Spring Valley is a largely residential neighborhood in Ward 3, NorthwestWashington, D.C. As of July 2021, it was the most expensive neighborhood in the District, with homes selling at a median price of $1.465 million.[1]
It had the highest percentage of people voting for Donald Trump of any precinct in the 2016 election, at 15%.[3]
History
The neighborhood was the flagship development of the W.C. and A.N. Miller Companies, which sold its first homes in the subdivision in 1928, and built and sold homes there over the next 80 years.[4] The neighborhood was originally deed-restricted, with W.C. and A.N. Miller prohibiting the sale or rental of the property to "persons of Negro blood or extraction, or to any person of Semitic race, blood, or origin, which racial description shall be deemed to include Armenians, Jews, Hebrews, Persians, and Syrians"; the Millers claimed that these covenants reflected the desires of the residents, and not the prejudice of the company or its officers, and anyway could not be eliminated.[5] Although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled such covenants were unenforceable in 1948, they remained in the language of the deeds and were the subject of litigation until the passage of the 1968 Fair Housing Act.
Much of the land was formerly owned by American University. In 1917 the federal government established a weapons testing facility on land leased from the university, and the U.S. Army established Camp Leach to produce and test chemical weapons there, including mustard gas components, lewisite, and arsenic.[6] The Army closed down the facility after World War I, and the university sold off the property for development. In 1993, construction workers discovered unexploded chemical mortar rounds and 75mm shells, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers carried out a cleanup dubbed Operation Safe Removal over the next two years which uncovered 141 munitions, including 42 poison gas shells.[6] Nevertheless, reports of health problems continued and in 1997, the U.S. Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, at the request of D.C. Department of Health officials, released a report indicating the Army Corps of Engineers had botched the cleanup. Further investigations found that the contamination was not widespread, and limits to certain plots, notably the home at 4825 Glenbrook Road NW. Its owners, whose lawyers characterized the plot as the "mother of all toxic dumps," settled a federal lawsuit with the government, American University, and W.C. and A.N. Miller, and the house was demolished in 2012.[7] Excavation and restoration at the 4825 Glenbrook site took 8 years, being declared complete in August 2020.[8]
The cleanup by 2013 had cost the army $221 million,[9] before being paused in 2014 for three years. Between 2000 and 2017, more than 500 additional munition items, 400 pounds of laboratory glassware, and 100 tons of contaminated soil were removed as the cleanup continued.[10] Work was paused with the discovery of an unknown substance containing low levels of mustard gas, and again after seven workers were sickened.[11] By 2018, more than 1,600 homes had been screened for potentially elevated levels of arsenic, and contaminated soil had been removed from 180 homes.[12]
Geography
Intersection of 49th St. and Hillbrook Lane NW in February 2021
The neighborhood is bounded by Nebraska Avenue and Loughboro Road to its south, Dalecarlia Parkway to its west, and Massachusetts Avenue to its northeast; Dalecarlia and Mass. Ave. converge at Westmoreland Circle, on the Maryland border.
Massachusetts Avenue is the main commercial corridor serving the area. Neighborhood landmarks include the main campus of American University and the Wesley Theological Seminary, at 4400 and 4500 Massachusetts Ave. NW respectively. The former Washington College of Law campus at 4801 and 4910 Massachusetts Avenue is also here, although the institution has since moved to nearby Tenleytown. Paradoxically, the neighborhood to the northeast is called American University Park, even though the bulk of the main campus is located in Spring Valley.
American University and Wesley Theological Seminary are located in the southeast of the neighborhood. No elementary or secondary institutions are located in Spring Valley; District of Columbia Public Schools students attend Horace Mann Elementary School, Hardy Middle School, and Jackson-Reed High School.
Dupont Circle is a historic roundabout park and neighborhood of Washington, D.C., located in Northwest D.C. The Dupont Circle neighborhood is bounded approximately by 16th Street NW to the east, 22nd Street NW to the west, M Street NW to the south, and Florida Avenue NW to the north. Much of the neighborhood is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. However, the local government Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the Dupont Circle Historic District have slightly different boundaries.
Northwest is the northwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, and is located north of the National Mall and west of North Capitol Street. It is the largest of the four quadrants of the city, and it includes the central business district, the Federal Triangle, and the museums along the northern side of the National Mall, as well as many of the District's historic neighborhoods.
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 to the D.C.-Maryland boundary.
Columbia Heights is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C., located in Northwest D.C. Bounded by 16th Street NW, W Street NW, Florida Avenue NW, Barry Place NW, Sherman Avenue NW, Spring Road NW, and New Hampshire Avenue NW. neighborhood is an important retail hub for the area, as home to DC USA mall and to numerous other restaurants and stores, primarily along the highly commercialized 14th Street. Columbia Heights is home to numerous historical landmarks, including Meridian Hill Park, National Baptist Memorial Church, All Souls Church, along with a number of embassy buildings.
