Georgetown Industrial Ruins

The C and O Canal Lock three is identified by the heavy, iron-strapped wooden gates that block the stone-walled channel. This lock lifted canal boats eight feet upward, allowing them to bypass the rocky rapids of the Potomac River. In…

The Duvall Foundry building features a long, low profile with a distinct red brick facade and large, industrial-style arched windows that mark it as a relic of Georgetown’s waterfront industry. Before this was a collection of high-end…

The brick chimney rising above the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown reaches higher than the rest of the hotel, a heavy stack left over from the nineteen thirty-one incinerator plant that occupied this site. Architects kept the industrial structure,…

The sharp, white-painted wooden spire of Grace Episcopal Church rises above the brick rowhouses of Georgetown. Built in eighteen sixty-six, the church served a congregation of freed African Americans who had previously worshipped in the…

The Flour Mill Condominium stands apart with its massive, weathered red brick walls and the distinct, sawtooth roofline that slices into the Georgetown skyline. Built in the mid-nineteenth century as a steam-powered flour mill, the…

The red brick walls of the former Washington Flour Mill sit right against the Potomac River, marked by deep, arched windows that face the water. In the eighteen hundreds, this building processed grain arriving by canal boat, turning it…

The Potomac Aqueduct survives as a series of heavy stone piers rising out of the river like broken teeth. This structure once carried the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal across the water to Alexandria, Virginia, in a wooden trough suspended atop…