Street signs showing intersection of Mt. Pleasant St and Park Rd., NW.

Washington DC
Mount Pleasant

Gentleman farmers carved out estates in the Mount Pleasant area in the 1700s, and the neighborhood began to take shape as a rural village on the edge of the nation’s capital around 1850. By the turn of the 1900s, Washingtonians who wanted to move out of the District’s crowded downtown headed north to Mount Pleasant, where they could enjoy more space and trees and live in homes built by some of the District’s most prominent architects. By the late 1960s, the neighborhood had slipped into decline, with many large homes abandoned, and developers sought to tear down much of Mount Pleasant to build modern apartment complexes. But residents fought to save the character of their neighborhood, which was eventually listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In the 1980s, Mount Pleasant saw an influx of Central American immigrants, who brought musical and culinary influences and added to the sense of community. Since then, Mount Pleasant has continued its resurgence. Today, residents think of Mount Pleasant as “a village in the city.” The housing includes high-rise Beaux-Arts apartment houses and brick row homes built in the early 1900s.