Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail
We encourage you to experience our neighborhood’s history directly by following the Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail and visiting the callboxes with sculptures of historical events. HMP was a neighborhood partner for both of these projects that were sponsored by DC Cultural Tourism.
Discover a neighborhood celebrated for its cultural diversity and charming streets when you follow Village in the City: Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail. The trail’s 17 poster-sized street signs combine storytelling with historic photographs and maps.
Find the first sign at 16th and Harvard streets, NW, three blocks from the Columbia Heights station on Metro’s Green line. The 90-minute, self-guided tour loops through the Mount Pleasant Historic District and ends at Mount Pleasant and Kenyon streets, NW.
Walk the trail at your own pace, sampling neighborhood character, businesses, and restaurants as you go. Pick up a free trail guide from merchants along the way.
Art on Call Boxes
Also, follow the Art on Call Boxes. Locate the area’s nine Art on Call boxes – formerly abandoned police and fire call boxes restored as community art. Each features stirring bronze sculptures by artist and former resident Michael Ross and represents a scene from the community’s history. Michael Ross, an artist now based in San Francisco, was a resident of Mount Pleasant when he designed and executed the callbox sculptures in 2003 and 2004.
Books
Images of America, Mount Pleasant
Mara Cherkasky (also a former resident) served as historian for the Heritage Trail, which was completed in 2006 and led to the publication of her book on Mount Pleasant in 2007.
Washington at Home
There is also a chapter on Mount Pleasant in Washington at Home: An Illustrated History of Neighborhoods in the Nation’s Capital, edited by Kathryn Schneider Smith.