Barney Circle is a small residential neighborhood located between the west bank of the Anacostia River and the eastern edge of Capitol Hill in southeast Washington, D.C., in the United States.

[1][2][3] The neighborhood's name derives from the eponymous former traffic circle Pennsylvania Avenue SE just before it crosses the John Philip Sousa Bridge over the Anacostia.

However, many of the residents of the surrounding areas (such as the Lincoln Park and Capitol Hill East neighborhoods) consider themselves to live in Barney Circle.

[7][8] Even though the neighborhood now known as Barney Circle was located near the District's Eastern Market and the Navy Yard, the construction of ammunition depots and the Washington Asylum Hospital in the mid-19th century[9] push development southward on Barrack's Row in lieu of eastward on Pennsylvania Avenue SE.

The neighborhood began to develop in 1902 after Arthur E. Randle won approval from the Congress to lay streetcar tracks across the bridge.

Most of the single-family brick rowhouses homes have at least two stories, two-three bedrooms, a couple of bathrooms, small yards, and low porches.

[19] These type of homes, an innovation in the first decade of the 20th century, are known as "daylight rowhouses" because each room was lit as much as possible by sunlight coming through windows.

[20] The homes in the Barney Circle neighborhood generally are set back from the street at a uniform distance, and have a small front yard and an open-air porch.

As with most rowhouses, the homes typically have mansard roofs with dormers which provide third-floor sleeping, working, or storage space.

The Congressional Cemetery was created in 1807 holds the remains of Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence and former Vice President, Civil War photographer Mathew Brady, the "March King" John Philip Sousa, the former FBI Director, among other famous notables.

The announcement to build Nationals Park in September 2014 in Navy Yard - a thirty-five minute walk from the core of Barney Circle - catalyzed further development in the neighborhood like Trusty's Full-Serve bar.

Trusty's has functioned as neighborhood tavern that has operated in Barney Circle since 2005[32] with a clientele who avidly support the Washington Nationals and D.C. United.

[45] In 1867, the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad obtained the rights to the land where Barney Circle would be built for the purpose of building a rail crossing over the Anacostia.

This along with reports by the Office of Public Buildings and Grounds (OPB&G) in the 1880s and 1890s that much of the area was under water at high tide, prevented the construction of a circular park as had been planned.

[51][46] In 1956, federal and regional transportation planners proposed an Inner Loop Expressway composed of three circumferential beltways for the District of Columbia.

The middle beltway would have formed an arc along the northern portion of the city, running from the proposed Barney Circle Freeway (whose terminus would have been near Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium) through Anacostia Park, cutting northwest through the Trinidad neighborhood along Mt.

Four lanes of traffic (two northbound, two southbound) passed beneath the bridge's terminus, dead-ending at a non-existent Inner Loop and connected haphazardly to the northeastern side of the circle.

[59] By 1993, although costs for the project had increased to $200 million, D.C. Mayor Sharon Pratt Kelly gave her approval for construction to begin.

[60] But construction was delayed yet again when the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund, Anacostia Watershed Society, Committee of 100 on the Federal City, Citizens Committee to Stop It Again, D.C. Federation of Civic Associations, Friends of the Earth, Kingman Park Civic Association, the Barney Circle Neighborhood Watch, Urban Protectors, and American Rivers sued to force the city to scale back the freeway even further, add exit ramps at the junction of Pennsylvania Avenue SE and I-695, and alter traffic patterns (e.g., creating more one-way streets) on Capitol Hill.

It closed the westbound segment of Interstate 695 from the 11th Street Bridges to Barney Circle in late November 2012,[72] and the eastbound lanes in early 2013.

[70] The reconstruction project, estimated to take 18 to 24 months, raised the roadway 20 feet (6.1 m) to bring it level with the grade of the surrounding streets.

[71] The six-lane former highway began to be turned into a four-lane grand boulevard with a landscaped median and pedestrian nature trail.