Location

Explore the neighborhood of Shaw. Learn about the “shakers and movers” in the arts, civil rights, education, law, and science who lived in the neighborhood. See its eclectic mix of housing, entertainment venues, restaurants, and shops. Learn about its history. For the first half of the twentieth-century U Street/Shaw was the heart of African American business and culture in Washington. See the childhood homes of Duke Ellington and theatres and nightclubs where he, Louis Armstrong, Sarah Vaughn, and other entertainers played. See the nation’s first African American YMCA and the city’s oldest black bank and earliest first-class African American hotel.