Austin Graff
WHAT HE DID: Visited every neighborhood in the District.
HOW MANY THERE ARE: 132, according to the DC Office of Planning.
WHAT INSPIRED HIM: Graff hatched the idea while teaching his daughter the ABCs. He’d take her to a neighborhood starting with a letter–Woodley Park for W, for example. From there, he just kept going.
HOW IT’S GOING: Mission accomplished. Graff hit the last hood (North Cleveland Park) this past April, and he recently launched an online guide (at austinkgraff.com) with information about everywhere he went.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Finding the time. With his day job as a consultant and other life obligations, Graff says the project took him about two years.
Zach Lincoln
WHAT HE DID: Went to every Metro station in a single day.
HOW MANY THERE ARE: Currently 98 across DC, Maryland, and Virginia. But in this case it’s less about the number than the speed: His time, seven hours and 40 minutes, is a record.
WHAT INSPIRED HIM: Metro’s budget crisis, in part. “It was a way of [alerting] people that normally wouldn’t care about Metro,” he says.
HOW IT’S GOING: At press time, Lincoln’s record remains intact. But should someone beat it, “I wouldn’t rule out trying it again,” he says.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: Having no control over how quickly trains arrive–he was at the mercy of WMATA.
Jacob Fenston
WHAT HE DID: Planned to hit every park in the District.
HOW MANY THERE ARE: A whopping 697, according to the Trust for Public Land, though the number is somewhat debatable. “I went to one that was just a concrete median–listed as a park but not actually a park,” Fenston says. “The list is not very precise, but I think it’s the best out there.”
WHAT INSPIRED HIM: Actually, it was an assignment. Fenston, a news reporter by trade, was approached by the CityCastDC podcast to tackle the project.
HOW IT’S GOING: Fenston says he’s visited about 160 parks so far. One complicating factor: He decided not to drive, instead commuting to the parks via Metro, bike, or in one case kayak. “It gives you a better sense of the neighborhoods,” he explains.
BIGGEST CHALLENGE: A lot of the parks east of the Anacostia River aren’t very accessible, he says. “There are a lot of forested areas that have zero way to interact with them other than, like, if you want to go bushwhacking.”
This article appears in the July 2024 issue of Washingtonian.