Friendship Heights is an urban commercial and residential neighborhood in northwest Washington, D.C., and southern Montgomery County, Maryland. Though its borders are not clearly defined, Friendship Heights consists roughly of the neighborhoods and commercial areas around Wisconsin Avenue north of Fessenden Street NW and Tenleytown to Somerset Terrace and Willard Avenue in Maryland, and from River Road in the west to Reno Road and 41st Street in the east. Within Maryland west of Wisconsin Avenue is the Village of Friendship Heights, technically a special taxation district.
Bloomingdale is a neighborhood in the Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., less than two miles (3 km) north of the United States Capitol building. It is a primarily residential neighborhood, with a small commercial center near the intersection of Rhode Island Avenue and First Street NW featuring bars, restaurants, and food markets.
Massachusetts Avenue is a major diagonal transverse road in Washington, D.C., and the Massachusetts Avenue Historic District is a historic district that includes part of it.
Wisconsin Avenue is a major thoroughfare in Washington, D.C., and its Maryland suburbs. The southern terminus begins in Georgetown just north of the Potomac River, at an intersection with K Street under the elevated Whitehurst Freeway. Wisconsin Avenue ends just north of Bethesda, Maryland—though the road designated as Maryland Route 355 continues north for miles under the name of Rockville Pike.
Camp Leach, formerly known as the American University Experimental Station and Camp American University, was a World War I era United States Army camp built by the Corps of Engineers on American University property in Washington, D.C. It was named in honor of Colonel Smith S. Leach, Corps of Engineers. The camp was established in 1917 for the organization of engineer units and subsequently used by the Chemical Warfare Service. Abandoned in January 1919, it was ordered salvaged.
Dalecarlia Reservoir is the primary storage basin for drinking water in Washington, D.C., and Arlington County, Virginia. The reservoir is fed by an underground aqueduct in turn fed by low dams which divert portions of the Potomac River near Great Falls and Little Falls. The reservoir is located between Spring Valley and the Palisades, two neighborhoods in Northwest Washington, D.C., and Brookmont, a neighborhood in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Pine Bluff Chemical Activity is a subordinate organization of the United States Army Chemical Materials Agency located at Pine Bluff Arsenal in Pine Bluff, Arkansas. The U.S. Army stored approximately twelve percent of its original chemical weapons at the Pine Bluff Arsenal since 1942. Destruction of the last chemical weapons occurred on November 12, 2010.
Florida Avenue is a major street in Washington, D.C. It was originally named Boundary Street, because it formed the northern boundary of the Federal City under the 1791 L'Enfant Plan. With the growth of the city beyond its original borders, Boundary Street was renamed Florida Avenue in 1890.
Brightwood is a neighborhood in the northwestern quadrant of Washington, D.C. Brightwood is part of Ward 4.
The Capital Crescent Trail (CCT) is a 7.04-mile (11.33 km), shared-use rail trail that runs from Georgetown in Washington, D.C., to Bethesda, Maryland. An extension of the trail from Bethesda to Silver Spring along a route formerly known as the Georgetown Branch Trail is being built as part of the Purple Line light rail project.
Wakefield is a neighborhood in the Upper Northwest quadrant of Washington, D.C., bounded by Albemarle Street NW to the south, Nebraska Avenue NW to the west, and Connecticut Avenue to the east. It is served by the Van Ness-UDC and Tenleytown-AU station on the Washington Metro's Red Line.
Little Falls Branch, a 3.8-mile-long (6.1 km) tributary stream of the Potomac River, is located in Montgomery County, Maryland. In the 19th century, the stream was also called Powder Mill Branch. It drains portions of Bethesda, Somerset, Friendship Heights, and Washington, D.C., flows under the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal (C&O), and empties into the Potomac at Little Falls rapids, which marks the upper end of the tidal Potomac.
The Current Newspapers consisted of four print and online weekly community newspapers in Washington, D.C., with editions targeted to affluent communities in Georgetown, Dupont Circle, Foggy Bottom, and Northwest DC.
Western Avenue is one of three boundary streets between Washington, D.C., and the state of Maryland. It follows a southwest-to-northeast line, beginning at Westmoreland Circle in the south and ending at Oregon Avenue NW in the north. It is roughly 3.5 miles (5.6 km) in length. First proposed in 1893, it was constructed somewhat fitfully from about 1900 to 1931.
Segra Field is a soccer-specific stadium in Leesburg, Virginia, and the home of Loudoun United FC of the USL Championship and previously Old Glory DC of Major League Rugby.
The W.C. and A.N. Miller Companies are a group of related privately-held real estate firms known for developing residential communities in Washington, D.C. and its surrounding metropolitan area. Developers of neighborhoods including Spring Valley and Wesley Heights in D.C., Sumner in Bethesda, and Potomac Falls in Potomac, Maryland, they were considered to be one of Washington's most renowned realty developers in the early 20th century.
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