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Historic Mount Pleasant

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Resources

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.

Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail – English
Mount Pleasant Heritage Trail – Spanish

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.

Police Call Box, circa 1912
Police Call Box, circa 1912
Callbox at 18th & Keynon Streets, Stop #4
Callbox at 18th & Keynon Streets, Stop #4
Map of Art of Call boxes
Map of Art of Call boxes

Books

Images of America, Mount Pleasant

Images of American, Mount Pleasant, Washington DC, by Mara Cherkasky

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

Washington at Home, by Kathryn Schneider Smith, book jacket

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.

Contact

Historic Mount Pleasant
info@historicmountpleasant.org

Historic Mount Pleasant
3213 Mount Pleasant Street NW
2nd Floor
Washington, DC 20010-2103

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HMP is entirely member-supported.  Membership is open to any individual or organization interested in supporting our work within the Mount Pleasant neighborhood. 

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