Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., capital of the United States. The neighborhood is bounded by 16th Street, NW, and the Columbia Heights neighborhood to the east, Rock Creek Park to the north and west, and Harvard Street, NW, and the Adams Morgan neighborhood to the south. The neighborhood is home to about twelve thousand people, or about 2% of D.C.’s population.

Since Mount Pleasant’s street grid is distinct from the city’s cartesian grid, some of its streets appear to have been laid haphazardly, with several intersecting city streets at odd or severe angles. Examples of these include Adams Mill Road, Mount Pleasant Street, Newton Street, and Park Road all laid out to follow early local custom circa late 1800’s, and to accommodate local needs and land ownership.

In the 1870s, a horse-drawn streetcar began traveling from the 14th and Park intersection to downtown Washington City, creating the first Streetcar Suburb in the District of Columbia. Mount Pleasant ceased to be an independent and separate place in 1878 after the city’s boundaries became coterminous with those of the District. Mount Pleasant developed rapidly as a streetcar suburb after the opening of the streetcar line around 1900. Many houses and apartment buildings were constructed between 1900 and 1925. Mount Pleasant was marketed to middle to upper-middle-class people. Washington luminaries actress Helen Hayes, Washington Senators’ pitcher Walter Johnson, and US Senator Robert LaFollette made their homes in Mount Pleasant.