Anacostia is not such a great area.

There are bad areas in Anacostia, but the neighborhood around Our Lady of Perpetual Help is not bad. The church is obviously home to a relatively affluent congreagation. It also has a well regarded parochial school filled with neighborhood children whose families have to pay the fees.

I hate to sound racist, but a lot of Whites have wrong impressions about predominantly Black areas in DC. Yes, there are bad areas, but there are also nice neighborhoods filled with predominantly nice people.

By the way, I am White, but my work has taken me everywhere in DC including neighborhoods Whites do not go because they just have wrong information.

I would not put the view from Our Lady of Perpetual Help on a "must see" list for a 2 day visit, but, if you have a car and are here for awhile, it is worth going up there to see it. The view is best in winter when the leaves are off the trees.

While I agree with your comment about neighborhood misconceptions, you appear to be assuming the previous poster is white ...

Thanks for clarify the Anacostia area. I should not have been so abbreviate about my comments with "Anacostia area is not so great." I have taken the metro and drove to work toward Suitland, MD and bypassed Anacostia. I have encountered overexcited individual or small groups, who were loud on the train and took too many seats. I have also experienced people just very slowly crossing the road and stopping trafffice all of sudden. I also had a co-worker,whose car was hit and the person just drove alway.

Neighborhoods go through cycles.

And, yes, I presumed that the poster making the remark that Anacostia was "not so great" was White. I also presumed that Blacks were more likely to know that that was not universally true because they would have been more likely to actually know someone there. Perhaps I was wrong, but that is what I presumed.

By the way, I was in the parking lot of Our Lady of Perpetual Help a couple of weeks ago with out of town guests and did not notice anyone unsavory. The parking lot just had a few others gawking at the gorgeous view.

I don't think the reason that people say that Anacostia is not a nice area is because of race - but because of crime. Don't go there unless you know where you are going and that the area you are going to is safe. And if you do go - check your map first - don't get lost.

My purpose for saying this is not to disagree that it may be worth the trip because I'm sure you are right about the view and the Navy Yard is nice to visit if they still allow that. But it is simply a fact that it is a very high crime area.

I have been to Anacostia maybe 500 times or more and I have never personally experienced an incidence of crime.

And I have been to far worse areas of the city that I would NOT advise people to frequent during their visits to DC. Basically, you just go over the South Capitol Street Bridge, which merges into Martin Luther King Avenue, SE, and then hang a left on Morris Road, SE, and go to the top of the hill. When you have seen the view, you turn around and go back into regular tourist DC.

I do agree that for people who do not know DC, going off the beaten track might make you a bit uneasy, but the view I suggest is worth doing.

And so is the Navy Yard museum . . . although now you have to call ahead for reservations.