2 hours 30 minutes (approx.)
Daily Tour
15 people
English
Discover a side of Washington DC’s past that most history books leave out’and hear the city’s most salacious and sordid stories’on this immersive walking tour. Pick between afternoon and evening start times, and set out on foot. As you stroll along major arteries like Pennsylvania Avenue, learn about the area’s past as a red-light district, hear stories about the madams who shaped the city, and glimpse a number of highlight landmarks.
Where Freedom Plaza is now once used to be the notorious neighborhood known as Murder Bay. As we walk through this spacious open area currently used for festivals and music events, you’ll hear all about the taverns, gambling houses, and brothels popular with Northern Arm soldiers that used to stand there.
• Admission Ticket Included
On the block where the Trump International Hotel, formerly the Old Postal Office building, currently stands, was the 11th Street strip, a subsection of the Red Light district on Pennsylvania Avenue where the Military Provost Guard harassed and arrested some of the raucous Madams in the neighborhood.
15 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
Continuing in our journey through time, you’ll learn about the lives of prostitutes in Civil War DC and the part they played in society, as we pass by the former site of the largest central urban Market in DC.
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
We’ll stop for a drink at Hill Country BBQ (*cost of beverage not included), across the street from the International Order of Odd Fellows Temple. The IOOF supported the arts, and the art of having a good time. It was common to see the higher class working girls walking into a grand party hosted by the Odd Fellows, on the arm of an Army Officer. Scandalous!
20 minutes • Admission Ticket Not Included
The former site of Marble Alley, where two of DC’s highest paid Madams had a vicious rivalry.
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free
An archeological dig discovered the remains of DC most notorious, and yet charitable, Madams. The tour ends at this, the most glamorous of DC’s Civil War-era pleasure houses.
10 minutes • Admission Ticket Free