Adams Morgan
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Adams Morgan is a culturally diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., centered at the intersection of 18th Street NW and Columbia Road NW. Adams Morgan is considered the heart of Washington’s Latino community, and is a major night life area with many bars and restaurants, particularly along 18th Street, the main commercial street. It is also the most densely populated and developed neighborhood in Washington. Much of the neighborhood is composed of 19th- and early 20th-century row houses and apartment buildings. Despite recent improvements in public safety and revitalization efforts, crime remains a significant problem in the neighborhood.
Dupont Circle is located to the south of Adams Morgan, while Mount Pleasant is to the north, and Columbia Heights is to the east. The neighborhood is bounded by Connecticut Avenue NW to the west, Rock Creek Park to the northwest, Harvard Street to the north, 16th Street to the east, and U Street and Florida Avenue NW to the south.
The name Adams Morgan, once hyphenated, is derived from the names of two, formerly segregated area elementary schools – the older, all-black Thomas P. Morgan Elementary School (now defunct) and the all-white John Quincy Adams Elementary School. Pursuant to the 1954 Bolling v. Sharpe Supreme Court ruling, District schools were desegregated in 1955. The Adams-Morgan Community Council, comprising both Adams and Morgan schools and the neighborhoods they served, was formed in 1958. The city drew boundaries of the neighborhood through four preexisting neighborhoods — parts of Shaw, Kalorama Heights, and Reed-Cooke, as well as all of Lanier Heights — naming the resulting area after both schools.
In the late 1960s, a group of forward-thinking residents organized and worked with city officials to plan and construct a new elementary school and recreational complex that was conceived as a community hub, a concept that 40 years later has become a favored one in public school facilities design. The development was named the Marie H. Reed Learning Center after Bishop Reed, a community activist, minister and leader. It featured a daycare center, tennis and basketball courts, a solar-heated swimming pool, health clinic, athletic field and outdoor chess tables.