Barney Circle is a small neighborhood located on the western bank of the Anacostia River in southeast Washington, D.C. The "circle" refers to the traffic circle (or semicircle, as the case may be) that intersects Pennsylvania Avenue SE as it crosses the Anacostia. Barney itself is named for Commodore Joshua Barney, commander of the Chesapeake Bay Flotilla in the War of 1812.
Technically, the Barney Circle Neighborhood Association covers only the area bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue SE to the south, Potomac Avenue SE on the north, 15th Street SE on the west, and 17th Street SE on the east. However, many of the residents of the surrounding areas (those traditionally called "Lincoln Park" and "Capitol Hill East") consider themselves to live in Barney Circle; as such, the disputed boundaries may stretch as far north as East Capitol Street, and as far south as the Southeast/Southwest Freeway, and as far east as DC Jail at 19th and D Streets.[1]
Barney Circle was built as part of the now-defunct Washington streetcar system; the circle was the end of the line at which the # 30 streetcars turned around to head back to Friendship Heights.
Located to the east of the Capitol Hill Historic District in Southeast Washington, Barney Circle is a residential neighborhood, roughly triangular in shape, developed during the first quarter of the 20th century to provide affordable housing for people moving to Washington as a result of World War I. The neighborhood consists of uninterrupted rows of single-family brick row houses that typify the area and provide its character and identity. Largely unadorned and modest in scale and style, these two story row houses are wider and shallower than their nineteenth century predecessors and are characterized by their horizontal orientation, front porches and yards, and details including overhanging eaves, mansard roofs with dormers, and brick stringcourses. Known as “daylight” row houses because they were designed to be only two rooms deep to ensure that each room had natural light and air, the row houses are set back from the street and read as a cohesive unit along the streetscape. The historic nature and architectural character of the neighborhood is largely intact, with only a few inappropriate alterations.[1]
However, according to the DC Preservation league... as housing prices and rents have increased over recent years, development pressures to build larger houses and to enlarge existing ones, with additional stories, threaten to destroy the historic fabric of the neighborhood, irrevocably compromising its historic and architectural integrity.[2]
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