Kent, Washington, D.C. on:
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Kent is a neighborhood in
The earliest habitation after the organization of the
D.C. Neighborhoods Map
Northwest
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each ...
Washington, D.C.
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
in the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
, bounded by Loughboro Road to the north, MacArthur Boulevard to the southwest, and Chain Bridge Road and Battery Kemble Park to the southeast. It is a suburban neighborhood, home to some of the most expensive homes in the city with an average home sales price in 2012 of $1.7 million ($ today).
Geography
Kent is a triangular-shaped neighborhood between Loughboro Road to the north, MacArthur Boulevard to the southwest, and Chain Bridge Road and Battery Kemble Park to the southeast. The area was long considered part of Palisades, the community that lies to the south, opposite MacArthur Boulevard. The neighborhood is bisected by Arizona Avenue which runs from southwest to northeast and divides it into two distinct areas. The hilly western section was developed in the 1930s and 1940s in a suburban style of that time with similar-looking Colonial-style houses. The east developed more organically beginning before the Civil War and maintains a more rural character. The neighborhood is entirely residential with all commercial development located along MacArthur Boulevard.History
The earliest habitation after the organization of the District of Columbia
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...
in 1801 was along the road to the Chain Bridge
A chain bridge is a historic form of suspension bridge for which chains or eyebars were used instead of wire ropes to carry the bridge deck. A famous example is the Széchenyi Chain Bridge in Budapest.
Construction types are, as for other suspen ...
across the Potomac River (now Chain Bridge Road) which lies at what is now the neighborhood’s eastern border. The population grew during the Civil War, when settlements of freed and escaped slaves sprang up around Battery Kemble, one Civil War Defenses of Washington
The Civil War Defenses of Washington were a group of Union Army fortifications that protected the federal capital city, Washington, D.C., from invasion by the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War (see Washington, D.C., in the Amer ...
located to the east of the road. After the war, blacks continued to settled in the area on land they were given or that they bought from other landowners. Remnants of this community include a small cemetery established in 1868 and an old schoolhouse.
When the lots in this eastern section were finally subdivided, they assumed irregular shapes that reflected the land’s contours and previous land divisions. Unlike many parts of Washington, this area did not have restrictive covenant
A covenant, in its most general sense and historical sense, is a solemn promise to engage in or refrain from a specified action. Under historical English common law, a covenant was distinguished from an ordinary contract by the presence of a s ...
s barring habitation by black people
Black is a racialized classification of people, usually a political and skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin; in certain countries, often ...
or Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""T ...
. Thus, the neighborhood became a haven for educated minorities, many of whom built houses designed by distinguished architects such as modernist Walter Gropius
Walter Adolph Georg Gropius (18 May 1883 – 5 July 1969) was a German-American architect and founder of the Bauhaus School, who, along with Alvar Aalto, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, is widely regarded as one ...
that were interspersed with 18th-century farmhouses and 19th-century bungalows.
Notable residents
*Tucker Carlson
Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969) is an American television host, Conservatism in the United States, conservative Pundit, political commentator and writer who has hosted the nightly political talk show ''Tucker Carlson Tonight ...
See also
*The Palisades, Washington, D.C.
The Palisades, or simply Palisades, is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., along the Potomac River, running roughly from the edge of the Georgetown University campus (at Foxhall Road) to the D.C.-Maryland boundary (near Dalecarlia Treatment Pl ...
D.C. Neighborhoods Map
References
{{Neighborhoods in Washington, D.C. Neighborhoods in Northwest (Washington, D.C.) 1860s establishments in Washington, D.C. The Palisades (Washington, D.C.)