Congress Heights, Washington, D.C.
| Congress Heights | |
|---|---|
| Neighborhood | |
 Map of Washington, D.C., with the Congress Heights neighborhood highlighted in red |
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| Coordinates: 38°50′25.5948″N 077°00′00″W / 38.840443000°N 77.00000°W | |
| Country | United States |
| Territory | Washington, D.C. |
| Constructed | 1890 |
Congress Heights is a residential neighborhood in southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States. The irregularly shaped neighborhood is bounded by the St. Elizabeths Hospital campus, Lebaum Street SE, 4th Street SE, and Newcomb Street SE on the northeast; Shepard Parkway and South Capitol Street on the west; Atlantic Street SE and 1st Street SE (as far as Chesapeake Street SE) on the south; Oxon Run Parkway on the southeast; and Wheeler Street SE and Alabama Avenue SE on the east. Commercial development is heavy along Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and Malcolm X Avenue.
Prior to its development, the area known as Congress Heights was forest and farmland. The bay between Poplar Point and Giesborough Point was open water, and would not be filled in and reclaimed for use until the 1880s. The area was served primarily by the Navy Yard Bridge (now known as the 11th Street Bridges), constructed in 1820. The first residential development east of the river was Uniontown (now the neighborhood of Anacostia), begun in 1854. The following year, the federal government constructed the Government Hospital for the Insane (later known as St. Elizabeths Hospital). To serve the hospital, Asylum Avenue (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue) was constructed from the Navy Yard Bridge to the new hospital and then, running on the east side of a line of hills, down to the District-Maryland line.
Additional construction in the area occurred during the American Civil War (1861 to 1865). The United States Department of War constructed the George Washington Young cavalry magazine on 90 acres (360,000 m2) of land on Giesborough Point. Two forts, Fort Carroll (near the present intersection of South Capitol Street and Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue) and Fort Greble (near the intersection of Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and Blue Plains Drive SW), were constructed on the bluffs that began just west and adjacent to Asylum Road. After the war, the 375-acre (1,520,000 m2) Barry Farm housing development for freed slaves opened in 1867 on the north side of the St. Elizabeths campus and was rapidly occupied. Aslyum Avenue was named Nichols Avenue in 1879 in honor of St. Elizabeths Hospital superintendent Charles Henry Nichols.
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