Near Northeast, Washington, D.C.
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Near Northeast, also known as Capitol Hill North and Old City, is a rapidly gentrifying neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C. As part of Pierre L'Enfant's original plan for Washington, the area appears as "Old City #1" on official survey and real estate maps of the city; most residents, however, know it as "Near Northeast" or "Capitol Hill North." The southern section neighborhood is also sometimes referred to as Linden.
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[edit] Geography
Near Northeast is a large trapezoidal tract roughly bordered by 2nd Street on the west, Florida Avenue to the northeast, F Street to the south, and 15th Street to the east. The neighborhood is separated from the western part of the city by Union Station and the train tracks heading north from the station. Within these boundaries is H Street [1], the nerve center of the neighborhood; once considered the third most important commercial and shopping corridor in Washington (after Connecticut Avenue and U Street), H Street is today re-establishing itself as a major arts/entertainment and cultural district.
Politically, Near Northeast is the northeastern-most section of Ward 6.
Near Northeast is served by two stations on the Red Line of the Washington Metro, Union Station and New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University.
[edit] History
Once a patchwork of several different landowners' claims, most of the land had been ceded to one landowner, Notley Young, under the name of Youngsborough by the 1790s. Youngsborough was included shortly thereafter in the original survey of land for the new national capital, and Young and a few other landowners gave the land to the Federal government in exchange for a promise that Congress would divide the land into lots and return half of those lots to the original landowners.
Once the capital was created, streets were laid out in the grid system that Pierre L'Enfant had designed, with Florida Avenue (then known as Boundary Street) forming the northern border of the city. However, nearly all of the land remained undeveloped, used as farmland to cultivate fruits and vegetables for the fresh market in the more developed sections of the city. The land lots that were used for non-agricultural purposes in the early 19th century were mostly cemeteries.
In the 1830s, the B&O Railroad constructed its Washington Branch, which entered the city of Washington at roughly 9th and Boundary Streets and proceeded through the neighborhood to the downtown area. Its presence gradually led Old City to evolve into a working-class neighborhood: wood and coal yards appeared to serve the railroad and its terminals, with houses subsequently built for the employees of the railroad industries.
The neighborhood remained undeveloped and sparsely populated through the end of the 19th century, although by the 1890s, H Street NE was the eastern terminus of the Washington streetcar system (at 15th Street). Some minor commercial development therefore began to develop along H Street.
[edit] 20th century
Near Northeast evolved into a major center of black population in the first half of the 20th century. There was also a significant immigrant population (from Ireland, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Eastern Europe). Union Station's construction cleared most of the slums that had begun to occupy the western edge of the area, allowing for development to increase. Over the years a high concentration of working-class African Americans moved into Near Northeast, with a number of important institutions developing in the area. Of particular note were Uline Arena, built in 1941; Northeastern Market, an indoor marketplace, built in 1896; and dozens of movie theaters.
During this same period, a twelve-block strip of H Street (from 3rd Street to 15th) became one of the most important shopping corridors in Washington. It catered primarily to a working class clientele, but was densely commercial, with restaurants, theaters, banks, grocery stores, clothing stores, and Ourisman Chevrolet, one of the most prominent car dealerships in the city. It was the location of the very first Sears Roebuck store in Washington. In addition, two of the most recognizable and popular locations were the whites-only Moderne style Atlas Theater at 1331 H Street and its black counterpart, the Plymouth Theater, down the block at 1365 H Street. Like the theaters, most of the businesses in the H Street corridor (and elsewhere in Old City) were strictly segregated, but some businesses (an unusual number of which were black-owned) catered to both black and white customers. By 1950, however, approximately 50 percent of the residents of Old City/Near Northeast were African American.
Ironically, the emerging Civil Rights Movement touched off a decline in the H Street corridor and other commercial areas of Near Northeast; the upscale downtown businesses, taking advantage of the ambitions of the movement, began specifically targeting an integrated clientele and even a predominantly black one. This meant that even the growing black population of Old City/Near Northeast began patronizing the prestigious department stores of downtown Washington, and the neighborhood businesses suffered as a result.
The neighborhood was devastated by the race riot that ripped Washington for the three days following Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination in April 1968. Looting, vandalism, and arson made Near Northeast one of the worst casualties of the riots, with many burned out or otherwise destroyed properties burned out for decades.
[edit] Present day
H Street, so long the center of the neighborhood's life, is being structured as an arts district. Theaters, jazz clubs, performance spaces, and exotic restaurants are appearing in the neighborhood. In 2005 and 2006, a substantial number of venues and bars opened in the H Street corridor, including the Argonaut, Sidamo, Showbar Presents the Palace of Wonders, the Red and the Black, Rock & Roll Hotel, and H Street Martini Lounge, Napa 1015, among others. Business owners in that area are calling the area the Atlas District, after the movie theater (now a dance and performance studio) that has been its most prominent landmark for half a century.
The newcomers are rapidly gentrifying the area with sit-down restaurants, hip bars, more upscale retail establishments, but the older residents note that this process seems inherently to freeze out businesses owned by and targeted towards working-class long term residents. [2]
[edit] Neighborhood Landmarks
The Uline Arena, more popularly known as Washington Coliseum, has long been an important anchor of the community. It was the site of the first Beatles concert in the United States on February 11, 1964, and also hosted the Washington Lions of the old Eastern Hockey League; speeches by Elijah Muhammad and Malcolm X; and pro-American rallies during World War II. The building still stands; however, it is currently used as an indoor parking lot.
Of the many movie theaters in Old City/Near Northeast, two of the most prominent still stand on H Street, although both are now used for different purposes. One, the old Moderne style Atlas Theater, has been renovated Atlas Performing Arts Center, as a center for dance and the performing arts. Its neighbor, the Plymouth Theater, is now the H Street Playhouse, home of an experimental theatrical company called the Theater Alliance.
DC Farmers Market, on 5th Street near Florida Avenue, is a warehouse-style wholesale market with varieties of food from all over the world as well as all parts of the U.S. It has been named one of the world's Great Public Spaces by the Project for Public Spaces.
[edit] External links
- Advisory Neighborhood Commissions 6A and 6C, respectively covering the eastern and western halves of Near Northeast, consider a wide range of policies and programs affecting the local neighborhoods, including traffic, parking, recreation, street improvements, liquor licenses, zoning, economic development, police protection, sanitation and trash collection, and the District's annual budget.
- H Street DC - A guide to the neighborhood's major commercial corridor
- A Study of Capitol Hill North/Near Northeast - History published in Voice of the Hill, 2003.
