Ask any Capitol Hill resident as to the major changes that have occurred in this part of town, and they will tell you of the great upheavals that shook the neighborhood in the 50s and 60s, and of the large number of people that moved either to NW DC or to the suburbs, and that this made for a major change in the population. Except there is nothing new about these changes: The ebb and flow of people into and out of Capitol Hill is one of the great constants of our town.
Capitol Hill was slow in getting started, with the population clustered around the Capitol itself, as well as the Navy Yard. Historians continue to argue about the reason for this slow development, whether the owners were asking too much money for their properties, or poor water connections or what, exactly, made this region less desirable, in spite of its proximity to the Capitol.
Finally, after the Civil War, the influx into the SE quadrant of the city began in earnest, and in its December 7, 1890 edition, the Sunday Herald could announce that “Capitol Hill contains more prominent people this year than it ever has before, and a number of our poorer statesmen contemplate buying property here, where the land is high, the location healthy, and the prices comparatively low.”
It looked, in other words, to be smooth sailing ahead.
Not 13 years later, unfortunately, things had turned on their head again, and what had been (according to the Washington Times of May 17, 1903, “for many years the social center of the city” was now rapidly changing, with “most of the owners hav[ing] transferred [their homes] to other hands,” who tended to turn these old homes into boarding houses.
The article continues in explaining that “social decree” had “favored the northwestern section, and there within the last decade the higher class of citizens have taken up their abode.” It concluded that, “Nature has given the Nation’s Capital a topography within and near its limits which for picturesque beauty cannot be excelled in this country; still, the drift of population has largely been in one direction.”
Capitol Hill, ca. 1909 (Library of Congress)
I have no real point here, other than to realize that ebb and flow are the only real constant here on the Hill; who knows what the future will bring. We residents can only hope that there will always be a committed group of people who understand the value of living in the shadow of the Capitol, and who want to live with others sharing the same ideas.