Elliot Carter

Carter is a contributing writer for the Washington Post, Politico, Washingtonian Magazine and Slate.^[2][3][4][5] His work has appeared in outlets such as Atlas Obscura, Vice, Real Clear Defense, and DCist.^[6][7][8][9] His work is heavily focused on Washington D.C.’s architecture, geography and history.

In 2016, Carter obtained and published maps of the District of Columbia compiled during the Cold War by a military intelligence office in the USSR.^[10][11] He noted in an interview that the Soviet maps were far more detailed than their publicly available U.S. counterparts, capturing sensitive information about military bases and the layout of utility infrastructure.^[12]

In 2017, Carter’s research about the atomic bomb-proof vault that protects the U.S. Constitution led to the rediscovery of a refrigerator-sized electrical model of the vault in the basement of the National Archives. The device was subsequently restored, and now stands in the Archives building on Pennsylvania Avenue beside a commemorative historical plaque.^[13]

In 2018 Carter was awarded a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities “to compile a meticulous anthology of all the tunnels in the District — subway and freight rail tunnels, pedestrian passageways, underground steam tunnels, sewage and water pipelines.”^[14] According to an article in CityLab, Carter is using tunnels to explore the “cultural history of the federal government and the city where it sits.”^[15]