A 14-Mile District Alleywalk

WE SPENT OUR MEMORIAL DAY walking through District alleyways. That may seem strange, but after reading Lyndsey Layton's article in Monday's edition of The Post about living in D.C.'s alleyway housing, we wanted to take a stab at listing and photographing our favorite District alleyways. It turned out to be a nearly 14-mile trek. (Only about two miles of the journey was by Metrobus.) We started at the Stadium-Armory Metrorail station in Southeast, walked across Capitol Hill, up through Shaw to Adams Morgan, Woodley Park, back through Adams Morgan to Dupont Circle and onward to Georgetown, ending our trip at the corner of Wisconsin Avenue and Observatory Lane in Glover Park. Our feet hurt and we're slightly sunburned.

While an alleyway might just be a plain old alleyway to some observers, we found that each one has its own characteristics (good and bad). Pictured at right, you see the alley between Willard and U streets NW, home to a good number of spiral staircases. It seems to be a decorative theme. In other alleys, the theme wasn't so attractive: garbage and dead rats. But for the most part, the alleyways we hit were clean and lacked an odor. So we think we missed catching diphtheria.

We uploaded our photos to our personal Flickr account and used those photos for an interactive map on our personal Wayfaring account. On the jump, you'll find a couple more photos and our full alleyway itinerary.

» SEND US YOUR PICKS: Do you know of any interesting alleys we missed? Let us know in comments or via e-mail. Feel free to send pictures, too.

Here is a Wayfaring map we created so you could follow our alley exploration:

Capitol Hill is filled with countless little alleyways, courts and other off-street passageways. Much of L'Enfant's original city was dotted with such alleys, but because Capitol Hill has remained primarily residential, there are many examples of alley housing that have survived from the 19th century, when residents, including freed slaves in some cases, crammed into them. The example seen at left is in Northeast, in the center of the block bounded by Constitution Avenue and A St., between 6th and 7th streets. A number of small homes face out into the interior court, which can be reached by various smaller alleyways and pedestrian-only passageways.

In Georgetown, there is a tiny alleyway that runs behind Q Street NW and Cambridge Place NW, seen here at right. After Tropical Storm Isabel roared through town in 2003, we foolishly tried to use this as a shortcut to downtown when downed trees elsewhere in the area were blocking streets. Once we got to this stretch, we found the alley to be flooded, but not totally blocked. Cambridge Place was the fictional home of Murphy Brown (from the CBS show of the same name), so theoretically, this would have been where Candice Bergen dragged her garbage (or did Eldin do that?). But we have a hard time seeing how a trash truck could fit down this narrow alley.

This last photo at left shows the alleyway behind Glover Park's Huidekoper Place (which is a very tiny street itself). The road sits atop a ridge, so the alleyway that serves it sits at a lower elevation, well below the houses it abuts.

As you'd expect, trotting through alleys isn't always pleasant. For example, we came across a flattened dead rat in the alleyway behind the 18th Street NW strip in Adams Morgan. That reminded us of this alleyway behind Jefferson Place NW -- a block where old rowhomes-turned-offices are being converted into condos -- which used to have a lot of rats. The rats seem to have dispersed, but the alley's always-pungent odor remains. This alley, behind 18th Street NW, also smells pretty unpleasant, but that's normal for Adams Morgan. However, this alleyway behind the Studio Theatre on 14th Street NW offered a ray of hope: It reeked at first, but as we approached the end of the block, the smell of General Tso's Chicken wafted in. So all ended well.

The last alley we visited is technically a lane, Observatory Lane. The sloping narrow street connects Wisconsin Avenue to the Naval Observatory -- home to the vice president. The Good Guys strip club also has a back door onto the lane, making it quite accessible for the No. 2 in command -- but we think the Mrs. Cheney might have something to say about that.

Photos by Michael Grass/Express