The District of Columbia contains countless treasures โ from a sturdy house in Southeast where the fiery Frederick Douglass once lived to The Howard Theatre in Northwest where rising stars like Ella and Ellington formerly shared their musical gifts. Then there’s a nondescript, five-story building nestled along the mostly residential 12th Street corridor in Northwest โ formerly the home of the nation’s first Black YMCA โ now known as the Thurgood Marshall Center for Service and Heritage.

