Mount Pleasant, Washington, DC
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Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, DC, roughly 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.
History
The neighborhood was originally settled by James Holmead, who in 1727 received a land grant from Charles Calvert, 5th Lord Baltimore, then governor of Maryland Colony. James's son Anthony inherited the land in 1750, renaming it Pleasant Plains.
The Holmead estate was sold off piece by piece over the years until the family home was finally demolished in the 1890s. (Holmead Place, a short street between Spring Road NW and Park Road NW, was named after the family.) The neighborhood was heavily redeveloped between 1900 and 1925 with the construction of new houses and apartment buildings after the establishment of a streetcar line.
Population
The population of Mount Pleasant is mostly a mixture of white "young urban professionals" and working-class Latinos. Most businesses in the neighborhood cater to the Latino community, although the influx of more affluent white residents is prompting gentrification. One example of this gentrification is a recently introduced controversial law against single-sale beers, promoted by the "yuppie" population but opposed by many of the working-class residents.
External Links
- Mount Pleasant DC Dot Org (http://www.mtpleasantdc.org/)
- Historic Mount Pleasant (http://historicmountpleasant.org/)