In Southeast Washington, DC, just south of the Washington Mall, in the shadow of the Washington Monument, right under the 14^th Street Bridge, and nestled on the Potomac, there is a seemingly magical place for one’s edification of a wide variety of seafoods. That magical place, to those in the know in DC, is an open air seafood market simply called The Wharf. There, you can get any kind of fresh fish and shellfish from, croakers to fresh salmon and mackerel to crabs (blue crabs of course), squid, scallops, lobsters, etc.). And, if you don’t want to take your catch home and do it yourself, the place will waft your nose up with succulent cooks foods (and I mean mostly that smell so familiar to those of the Delmarva area [Maryland, DC, and Northern Virginia], the sweet smell of steamed blue crabs). If you are daring and not squeamish (and a great deal of us aren’t), you can get oysters and/or clams shucked on the half shell. (Yeah, get a half dozen and salt and pepper, squeeze on a little lemon juice, and dash on a bit hot or Tabasco sauce or a bit of horseradish and slurp [Wimp!! Chew that thing. It’s great and it won’t hurt you.] it down. Mmmmmm!!!)

Now, this place, Morgan’s, is no longer there as a business, but it was for several years and it was one of hubs at The Wharf. As you can see, the young lady there on the right, is apparently waiting on at least a half bushel (about 3 dozen) steamed crabs from that big drum there. Now, I did this work for 2 reasons. One, it was the only land based seafood establishment at The Wharf selling seafood and, it was and still is the only African-American establishment that I have ever known to reside at The Wharf. I felt that this was a little known part of the history of Black Washington.