Uptown-Parker-Gray Historic District

Covering most of the northwestern quadrant of Old Town Alexandria, this district follows a street grid laid out in 1797, though most of the land stayed vacant until the 1860s and nearly all surviving buildings date from after 1870. Small frame and brick row houses and town houses dominate, many with restrained Italianate, Queen Anne, Greek Revival and Colonial Revival details. Brick Colonial Revival rows built by developers fill whole blocks in the west, and more than 200 units of public housing from the 1940s to 1959 stand in the northeast. Warehouses line former railroad routes along North Henry and North Fayette Streets. Queen Street was once the city's main African-American business district, and a segregated school opened in the neighborhood in 1920, helping define it as the Parker-Gray community. Recent infill and restorations blend with older fabric, so the district keeps its architectural coherence. It contains 984 contributing resources.