Author: Mari

While poking around the The Old House website I came across a piece for an alternative to a ladder to reach lofts or other spaces in cramped quarters. The thing that really caught my eye, besides looking nifty, was that the architect created the stair for a Washington, DC house.

Rarely does anything that happens on the mall make it up to my side of Shaw. Rallies, protests, whatever seem to invade the Red line, Foggy Bottom, Dupont, and downtown. However yesterday there was a protest on the mall regarding immigration. I didn’t know this when I tried to get around a huge mob of Latinos at PG Plaza metro. On the heading back into the city I noticed that the Latino population was significantly higher than usual. Almost every stop between PG and Shaw/Howard had some sizable clump of Latinos. Notably confused clumps that did not comprehend that which is WMATA, which really isn’t the most visitor friendly (confusing signage, grumpy employees) transit system. Normally where there were loud obnoxious and annoying teens, instead there where groups of Spanish speakers. This was a bit odd. I wasn’t sure what to make of it.
Then later at a meeting at a downtown teashop I was told about the rally down at the mall and that Union Station was a madhouse. This new information explained the upsurge, but usually, to me anyways, what goes on at the mall doesn’t come up to Shaw. But there they were looking at street signs, metro maps, looking lost in Shaw. Now one could ask that maybe I never noticed other groups with actions on the mall venturing up before. Well for one, the Green line (to me) has a higher portion of African Americans riding it as it goes through historically black neighborhoods and PG County twice. So if there is an upsurge of a non-black demographic one would notice.
Well once some signage from a pro-choice? pro-life? rally made it to the Shaw/Howard trash can….. Maybe this is a sign that out of town visitors are moving through and stopping in Shaw more?

Preface: Because I have been asked on two occasions already to amend my narrative regarding previous BACA meetings due to misreadings and potential misinterpretations I’ve decided a long narrative is just not worth the headache of dealing with people who don’t know how to read my blog. If you want the usual InShaw meeting notes you will have to email me at mari at inshaw period com.
2nd update: Part 2 has been added. access: thismeeting. neverhappened.
Update:
I’ve posted my more detailed meeting notes at inshaw.com/meet but it is behind a password. The phrase “this meeting never happened” makes up the user name and the password. The user name is 11 letters. The password is 13 letters. If you can’t figure it out because I’m not exactly being clear, email me.

Representatives from Police 5D spoke
Mary Ann of the Membership committee spoke. 1 new committee member. Flower Power. Garden club. Need more people.
Art of the Land Use, Planning and Development Committee spoke. 2 new members.
The beauty salon proposed for New Jersey Ave will be going before the BZA (#17437) Tuesday.
For Permit Parking 51% of residents have to sign on. Citizens will have to go around to get signatures.
Linda Perkins of Councilman Vincent Orange spoke. We are in the budget season of the council.
Bruce A. Marshall who is running for Ward 5 city council spoke. He has no website yet.
Robert Brannum who is running for city council chairman spoke. Has ties to Ward 5. Pledges not to raise a lot of money.
Michael Brown running for DC mayor spoke. Bio. Ties to DC. Story about his son.
Last speaker was Phil Mendelson. Most interesting thing said (to me, just my opinion) was a mention about his workshop on real property taxes.