Living in Capitol Hill, Washington DC

The US Capitol's dome anchors the neighborhood that takes its name, its grounds giving way east to blocks of Federal and Victorian rowhouses that make up one of the largest historic districts in the city. Eastern Market has served as the neighborhood's grocer since architect Adolf Cluss designed its brick market hall in 1873; a 2007 fire gutted much of the building, but a two-year restoration reopened it in 2009, and it remains the last of Washington's original public markets still running full-time. Barracks Row runs south along 8th Street SE toward the Marine Barracks, the Marine Corps' oldest active post, home to the ceremonial Friday Evening Parade each summer. The Library of Congress's Jefferson Building sits just east of the Capitol grounds, and Lincoln Park, a few blocks further, holds the Emancipation Memorial, unveiled in 1876 with a keynote address from Frederick Douglass and funded almost entirely by donations from formerly enslaved Americans. The Capitol South and Eastern Market Metro stations put the Blue, Orange, and Silver Lines within walking distance of most addresses.

Tourist traffic around the Capitol grounds and the Library of Congress can clog the closest blocks on weekdays, and street parking near Eastern Market disappears fast on market weekends.

Capitol Hill's historic-district protections have kept its rowhouse blocks looking much as they did a century ago, a preservation that carries a price tag few of the neighborhoods just across the Anacostia can match.