Alexander Crummell School is on the National Register of Historic Places
**Ivy City** is a small neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C. It is primarily an industrial neighborhood. It is dominated by warehouses and the **Ivy City Yard,** a railroad coach yard and maintenance facility for Amtrak. The area has undergone some renewal. But Ivy City still remains among the poorest parts of the city.

Geography
---------

Ivy City is bounded by New York Avenue to the northwest, West Virginia Avenue to the east, and Mt. Olivet Road to the south. The neighborhood is surrounded on all sides by significant landmarks: Gallaudet University (across Mt. Olivet Rd.), Mt. Olivet Cemetery (across West Virginia Ave.), and Amtrak's Ivy City yard (across New York Ave.).

Politically, Ivy City is in Ward 5.

History
-------

In 1831, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) received approval of a plan to build its Washington Branch. Passenger train service between Baltimore and Washington began in 1835. As part of the construction, the railroad company built its last roundhouse (the current Amtrak yard) one mile outside the city limit.[*source?*] The railroad then worked with land speculators to develop the tract immediately next to the roundhouse as *Ivy City*. Ivy City became an early Washington suburb. It housed railroad employees and give a formal mailing address to the roundhouse.[*source?*]

Ivy City became part of the city of Washington with the passage of the Organic Act of 1878, which extended the city to occupy all of the District of Columbia.

Over the years, railroads were one of the few industries to consistently give jobs to African Americans. Ivy City became an increasingly black section of town. In 1911, while Washington DC had separate schools for black and white students, the neighborhood's first colored school, Alexander Crummell Elementary School, opened in Ivy City. The school quickly became a symbol of civic pride in the neighborhood and a major community anchor.

Hecht Company Warehouse is on the northern edge of Ivy City.
The economic status of Ivy City went up and down with the economic success of the railroads. After World War II, U.S. rail travel suffered terrible declines due to the rise of the commercial airline industry and the Interstate Highway System. In 1963, B&O was bought by the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad; the two were combined in the Chessie System in 1973. Three years after that, the Ivy City yard was acquired by the newly created Amtrak, which leased it to commuter rail services.

Amtrak gave some stability to the industrial tenor of the neighborhood. But Ivy City had suffered a lot from the railroad industry's decades-long downturn. Even after Amtrak took over the train yard, Washington entered a period of poor city management and economic blight. This was hard on low-income neighborhoods. Those who could afford to leave Ivy City did; its population decreased by a third in the 1990s.

Ivy City remains home to many of the poorest residents of the District. It is largely occupied by old warehouses, abandoned and decrepit homes, and large expanses of parking lots, and crime. By mid-2005, the city's recent trend toward gentrification had only just begun to reach some parts of Ivy City. Only 20 percent of Ivy City residents own their own homes. In 2011, Habitat for Humanity built or rennovated 23 houses in Ivy City.

Government and infrastructure
-----------------------------

Amtrak maintains some offices in Ivy City.

Other websites
--------------

* Photos of Ivy City Yard Archived 2009-11-11 at the Wayback Machine - Amtrak Historical Society
* Area Map of Ivy City Yard, Union Station and approach tracks Archived 2011-08-15 at the Wayback Machine

| * v
* t
* e
Neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. |
| --- |
| Ward 1 | 
* Adams Morgan
* Columbia Heights
* Kalorama
* LeDroit Park
* Mount Pleasant
* Park View
* Pleasant Plains
* Shaw
* Woodley Park

 |
| Ward 2 | 
* Burleith
* Chinatown
* Downtown
* Dupont Circle
* Foggy Bottom
* Georgetown
* Kalorama
* Logan Circle
* Mount Vernon Square
* Penn Quarter
* Shaw
* Southwest Federal Center
* West End

 |
| Ward 3 | 
* American University Park
* Berkley
* Cathedral Heights
* Chevy Chase
* Cleveland Park
* Colony Hill
* Forest Hills
* Foxhall
* Friendship Heights
* Glover Park
* Kent
* Massachusetts Heights
* McLean Gardens
* North Cleveland Park
* Observatory Circle
* The Palisades
* Potomac Heights
* Spring Valley
* Tenleytown
* Wakefield
* Wesley Heights
* Woodland Normanstone
* Woodley Park

 |
| Ward 4 | 
* Barnaby Woods
* Brightwood
* Brightwood Park
* Chevy Chase
* Colonial Village
* Crestwood
* Fort Stevens Ridge
* Fort Totten
* Hawthorne
* Manor Park
* North Portal Estates
* Petworth
* Queens Chapel
* Riggs Park
* Shepherd Park
* Sixteenth Street Heights
* Takoma

 |
| Ward 5 | 
* Arboretum
* Bloomingdale
* Brentwood
* Brookland
* Carver Langston
* Eckington
* Edgewood
* Fort Lincoln
* Fort Totten
* Gateway
* Ivy City
* Langdon
* Michigan Park
* North Michigan Park
* Pleasant Hill
* Queens Chapel
* Stronghold-Metropolis View
* Trinidad
* Truxton Circle
* Woodridge

 |
| Ward 6 | 
* Barney Circle
* Capitol Hill
* Judiciary Square
* Kingman Park
* Mount Vernon Triangle
* Navy Yard
* Near Northeast
* NoMa
* Southwest Waterfront
* Sursum Corda
* Swampoodle

 |
| Ward 7 | 
* Benning
* Benning Heights
* Benning Ridge
* Burrville
* Capitol View
* Central Northeast
* Civic Betterment
* Deanwood
* Dupont Park
* East River Heights
* Eastland Gardens
* Fairfax Village
* Fairlawn
* Fort Davis
* Fort Dupont
* Good Hope
* Greenway
* Hillbrook
* Hillcrest
* Kenilworth
* Kingman Park
* Lincoln Heights
* Marshall Heights
* Mayfair
* Naylor Gardens
* Penn Branch
* Randle Highlands
* River Terrace
* Twining

 |
| Ward 8 | 
* Anacostia
* Barry Farm
* Bellevue
* Buena Vista
* Congress Heights
* Douglass
* Fairlawn
* Garfield Heights
* Knox Hill
* Shipley Terrace
* Skyland
* Washington Highlands
* Woodland

 |

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