Washingtonian ran an article about how Monroe Street Market has created a true "college town" feel in Northeast D.C. See below.
From: Washingtonian Date: Feb. 2, 2017Author: Dan Reed
Take a walk near the intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska avenues, home to American University, and you'd never know you were next to an institution of higher learning. There are no cute bookstores, sticky-floored campus watering holes, edgy art spaces, or ratty undergrad apartments. The sidewalks are wide and tree-lined, it's true, but even during the school year there's not much by way of student bustle.
The vibe is very different six miles away at Michigan Avenue and Monroe Street, Northeast, hard by Catholic University. Though the blocks of Brookland are just as residential as those of AU's Spring Valley neighbors, the main drag has a campus bookstore, a bike shop, and a branch of the hip restaurant/coffee house/bar Busboys and Poets, where students can sip a latte for hours unbothered. The strip features artists' studios and an apartment complex for artists. Students bike or jog past on their way to the Metropolitan Branch Trail.
How did two schools wind up making such different marks on the landscape? It's not that AU's students are homebodies while Catholic's are bohemians. Rather, the discrepancy owes itself to a number of variables. ..