Living in Brookland, Washington DC

The Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception rises above Brookland's low-rise blocks, its Byzantine-Romanesque dome making it the largest Catholic church in North America, consecrated in 1959 after a construction that spanned five decades. Catholic University of America's campus surrounds the Basilica on three sides, and the cluster of monasteries, seminaries, and religious houses that grew up around the university earned the neighborhood its longtime nickname, "Little Rome," still used by residents today. Monroe Street Market, a mixed-use development built across from the campus starting in 2011, added an arts walk of small galleries and studios to a commercial strip that had thinned out over the preceding decades. The Brookland-CUA Metro station sits at the neighborhood's center, putting the Red Line within an easy walk of most addresses.

Brookland's retail options thin out fast once you're a block or two off Monroe Street, and evenings here run quieter than almost anywhere else along the Red Line.

Few Washington neighborhoods organize this much of their identity around a single institution, and Brookland's quiet, tree-lined blocks still take their character from the university and churches that surround them as much as from the market that recently arrived to serve them.