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Eckington is a neighborhood in Washington, D.C. (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 1 mile north of the United States Capitol. Eckington is also the home of XM Satellite Radio.

The boundaries of Eckington are Rhode Island Avenue to the north, Florida Avenue to the south, North Capitol Street to the west, and Washington Metro's Brentwood Yard to the east.

History

The area was originally purchased prior to the U.S. Civil War (when it was outside the boundary of the city) by once famous publisher and former mayor of the Old City of Washington named ] . Gales an Englishman, named the tract after the town of his birth in Eckington in England. The original estate was a Civil War hospital visited by Walt Whitman the famous poet laureate and other notables. The mansion was a hotel and a seminary before a tragic loss after a major fire in the 1920's. McKinley Technical High School now occupies the site where the old mansion once stood and is considered the heart of Eckington. For more information on Gales and the legacy of Eckington see http://www.congressionalcemetery.org/PDF/Obits/G/Obits_Gales.pdf

Initial development of the area was spearheaded by George Truesdell a land speculator with the specific purpose of subdividing it and having it developed as a residential suburb of Washington. Truesdell was a Civil War veteran who helped develop Washington after the conflict.

Eckington was also once the site of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad's freight yard in Washington. Eckington Yard occupied the area adjacent to, and to the west of, Metro's Brentwood yard and included a large facility for unloading piggyback trailers along New York Avenue. The yard also serviced the industries that once stood along the railroad, including the Sanitary Grocery Company warehouse which is still standing today. The yard closed in 1981 and was used for storage until being torn up in the 1990s.

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