The Vista Hotel has been a favorite hotel with the business community. However on January 18,1990, it gained new fame when it was site where Mayor Marion Barry was caught in the act of using drugs. Lured to the hotel by his old girlfriend, Rasheeda Moore, who was working with the District Attorney's office, he was caught on film making passes at her and smoking crack cocaine. The entire city and nation watched the whole event as it was recorded on camera. Barry was replaced by Sharon Pratt Kelly, but was eventually re-elected again.
The Ebbitt Grill originated in 1856 when its original owner, William E. Ebbitt, opened up a boarding house in Downtown. It went through various changes at various locations. The bar once served future presidents Grant, Grover Cleveland, and Theodore Roosevelt. William McKinley also once lived in Ebbitt House. In 1983, the Ebbitt moved to its present location. The restaurant had changed ownership in 1970 and was transformed into a popular dining spot, when its interiors were spruced up and an excellent kitchen staff was hired.
Formerly on the site was the Beaux-Arts vaudeville theater, B.F. Keith's. George Burns and Gracie Allen performed their "Lambchops" routine here. Many other vaudevillians took the stage here from the late teens to the 1920s.
This site, now occupied by the American Medical Association Building, once held one of the hundreds of rooming houses in Washington during the Civil War. Walt Whitman lived in this and a number of other boarding houses during this time. Whitman first passed through the city in the winter of 1862 to see his brother George on the Virginia front. Two weeks later, he returned to offer his services in caring for the wound and dying soldiers pouring into Washington daily. He spent much of his time at the old Washington Armory (which stood at the site of Hirshhorn) and at the Old Patent Office. Both were, at the time, used as field hospitals.
While living here, it is believed that Whitman wrote a number of poems inspired by the Civil War, which were published in 1865 as Drum Taps. The sequel to this work included some of Whitman's most famous poems. Two of the most notable poems were about the death of Lincoln: "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed," and "O Captain, My Captain."
Although Whitman had published his most famous and controversial work, Leaves of Grass in 1860, two years before coming to Washington, he was little known outside of literary circles. Nevertheless, the book caught up with him when his boss at the Indian Bureau, Interior Secretary James Harlan, found out about the poems. Whitman was fired, but soon hired to work for the Attorney General's office. He held this post until a debilitating stroke in 1873 forced him to retire and leave Washington.
