American high
University has had some illustrious students including Bill and Hillary Clinton. The campus retains some of the original 18th and 19th-century buildings, the imposing Flemish-style Healy Hall with its tall clocktower being the most impressive.
Movie fans will remember that the university featured in The Exorcist, and I climb the steep steps nearby where Father Karras plummets 75 steps to his death in the movie’s climactic ending.
Then it’s time for a beer at Martin’s Tavern which has entertained some distinguished guests during its 88-year history.
Tucked inside the pub is the Rumble Seat where John F Kennedy drafted his inaugural speech. He also proposed to Jackie in booth three. Lyndon Baines Johnson, Harry Truman, George W Bush and disgraced president Richard Nixon were all frequent patrons too.
Talking of discredited presidents, Georgetown is also home to the famous Watergate Hotel. Still functioning as a hotel with paying guests, I assume my chances of a peek inside the room used in the 1972 Watergate break-in are slim, but the concierge tells me it is unoccupied. I’m shown to the Scandal Room, formerly room 214, which conjures up the spirit of the 70s with binoculars, a reel-to-reel tape recorder, typewriter and safe.
The bathrobe is even embroidered with the words ‘cover up’.
This is the hotel room where co-conspirators Howard Hunt and Gordon Liddy hid out as burglars attempted a break-in at the Democratic National Committee in The Watergate Complex. The walls are festooned with front pages detailing the scandal and Nixon’s resignation, plus posters from the movie All The President’s Men telling the story of the journalists who broke the story of America’s biggest scandal.
Illicit speakeasies thrived in America during the Prohibition Era but had a renaissance in the Noughties so I’m keen to sample these cool, clandestine bars. Many have unmarked entrances and hidden doors so are hard to find.
The Gibson at 2009 14th Street NW is only accessible through an unmarked door. Once inside, the dim lighting, secluded enclaves and a long wooden bar create a hushed, intimate atmosphere and I perch on a bar stool for a whiskey-based cocktail called We Are The Weirdos, Mister.
Also on 14th Street is Chicken + Whiskey, which appears to be a fried chicken joint but I walk to the rear and through a refrigerator door to discover a speakeasy with 99 whiskies. Visiting speakeasies adds to the fun of a night out in DC but food is also high on the menu. The Surveyor restaurant at the Thompson Washington DC hotel is a classic supper house serving traditional dishes such as calamari, steaks and crab cakes.
At The Grill on Market Square SW, the menu focuses on woodfired cooking, with line-caught tuna steak and the local ribeye beef being my highlights for lunch.
In the Navy Yard area, Michelin-starred Bammy’s is a chilled Caribbean restaurant, and while the decor is nothing special the food is, especially the jerk chicken, Caribbean-style shrimp and grits, collards and plantains.
Buzzing from its close proximity to power and bulging with museums and monuments, Washington DC guarantees the wow-factor, but the lively pockets outside the city centre are full of surprises too.
Watergate Hotel bathrobe is embroidered with words ‘cover up’