Columbia Heights (Washington, D.C.)

Columbia Heights
Neighborhood of Washington, D.C.
The Tivoli Theatre, a renovated landmark on 14th Street NW, is a symbol of Columbia Heights.
Columbia Heights within the District of Columbia
Country	United States
District	Washington, D.C.
Ward	Ward 1
Government
• Councilmember	Brianne Nadeau
Area
• Total	.85 sq mi (2.2 km2)
Population (2010)
• Total	31,696
• Density	37,289.4/sq mi (14,397.5/km2)

Columbia Heights is a neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C. In 2016, the Wall Street Journal mentioned "Washington D.C.’s thriving Columbia Heights neighborhood." Columbia Heights is known for its diversity, housing stock major retailers, "[a] splendid panoramic view of downtown DC," and a thriving restaurant scene. In the early 1920s, jazz legend Duke Ellington lived in Columbia Heights. Despite turmoil during the 1970s and 1980s, Columbia Heights has been cited as an example of "how a mixed-income, multiracial community can begin to stabilize."

Located in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., Columbia Heights borders the neighborhoods of Shaw, Adams Morgan, Mount Pleasant, Park View, Pleasant Plains, and Petworth. On the eastern side is Howard University. The streets defining the neighborhood's boundaries are 16th Street to the west; Spring Road to the north; Sherman Ave to the east; and Florida Avenue to the south. It is served by a subway station stop on the Washington Metro Green and Yellow Lines.

Once farmland on the estate of the Holmead family (called "Pleasant Plains"), Columbia Heights was part of Washington County, District of Columbia. (It was within the District but outside the borders of the city of Washington; the southern edge of Columbia Heights is Florida Avenue, which was originally called "Boundary Street" because it formed the northern boundary of the Federal City.) In 1815 an engraver from England, William J. Stone, purchased a 121-acre tract of the Holmead estate—east of Seventh Street Road (present-day Georgia Avenue), and north of Boundary Street—and established his own estate known as the Stone Farm. Nearby, construction of the first building for Columbian College, now The George Washington University, was completed in 1822 on the campus which was bounded by Columbia Road, 14th Street, Boundary Street (Florida Avenue) and 13th Street. The area began developing as a suburb of Washington soon after the Civil War, when horse-drawn streetcars delivered residents of the neighborhood to downtown.