These small museums—all either new or recently revamped—probably won’t attract lines of idling tour buses, but they’re worth investigating.
1921 at Heurich House Museum
1921 Sunderland Pl., NW
The lovely garden and recently refurbished carriage house of the so-called Brewmaster’s Castle—a Victorian mansion once home to the founder of Christian Heurich Brewing Company—have been turned into a drinking destination. Thursday evenings, the public can sip beer and wine while exploring Heurich Brewing memorabilia.
Museum of the Palestinian People
1900 18th St., NW
DC’s first museum dedicated to Palestinian history, art, and culture opened in June. In addition to a permanent collection, it currently offers an exhibition, “Re-Imagining a Future,” that features music and visual artwork from Palestinians across the globe.
Laogai Museum
1901 18th St., NW.
Founded by controversial Chinese dissident Harry Wu in 2008, the museum—which focuses on human-rights violations in China and the Laogai prison system—recently moved to a new location, where two floors of photographs, victim profiles, and artifacts document what it’s like to live and die in Communist camps.
This article appears in the July 2019 issue of Washingtonian.
Anna Spiegel covers the dining and drinking scene in her native DC. Prior to joining Washingtonian in 2010, she attended the French Culinary Institute and Columbia University’s MFA program in New York, and held various cooking and writing positions in NYC and in St. John, US Virgin Islands.
