in the world, on...
Funkstown: The FBA History Project in 2021 and Beyond
Since its founding in January 2021, the Foggy Bottom Association’s History Project has made major progress: First, we’ve added our...
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