EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE: Old Congress Heights

Just stumbled on this article from the February 2009 edition of East of the River Magazine. Great depiction of our Congress Heights home including some history. Click HERE for the full article.

Excerpt:

Old Congress Heights
by: Hayden Wetzel

Congress Heights is one of the big neighborhoods in Washington, like Brightwood or Capitol Hill, but here we’ll consider only the old part of the community – the small triangle tucked between ML King and Alabama avenues and the southern border of St. Elizabeths Hospital, and a strip running along the east side of Alabama down to Tennyson Streets between ML King and 12th St. This is almost exactly the original development platted by the famous East-of-the-River builder Arthur Randle in 1890-94. Randle, a shameless self-promoter, selected the name from a citywide contest. He built the trolley line out Nichols (now MLK) at his own expense, and pushed construction of the Congress Heights School through Congress. It was a neighborhood, according to a 1900 article in the Post, “ahead of any other suburb in Washington.”

The school opened in 1897, but the only students only from a few frame houses near St. Elizabeths. The area really developed in the 1920s and was mostly built out (with brick structures replacing many of the older wooden ones) by 1940, although the areas past Savannah and between 6th and Wheeler were built much later. The Congress Heights Civic Association was founded in 1907, replaced by the Community Association in 1972.

This is one of the really fine collections of older houses east of the Anacostia, with a variety of styles and sizes. It also is a pleasant neighborhood to walk through – people are friendly and easy to talk with. They’re working in their yards or taking stuff into their houses, but all seem happy to have a curious stranger come through. The community is generally clean of litter and graffiti, the yards nicely kept – no really, really renovated houses here, but also only one or two derelict ones.