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Neighborhood Index > Hubcapitol Hill

Edgewood, Langdon, Ivy City, Trinidad, Kingman Park, Brentwood Village

There's no there there: Commuters commute through it, gentrifiers can't quite re-do it, and, unless you're retrieving your car from the Brentwood Impound Lot or adopting a dog at the D.C. Animal Shelter, many tourists and white Washingtonians have never been to it.

Arbitrary Rankings

Kid-Friendliness: 3

Highways, traffic, poor public transportation, failing schools, crime, dangerous railroad tracks—if you’re a parent, you don’t want what the Hubcapitol Hill’s got.

Housing: 8

The area has diverse, often inexpensive housing: One-bedrooms can be had for under $800 per month, and the median home-sale price during the peak of the real-estate bubble in 2006 still didn’t break $400,000.

Eats: 5

Ubiquitous fast-food options are Hubcapitol Hill’s calling card, but keep an eye out for the marvelously named Hogs on the Hill at the corner of New York and Montana Avenues NE.

Consumer Goods: 3

Tired CVS outlets and low-inventory corner stores dominate the area; however, small businesses that won’t fit in a K Street office—caterers, car lots, garden supplies, kitchen countertops—are here as well. Meanwhile, New York Avenue’s selection of auto mechanics is nonpareil.

Nightlife and Culture: 10

A rotating selection of nightclubs and graffiti galleries along Amtrak lines are this nabe’s heart and soul.

Intangibles: 9

The National Arboretum is a must for first dates, but avoid the park on summer afternoons when meandering paths and a lack of drinking water are as likely to lead to heat exhaustion as romance.

Hubcapitol Hill in the City Paper Archives

Trinidad