IN Capitol Hill or ON Capitol Hill? The high-stakes debate of our era.

Plenty of DC residents know someone who works on Capitol Hill — and in the context of Congress, the “on” isn’t in doubt.

But when that person walks east to the nearby neighborhood of colorful rowhouses for a drink after work… are they spending the evening in Capitol Hill or on Capitol Hill?

I asked Twitter this question yesterday, with the idea that if I’ve been using the wrong phrase this whole time, someone could swiftly correct me and we’d all move on. But it turns out there isn’t any consensus on this. Some say “in Capitol Hill”; others say being “in” a hill implies you are living underground like a hobbit.

“In” Capitol Hill would imply underground, like a Hobbit burrow (perhaps apropos given the tunnels bt the Capitol Building and offices).

“In the Capitol Hill neighborhood,” sure, but that’s as close as it gets.

— Aimee Custis (@AimeeCustis) June 22, 2021

“For me, it’s usually ‘on the hill,’” said ANC 6B commissioner Edward Ryder, who represents an area of Capitol Hill near the Potomac Avenue Metro station. “Only time I’d use ‘in’ is ‘in the Capitol Hill neighborhood.’” Local ANC reps Kirsten Oldenberg and Christine Healey joined the “on” chorus too.

For those who use both prepositions, the most common distinction is federal government versus neighborhood: “On the Hill” indicates Congress, while “in Capitol Hill” points to the residential neighborhood abutting it.

“On Capitol Hill” is a synecdoche for “in/at Congress” while “in Capitol Hill” means “in the neighborhood called Capitol Hill” is my usage, I think.

— DW Rowlands (@82_Streetcar) June 21, 2021

Grammatically, it comes down to this: is Capitol Hill the literal name of a geological entity, the hill on which the neighborhood resides? (And yes, it is an actual hill… see the 1880s topographic map below.) Or is Capitol Hill a neighborhood named after the hill in question?

For an example of another “hill” neighborhood, we can look to our neighbors to the north: Baltimore’s Federal Hill is both the name of a hill-turned-park and a neighborhood named after it. But you’d only grab drinks “in Federal Hill,” never “on Federal Hill,” because the hill is only the size of the park (if there’s a secret Federal Hill Park speakeasy, I stand corrected… but I doubt it). Capitol Hill, of course, with an elevated area stretching nearly to RFK Stadium, is a more complicated matter.

DC institutions seem to lean in the “always on” direction. The Washington Post wrote last year about a treehouse on Capitol Hill. Hyperlocal blog The Hill Is Home offers guides to “living on the Hill.” Thanks to Washingtonian, we know Bachelorette contestants Jason and Zac were at Union Pub on Capitol Hill last week — but then again, last year the magazine reported on a restaurant opening in Capitol Hill at the Roost. So, take that with a grain of salt.

For what it’s worth, GGWash doesn’t have any style guidance for this particular debate and has used both prepositions, sometimes in the same article.

But institutions be damned, what does a Twitter poll have to say? With a final tally of 310 respondents, more than 71% of them use “in Capitol Hill” to indicate the neighborhood. It should be noted that Twitter polls are not remotely scientifically sound… But hey. The stakes are low here.

It seems very possible that the Twitterati are plain wrong. The 1970s-era document nominating the Capitol Hill Historic District for the National Register of Historic Places, among the most official references to Capitol Hill out there, uses “on.”

But if we really want to be true to DC’s history, we could just abandon “Capitol Hill” as a neighborhood name entirely and start talking about “Bloody Hill” and “Pipetown.” Personally, that’s my vote.