Anacostia

Largely residential section in the far southeast of Washington DC, across the Anacostia River from the rest of the District. For some decades, it has had a reputation as a run-down and economically deprived district of the capital. The home (1877–95) of antislavery leader and diplomat Frederick Douglass, which is located here, is a National Historic Site.

A hilly area, Anacostia was first developed in the 1850s, as a suburb to house workers at Washington's naval dockyard. It remained lightly populated and relatively isolated until after World War II. When urban renewal projects, especially road-building schemes, in the Southwest and other sections of the District displaced poorer residents in the 1950s and 1960s, they filtered into Anacostia; as they did so, its older, middle-class White population left for the suburbs. The area, which together with Congress Heights (to the south) makes up the District's Ward 8, is now densely populated. The opening of a subway service to Downtown in 1992 was hailed as a positive development that would bring regeneration to the area.