These local authors walk you through D.C. history

The best people (in my opinion) are the people who, when out on a walk, are always going: “I wonder what that is?”

My best friend is this type of person. It’s partially why she’s my best friend. She notices the colors of front doors, interesting brick patterns, uniquely flowering trees. Even when walking down the same street in Columbia Heights we’d lived on together for two years, passing the same houses and sidewalks and lampposts we saw every day, she could find something to wonder about. In simple terms, she’s curious about the world around her. 

Reading a new guidebook from three local experts is like going on a walk with that type of person. "22 Walks In Washington That You Must Not Miss" takes flâneurs on architectural deep-dives, down weird pop-culture rabbit holes, and occasionally, into the darker stories that make up the city’s history. 

Author Andrea Sieger has penned another D.C. guidebook – "111 Places in Washington That You Must Not Miss" – while co-writer Paige Muller is a tour guide who creates itineraries for surprising treks through D.C.’s history and culture. Together with local photographer Shedrick Pelt (whose work is all over our website!), they put in hundreds of thousands of steps – and several days in the D.C. Public Library archives – to narrate the District’s weird, fascinating, and disturbing stories via physical walking routes.

“What each of us does in the city, we pretty much – literally and figuratively – walk in each other's footsteps,” Pelt says. “There's no better trio to do this than three people that are literally out in the community on a daily basis. It adds some authenticity and some realness about the project.” 

Each walk is around a mile long and centered around a theme. For instance, the “All That Jazz Walk” traces Duke Ellington’s life and achievements by taking readers around U Street (formerly known as Black Broadway). Another explores the hidden alley houses of Capitol Hill. For every walk, Seiger and Muller give you a start and end point, a brief description of the terrain — is it hilly, or flat? Is it busy with cars? – and recommended season and time of day. Then, they literally walk through history, telling you exactly when to look up, when to look down, and in what direction to find the artifacts of D.C. life decades or centuries ago. 

We met with the trio to talk about the book, what went into making it, and why it’s worth reading, even for lifelong residents. 

This interview was lightly edited for length and clarity. 

How did you come up with the idea for this book?

Seiger: I'm the author of "111 Places in Washington That You Must Not Miss," which is from the same publisher. They approached me to write "22 Walks," and said, based on their experience, that it was a two-person job. I put Paige's name on the table, and she submitted a writing sample. And then we wrote together – apart. We divided up the city and proceeded from there. Our mission from the outset was to cover as much as we could of the city through the lens of having our walking shoes on. 

Muller: And I knew Shedrick because I had met him randomly at an event. I really liked his work, and so when this opportunity came up, he was the perfect person for it. I knew that he had a passion for D.C., and I loved his photography. We all kind of came together randomly, but we were the perfect random people to work together on this. 

What was the research process like? 

Muller: Some of it was my institutional knowledge, but a lot of it was also going down rabbit holes – spending a lot of time at the D.C. Public Library, making use of their archives. Information might be mentioned on a plaque, but I always want to dig deeper. Like “oh wow, who was this and what happened here?” A lot of it was just really trying to see: What other stories does this lead me to? Each walk is only part of a larger story, and I think the more you go on these walks, you'll hopefully start realizing that there are points of intersection. People didn't just stay in one neighborhood; history travels, and one story influences another. 

Seiger: I think some of the fun of it, for me, was that every [walk] had to have a theme, so digging for the theme was an interesting proposition. For example, I had the most fun with Embassy Row because we hear the same 50 stories about that area. I thought: there's gotta be a different lens. For some reason, I looked into the symbolism a flag, and that started me down the route of [finding] stories behind the flags of the world. My theme for Embassy Row was not the houses, but the art and symbolism of the flags themselves. And then you know, it’s back to the [DCPL] Archives, looking in the giant books of D.C. maps. There were days when I would just do this on the map [gestures with pointer finger] and start looking for places. I’d also do that on my Google map, too. The map was my inspiration – and following weird stories.

Pelt: It was a long haul. I ended up sending at least 1,000 photos, and they only used I think 300? And some of these walks weren’t one-and-done. It may be because I’m a perfectionist, but you walk up some blocks and there’s a shadow over the important part of the scene. I’m like, alright, I’m here today. I can take the photo now, or I could come back at 9 a.m. and get it when the light is perfect. So sometimes I had to do that. There definitely were neighborhoods that I revisited three or four times. But it was a nice project for me, because I think that my work, the legitimacy of my work, really depends on me being a part of the community and being able to be in those spots and be part of that history. 

How long did it take you – from inception to holding the actual book in your hands?

