The Dupont Underground

Beneath the Dupont Circle roundabout, long-abandoned trolley tunnels from the 1940s have been slowly converted into an underground arts space. The Dupont Underground hosts temporary art installations, film screenings, performances, and events in the vaulted concrete passages that once carried streetcars across the city.

The space is not open continuously — it operates during specific programmes and events. Check the calendar before visiting. When it is open, the atmosphere is genuinely unusual: raw concrete, curved ceilings, fluorescent light, and art that the scale and strangeness of the space seems to encourage. It is the kind of venue that exists in every city's underground history and only rarely gets brought back to life.

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The Dupont Underground occupies former streetcar tunnels that were used as a fallout shelter during the Cold War — Washington being an obvious nuclear target. The tunnels were never properly converted for the purpose and were quietly decommissioned. They sat sealed and unused for decades before the arts organisation took them over.

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