Census Tract 87.01| Eckington | Washington, D.C.

Beginning in the 1920s, it became common for homes built in the United States to have  racially restrictive covenants  in the deeds. These contractual agreements prohibited the sale or rental of properties in White neighborhoods to Black people. Since many homes in Eckington were built in the late nineteenth century, they did not have these deed covenants. However, in the twentieth century, racially restrictive covenants in deeds became common in Eckington. In 1924, the  North Capitol and Eckington Citizens Association  joined with other neighborhood groups in a pledge to encourage property owners to stipulate that their properties should only be sold or rented to White occupants. Thus, those homes that did not have covenants became subject to neighborhood petitions which forbade the sale or rental of homes to Black people.

In the early twentieth century, Eckington was an  Italian  enclave. Research by  Prologue DC  shows there were almost no Black residents in Eckington in 1934 and that most of the blocks had some form of racial restrictions – either covenants or petitions. These agreements remained in place until the Supreme Court ruled in 1948 in  Hurd v. Hodge  that racial covenants were unenforceable.  

If you click on the map to the right created by  Prologue DC , you can see the change in racial demographics in Eckington over time, up until 1970, when it became nearly all Black.

Eckington changed very quickly with the lifting of the covenants in 1948 and school desegregation in 1954. By 1950, the area around Florida Avenue was nearly all Black, although the area closer to Rhode Island Avenue continued to be majority White. By 1960, the southern area was nearly all Black and the northern part of Eckington was majority Black. By 1970, after the 1968 uprisings, only a handful of White residents remained. 

Louie  Caruso , an Italian American, moved with his family to Eckington in 1932 and opened the Catania Bakery. He remained the owner until 1978, when he sold it to a  French woman  who continues to operate the bakery to this day. Another White small business owner, Mr. Rosenblatt, moved to Quincy Place in 1948 where he opened the Quincy Market. After the 1968 uprisings, when  Rosenblatt  was 16, his family left Eckington, as did nearly all the White residents in this area. The Rosenblatts moved to Silver Spring and sold Quincy market to a Black family.

Catania Bakery, pictured here, remains open today.

The school district in Washington, DC practiced legal segregation until 1954, and the schools in Eckington were segregated by race. Eckington Elementary School was built in 1898 at First and Quincy Streets NE and was designated as a White school. In 1923, Langley Junior High was built at 101 T Street NE – also for White children, And, in 1926, McKinley High School was built for White students at 2nd and T Streets NE in the heart of Eckington. The recreation facilities were segregated as well.  Eckington Recreation Center  opened its pool for White children in 1938.

These demographics would change quickly with school desegregation. Once the schools opened their doors to Black pupils, the White students left in droves. In 1958, just four years after the court decision prohibiting segregated schools,  Eckington School  had 1 White pupil and 170 Black pupils. Langley Junior High had 13 White children and 901 Black children. McKinley Tech had 115 White pupils and 1375 Black pupils. By the late 1970s, these schools were all Black. And, Eckington school had closed.

In 1981, the DC government put Eckington School at 1615 First St NE up for sale in an  auction . It was  purchased  for $180,000 by a group of four  artists  who converted the building into four- loft  apartments . One of the 3,800 square foot loft apartments  sold  in 2018 for one million dollars.

Donald Alman (left) and Melvin E. Lenox, students at McKinley Technical High School, Washington, D.C., build model planes for the Navy's use in 1942.

Although mostly a residential neighborhood, Eckington had some light industry for most of the twentieth century – much of it long-lasting. Judd and Detweiler had a printing shop at Florida Avenue and Eckington Place from  1912  until 1986, where they printed both the National Geographic and  Newsweek . XM Satellite Radio has occupied the premises since July  2000 .

In 1987, four  flower wholesalers  moved their businesses from downtown DC to a one-story stone-front building in the 1600 block of Eckington Place NE. One of these florists was Dennis Paul, whose father had opened Paul’s Wholesale Florists in 1937. Dennis Paul and the other three flower wholesalers stayed in business in Eckington until  2007 , when they sold the building. Today, the plot is occupied by Urban Investment Partners, a property management company, which prides itself on “the ability to see ahead of the curve and identify catalysts in submarkets … [to add] tremendous value to undercapitalized assets” – a fancy way of saying they specialize in gentrification.

In 1968, civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, leading to a string of  uprisings  across the city. These uprisings – which responded to the assassination as well as unemployment, disinvestment, and over-policing in the city - lasted five days and were concentrated in three areas: 14th Street between Otis Street and Rhode Island Avenue, NW; 7th Street between F and V streets NW; and H Street between Second and about 15th streets NE. Over 3,000 local police officers and 13,000 federal troops came in to quell the uprising. By the end, 12 people lost their lives, over 1,000 were injured, and over 6,000 were arrested. The  uprisings  caused $27 million worth of damage.