Muller: Well, we started the discussion pre-COVID. We had to pause, so if you look at it all together, more than five years. 

Seiger: By the time we got a contract and it actually got on the shelves, it was about two years. And by the time Shedrick came on, we were well into the process. He ended up with like, eight months to get all of his photos done. 

Muller: Writing it felt fast and slow at the same time. I tend to be very verbose and I had to cut things I kind of fell in love with, or nuggets of information I thought were very important. We had to figure out: what can I take out, how does this impact the walk, does the narrative I’m trying to tell still hang together? Or maybe it was a super random fact I was proud of because I had to really dig deep for it, and I didn’t want to cut it. So the writing was just one part, the editing I think was even harder. 

What was the most surprising thing you learned? 

Seiger: There’s two murder mysteries that are still unsolved 150 years later – and an unmarked grave for a Native American in the Congressional Cemetery. Those stories were fascinating. They pissed me off, they made me sad, but I was really thankful I chose those people to learn more about. 

Muller: A lot of the stories in Southwest came as a surprise to me. I thought I knew the area pretty well, but I didn’t really know the story of how it came to be. I got interested in Southwest because of its architecture – it's so different and modern, and it has styles you don't really see in the more classical designs in D.C. But I realized that it wasn't creativity or design freedom that gave rise to that. A foreign visitor had said that from the White House, you can see these “slums.” So people are like, “Oh my gosh, we must do something about this.” It became this sort of utopian experiment. They really wanted to build a new way for people to live – but they displaced an entire neighborhood, entire generations of people who never could come back, in order to achieve that. It was fascinating, yet I was so livid learning that history. 

Why do you think it's important for long-time D.C. residents, newcomers, or even visitors to explore the city in a self-guided book like this? How do these walking tours build a special appreciation for the city? 

Muller: It shows that D.C. is this multifaceted, multicultural collection of neighborhoods. D.C. is not just monuments and memorials; it’s not just the Capitol and the White House. These walks put you up close to all of these neighborhoods that each have their own personality. They each have their own quirky characters and fun facts. I think it really puts a face to D.C. 

Pelt: A book like this really shows and tells people – whether you're local or from out of town – what people here are fighting to save. When you say the call to action “we're trying to save our city,” it seems like hyperbole, right? But this gives you a better idea of why we really say that. Because there's so much historical context we're trying to save. We're trying to save the people who are here, who have been here for generations. 

Muller: And when you’re seeing this kind of attack – this sentiment against federal workers – this book shows that [D.C.] is not some anonymous machine. There are people who live here, who are doing a job to feed their families, who are doing a job to support the city and communities where they live. 

Seiger: I've had so many people – people who are lifers, who were born here, raised here, have been here for 30, 40, 50 years – say to me: “Oh, I don't need that book. I know D.C.” I'm like, “Well, have you been to Congress Heights or Anacostia?” They’re like “no.” Then you don't know all of D.C.! And because of the themes, we got to look at some of these neighborhoods through very different lenses than we might otherwise look at them. Getting to share stories, both in words and on foot – and through the camera of a neighbor – took us in directions that other people aren't used to hearing about. 

Right. Especially now, when we have an administration promoting such a misguided perception of D.C., a local book like this seems like it can really take you to parts of the city to show you that it’s … just normal people trying to live their normal lives, while also cluing you into histories that are overlooked. 

Seiger: There’s that one line I’ve heard 50 million times, and I hate it. “You know how it is when you live somewhere, you take it for granted?” I’m like, no. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Because none of the three of us do that.

Muller: I’ve always been a wanderer and explorer, thanks to my mom, who’s a teacher. Every single family outing was a learning opportunity – and now I’ve become that person. Several years ago, I was just starting to get into photography and I would go on walks with a photographer friend. I would notice how he would take pictures – get up on benches, crouch really low and tilt the lens. He really taught me to change your perspective. Anyone can stand in the same spot and get the same photo. During cherry blossom season, there’s like, the five shots that literally everyone gets. But he taught me to look behind you, look at what’s up, what’s down. I think that perspective in the book – through our own interests and through Shedrick’s camera – gives you a different flavor of D.C. It just goes to show that it doesn't matter how long you live in a place, there's always some random fact that's going to teach you something new. 

Bonus question: what shoes do you wear for walking? 

Pelt: Nike boots

Seiger: Altra sneakers 

Muller: Steve Madden sneakers.

You can buy "22 Walks in Washington That You Must Not Miss" online and at your local bookstores (Politics & Prose locations, East City Books, Solid State Books, Loyalty Books, etc.) Urban Dwell, and even the National Postal Museum shop!