After the president pardons the turkeys, DC enters its final phase of the year: holiday pop-up season.
This year, the MLK Jr. Library downtown will be the latest venue for people to find unique holiday gifts. Two markets, one held by the Heurich House Museum (also known as the Brewmaster’s Castle) and the other by WMATA, will take place concurrently.
The “Markt at MLK” will sell goodies like T-shirts and candles from more than 30 local small businesses as well as items from the library’s punk and go-go archives. These vendors are part of a small business network brought together by the Heurich House Museum.
View this post on Instagram
Or perhaps you’ve been eyeing some of the items on WMATA’s merch page, (yes, there’s Metro merch) but you really want to make sure the wooden green line train toy rolls just right before you commit to it. Lucky for you, Metro’s First Stop Pop-Up Shop will pull into the station as well. It will sell some limited-edition holiday items too, which you can then wrap in “Merry Metro” paper.
View this post on Instagram
The Markt at MLK will open on November 25—a.k.a. Small Business Saturday—through December 23, giving both early and last minute shoppers ample time to check out the goods. Its hours:
Sunday: 1 PM–5 PM;
Monday – Thursday: Noon–7 PM;
Friday: Noon– 5 PM;
Saturday: Noon– 5 PM.
Metro’s First Stop Pop-Up Shop opens its doors November 25 and leaves the station December 17. Its hours:
Sundays: 1:30 PM–4:30 PM;
Mondays–Thursdays: 10 AM–7:30 PM;
Fridays and Saturdays: 10 AM–5 PM.
The Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library is at 901 G Street, Northwest, near the Metro Center and Gallery Place Metro stations.
Hunter is a cat-loving Coloradoan who enjoys history, Halloween and board games. He studied audio production and radio storytelling at Hofstra University before moving to DC in 2022. During his editorial fellowship with Washingtonian in the fall of 2023, he ran Halloween Hunter, a section featuring local stories for the spooky season.
