Poplar Street (formerly Poplar Alley)
Early, integrated neighborhood alley dwellings for the poor and enslaved, often built by affluent residents of Georgetown to house their household staff and servants. Poor city services and housing stock punctuated these dwellings. By late 1910, they became predominately African American. Poplar Alley, during this time, had 32 African Americans living in eleven small wooden frame houses. The New Deal brought its government workers, artists, and intellectuals to Georgetown seeking to renovate the area and move in. The Alley Dwelling Act of 1934 established an Agency to raze the District’s tenements. The Poplar Alley (now Poplar Street) residents were displaced, however, the houses were restored and renamed “coach houses” and sold to affluent newcomers.
(Source: National Park Service)
