Walking Tour Map
Stop 1: Centro d'Arte
15th and Irving St NW
01 / 05
Now the site of a charter school, for decades this space was a DIY venue for a range of music and cultural subcultures in Washington DC. In the 1980s, it was a key space for the city’s burgeoning punk underground, the first show organized in 1980 by HR of the Bad Brains.
Carlos Salazar and Filipe Martinez, immigrants from Chile fleeing the Pinochet regime, founded Centro D’Arte to celebrate and promote Latino arts and culture. This was a space that DC’s Latino immigrant community used to build community, share stories and music and forge a voice for the city’s growing immigrant community, many of whom had fled US backed wars in South and Central America.
It housed a music school called “Esquella de Rumba” where local latin musicians taught music lessons and shared performances. It was also the site of La Pena, a drop in center for local teens run by the Latin American Youth Center. The cavernous upstairs area was a space for go go shows in the 1990s.
Stop 2: Haydee's
3102 Mount Pleasant Street NW
Haydee Vanegas and her husband opened Haydees in 1996 (check). They had previously run Trolleys down the street, a bar and restaurant locally famous for its mariachi’s and neighborhood jam sessions where Mount Pleasant musicians shared music and dancing. Haydees was a larger space with a history of hosting live music that stretched back to the 1940s when it was called “the Crosstown Lounge.” When Haydee and Mario signed the lease on the space, they hoped to continue the location as a local music destination.
But a neighborhood civic group, the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance stopped those plans in their tracks, vowing to hold up the restaurant’s liquor licensing unless they signed a “voluntary agreement” that forbade them from hosting live music and dancing. . Ten years later a group of neighbors formed Hear Mount Pleasant to overturn the live music ban, launching the campaign at Haydees. After years of legal battles and community organizing the ban was lifted in 2009 Ever since, it’s been a favorite local spot for a range of local musicians and DJs to share music and hold dance parties.
Stop 3: Mount Pleasant and Irving
Point out house that Kathleen Hanna used to live in - and further down where members of Fugazi lived and the band practiced for many years (get help from Mark on this)
In the early 1990s, Mount Pleasant became home to a second wave of DC punk fuelled by Fugazi, the Make up, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile and a whole slew of bands, zine makers, clothes designers, artists and DJs who lived in the neighborhood’s group houses, practiced in row house basements and put on parties with names like Scary Monsters and Cold Rice. A tight knit community grew here, with many bands and musicians finding a national stage and changing the landscape of american independent music in ways that continue to reverberate.
Stop 4: McCormick Paint Parking Lot
3124 Mt Pleasant St NW
01 / 05
As exhilarating as the musical subculture that grew in Mount Pleasant during the 1990s was, there came a point for some musicians where there was a marked disconnect between the bohemian outposts they’d created and what was going on in their own neighborhood in light of the immigration and welfare crackdown of 1996.
. Local social workers formed Stand for Our Neighbors that year as a solidarity organization to support immigrant rights and anti poverty groups. Striving to raise awareness about the impact of national policies, including immigration raids and welfare cuts on their own neighbors, Stand for Our Neighbors used music and culture events to engage their neighbors and to stand in solidarity with local immigrant rights activists.
Starting in 1996, the group ran the Children and Family Stage at the annual Mount Pleasant festival, where they not only created a venue for a wide range of local musicians and cultural organizations but engaged neighbors around a range of issues.
Stop 5: Marx Cafe
3203 Mount Pleasant Street
Marx Cafe opened in 1997 (check). Once the site of Trollys and run by Haydee Vanegas, Marx Cafe’s new owner wanted to create a neighborhood spot for community gathering, dining and drinking with some live music. The new owners hired a lawyer to negotiate with the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission around their new liquor license. Knowing that some neighborhood activists were bent on restricting live music they sought a compromise. They wanted to have monthly live music event. They promised to inform nearby neighbors in advance of all events and to ensure that sound couldn’t be heard outside the venue. Even that was too much for the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance, the tiny civic group who fought live music in every neighborhood venue. Even though the ANC agreed to their terms, the MPNA refused to compromise. Marx Cafe relented and signed the no live music agreement. They did however manage to get permission to have DJs. Finally in xx, their Voluntary Agreement with the MPNA was overturned and Marx Cafe occasionally hosts live music performances featuring local artists.
Stop 6: Don Juan's
1660 Lamont St NW
Don Juan’s is owned by Alberto Ferrufino, who with his late wife, Rosa, who died in 2018, took over the restaurant in xxx. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, it was an important gathering space for Central American immigrants who’d made a new life in Mount Pleasant. Many gathered at Don Juan’s for cooking and atmosphere that reminded them of home. Like other Latino restaurants on Mount Pleasant street, it was a frequent stop for local mariachi bands. Stand for Our Neighbors held their first multicultural music night even there in 1997 (check) featuring punk groups, a soul singer, a hip hop artist, a Vietnamese poet and a blues musician. Called Cabaret del Barrio, the event was a success. Not only bringing together a diverse range of neighbors to share a night of music and stories, it furthered efforts to ensure more residents were aware of and could join efforts to protect immigrants in their own backyard.
The next cabaret, scheduled a few months later featured a similar line up. The MPNA found out about the show, claimed it was illegal and threatened to call the authorities if it went on. Stand for Our Neighbors moved the show to La Casa, a small community space on Mount Pleasant. Ten years later, once the live music ban was lifted a group of neighbors held a cabaret at Don Juan’s once again to celebrate the end of the ban.
Lamont Park
17th and Lamont St
In 1994, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities selected a design by the late local ceramic artist, Hester Nelson to renovate Lamont Park. "My artwork is not going to dominate the park," Nelson told the Washington Post in 1994. "I'm hoping to enhance the space and increase the sense of community." Ever since Hester’s Mayan influenced design, has been the venue for farmers market, movie nights, concerts and, occasionally protests.
Hear Mount Pleasant hosted a series of concerts in 2007 (check) as part of its effort to build community support for overturning the ban on music and dancing in the neighborhood’s restaurants. It was also the gathering place for a neighborhood march to the Mount Pleasant library, where the MPNA was hosting then Mayor Adrian Fenty. Hundreds of neighbors gathered at the park to make their voices and their love for music and community heard.
La Casa
3166 Mount Pleasant Street
Until 2017 (check) La Casa is owned by the Community of Christ – a local collective who have nurtured a strong and committed spiritual community in Mount Pleasant since the 1960s. They opened up the space they own and use for their own church services to local community groups to use at extremely reasonable rates. Many groups including the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission to Hermanas Unidas (a domestic violence support group) use the space for meetings and events. Hundreds of groups and thousands of people have benefited from the Community of Christ’s generosity and commitment to building community and fighting injustice in Mount Pleasant and beyond. By allowing the space to be used for community programs, concerts, non profit offices and an underground radio station, Community of Christ nurtured an untold number of activists, artists and musicians. In 2017 (check), Community of Christ continued their mission of community service and transferred the building to Clinica del Pueblo, where it is used for a variety of programs and services for DC’s immigrant community.
La Casa served as the public meeting place fo Stand for Our Neighbors and Hear Mount Pleasant and many more grassroots groups. After the first cabaret del barrio was held there in 1997, Stand for Our Neighbors members joined with the Community of Christ and others to launch a community radio station, Community Powered Radio (CPR). Born out of the DIY ethic DC’s underground music scenes are known for, Radio CPR broadcast for nearly 20 years. All volunteer run and funded through benefit shows in the downstairs community space, Radio CPR was an on air version of Cabaret del Barrio dedicated to creating a truly integrated space where neighbors from all backgrounds and cultures shared music, stories and perspectives.
