page_title: Capitol Hill
section_title: Description
hierarchical_section_title: Capitol Hill / Description
caption_attribution_description: English: Christ Church, located at 620 G Street, SE in the Capitol Hill Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places. This is in the Southeast Quadrant of Washington DC. Architect Benjamin Latrobe, built 1806. Also separately listed on the NRHP.
context_page_description: Capitol Hill, in addition to being a metonym for the United States Congress, is the largest historic residential neighborhood in Washington, D.C., stretching easterly in front of the United States Capitol along wide avenues. It is one of the oldest residential neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. and, with roughly 35,000 people in just under 2 square miles, it is also one of the most densely populated.
  As a geographic feature, Capitol Hill rises near the center of the District of Columbia and extends eastward. Pierre Charles L'Enfant, as he began to develop his plan for the new federal capital city in 1791, chose to locate the "Congress House" on the crest of the hill at a site that he characterized as a "pedestal waiting for a monument". The Capitol building has been the home of the Congress of the United States and the workplace of many residents of the Capitol Hill neighborhood since 1800.
  The Capitol Hill neighborhood today straddles two quadrants of the city, Southeast and Northeast. A large portion of the neighborhood is now designated as the Capitol Hill Historic District.
context_section_description: Capitol Hill's landmarks include not only the United States Capitol, but also the Senate and House office buildings, the Supreme Court building, the Library of Congress, the Marine Barracks, the Washington Navy Yard, and Congressional Cemetery.
  It is, however, largely a residential neighborhood composed predominantly of rowhouses of different stylistic varieties and periods. Side by side exist early 19th century manor houses, Federal townhouses, small frame dwellings, ornate Italianate bracketed houses, and the late 19th century press brick rowhouses with their often whimsical decorative elements combining Richardsonian Romanesque, Queen Anne, and Eastlakian motifs.  In the 1990s, gentrification and the booming economy of the District of Columbia meant that the neighborhood's non-historic and obsolete buildings began to be replaced. New buildings, which have to comply with height limits and other restrictions, are often done in a decorative modernist style, many by Amy Weinstein, whose designs feature polychrome brickwork set in patterned relief.
  There are multiple schools within the boundaries, including Brent Elementary School, the main primary school, St. Peter's School on Capitol Hill, the only Catholic school, Capitol Hill Day School, Stuart-Hobson Middle School, Elliot-Hine Jr. High School, Eastern High School and many others. Compared to other DC neighborhoods, it has an abnormally large number of schools.
  The main non-residential corridor of Capitol Hill is Pennsylvania Avenue, a lively commercial street with shops, restaurants and bars. Eastern Market is an 1873 public market on 7th Street SE, where vendors sell fresh meat and produce in indoor stalls and at outdoor farmers' stands. It is also the site of an outdoor flea market every weekend. After a major fire gutted the main market building on April 30, 2007, it underwent restoration and reopened on June 26, 2009. One of the most beloved stores, Fragers Hardware, has been based on Pennsylvania Avenue for nearly 100 years before it suffered a fire similar in destructiveness to the Eastern Market fire. It has successfully rebuilt on the same location.
  Barracks Row (8th Street SE), so called because of its proximity to the U.S. Marine Barracks, is one of the city's oldest commercial corridors. It dates to the late 18th century and has recently been revitalized.
  A new addition to Capitol Hill is a community center named Hill Center. Hill Center is housed in the restored Old Naval Hospital at the corner of 9th and Pennsylvania Avenue SE. The rehabilitation of the Old Naval Hospital combines the restoration of a historically significant landmark with the cutting edge technologies of modern “green” architecture. Hill Center is a vibrant new home for cultural, educational, and civic life on Capitol Hill.
  Recent estimates in Capitol Hill newspapers suggest as many as a third of all Members of Congress live on Capitol Hill while in Washington, due to its proximity to key government buildings.
caption: Christ Church built 1806 on G Street SE
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