Mount Vernon Square, Washington, D.C.

Mount Vernon Square is a city square and neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. The square is located where the following streets would otherwise intersect: Massachusetts Avenue NW, New York Avenue NW, K Street NW, and 8th Street NW.

Attributes

Mount Vernon Square is bounded on the east by 7th Street NW, on the west by 9th Street NW, on the north by Mount Vernon Place, and on the south by a two-block section of K Street NW that is slightly offset from the rest of K Street.

In the center of the square is the Carnegie Library of Washington D.C., finished in 1903, as a gift of industrialist Andrew Carnegie. The white marble Beaux-Arts building was originally the central library for Washington, D.C. The building now houses the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., and an Apple Store.

History

The square was in the original L'Enfant Plan for the city but in the early 1800s was divided into four triangles by the intersection of Massachusetts Avenue and New York Avenue. The old Northern Liberty Market stood along Seventh Street until 1872, when it was demolished by Governor Alexander Shepherd in a night raid with two to 300 men. The roadways were removed in 1882 at the request of residents who complained that "in its former condition the constant passage of vehicles of all descriptions through the park made it unpleasant and oftentimes dangerous for those frequenting it."

The Carnegie Library of Washington D.C. was built in 1903. It was the central library for the city until 1972, when the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library was completed. The library sat abandoned for a decade until it was renovated as a library for the University of the District of Columbia.

In the late 19th and early 20th century, the city's furniture stores and more economical department stores such as Goldberg's and Kaufman's were located along 7th Street NW in the 7th Street shopping district, most of which was in the neighborhood now known as Mount Vernon Square. Further south, just below today's Chinatown, the 7th Street corridor met the F Street corridor with its more upscale apparel and department stores.

In 1999, the library became the headquarters for the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. The City Museum of Washington opened in the library in May 2003, but closed less than two years later.

In 2008, a sculpture was installed on the lawn at the south side of the square - "The Hand" created by Jim Fauntleroy in the 1960s for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Poor People’s Campaign.

The Washington Convention and Sports Authority took over the library building in 2011, renting it out for events. The building underwent significant renovations in 2018, to accommodate a new Apple Store and exhibit space for the Historical Society.

Neighborhood and vicinity

Mount Vernon Square also refers to the neighborhood northeast of the square, extending north to O Street and east to New Jersey Avenue. In the early 20th century, Victorian-style townhomes occupied the area, and the 7th Street shopping district was the city's vibrant commercial strip (along with more upscale F Street), until the Great Depression, when the area went into a steep decline. During the 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. riots, the area around the square suffered rioting, arson, and extensive vandalism.

In the 1980s, 7th Street was shut down for several years during the construction of the Green Line (Washington Metro) - the Mount Vernon Square station opened in 1991.

Boundaries

The boundaries of the neighborhood are;
* On the south, Chinatown and the Penn Quarter, usually considered the heart of Downtown Washington, D.C.
* On the north, M or O Street NW according to the source, and the Shaw neighborhood
* From the eastern boundary of the square to New Jersey Ave. is the Mount Vernon Triangle neighborhood, often mentioned together with the Mount Vernon Square neighborhood
* On the west, either Thomas Circle or 10th St. NW and the Logan Circle neighborhood

Old and new convention centers

In 1977, the city used eminent domain to purchase several blocks southwest of Mount Vernon Square. Over the next few years, the homes and businesses on these blocks were razed. The old Washington Convention Center

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