1501 HISTORY

1501.1 The Capitol Hill Planning Area has played an important role in the growth of the nation's capital since the 1700s. The neighborhood itself takes its name from what was once called Jenkins Hill. It was here that Pierre L'Enfant sought to locate the Congress House (as the Capitol Building was called). L'Enfant's original vision was that Washington, DC's major commercial street would extend eastward from the Capitol to the Anacostia River. A deep-water port on the river would become the District's center of commerce. The eastern section of L'Enfant's grand design failed to materialize, however, and the District developed to the west. However, the Hill was to achieve its own unique identity.

1501.2 During the District's early years, privately owned buildings were constructed close to the Capitol and occupied by artisans and craftsmen. The Navy Yard, to the south of the Capitol, also attracted development. By the time the British burned the Capitol building in 1814, a small community had been established on the Hill. Capitol Hill had cemeteries, an outdoor market, places of worship, hotels, and taverns. Boarding houses were constructed for members of Congress.

1501.3 At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, only a few blocks east of the Capitol and south near the Navy Yard had been developed. Most streets were unpaved. Shanties stood side by side with more substantial wood frame and brick dwellings. Horse-drawn streetcars served the Hill and the Navy Yard and connected these areas to the Capitol and downtown.

1501.4 The neighborhood began to expand after the Civil War. The District had endured and prospered, and investment increased. During the last quarter of the 19th century, brick row houses were built north and east of the Capitol, new stores and banks were established, and streets were graded and paved. A major public works program gave the District—and Capitol Hill—a municipal water supply and sewage system. An ethnically diverse community settled there, including Italians, Germans, and African Americans.

1501.5 By the late 1800s, there were houses as far east as Lincoln Park, where the Emancipation statue was erected in 1876. Philadelphia Row, completed in 1866 on 11th Street SE, was one of the first large-scale developments in the area. Senators, congressmen, and other public officials lived in the elegant homes around Lincoln Park and along East Capitol Street. More modest homes supported a growing middle class, employed at the Navy Yard and at the federal buildings around the U.S. Capitol. The area's growth was spurred by the construction of electric streetcar lines in the early 1900s, which gave rise to commercial districts like H Street NE.

1501.6 The Hill has gone through several cycles of reinvestment and renewal during the last century. During the 1920s, the federal government began renting out many of the houses on Capitol Hill. The neighborhood became less fashionable than the burgeoning area northwest of downtown, and some of its more prominent residents relocated. By the late 1920s, the National Capital Park and Planning Commission had developed plans for an eastward extension of the National Mall, extending from the Capitol to the Anacostia River. While these plans were not carried out, housing conditions on the Hill continued to deteriorate through the Great Depression and World War II. The 1950 Comprehensive Plan identified much of the neighborhood as underinvested in or vacant. Congress funded public housing construction in response, and additional blocks around the Capitol were replaced with new federal offices.

1501.7 Parts of Capitol Hill were already changing by the 1950s. Many turn-of-the-century row-homes on the blocks just east of the Capitol were restored, bringing a renaissance to close-in neighborhoods. However, the recovery was uneven and slower to arrive on the eastern edge of the Hill. Parts of the area continued to experience economic challenges through the 1960s, and H Street NE was heavily impacted by the 1968 unrest. Most of Capitol Hill remained an established, diverse, and economically and racially mixed community through the 1980s and 1990s. Since the early 2000s, the population in the Capitol Hill Planning Area has steadily increased. More young professionals and families with young children are moving to the Hill neighborhood for the family-size row houses, high-quality schools, and access to transit and other community amenities. Neighborhoods to the north of Capitol Hill, particularly in the areas around the H Street NE corridor, experienced growth due to the popularity of H Street amenities and significant infill residential development that has been built in the last 10 years.

SOURCE: District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984, effective April 10, 1984 (D.C. Law 5-76; 31 DCR 1049 (March 9, 1984)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Element Amendment Act of 1984, effective March 16, 1985 (D.C. Law 5-187; 32 DCR 873 (February 15, 1985)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-129; 37 DCR 55 (January 5, 1990)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1989 NCPC-Recommended Amendments, and Closing of Public Alleys in Square 669, S.O. 88-452, Act of 1990, effective May 23, 1990 (D.C. Law 8-132; 37 DCR 2213 (April 6, 1990)); as amended by District Government Land Use Temporary Amendment Act of 1994, effective October 1, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-190; 41 DCR 5360 (August 12, 1994)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendments Act of 1994, effective October 6, 1994 (D.C. Law 10-193; 41 DCR 5536 (August 19, 1994)); as amended by District of Columbia Comprehensive Plan Act of 1984 Land Use Amendment Act of 1994, effective March 21, 1995 (D.C. Law 10-235; 42 DCR 30 (January 6, 1995)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 18, 1996 (D.C. Law 11-110; 43 DCR 530 (February 9, 1996)); as amended by Second Technical Amendments Act of 1996, effective April 9, 1997 (D.C. Law 11-255; 44 DCR 1271 (March 7, 1997)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 1998, effective April 27, 1999 (D.C. Law 12-275; 46 DCR 1441 (February 19, 1999)); as amended by Technical Amendments Act of 1999, effective April 12, 2000 (D.C. Law 13-91; 47 DCR 520 (January 28, 2000)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2006, effective March 8, 2007 (D.C. Law 16-300; 54 DCR 924 (February 2, 2007)); as amended

by Technical Amendments Act of 2008, effective March 25, 2009 (D.C. Law 17-353; 56 DCR 1117 (February 6, 2009)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2010, effective April 8, 2011 (D.C. Law 18-361; 58 DCR 908 (February 4, 2011)); as amended by Comprehensive Plan Amendment Act of 2021, effective August 21, 2021 (D.C. Law 24-20; 68 DCR 006918 (July 16, 2021)).