Wrote an early resident of this period: "From the Navy Yard westward along the Eastern Branch [the Anacostia] to Greenleaf's Point was a wild stretch of land with here and there a hovel or a house, and a stouring of brick kilns.

The area generally had proportions matched almost perfectly of black and white residents, living intermingled and all being of the working class.

The few accounts of this 1880–1920 period describe a modest community dominated by tidy truck gardens to the south and west and workers' houses and some small businesses along the eastern border from South Capitol to First Streets SW. "It is bordered on either side by true market gardens in the highest state of cultivation.

The city's new zoning system of 1920 optimistically implemented industrial zoning in the area of the Point, followed by the 1929 National Capitol Parks and Planning Commission's development planning report intending the area to be covered with railroad spurs and new large-scale manufacturing and utility uses that were unwelcome in other parts of the city.

This effort destroyed what little was left of the old rural area without bringing in more than the railroad lines, including Pepco, a power plant and oil and gas storage facility.

During the mid and late-20th century, these two major facilities and adjoining smaller ones were closed as new development began from the nearby Navy Yard area.

Industry in the area tended to serve the growth of the city, with construction, demolition, and fuel companies dominating the waterfront.

In the early 1960s, the Naval Gun Factory was shuttered and much of the supporting businesses left, concerning planners at the National Capital Planning Commission.

The agency initiated several studies throughout the 1960s and 1970s that imagined considerably increased density along South Capitol Street and public parkland along the riverbank.

[8] In 2022, developers announced construction would begin on a two million square foot mixed use project called The Stacks, which is expected to deliver in 2025.

[10] The United States Geological Survey's (USGS) most recent topographic maps identify the tip of the peninsula that contains Fort McNair as "Greenleaf Point".

The Buzzard Point waterfront extends from the Fort along the west bank of the Anacostia River as far as South Capitol Street at the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge.

[12] On July 25, 2013, a tentative deal was announced to have a 20,000-seat stadium for the D.C. United soccer team built at Buzzard Point and to cost $300 million.