The Park View School was constructed in 1916 to provide a school for the Park View community. The Park View neighborhood, adjacent to the Old Soldiers' Home, originated in 1886 with the platting of a former estate known as Whitney Close into a residential subdivision. An explosion of rowhouse development in Park View came after 1904, and a new citizens' association formed in 1908. Development was so rapid that by 1910, the Park View Citizens' Association began demanding an elementary school for the neighborhood' s 600 children, most of whom were pupils at the Hubbard and Petworth Schools.