Forest Hills is a residential neighborhood in the northwest quadrant of

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

, bounded by

Connecticut Avenue Connecticut Avenue is a major thoroughfare in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., and suburban Montgomery County, Maryland. It is one of the diagonal avenues radiating from the White House, and the segment south of Florida Avenue wa ...

NW to the west,

Rock Creek Park Rock Creek Park is a large urban park that bisects the Northwest, Washington, D.C., Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. Created by Act of Congress in 1890, the park comprises 1,754 acres (2.74 mi2, 7.10 km2), generally along Rock Cr ...

to the east,

Chevy Chase Cornelius Crane "Chevy" Chase (; born October 8, 1943) is an American comedian, actor, and writer. He became the breakout cast member in the first season of ''Saturday Night Live'' (1975–1976), where his recurring ''Weekend Update'' segment b ...

to the north, and Tilden Street NW to the south. The neighborhood is frequently referred to as Van Ness because it is served by the Van Ness–UDC station on the

Washington Metro The Washington Metro, often abbreviated as the Metro and formally the Metrorail, is a rapid transit system serving the Washington metropolitan area of the United States. It is administered by the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority ...

's Red Line and is near the Van Ness campus of the

University of the District of Columbia The University of the District of Columbia (UDC) is a public historically black land-grant university in Washington, D.C., United States. The only public university in the city, it traces its origins to 1851 and opened in its current form in 1 ...

(UDC).

Transit

Forest Hills is served by the Red Line of the Washington Metro and the Crosstown Line (H2, H3, and H4) and Connecticut Avenue Line (L1, L2, and L4) of the D.C. Metrobus.

Points of interest

Forest Hills contains the former site of the

Civil War A civil war is a war between organized groups within the same Sovereign state, state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies.J ...

-era Fort Kearny, of which no trace remains today, and the Soapstone Valley Park, which surrounds a

tributary A tributary, or an ''affluent'', is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream (''main stem'' or ''"parent"''), river, or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries, and the main stem river into which they ...

of Rock Creek. The Howard University School of Law campus is across Connecticut Avenue from UDC on Upton Street NW. The Levine School of Music is located on Upton Street, in the building originally occupied by the Carnegie Geophysical Laboratory. The Edmund Burke School, founded in 1968, is located on Upton Street, in the building that was originally occupied by Devitt Prep. The Hillwood Museum, located in a house that once belonged to philanthropist and socialite

Marjorie Merriweather Post Marjorie Merriweather Post (March 15, 1887 – September 12, 1973) was an American businesswoman, socialite, and philanthropist. She was the daughter of C. W. Post and the owner of General Foods, General Foods Corporation. For much of Post's l ...

, contains her collection of decorative objects, including several Fabergé eggs. The embassies of the

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, also known as Czechia, and historically known as Bohemia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the south ...

and the

Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

are located on Linnean Avenue NW in Forest Hills, while that of Suriname is on Connecticut Avenue. The embassy of

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

is just south of Tilden Street in

Cleveland Park Cleveland Park is a residential neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C. It is located at and bounded approximately by Rock Creek Park to the east, Wisconsin and Idaho Avenues to the west, Klingle and Woodley Roads to the sou ...

, and a number of other embassies are located just to the west in North Cleveland Park. The

Seventh-day Adventist The Seventh-day Adventist Church (SDA) is an Adventist Protestant Christian denomination which is distinguished by its observance of Saturday, the seventh day of the week in the Christian (Gregorian) and the Hebrew calendar, as the Sabbat ...

Capital Memorial Church is located at 3150 Chesapeake Street NW.

History

The

National Bureau of Standards The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is an agency of the United States Department of Commerce whose mission is to promote American innovation and industrial competitiveness. NIST's activities are organized into physical sc ...

(now the National Institute of Standards and Technology) was at one time the largest employer in the neighborhood. Due to an absence of restricted housing covenants as in other, similarly situated neighborhoods, the Forest Hills neighborhood became predominantly

Jewish Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of History of ancient Israel and Judah, ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, rel ...

during the 1940s and 1950s.

References

External links

ANC 3F
, Forest Hills Advisory Neighborhood Commission
Forest Hills Metro Station Info
from Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority {{Neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Historic Jewish communities in the United States Jews and Judaism in Washington, D.C. Neighborhoods in Northwest (Washington, D.C.)