Kenilworth (Washington, D.C.)

Map of Washington, D.C., with Kenilworth highlighted in red

Kenilworth is a residential neighborhood in Northeast Washington, D.C., located on the eastern bank of the Anacostia River and just inside the D.C.-Maryland border. A large public housing complex, Kenilworth Courts, dominates the area. The neighborhood is famous for the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, a national park whose centerpiece is a series of ponds carved out of Anacostia River marshland. Visitors come especially during June and July to see the beautiful blooming water lilies and lotus flowers. Kenilworth Park, which includes the Kenilworth-Parkside Recreation Center, also carries the neighborhood name, though most of the park's area is actually located adjacent to the modern neighborhoods of Parkside and Eastland Gardens.

The boundaries of Kenilworth are not always agreed upon. A broad interpretation of neighborhood area has Kenilworth bounded by Eastern Avenue to the north, Nash Street to the south, Anacostia Avenue to the west, and the tracks of the Washington Metro to the east. A stricter interpretation of neighborhood boundaries, based on present-day resident understanding, would be the DC-MD line to the north, Piney Branch or Nash Run creek to the south (on the other side of which is the Eastland Gardens neighborhood), Anacostia Avenue to the west, and Kenilworth Avenue to the east.

Geese crossing a path in the Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens

Kenilworth gained national attention in 1988 when its government-built housing development, Kenilworth Courts (along with a small sister development called Parkside, located about a mile southwest of Kenilworth), became the first public housing project to be sold to its residents in an initiative championed by Mayor Marion Barry, President Ronald Reagan, and U.S. Representative Jack Kemp. In the neighborhood, this effort was directed by Kenilworth Courts resident Kimi Gray, who formed the Kenilworth-Parkside Resident Management Corporation (KPRMC). Subsequent renovations of the complex did not go as planned, and in early 2000 the DC Housing Authority (DCHA) took back control of much of the neighborhood. Kimi Gray, whose leadership had driven the resident management and ownership movement, died in 2000. KPRMC still controls about a third of Kenilworth Courts' 400-plus units, but a plan for residents to actually own their own homes never came through.

The Anacostia Waterfront Corporation, a city-chartered corporation charged with developing the area along the Anacostia River, has plans to revitalize the Kenilworth's sister neighborhood of Parkside as a mixed-income, mixed-use neighborhood, including 2,000 new residential units and 500,000 square feet (50,000 m²) of commercial space. AWC also intends to work extensively on making the area more pedestrian-friendly, building walkways to the Anacostia Riverwalk and Marvin Gaye Park and a pedestrian bridge to the Minnesota Avenue station, the closest Metro station to Kenilworth. AWC presented the final plan to the D.C. Council in 2007.

External links

• "Washington D.C. Turning Public Housing Over to Resident Owners"—1988 TIME article on Kenilworth-Parkside housing project
• Kenilworth/Parkside—Information about AWC plans for the neighborhood