Shepherd Park is a neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. In the years following World War II, restrictive covenants which had prevented Jews and African Americans from purchasing homes in the neighborhood were no longer enforced, and the neighborhood became largely Jewish and African American. Over the past 40 years, the Jewish population of the neighborhood has declined (though it is now increasing again), but the neighborhood has continued to support a thriving upper and middle class African American community. The Shepherd Park Citizens Association and Neighbors Inc. led efforts to stem white flight from the neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s, and it has remained a continuously integrated neighborhood, with very active and inclusive civic groups.
Shepherd Park and the rest of Ward 4 are represented in the Council of the District of Columbia by Muriel Bowser and is home to a number of prominent people including NAACP President Benjamin Jealous and his wife, law professor, Lia Epperson. A number of judges, professors, newspaper reporters, and doctors also live in the community.
Contents |
The northern line of the neighborhood is defined by Eastern Avenue NW, which divides Shepherd Park from Silver Spring, Maryland. The neighborhood is further bounded at the south by Walter Reed Hospital, at the east by Georgia Avenue NW, and the west by 16th Street NW.
Heading out of the city, traveling north on 16th Street, just before getting to the DC-Maryland border, most streets are named after flowers, shrubs and trees. Iris Street, Primrose Road, and Geranium Street are but a few flower-inspired street names.
Georgia Avenue is the only commercial corridor near the neighborhood.
Local architecture includes colonials (both traditional and Spanish style), ramblers, Tudors, farmhouses, split-levels, and a few Sears bungalows.
Shepherd Park takes its name from its most famous resident: Alexander Robey Shepherd, the governor of the then-Territory of DC from 1873 to 1874.
Shortly before becoming governor (in 1868), Shepherd built a grand Second Empire-style Victorian that once stood near the corner of Geranium and 13th Street.
Shepherd dubbed his large country home "Bleak House" after a Dickens novel he and his wife were reading at the time of their home's construction. The mansion was demolished in 1916.
Shepherd owned a plant nursery in the District of Columbia, which enabled the 60,000 trees he had planted. His nursery led to a variety of wild flowers that still thrive in the yards of city residents. It is also the genesis of the streets in Shepherd Park being named for flowers.
The Shepherd Park Citizens Association and Neighbors Inc led efforts to fight blockbusting and maintain the integrated nature of the neighborhood in the 1960s and 1970s. It is one of the only neighborhoods on the east side of Rock Creek Park where white flight was stemmed in those years.
District of Columbia Public Schools operates public schools.
District of Columbia Public Library operates the Juanita E. Thornton/Shepherd Park Neighborhood Library.[2]
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||