Their opening may not have drawn as much attention as their co-tenant, a little tech company from California called Apple, but the DC Historical Society is poised to support Washington’s history buffs and culture enthusiasts like never before, thanks to its new home.

Two months ago, Apple graced the Carnegie Library with the culmination of a multi-million dollar investment that included building renovation and a 60-day arts and culture festival for a new flagship concept store in the heart of the city. The DC Historical Society moved in that week, too. But it will not be fully operational with all of its exhibits and services for another few months.

“Our mission is to interpret, protect, collect, teach the history of DC, and to give us [a] real sense of place,” Julie Koczela, the Historical Society’s Chair of the Board of Trustees, told The Northwest Courier. “Education is the basis of our mission, to tell people about who we are and how we got here.”

The Apple Store occupies the main floor of the building, which has multiple rooms with tables showcasing different products. Those products include iPhones, iPads, smartwatches, computers to accessories, cameras, drones, software, and other peripherals. It also has a “forum” area, where store employees run a variety of seminars and training sessions.

In the basement, there’s a gallery featuring portraits of the Carnegie Library and surrounding areas at different points in history. The exhibit is paired with an app called Smartify, which delivers additional commentary and imaging for each portrait.

“Any museum exhibit is going to have a lot more research done than what actually ends up on the board,” said Matthew Sanders, a former research assistant who is now on the staff. “[We wanted] to give our visitors more access to more of those stories. [With the app], visitors basically scan each picture in that gallery and have access to many more photographs and more information. … a great way of just letting people see more than can fit on the walls.”

The gallery downstairs is an Apple production, containing Historical Society info and photography, enhanced by technology. It’s a shining example of the potential of this collaboration potential between Apple and DCHS.

“It’s great,” Koczela said, of life with their tech giant cohabitants. “Because the building is open and accessible to many more people than it ever was and Apple’s turned out to be a phenomenal neighbor. They encourage people to come up here, and they’re thrilled that we’re bringing a different kind of audience into the building than they usually might always see…

“It’s good for both of us.”

The second floor is the main home of the Historical Society. A vestibule at the top of the stairs overlooks the Apple Store’s forum, with its open atrium and skylight above. On the left is an exhibit called The Big Picture. The room features massive blown up panoramic photos that tell the story of life in the district over the decades.

There’s a photo from a debutante ball in 1948 hosted by the Bachelor-Benedict, an elite African-American social club. Another shows the scene from the last time a DC team won the MLB World Series, which was in 1924. During that season, Walter Johnson and player/manager Bucky Harris led the Washington Senators to a seven-game series win over the New York Giants. At each section, you can go to a screen and select a variety of additional images to look at and even zoom into, including old class photos from different public schools across the city.

On the right side of the floor, the Kiplinger Research Library is still being set up, slated to open in late-August.

“[The Kiplinger Research Library] is really the heart and soul of the Historical Society. That’s our mission. All the exhibits are additional things we do on top of that,” said Sanders, who is now a researcher. In addition to his role supporting the development of the exhibits and growing the audience, Sanders, a George Washington University Museum Studies graduate, manages a volunteer force that he hopes to be over 30 people by September.

“We are looking for people who have a passionate interest in the history of Washington,” he said. “Not just experts, but people are also looking to learn more people who are comfortable going out and engaging with our visitors and talking to them about their stories and sharing some of that.”

Beyond the scope of a traditional museum, the Historical Society plans to be more interactive, both with the public and their historical artifacts.

“We’re hoping to do some collaborations with panoramic photographers and with [Apple],” Sanders added. “We also are going to re-open our educational programs. … a series of classes of sorts that we teach in the research library for class groups of all ages … on how to do historical research and DC history in general.”

The Historical Society saw a boost in foot traffic and membership with its May reopening. It expects to see another once the library is open and the organization’s full slate programs are in operation.

“In the first [roughly] six weeks, we saw about 10,000 people,” Koczela said. “In 2016, we saw 10,000 the whole year.”

Between the two rooms, a hallway exhibit showcases a timeline of DC’s history and an overview of the four categories DCHS organizes the city’s history: transportation, local business, leisure, and development of the planned city. The governance, layout, and social makeup of the city has changed over the decades, and the Historical Society plans to offer learning opportunities for all DC residents, no matter how long they’ve been here.

“We’re going to start a series on neighborhood nights,” Koczela shared. “We’re really going to highlight the neighborhoods, because that’s what we think people want, to know and meet other people from their neighborhoods. So we have a gathering spot for that, and a safe space to talk about what’s going on.”

Gentrification is what’s going on in many neighborhoods in DC, where displacement has been some of the largest in the country and cultural clash occurs along racial and socioeconomic fault lines. These clashes are a common thread of the history of this city and, of course, this country. But perhaps there are lessons that we can learn from taking an honest look at the past. For example, the DC Historical Society exhibits plenty of information and artifacts from the popular local department store Hechts, while also noting that it was the subject of controversy over segregation.

“We just have to tell the story,” Koczela said. “Because who knew about the Bachelor-Benedict…? And then how Hecht’s department store had a segregated lunch counter. You just got to talk about it, let people understand… we can’t hide [this part of the history]. So our view is just talk about it and have it up there. And we have items from our collection that allow us to do that.”