Park View is a neighborhood in central Washington, D.C., immediately north of Howard University.The name of the neighborhood comes from its views east over the campus of the Old Soldiers' Home. At the time Park View was developed, and well into the 1960s, the Home's grounds were open to the public as a park. Those grounds were a designed urban landscape, including pedestrian paths and ponds, modeled along the principles of New York City's Central Park. Indeed, when the Home's campus was developed into a public park in the later 1880s, it often was compared to Central Park.A solidly residential community, Park View is a quiet corner of the city, one in which the trend toward gentrification has only recently found a foothold. Its one commercial corridor, Georgia Avenue, has its share of liquor stores and empty store fronts, but increasing interest in the corridor has attracted other goods and services to the area. The revitalization of the corridor began with the E.L. Haynes Public Charter School (3600 Georgia), founded in 2004, and Temperance Hall (3634 Georgia, now the Looking Glass Lounge) in 2006. Since then, a number of new restaurants and taverns have opened and, along with decades old businesses, continue the commercial revitalization of the community.GeographyPark View is situated in the Northwest quadrant of the city. The territory that defines the Park View neighborhood extends from Gresham Street north to Rock Creek Church Road, and from Georgia Avenue to the Soldiers' Home grounds. The additional area bounded by Park Road, New Hampshire Avenue, and Georgia Avenue completes the neighborhood's boundaries. The southern border of the Park View Citizens' Association was Columbia Road.
