Aerial view of Capitol Hill showing the Capitol,Supreme Court Building, Library of Congress, andcongressional office buildings.
Since 1800 the building known as the Capitol has been the home of the Congress of the United States and the workplace of many residents of the Capitol Hill neighborhood. The Capitol is located inside the Capitol Hill historic district listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but it is also listed separately on the NRHP.
The location of the Capitol was chosen by Pierre L’Enfant in his design for the District of Columbia. L’Enfant referred to the hill chosen as the site of the future Congress House as “Jenkins Hill” or “Jenkins Heights”. However, the tract of land had for many years belonged to the Carroll family and was noted in their records of ownership as “New Troy”. While it was rumored that a man named Jenkins had once pastured some livestock at the site of the Capitol (and thus his name was associated with the site), artist John Trumbull, who would paint several murals inside the Capitol’s rotunda, reported in 1791 that the site was covered with a thick wood, making it an unlikely place for livestock to graze. Who Jenkins was and how his name became associated with the hill, as reported by L’Enfant, remains unclear.
The neighborhood that is now called Capitol Hill started to develop when the government began work at two locations, the Capitol and theWashington Navy Yard. It became a distinct community between 1799 and 1810 as the federal government became a major employer. The first stage in its early history was that of a boarding house community developed for members of Congress. In the early years of the Republic, few Congressmen wished to establish permanent residence in the city. Instead, most preferred to live in boarding houses within walking distance of the Capitol.
In 1799, the Washington Navy Yard was established on the banks of the Anacostia River, and provided jobs to craftsmen who built and repaired ships. Many of the craftsmen who were employed both at the Navy Yard and in the construction of the Capitol chose to live within walking distance, to the east of the Capitol and the north of the Navy Yard. They became the original residential population of the neighborhood.
In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson selected the location of the Marine Barracks, which had to be within marching distance of both the Capitol and the White House, near the Washington Navy Yard. By 1810, shops, goldsmiths, blacksmiths, and churches were flourishing in the area.
Capitol Hill has remained a fairly stable middle-class neighborhood throughout its existence. It suffered a period of economic decline and rising crime in the mid-20th century but gradually recovered. During the so called “Crack Epidemic” of the 1980s, its fringes were often affected. More recently, the neighborhood has undergone intense gentrification.
It is, however, largely a residential neighborhood composed predominantly of rowhouses of different stylistic varieties and periods. Side by side exist early 19th century manor houses,Federal townhouses, small frame dwellings, ornate Italianate bracketed houses, and the late 19th century press brick rowhouses with their often whimsical decorative elements combining Richardsonian Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Eastlakian motifs.
Barracks Row (8th Street SE), so called because of its proximity to the U.S. Marine Barracks, is one of the city’s oldest commercial corridors. It dates to the late 18th century and has recently been revitalized.
A new addition to Capitol Hill is the Community Center aptly named Hill Center. Hill Center is housed in the restored Old Naval Hospital at the corner of 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue SE. The rehabilitation of the Old Naval Hospital combines the restoration of a historically significant landmark with the cutting edge technologies of modern “green” architecture. Hill Center is a vibrant new home for cultural, educational, and civic life on Capitol Hill.
Famous people who were born in the Capitol Hill neighborhood include John Philip Sousa (whose birthplace, on G St., near Christ Church is still standing) and J. Edgar Hoover. Frederick Douglass‘s former house can be found in the 300 block of A Street Northeast. In the 1970s, the Douglass house was used as an African Art Museum by Warren M. Robbins.
Capitol Hill has several local community newspapers, such as the Hill Rag. The Voice of the Hill closed in May 2010.
For more information on Capitol Hill, visit its Wikipedia page.