Washington City Paper: D.C. Neighborhood Guide - Brookland, University Heights

Sacramento

Demographics

Population: 20,734
Percent Black: 80.8
Percent White: 13.5
Percent Hispanic: 3.5
Percent Foreign-Born: 5.9
Percent Children: 21.1
Poverty Rate: 21.4 percent
2005 Median Home Sale Price: $386,870
2007 Violent Crimes Per 1,000 Residents: 17.3
2007 Property Crimes Per 1,000 Residents: 51.5

Sources

Touchstone

The monastery’s Rosary Walk, one of the city’s nicest places for prayer or meditation, includes stops that represent each important bead of the rosary. But non-rosary types can enjoy the fine artwork, instructive signs, and proximity to the lovely rose garden.

More Touchstones

D.C. Neighborhoods Flickr Pool

Brookland, University Heights

Move here and you have a yard, a favorite greasy spoon, a tiki bar and tavern, your house and garden, your neighbors, and your 15-minute Metro ride downtown. If you come out here intending to keep up your Adams Morgan lifestyle, well, wait another 10 or 15 years for the planned big apartment complexes to fill up and you might get it.

Read Arin Greenwood's Full Essay

Photograph by Darrow Montgomery

Arbitrary Rankings

Kid-Friendliness: 7

A fine community for trick-or-treating and walking with a stroller. On the other hand, Brookland—big surprise here—lacks good public schools.

Housing: 10

One-bedrooms in Brookland are renting for $800 and up; a five-bedroom, six-bath house is listed for $659,900, a four-bedroom, two-bath bungalow is listed for $389,900 (buy it!), and a one-bedroom, one-bath condo—new construction—is listed for $229,900.

Eats: 3

There are not a whole lot of places to eat in Brookland; what’s available is digestible.

Consumer Goods: 8

The 12th Street strip comes close to answering your every household wish, but the hood’s real claim to retail vibrancy lies in the many religious supply stores for your plastic-saint needs.

Nightlife and Culture: 5

If excellent New Orleans–style jazz and priests-in-training sounds like a party, this is your party town.

Intangibles: 10

Brookland has a really nice feel to it. The monastery is about as pleasant as it gets in D.C., the bars—till they get razed by developers—are unpretentious and fun, neighbors are nice, architecture is nice. In a word: nice.

Sacramento in the City Paper Archives

The Mayor of 15th Street
Ms. Black doesn’t want your pets moving into her neighborhood.

Battered Neighborhood Syndrome
Using intimidation and violence, a homeless drunk named Red rules the streets of Brookland. After 15 years, his neighbors have given up hope of ending his reign of madness.

Brookland

Cardinal's Mess
When Darrell Green took off his badge, he held onto his friends.

Comments

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EJ Jun. 19, 2008
1:28 pm

As a 4th Generation Washingtonian who was raised in this neighborhood in the same place where his mother was raised, I find this article insulting and out of touch. You can tell it was done by someone who has no real connection with this community. First off you talk about the area but fail to mention that a good part of the area is actually not Brookland but part of what is called Michigan Park including the area around Catholic and the Franciscan which is across the street from my family home.

Second you talk about 12th street and how it is hood an old, but did nothing to mention the history of the places such as the Brookland Barbershop which has been around for too many years to count or the CVS which sits in an old theater. You left out the history of Brookland Elementary which is one of the only few open space schools in the city or the new Recreation Center at Turkey Thicket.

You then go into saying there are no places to eat but leave out the Cardinal's Nest, Ellis Island which will soon be reopen or large amount of take out places and small eat ins along 12th street.

Next time you pick a community such as this one with families who have been there for not 30 years, but 50 and more, I suggest you dig a little deeper to get a better understanding of what the neighborhood is. Or stop by a place like Brookland Barbershop and talk to someone like Willie Garold or Mike, who have been cutting hair in that area for almost 20 years and guys at Brookland Hardware or the retro Fire Station.....you totally took away from the character and history of my home to white wash it and make this about Catholic and the Franciscan which is not what this community is about. You leave out Howard University Divinity School which is next door to the Franciscan but I guess that is too hood for you as well.
CR Jun. 19, 2008
3:23 pm

CR

I have lived in this area for 40 years. The public schools here launched one of the largest bastion of well educated and successful people in the city.

Many of us attended Georgetown, GW, Howard, Princeton, Harvard, and other Ivy League and historically Black Universities and Colleges . We are not looking for Adams Morgan.This is a single family home neighborhood. We welcome a diverse population. We are Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, old and young, and gay and straight.

We have a diverse commercial shopping strip along 12th St. Yes Foods recently opened a store across form the new PNC Bank. We have mutiple denominations churches .

There are several Universities and Schools of Higher Education in the area.

Stay out of our hood ,keep your big condo buildings and fights outside the bars and saloon because we are proud of our community.
Upper NE Resident Jun. 20, 2008
7:26 am

This article is way off topic, and its a shame how you used Turkey Thicket in the headline in order to grab the public's attention on possibly "The lost neighborhood" in DC that no one has discovered. Its a good thing to recognize whats going on in the city, but please do more research the next time and know your facts! University Heights is mentioned under the area, but you fail to mention anything about it. Maybe you should have included the fact that not to many people "True locals of DC" even know where University Heights is. You also failed to explain how Taylor street runs thru the heart of "Sacramento" and how it's a major connector of MD, NE, & NW with a lot of traffic passing thru daily. The Brookland neighborhood is one of the most quiet eye-popper places in the city.
Brookland resident Jun. 20, 2008
10:20 am

Humor people!

Brookland is a great neighborhood, friendly people, lots of families, relatively safe, and most of its residents i believe are the type of folks to understand that a City Paper profile about our neighborhood, (and all others) in DC is an excercise in equal parts wit, funniness, sarcasm, and a grain of truth.