Village in the City
—Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail —
Front of Marker:
Lamont Park, across from the number 42 bus stop, was once the turnaround for the numbers 40 and 42 streetcars. Back in the 1940s, "when the conductor called 'end of the line,' passengers stepped onto a yellow wooden platform," recalled former resident Elizabeth Slattery Clare. "Then, to turn around, the car proceeded slowly through a small park that we called 'the loop.'"
Starting in the 1870s a horse-drawn coach carried villagers downtown from Mount Pleasant's first commercial center, 14th Street and Park Road. In 1903 an electric streetcar line opened here, spurring another commercial center and urban style residential development. Soon this part of Mount Pleasant transformed from village to suburban neighborhood. Residents loved their streetcars. Just before buses replaced streetcars in 1961, fans held a funeral procession.
Elizabeth Walbridge, an heir to the old Ingleside Estate on Newton Street, owned property here when the streetcars arrived. She did well selling building lots. Architect Glenn Brown, a planner of Rock Creek Park, designed 1711-1713 Lamont with their unusual Potomac bluestone pillars, as well as 1715-1717. Walbridge and her family lived in 1717.
Some neighborhood businesses came under assault here in April 1968, when rioting broke out around
Washington in response to the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Nearby 14th Street suffered the heaviest damage, but looters hit shops here too. Carmen Marrero recalled that many "African Americans and Hispanics [residents]...stood in solidarity as a shield" alongside business owners to prevent looting.
Over the succeeding decades, Lamont Park attracted illegal activity. In the early 1990s resident persuaded the city to restore it as a family-friendly, outdoor community center.
Back of marker:
Tucked into a bend in Rock Creek Park on the breezy heights above central Washington, Mount Pleasant was one of the city's earliest suburban developments. It began as a village of government clerks mainly from New England, and stretched from 17th Street east to Seventh Street. Later it attracted prominent citizens to its site along fashionable 16th Street, and eventually yielded the area east of 16th Street to Columbia Heights. But that's only on the map. Mount Pleasant's boundaries depend on who you are and where you came from.
The arrival of the streetcar transformed the village into an urban enclave. Working people and newcomers to Washington began to call Mount Pleasant home in the mid-1900s. Its varied citizenry earned it the nickname "little U.N." By the 1970s Mount Pleasant and Adams Morgan were recognized as the
heart of the Latino immigrant community.
Mount Pleasant activists have often been on the cutting edge of important civic issues, and artists and musicians have been part of its daily life. While the neighborhood has changed with the city, some things remain constant. Children consider the National Zoo and Rock Creek Park their personal playgrounds, and residents shop and greet each other on Mt. Pleasant Street. Colonial Revival mansions, early apartment buildings, and rowhouses remain remarkably intact. A stroll along the 17 signs of
Village in the City: Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail will introduce you to it all. Welcome!
Special thanks to the Mount Pleasang Heritage Trail Working Group: Neil Richardson,
chair; Mara Cherkasky,
Working Group historian; Jim Barnett, David Bosserman, Jeff Brechbul, Malvina Brown, Olivia Cadaval, Robert Frazier, Elinor Hart, Mary Hathaway, Dora Johnson, Edwin Hill Langrall, Jeff Logan, Carmen Marrero, Dennis Marvich, Ric Mendoza-Gleason, Louis Meyer, Galey Modan, Mary Mill Rojas, Michael Rosa, David Sitomer, and Terry Thielen. And also to Tanya Edwards Beauchamp, Mary Belcher, Joana Brown, Ginger Carter, Rodney Case, Ronald Chacon, Carmen Chapin, Shirley Cherkasky, Carole Clarke, Alan Darby, Sharon Deane, Malini Dominey, Larry Fredette, Will Grant, Joan Graumamn, Mary Gregory, Martha Grigg, Tony Grillo,
Richard Hardy, Faye HAskins, Fred Haya III, Gregory Heller, Michael Heller, Luis Hernandez, Eddie Hicks, Jane Holt, Toni Johnson, Eliza A.B. Jones, Wayne Kahn, Ellen Kardy, Bill Katopothis, Brian Kraft, Ken Laden, Myrtle Lawson, Mary Leckle, Marshall Logan, Louise Legsdon, Linda Low, Rob Low, Jeanie Majeed, Gladys Mitchell, Gloria Mitchell, Mount Pleasant Business Association, Mount Pleasant Main Street Inc., Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance, Michael Najarian, Mark Opsasnick, Ruby Priecanos, Ann Piesen, Rosanne Burch Piesen, Wes Ponder, Rick Reinhard, Vilma Rosario, Donald Schwarzz, Wosley Semple, Chris Shaheen, Ryan Shepard, Harold Silver, Kathryn S. Smith, Louise Townsend Smith, David Songer, Grace Tamborrelle, Fay Thompson, Honora Thompson, Leu Vondas, Tasso Vondas, Randy Waller, Dagmar Hasalova White, and Arthur Wong.
Village in the City: Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail is produced by Brendan Meyer, Jane Freundel Levey, Brett Weary, Mara Cherkasky, and Anne W. Rollins of Cultural Tourism DC in collaboration with the District Department of Transportation, the Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Develoopment, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail Working Group. The trail was supported by Historic Mount Pleasant.
2006, All rights reserved. Designed by Side View/Hanna Smotrich, Map by Larry Bowring.
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