Pleasant Plains, Washington, D.C.
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Pleasant Plains is a largely undiscovered yet rising neighborhood in central Washington, D.C, largely occupied by Howard University. It is situated in the Northwest quadrant of the city and bordered by 2nd Street, Park Place, and McMillan Reservoir to the east; Florida Avenue and Barry Place to the South; Sherman Avenue to the west; and Harvard Street to the north. It is flanked on the eastern side by the Washington Veteran Affairs Medical Center and Washington Hospital Center, and by the Columbia Heights and Park View neighborhoods on the west and south sides.
Pleasant Plains, Howard University notwithstanding, is a residential neighborhood. A large portion of its residents are Howard affiliates, either students or employees.
Politically, Pleasant Plains is in Ward 1.
The neighborhood is a small portion of a large colonial estate named "Pleasant Plains," owned by the Holmead family. The original estate stretched from the current neighborhood's location all the way south to present-day Florida Avenue and west to present-day 16th Street. The estate was apportioned and sold off over the course of the 19th century and divided into suburbs until it was annexed by the city of Washington in 1878 and became neighborhoods of the city. Essentially, the Pleasant Plains neighborhood is the area of the Holmead estate that was not settled as part of either Columbia Heights or Park View. (In 1918, the city returned the name "Pleasant Plains" to the entire area of the original estate, but this is a semi-formal name for the section of town and not a neighborhood in and of itself.)
Although Washington's neighborhoods are known for their unique characters, Pleasant Plains has the misfortune to be wedged in between the far more distinctive areas of Columbia Heights and Park View; as such, it is often confused with one of those neighborhoods and its character (outside of the University) is often hard to pin down.
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