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LGBTQ+ History Walking Tour
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Happy Pride! On Saturday, June 27, the DC Preservation League and Historic Preservation Office welcomed 24 attendees to explore the LGBTQ+ history of the Dupont Circle neighborhood. We learned about Annie Katinas's early support for gay people at Annie's Steakhouse, the balls and parties for Black and Brown people thrown at the Cairo, and the organizers of DC's first Pride Parade in 1972 at the Community Building and Gay Liberation Front House.Â
Stay tuned next year for more tours of this important local history!
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Designing Queer Futures: Developing LGBTQIA+ Design Principles
Last year, our Urban Design team launched the Designing Queer Futures initiative to better understand how planning, design, and public space can support LGBTQIA+ residents throughout DC and help create more inclusive, equitable, and welcoming places. The project sought to elevate voices and experiences that are often overlooked in planning processes and explore ways DC can foster belonging, visibility, and stability for the LGBTQIA+ community. The project began with a community survey during World Pride and a public workshop in December 2025, which centered on housing, belonging, history, and storytelling. Themes identified through the survey and workshop informed a working group made up of community members and advocates.
From February through May, guest speakers with expertise in housing, storytelling and public art, public space, and workforce and economic opportunity shared their knowledge and lived experience with the working group. Drawing on the speakers expertise and own perspectives, the working group developed a set of LGBTQIA+ Design Principles to guide our future planning work.
The design principles provide a framework for considering how planning and policy decisions can better support LGBTQIA+ residents, workers, and visitors across the District. Key themes include equitable and gender-inclusive housing, support for long-standing communities, cultural anchors, recognition of LGBTQIA+ histories and stories, and the creation of welcoming public spaces that foster belonging and visibility.
We’re hosting an event today, June 30, from 5-7pm in our lobby, to share the principles and start a conversation on how they can be implemented. If you missed it, don’t worry, we’ll share more about this work in future newsletters.
By mayoral proclamation, June is DC Archaeology Month. We had a very successful month promoting the District's archaeology work and encouraging young people to explore archaeology as a career field.
On June 6, we greeted more than 150 people at the Day of Archaeology Festival at Catholic University, where we taught kids about historic artifacts through guessing games and a corn husk doll craft.
The festival host, Archaeology in the Community, also presented the 2026 DC Archaeology Month poster pictured at right. They collaborated with Justine Swindell (a DC artist and Catholic University alum), the Catholic University Archaeology program, and our office to design the poster. It focuses on the investigations of the Sidney archaeological site, the country home and plantation of the Smith family (now part of Catholic's campus). The poster also more broadly reflects the changing landscapes of the Brookland neighborhood. Check out a short video from Dr. Laura Masur about the field school investigations.
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On Juneteenth, we led a press tour of a historic site for Black history in DC, alongside a grant partner. DC content creators joined us at Woodlawn Cemetery, which is a beautiful site in Benning Ridge no longer in active operation as a cemetery. It holds the memorials, burials, and stories of many Black leaders who lived and worked in DC but is normally closed to the public. We are working to make this site more accessible to the public, however, via a grant program initiated this year.
Director Cozart and Toni White-Richardson, President of the Woodlawn Cemetery Perpetual Care Association - pictured here, led the tour.
Interested in learning about and supporting DC's historic Black cemeteries? Join a volunteer clean-up day at Woodlawn or our other grant recipient, Mt. Zion and Female Union Band Historic Memorial Park in Georgetown. Also, check out the videos shown below made by tour participants! From left to right: @AustinKGraff, @pootie_ting, and @longwalksdc.
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Our historic preservation work is guided by a five-year planning cycle. A new accomplishments report measures the collective success of many groups and individuals in advancing the benefits of historic preservation in the District of Columbia over the past five years, from January 2021-December 2025.
Read the 2025 Historic Preservation Plan Accomplishments Report
We want to hear from you! Share your perspective on the accomplishments report through a short survey to help shape the next five years of historic preservation.
Learn more and get involved in our community planning projects:
Join us at the following events where OP staff will be available to answer questions and share information about our work:
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June 30 | Designing Queer Futures: Final Session | 5 - 7 pm | Virtual and in person at 899 North Capitol St. NE, 1st Floor
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June 30 | RFK Campus Draft Master Plan Webinar | 7-8 pm | Online
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July 18 | Tabling at the H St Farmers Market | 9 am - 12:30 pm | 800 13th St NE
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July 21 | Brookland Civic Association Presentation | 6:30-8 pm | 3101 14th St NE
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July 28 | OP Library Office Hours | 3:30-5 pm | Woodridge Library | 1801 Hamlin St NE
Left: Attendees craft corn husk dolls with our Archaeology team at the DC Day of Archaeology Festival on June 6; Right: Director Cozart speaks with reporters on the RFK Campus to get the word out about the draft RFK Campus Master Plan on June 30
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