The uprisings were several blocks away from Eckington, but likely led to the last remaining  White residents  leaving the area.

In 1960, Eckington Church celebrated its pastor,  Reverend Henry B. Wooding’s  50th year of ministry. Wooding had been pastor of the Eckington Presbyterian Church since 1926. However, shortly after he  died  in January 1965, the church closed. The  Washington 

 Post  reported that “prejudice killed” the church in 1966 as the Church’s White congregation disbanded in response to the arrival of Black parishioners.

A soldier standing guard on the corner of 7th & N Street NW in Washington D.C. with the ruins of buildings that were destroyed during the uprisings that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr in 1968.

The Eckington neighborhood transitioned from working- and middle-class White to working- and middle-class Black in the 1970s. Then, the socioeconomic profile of the neighborhood changed as middle class Black residents left in the 1970s. In  1976 , McKinley Tech High School, which sits on a hill in the heart of Eckington, was a stellar high school where over 50 % of graduates went on to colleges and universities such as Howard, UCLA, and Harvard. Many of the students were members of the Black middle-class and participated in the magnet programs – which included arts, music, and engineering. The school had the largest population in the city – at 2,302 students. The guidance counselor, Mrs. Corley explained to a Washington Post reporter, “McKinley teachers teach with the expectation of college.” Mrs. Gilkes, chair of the music program had students go on to Oberlin, Julliard, and Carnegie Tech.

In the 1970s, the school was facing challenges, with  classes  being canceled due to a shortage of teachers and a lack of supplies for teachers. These annoyances, however, would become pronounced over the next decade as the school fell into disrepair and the city failed to address the growing maintenance issues. By the mid-1980s, the school had deteriorated both physically and in terms of its educational offerings. The school became a shadow of its former self.

Although the school lacked the resources it once had, it is worth noting that Eckington was not a poor neighborhood at the turn of the twentieth century. Its median household income in 2000 was right at the citywide median and one in five of its residents had a college degree.

McKinley Tech Art Department, 1968

In the early 1990s there were several violent  incidents  on the campus of McKinley Tech High School, leading school officials to issue an  order  that students would no longer be allowed to leave campus for lunch. This order came after there were  four shootings  in or near Eckington in the first two weeks of September 1991. Nevertheless, the violence continued unabated: in 1994, a student at McKinley Tech High school stabbed another student after a basketball game. In the aftermath of that incident, Ellen Carter-Davis, an advisory neighborhood commissioner who had lived in Eckington for 43 years told the Washington Post the neighborhood had become a “ lot like a war zone ” due to the frequent shootings in the area.

Not all residents shared Carter-Davis’ perspective. In 1989,  Catrina , a resident of Eckington and a high school student told a researcher:

When the media does a story in our neighborhood [Eckington], … they usually fail to cover the good things. They don’t recognize those who are doing good.

She added, presciently,

A number of Caucasians are moving back into the city and doing things to accommodate themselves, like fixing up streets and old buildings, and trying to get the drug dealers off the corner, whereas, Black people in this city have been complaining for years and nothing has been done about it.

In  1997 , McKinley Tech closed its doors after 180 graduates walked across the stage. The city cited reduced enrollment and lack of available funding for repairs as the reasons for the closure. The school remained closed until  2004 .

McKinley Tech High School, 2021

In 1991, Eckington became a test case in the nation’s war on drugs. Federal agents and the local Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) collaborated in an effort to use Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) laws against the  R Street Crew , which has its headquarters in Eckington. This was the first time RICO statutes had been used against drug selling organizations in Washington, DC. 

The MPD and the FBI saw the trial of the R Street Crew as a  testing ground  for the use of conspiracy and racketeering charges against street gangs. The case was split up into four separate cases because of the large number of defendants. The first case took five months to try and was watched closely by federal prosecutors around the country because it was one of a few attempts, and the first in DC, to use  RICO  charges against a suspected drug organization.

Law enforcement agents arrested 24 men in the R Street Case and charged them with RICO and with conspiracy to distribute narcotics, both of which carry life sentences. Although the government argued the R Street Crew controlled $50 million in drug sales, they struggled to prove this. After a prolonged trial, the jury decided that one house, five cars, and $11,415 in cash were proceeds of an illegal drug operation and should be forfeited - far short of the alleged $50 million. Although the federal government claimed the R Street Crew was a multi-million-dollar organization, they were not able to establish that in court. Although the jury acquitted the defendants of the RICO charges, nine of the 24 defendants were convicted of operating a continuing criminal enterprise, which carries a mandatory sentence of life without parole.

Source:  York, Michael. "Prosecutors Say R Street Gang was Violent, $50 Million Enterprise." The Washington Post (1974-Current File), Feb 21, 1992.  

