Eckington is a neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., located south of the Prospect Hill and Glenwood Cemeteries. Eckington is less than one mile southeast of Howard University and exactly one mile north of the United States Capitol. Eckington is also the home of the District of Columbia office of Sirius XM Radio. The closest metro stations serving Eckington are NoMa–Gallaudet Station, located south of Eckington, and Rhode Island Avenue–Brentwood Station, located northeast of Eckington.

The land which became Eckington was the country home of Joseph Gales, Jr., owner of the National Intelligencer newspaper and Mayor of Washington from 1827 to 1830. Gales bought the Northeast tract in 1815, and in 1830 erected a two-story house on the hilltop, about where Third and U Streets intersect today. Gales named his estate Eckington after The Village in England in which he was born. In 1887, Eckington was bought by George Truesdell and his wife Frances, who subdivided the property, improved it substantially for habitation, sold lots, and built several houses. He laid down water and sewer pipes, paved streets in asphalt and concrete, and erected a stand pipe near the old Gales house. Truesdell erected five “pretty cottages” which, according to an 1888 newspaper account, were “all fitted up as city houses,” with steam heat and hot and cold running water. Eckington was wired for electricity in 1889, two years before electricity was installed in the White House.

Although the streetcar had been a community center for both Eckington and Bloomingdale, the adjacent neighborhood to the west, after the streetcar line was removed in the 1950s North Capitol Street was dug into a trench to facilitate high-speed, high-volume traffic. The entrenched highway created a stark separation between Eckington from Bloomingdale. With this division along with the railroad tracks on its east, gives Eckington its relatively isolated quality.

Dining and drinking spots also dot the area, with offerings on old-timey 12th Street NE like funky gastropub Smith Public Trust (don’t miss its good-weather beer garden) and Steel Plate, which dishes up fancy cocktail and new American chow in a space decked with reclaimed wood and brassy light fixtures. On the arts walk, Brookland Pint pours dozens of beers (including two dozen mostly local ones on tap) in cool surrounds with a mural of the monuments and the National Shrine; a pubby food menu is on tap too.

[Source: Wikipedia]