Storefronts along 18th St., NW in Adams Morgan.

Washington DC
Adams Morgan

The location of the present-day Adams Morgan neighborhood in Northwest originally was outside of Charles Pierre L’Enfant’s design for Washington. The area gradually became developed in the late 1800s and early 1900s, thanks in part to the construction of streetcar lines on Columbia Road and 18th Street NW. In the early 1900s, it was known simply as 18th and Columbia, and was a fashionable middle-class neighborhood, before going into a period of decline during and just after World War II. The area became known as Adams Morgan in the early 1950s, after the principals of two then-segregated elementary schools — all-White John Quincy Adams and the all-Black Thomas P. Morgan School — joined forces to improve education. They and local residents and activists formed the Adams-Morgan Better Neighborhood Conference, and the name stuck, though the hyphen didn’t. Starting in the mid-1970s, Adams Morgan began a revival, turning into a hip entertainment and dining district that today has more than 100 restaurants. As the District’s nightlife epicenter gradually has shifted further south and east, Adams Morgan has evolved into more of a residential neighborhood, filled with spacious Victorian rowhomes, condos and apartments.