This map illustrates locations with signs that associate with anti-loitering, anti-littering, anti-drug use, anti-vandalism, anti-graffiti, or neighborhood watch. The colored point symbols suggest signs discouraging disorder (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Public courtesies signify an addition of either crosswalks, bus stops, bike racks, trash bins, or street lamps to the vicinity.

This Google Street View image shows the minimal presence of public courtesy in the vicinity of 51 T St NE, Washington, DC 20002 in November 2007 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This Google Street View image shows the most recent public courtesies and accounts for a new bus stop and bike rack in the vicinity of 51 T St NE, Washington, DC 20002, in November 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates locations that have an addition of either road implementations, addition to the Flora, and crosswalks to the vicinity. The colored point symbols indicate the presence of new public courtesies within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Signs or structures controlling traffic indicate the addition of speed signs, pedestrians crossing signs, bike lanes, or parking signs within the vicinity.

This Google Street View image shows the prior crosswalk shows no presence of a pedestrian crossing sign in the vicinity of 45 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2009 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This Google Street View image shows improvement to the pedestrian crosswalk design, traffic light, and signs controlling traffic in the vicinity of 45 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates locations where signs or structures controlling traffic indicate the addition of speed signs, pedestrians crossing signs, bike lanes, or parking signs. The colored point symbols indicate the presence of new signs or structures controlling traffic within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Residences with new patio furniture or landscaping include patio or yard furniture or accessories that go beyond ordinary grass maintenance within the vicinity.

This Google Street View image shows the earlier conditions of residences indicate the minor presence of patio furniture or landscaping in the vicinity of 163 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, in November 2007 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This Google Street View image shows a residence with a new presence of patio furniture in the vicinity of 163 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates residences with new patio furniture or landscaping that go beyond ordinary grass maintenance within the vicinity. The darker shades of color suggest an increased presence of residences with new patio furniture or landscaping within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Residences with minor upgrades include slight renovations such as: a paint job and window, ground, or structure improvement.

This Google Street View image shows the prior residences indicate that windows are missing at 1733 North Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2008 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This Google Street View image shows the modern residences with minor upgrades indicate the addition of a new paint job at 1733 North Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20002, in November 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates structures with slight renovations such as: a paint job and window, ground, or structure improvement. The darker shades of color suggest an increased presence of residences with minor upgrades within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Residences with major upgrades include structures with extensive improvement or renovation. Such as the addition of a story to the structure.

This Google Street View image shows the prior conditions of the residency at 32 Florida Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This Google Street View image shows the current structure with modifications to the residency at 32 Florida Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, in August 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates locations that encompass cafés, trendy restaurants or bars, pet stores, art galleries, organic food markets, or boutiques. The colored point symbols indicate commercial uses that align with cultural aspects of gentrification (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Litter is present if the presence of waste products such as paper, cans, bottles on a block is a score of 2 or more on a scale between 0 to 10.

This is a Google Street View image that shows the presence of litter in a public vicinity of 45 Rhode Island Ave NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates the presence of waste products such as paper, cans, bottles on a block. The colored point symbols indicate the presence of litter within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Unkempt vacant area or public street frontage includes unoccupied areas with untamed grass or the presence of overgrown weeds.

This is a Google Street View image that shows an unkempt public street frontage that consists of untamed grass in the vicinity of 1910 2nd St NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates regions that consist of untamed grass or the presence of overgrown weeds. The colored point symbols indicate unkempt vacant area or public street frontage (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Abandoned structures are buildings that are uninhabited. Boarded up structures have boards on the windows and doors to protect the property from further damage and/or to prevent unauthorized access.

This is a Google Street View image representing an abandoned structure at 1705 North Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20002, in November 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates residences boarded up structures have boards on the windows and doors to protect the property from further damage and/or to prevent unauthorized access. The colored point symbols indicate the presence of abandoned or boarded up structure(s) within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

Structures with minor exterior decay consist of slight deterioration, decay, or damage, such as faded paint.

This is a Google Street View image that shows a building with minor decay on the roof at 9 Randolph Pl NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).

This map illustrates residences with slight deterioration, decay, or damage, such as faded paint. The darker shades of color suggest an increased presence of structures with minor exterior decay within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

This map illustrates residences with slight deterioration, decay, or damage, such as faded paint. The darker shades of color suggest an increased presence of structures with major exterior decay within the vicinity (Source: ArcGIS). Please click on the double arrows in the upper-left corner of this map to access a visual detail of the symbols used on this map. Click on any indicator to access information about your chosen indicator.

A building or property that consist of metal gates around the structure or on the structure's windows.

This Google Street View image shows a closer look at the metal fences or gates where a building has metal gates on the windows that pertain to 166 Uhland Terrace NE, Washington, DC 20002, in July 2019 (Source: Google Street View 2021).