Built Environment

A new website, Mapping Segregation, seeks to illuminate DC’s history of racially restrictive housing covenants from the last century that continue to define the city’s segregation patterns today. The site is the brainchild of DC…

After nearly two decades of disuse, the neglected Grant Building in DC’s Petworth neighborhood will soon come back to life — as an affordable assisted-living facility for eligible seniors. Since 2001, the Renaissance Revival structure…

Here in Washington, history is always just around the corner. And every neighborhood has a story to tell. This Sunday, LeDroit Park will open its doors and heart to visitors at its first-ever house and garden tour. Proceeds from ticket…

The owners of several Deanwood businesses filed a legal complaint this morning against Neighborhood Development Co., the company responsible for abruptly evicting them from their properties and padlocking their storefronts days later.…

Part of what makes the nation’s capital so exciting is that there is so much variety here — from the food to the people to the architecture. Every few months, events celebrate the District’s mixed bag of tastes, sounds, sights and…

The upcoming reconstruction of the Southwest Neighborhood Library building and grounds will incorporate many more windows, as well as new outdoor areas for both kids and adults, planners said at a recent library meeting. The roof will house…

The Meridian International Center has been planning for redevelopment of a plot of land on its 16th Street NW campus for the past seven years. But despite the forward momentum gained this summer, a newly organized group of residents is…

Paul Devrouax, the visionary African-American architect behind many landmark DC sites — including Nationals Park, the city convention center and the building that helped rejuvenate U Street NW — now has a street dedicated to his legacy.…

Northwest DC’s Columbia Heights is one of the fastest-gentrifying neighborhoods in the country, but a new project is promising to add affordable housing to the area. The National Caucus & Center on Black Aging Inc. (NCBA) plans on…

Community members spoke out overwhelmingly this week against the prospect of increased security screenings at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo, despite the zoo’s statements that no such plans are in place. At a public meeting Wednesday,…

The American City Diner has closed its doors after operating for three decades as an iconic destination on Connecticut Avenue NW. Steve Salis, the owner of Kramerbooks & Afterwords and Ted’s Bulletin, is taking over the diner space,…

Luxury units and craft distilleries have marked Ivy City’s resurgence, but the Crummell School site, vacant since the early 1980s, remains a vestige of a forlorn period in the Northeast neighborhood’s history. The District plans to sell…

DC Council members this week grilled District officials over delays in constructing planned family homeless shelters in wards 7 and 8, while officials maintained both shelters will still open on schedule in the fall. The two shelters…

Mayor Muriel Bowser joined city officials and corporate executives Monday to celebrate the start of long-awaited renovations to the Thaddeus Stevens School in the West End and the construction of an office building on the school’s former…