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Neighborhood of Washington, D. C.

Mount Pleasant is a neighborhood in Washington, D. C., located in Northwest D. C. The neighborhood is primarily residential, with restaurants and stores centered along a commercial corridor on Mt. Pleasant Street. Mount Pleasant is known for its unique identity and multicultural landscape, home to diverse groups such as the punk rock, the Peace Corps and Hispanic Washingtonian communities. The neighborhood was initially developed around the Mount Pleasant Hospital, which was built and operated during the American Civil War. Following the war, the largely rural was subdivided for real estate development. Following the advent of the D. C. streetcar system, Mt. Pleasant became Washington's first streetcar suburb and burgeoned as an affluent residential area until the mid 1940s. The neighborhood entered a period of decay following the white flight and the 1968 Washington, D. C. riots. Since the 2000s, Mount Pleasant has undergone increasing urban redevelopment and levels of gentrification.

In 1727, Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore, then governor of the Province of Maryland, awarded a land grant for present day Mount Pleasant to James Holmead. This estate, later named "Pleasant Plains", included the territory of present day neighborhoods of Adams Morgan, Columbia Heights, Meridian Hill, and Pleasant Plains (which only covers a portion of the original estate of the same name). After the creation of the District of Columbia in 1791, Pleasant Plains estate became part of Washington County, but not part of the City of Washington. In 1794 and 1796, noted Georgetown businessman Robert Peter conducted the first land surveys in the area and created maps for tracts of some of his land in Mount Pleasant for transactions with commissioners of the city.

In 1861, William Selden, former Treasurer of the United States, owned of land north of Pierce Mill Road, but having been a Confederate sympathizer, was forced was forced to sell his land at a low price and move back to Virginia. The purchaser was New England native Samuel P. Brown, who built a house and also allowed the Mount Pleasant General Hospital to be constructed on his land. After the American Civil War, Brown began selling his land in parcels. He named the area Mount Pleasant Village because it contained the land having the highest elevation within the original Pleasant Plains estate. Brown sold all of his land except for the parcel he retained around his house at 3351 Mount Pleasant Street, NW. In the 1870s, a horse drawn streetcar began traveling between the Fourteenth and Park intersection to downtown Washington city, making this the first streetcar suburb in the District of Columbia. In 1878, Mount Pleasant merged into Washington when the city's boundaries became coterminous with those of the District.

In 1901, 16th Street NW was extended north of Florida Avenue, establishing the boundary of the neighborhood. Mount Pleasant developed rapidly as a streetcar suburb after the expansion of the mechanized Washington streetcars along 16 1/2 Street (now Mount Pleasant Street) in 1903. Many houses and apartment buildings were constructed between 1900 and 1925, primarily marketed to middle to upper middle class people. In 1925, the city built the Mount Pleasant Library, designed by Edward Lippincott Tilton and partially funded by philanthropist Andrew Carnegie. In 1987, the neighborhood was designated as a historic district. The neighborhood was majority minority in 1990, with African Americans making up 36% of the population, Latinos 26%, and whites 35%. In May 1991, the Washington, D. C. riot of 1991 erupted following the shooting of Daniel Enrique Gómez by an MPD officer. The riot, which injured twelve people and destroyed several buildings in the neighborhood, was a pivotal moment in the emergence of Latino activism in DC. In response, MPD Chief Isaac Fulwood,and city government began an outreach effort to the Latino population.

The 2010 United States census, the ZIP Code 20010, which includes Mount Pleasant, was one of the "most whitened" areas of the country, with the percentage of non Hispanic white residents increasing from 22% in 2000 to 46.7% in 2010. As of 2021, housing prices had risen significantly.

It is bounded by Rock Creek Park to the north and west; Harvard Street NW to the south; and 16th Street NW to the east. It is north of Adams Morgan and west of Columbia Heights.

The Mount Pleasant Historic District covers a variety of types and styles of building. The western portion of the neighborhood is a largely wooded residential enclave bounded on two sides by Rock Creek Park, just east of the National Zoo. Structures in this area are primarily row houses of Neoclassical architecture with rear porches. The eastern side of the neighborhood, along 16th Street NW and Mount Pleasant Street, is marked by mid rise apartment buildings. The Eighteen Hundred Block Park Road, NW is notable for its 10 detached "suburban" houses on terraces overlooking the street. The 12 buildings at 1644–1666 Park Road NW, designed by Appleton P. Clark Jr. in the style of Colonial Revival architecture, were completed in 1906. The Guglielmo Marconi Memorial is located at Marconi Plaza.

The neighborhood is served by the Mount Pleasant Line and the Crosstown Line buses. There is no Washington Metro station in the neighborhood, with the closest being located in Columbia Heights.