Hundreds of people packed the sidewalks of Petworth on Saturday for a walking tour unlike anything the Washington, D.C. neighborhood had seen before: a cat crawl. About 400 attendees followed 15 tour guides past 20 participating homes that had signed up to show off their feline family members, with some cats arriving in strollers dressed in sweaters and pearls, according to WTOP News.
The event, called the Petworth Pretty Kitties Cat Crawl, was dreamed up by Valerie Moore, a D.C. content creator behind the local platform Not Bored in DC, which highlights unusual things to do around the District. As reported by WTOP News, Moore said she noticed D.C. had plenty of dog bars but nothing comparable for cat lovers, so she waited for someone to bring a concept like Minneapolis's Wedge cat tour to Washington before deciding to build it herself. Moore has lived in D.C. for 18 years, including 14 in Petworth, according to Not Bored in DC, which also notes she gauged early interest by posting paper flyers around the neighborhood before the inaugural crawl.
“Cat people are feeling very neglected,” Moore said, per the WTOP report. The inaugural cat crawl launched in May 2026 and proved successful enough that organizers scheduled a second edition for Saturday, with plans to make it an annual tradition, the station's report notes.
Strollers, Sweaters and a Trip From Mount Rainier
Spencer Douglas traveled from Mount Rainier, Maryland, bringing his cat Artemis along in a stroller. Douglas took Artemis in as a stray kitten and called her his buddy, telling WTOP, “First time I've ever seen anything like this.” Ashley Ramirez came from Annapolis and Layla Luzuriaga from Columbia, Maryland, each pushing their cats, Princess and Nami, in strollers while the pair wore sweaters and pearls for the occasion. Ramirez said her cats enjoy bling and meeting other animals, adding that they need to make friends, per the same account.
Grant Circle, where Saturday's route began, served as a gathering point outside the home of Debbie Jansen and Chris Jackson, who displayed poster boards describing their cats Chili, Gizmo, Birdie and Memo, all of whom arrived at the home as strays. The circle anchors the Petworth Historic District and includes 1915-era masonry row houses, some designed by architect Merrill T. Vaughn, according to the DC Office of Planning, which notes that Grant Circle and nearby Sherman Circle function as central gathering spots for Ward 4 residents.
Why Petworth's Streets Were Built for This
Jansen said many people in the neighborhood enjoy cats, though she admitted her own cats were less thrilled than the crowd of attendees, staying inside and communicating with visitors through a screened window as she showed one of them off. Petworth's community and feral cats have long helped keep the neighborhood's rat population in check, the WTOP report notes, a role reinforced by the city's broader animal welfare infrastructure. D.C.'s Humane Rescue Alliance launched its Blue Collar Cats program in January 2017 to place unsocialized outdoor cats with property owners as working rodent deterrents, according to Washingtonian, building on Trap-Neuter-Return laws the District enacted in 2008. Pest control firm Orkin had ranked D.C. the third most rat-infested city in the country in 2016, a ranking that spurred residents and businesses to lean on rescue groups for natural pest control, per HumanePro.
Petworth's housing stock makes it an especially fitting stage for a walking tour built around window-watching. The neighborhood was platted in 1889 and developed rapidly between 1903 and 1919 along the Georgia Avenue NW streetcar line, producing rows of two-story brick homes with deep front porches and raised windows, according to Ghosts of DC. That architecture already underpins Petworth's porch culture, most visibly through Petworth PorchFest, which started in 2021 and had grown to 430 bands across 164 porches by May 2026, per the Petworth News account of the festival's expansion.
Part of a Bigger Cat-Tour Trend
The Humane Rescue Alliance also brought an adoption van filled with cats seeking homes to Saturday's event, and Moore said her parents traveled from Philadelphia to support the crawl, which she said exceeded her turnout expectations. “It brought everyone together,” Moore said, according to WTOP's reporting.
The format traces back to 2017, when editor John Edwards created the original Wedge LIVE! Cat Tour in Minneapolis after posting photos of neighborhood window cats during his daily walks; that tour had grown to 46 participating households by June 2026, per MPR News. The concept has since spread to other cities, including Chicago's Lincoln Square, where a cat tour drew 120 cats, and Pittsburgh's Brighton Heights, which debuted its own cat walk in August, each partnering with local shelters to pair socialization with adoption awareness. Organizers also sold official Petworth Pretty Kitties t-shirts and tote bags featuring participating cats arranged in the shape of the D.C. flag under the slogan District of Cats, with a portion of proceeds benefiting the Humane Rescue Alliance, as reported by Not Bored in DC.
