As you have hopefully heard (or at least read in Wikipedia), it’s not Adam’s Morgan — Adam doesn’t own the Morgan. The neighborhood was given its name during D.C.’s school desegregation in the 1950s, when the all-white John Quincy Adams School and the all-black Thomas P. Morgan School were both integrated. Adams School still exists on 19th Street just north of the Washington Hilton, but Morgan School, which was located at the corner of California and 18th Streets where the Marie Reed tennis courts and ball fields are, was demolished around 1971.

However, the Morgan is coming back to the neighborhood. This morning city officials will be dedicating Old Morgan School Place, formerly the block of Champlain Street just south of Marie Reed School and the connecting, unnamed street (which for some reason, Google Maps calls “Parsimony Ln”). The Old Morgan School Place name is already official, becoming law on March 8 in a bill sponsored by Council-member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) after the an Adams Morgan ANC proposed the name. And since there are no addresses on either street segment, there hopefully won’t be any confusion like there has been at 9 1/2 Street NW.

Photo by furcafe