Welcome to a spot in Southeast D.C. where you can hang out with your friends, have a cup of coffee, watch some live theater … and where 70,000 people have chosen to make their eternal resting place.

We’re wondering: Could historic Congressional Cemetery be America’s liveliest cemetery?

“We are still an active cemetery, so we’re actually still selling plots and burying people, as well as having movie nights, immersive theater,” said Jackie Spainhour, president of Congressional Cemetery. “We’re a certified 5K course. We have a writing group; we have a book club. Everything you can think of, we have tried here.”

They call it D.C.’s greatest undertaking.

In addition to its 70,000 permanent residents, the cemetery welcomed 10,000 guests to its events last year alone.

Those events include Soul Strolls, their immersive history theater experience and guided-lantern tour.

“We have actors actually portraying the people buried here, and we usually have these thematic stories that connect them,” Director of Programming AJ Orlikoff said. “This year it blew me away. We sold out over 1,600 tickets for four nights of the event in two and a half days. Ultimately, Soul Strolls is a fun, spooky time with your friends. But you know, it’s a fun, spooky history time with your friends.”

Permanent residents include some big names from local — and national — history

Speaking of history: Cemetery residents include former D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, J. Edgar Hoover, composer John Philip Sousa and Civil War-era photographer Mathew Brady.

“I would say he’s the father of photojournalism,” Docent of the Year Rick Liebling said.

Way before selfies at events, Brady’s lens snapped Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth and President Abraham Lincoln.

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“Brady took pictures of Lincoln and made him look presidential, and Lincoln himself said, ‘Brady is the one who got me the presidency’,” Liebling told us.

Liebling also shared that he plans for Congressional to be his final resting place, too.

“But I’m comfortable knowing that there’s dogs here, and because there’s dogs here, that means people will actually walk near or around where I’m going to be. I find that somewhat comforting,” he said.

Dogs were the first to bring life back to Congressional Cemetery

Before interactive theater and movie nights and book clubs, it was dogs that brought life back to the cemetery.

“Well, I will tell you, way back around 1988 or so, it was not a real pleasant, comfortable place to come,” said Victor Romero, one of the founding members of Congressional Cemetery’s K9 Corps. “I mean, aside from the stones and the markers themselves being in various states of disrepair….”

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There were also reports of illegal activities — not the welcoming place visitors know these days.

“And we brought more life to corners of the cemetery that people had not been to in ages,” Romero said. “This is indeed the liveliest place in Washington, D.C.”

Meet a death doula (and try not to freak out)

Laura Lyster-Mensh said people usually get unsettled when she tells them what she does.

“Then they meet me and they chill out a little, but yeah, no, it sounds scary, but it’s not,” said Lyster-Mensh, the cemetery’s death doula in residence. “It’s actually about living, not dying, to do things like death cafés.”

Think of Death Café as maybe getting a latte and talking about mortality.

“We do, of course, have people here with terminal illnesses who are dying and know that their their time is very finite, but most people are coming to be in groups to talk about this relationship with death, and they’re often young,” Lyster-Mensh said. “Some come on dates.”

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“I have much optimism for these couples,” she added, laughing.

‘Every cemetery has its own kind of brand, and this is ours’

Other historic cemeteries such as Laurel Hill in Philadelphia, Green-wood in Brooklyn and Oakland in Atlanta also look toward the living for a breath of fresh air.

“We’re really on the cusp of a real cultural transformation of cemeteries as spaces, and they really are spaces for the living now, and that entails everything that the living love to do,” Orlikoff said.

But do people ever feel like a lively scene at a cemetery is too disrespectful toward the dead?

“Yeah, we get that every once in a while, people who have different cultural traditions and maybe just don’t understand,” Spainhour said. “We’re very transparent that this may not be the space for you, if this isn’t what you like. You know, every cemetery has its own kind of brand, and this is ours.”

The Washington Capitals released the roster for their final preseason game against the Boston Bruins on Saturday evening (5 PM ET, Monumental Sports Network locally, NHL Network nationally).

Left-wing Andrew Cristall, the 40th overall pick from the 2023 NHL Draft who tallied 40 goals and 111 points with the WHL’s Kelowna Rockets last season, will dress with all the other expected Capitals’ opening-night starters against Boston. The 19-year-old has two goals in three exhibition games this fall.

Head coach Spencer Carbery said on Friday that goaltender Charlie Lindgren will play the entire game.

Here’s the Capitals’ lineup against the Bruins tomorrow. Spencer Carbery was non-committal today on if the Caps would use the final game as a chance to get one more look at someone on the fringe, but it looks like Andrew Cristall is getting that last look pic.twitter.com/JcWLXcLvXH

— Bailey Johnson (@BaileyAJohnson_) October 4, 2024

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Here were the lines that the team used during practice on Friday before they placed defenseman Ethan Bear, center Michael Sgarbossa, and center Luke Philp on waivers:

Capitals at practice today:

Ovechkin-Strome-Mangiapane
McMichael-Dubois-Wilson
Milano-Lapierre-Protas
Duhaime-Dowd-Raddysh
Vrana/Miroshnichenko-Sgarbossa-Cristall

Chychrun-Carlson
Fehervary-Roy
Sandin-TvR
Alexeyev-McIlrath
Bear

Lindgren
Thompson
Shepard

— Tom Gulitti (@TomGulittiNHL) October 4, 2024

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Left-wing Jakub Vrana, who remains with the team on a PTO, has recorded a goal and an assist in four preseason games but will not dress on Saturday.

Washington will open the regular season on Saturday, October 12 vs. the New Jersey Devils.

By Harrison Brown

A D.C. man said he was hit by a car while crossing the street this week and when he tried to flag down police officers parked nearby, he was ignored. 

Michael Philip said he was on his way to work and crossing the street at 14th and U streets in Northwest around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday.

“I had about 15 seconds to make it to the other side of the street and then I saw light through my umbrella,” he said.

“They were still holding on to the wheel,” Philip said. “They were, like, gesturing I’m sorry, and then they just sped off.”

He took a picture of the car before the driver took off, but it didn’t have license plates.

Philip said two police cars were parked nearby and he asked the officers for help. 

“’Hey!’ I was still holding my phone; I was shaking,” Philip said. “’I got hit by that car, can you do something about it? Can I file a report? Can you chase after that car?’”

“They didn’t do anything,” he said. “They just looked at me and then they drove down 14th Street, and everybody at the bus stop that saw it, they all just said, ‘What the?’”

Philp said he reported the hit-and-run later that morning but hasn’t heard anything from investigators. 

He wasn’t seriously hurt, physically, but believes he deserves better. 

“I feel disappointed and some sort of betrayal,” Philip said. “I thought the police were supposed to help us.” 

“Our Third District looked into this and found no indication that officers in the area were aware that a crash had occurred,” a representative for the Metropolitan Police Department said. “There is regularly a visible patrol presence in the area of that intersection. The complainant in this case reported the crash later that morning at a nearby district station.”

Philip said he isn’t going to stop trying to get answers.

“If this happened to me, it could have happened to anyone else, in a far worse situation than I have ever been,” he said. “Like, you’re supposed to help people.”

He posted his story on Reddit looking for advice and said he plans to reach out to his ANC commissioner and D.C. Council.

“It still lingers, the memory of the impact, that I could have died right there,” Philip said.