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Lift Every Voice
Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail
How many dreams and memories reside in this short stretch of Georgia Avenue!
South of Florida Avenue where it is called Seventh Street, its heart once beat to jazz riffs and the eager steps of people dressed in their finest. Here swept aromas once wafted from commercial bakeries. Just north of Florida is where hot Saturday afternoons meant Griffith Stadium, the crack of the bat and shouts of baseball-mad crowds. And Georgia continues. It climbs toward Howard University, the historical heart of our country's African American intellectual community. Farther still, brick temples of learning give way to rowhouses and storefronts, and the steady beat of everyday life.
Lift Every Voice: Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail pays homage to the musicians and impresarios, Jewish shop-keepers and African American barbers, intellectuals and activist, and all who built a thriving community along this stretch of one of Washington's oldest thoroughfares.
"Pleasant Plains" once was the name of the Holmead family estate, which spread from Rock Creek to Georgia Avenue north of Columbia Road. Today's Pleasant Plains neighborhood lies north of the old Holmead land. And while most of this trail lies in Pleasant Plains, it actually starts in Shaw, enters Pleasant Plains at Florida Avenue, crosses through Park View, the neighborhood north of Howard University, and ends in Petworth.
Lift Every Voice: Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour of 19 signs is 1.9 miles long, offering about two hours of gentle, uphill exercise.
Free keepsake guidebooks in English and Spanish are available at businesses and institutions along the way. For more on DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org. |