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This is not another pre-WWII photo, this is from the 60s. 1960s.

Now I am sure I posted the publication by the District of Columbia Redevelopment Land Agency (RLA) before, but just in case, I'll put it out there for y'all again. In the late 60s the RLA put out "A Program for Bates Street" (PDF), which is currently located in the archives of George Washington University.

My own curiosity with the Great Society and the flurry of social programs that came out of that period, is how well those goals were achieved. So let's take a look at the program.

The program had 3 main objectives:

1. Introduce a greater amount of housing types and sizes designed to relieve the overcrowding in exisitng housing.

2. Use housing programs for both rental and owned "that will be most responsive to the economic profile of the residents of the Area, given the current costrainst of those programs."

3. Provide needed amenities such as open space for active and passive recreation, off street parking and "separate pedestrian and vehicular circulation systems."

I have to hit #3 first. What the hell is a pedestrian and vehicular circulation system? Sidewalks and roads? If they are sidewalks and roads then they should say sidewalks and roads!

Bates Streets, the unit to the 200 blocks seem pretty unchanged footprint-wise from the days when they were built, as with the rest of the targeted squares. As hinted in the program, Sq. 551 did get new housing, slightly different than the Bates Street and similar Q Street housing, providing that variety of housing types.  As far as overcrowding goes, I think there might have been more than they eye could have seen. I'm noticing with this 1st photograph there is a vacant house all boarded up. With pre-war censuses I can say there might be overcrowding in one  or two houses and the neighboring house only has one or two people. I don't doubt that many houses were overcrowded, but I wonder to the various causes of why. Anyway, the 1st objective was achieved with the removal of the alley dwellings on 551 and the building of the NW Co-op.

The second objective, I have no idea what exactly the goal was supposed to be there. It is too vague to me. Maybe the authors were dancing around something. So I'm going to give that objective a no.

Lastly on the brochure, since Sq. 551 was part of the mix, I'm going to guess the open space amenity is the Florida Avenue Park. I also notice that it is an open space and not a green space. Now this is the park of the past, the park where passive recreation included drunks being passed out on play equipment. I realy appreciate the work of John H. and the Friends of the Park to make the place a better amenity than what the planners of the 60s could do. The Bates Area does have off street parking, I did not realize this was a pressing issue back then.

 Lastly on the whole thing, notice no bars. No bars on the windows. No bars on the doors. I have my theories, but I wonder if it is something that comes later when crime gets worse in the area.

This woman lived in an alley that no longer exists. Since the photograph was taken sometime between 1934-1941, there is a possiblity, that's she is long dead and isn't too concerned with housing.

The alley is Reeves Alley, sometimes Cookey Alley that was on square 551, where Mt. Sinai Baptist, the Northwest Cooperative and the Florida Avenue park sit. This is one of a couple of photos taken by the Alley Dwelling Authority to highlight the problems of alley residences and give the agency a good reason to tear down or convert alley homes. Looking at the aerial photo from the 1950s, it doesn't seem that these got the ax by the time the agency had changed its mission.

The block housing shared space with industrial/ commercial space. Either it came about pre-zoning or the city really wasn't interested in applying zoning rules here. There was the dairy and an auto repair shop, and several warehouse garage type buildings. I do not know off the top of my head when all this was swept away to make way for the Coop. But the Coop houses more people in better conditions than the alley did. Look back at the photograph of the woman at the door, it is possible that the housing was about 50 years old and it was getting into poor shape with the shutters . Of course there were worse looking alleys and the problem wasn't that they were in poor shape, the problem was they were hidden from street view. Today the problem would be getting 911 dispatchers to find it on their systems, getting fire/EMS into the alley, or calling a cab.

Today we love alley dwellings, it where cool new eateries or shops open up. If by chance it is a residence, it is a singleton or a childless couple who have managed to 'do something' wonderful with the property, turning it into a hidden jewel. They are not occupied by families of poor Carolina laborers who rent from a landlord not particularly interested in keeping up his/her property. The situation with the poor family would have been around longer than the cool people. Long enough that the property would have gone down so poorly that it could have been unsavagable by the time the cool people showed up. In the meantime, Shaw residents needed better housing. Besides there were plenty of poorly maintained houses facing streets.

These are just the alley dwellings. The block, remember was more than that, garages and warehouses. They are not there no more. The dairy, with its milk trucks, which had a bad habit of hitting people, is gone. People changed how they got their milk and butter, the world changed. Cities change. Change is not all bad.

I decided to do a little ProQuest search of the term "Truxton Circle" in the Washinton Post that reflects the last 30 years of this 'problematic' name of the neighborhood. Limiting it to 30 years I've left out the time period of when it was a traffic circle and when the term was used to describe a post office of that name.

The first thing you see here is a neighborhood meeting announcement. I decided to include the one for the Shaw Project Area Committee to play it against the Shaw-Truxton Circle heading for a BACA meeting. Of course these are the old days of 1993, 20 years ago when it was called the Bates Area Civic Association. It met in what I'm going to guess is the basement of Mt. Sinai at 7:30. The next BACA meeting will be on March 4th, but at 7pm. Someone should thank Mt. Sinai for letting us take up their basement for so long.

The next thing I'd like to share is a ad for the DC Department of Housing and Community Development and their effort to create some affordable housing and rehab structures. There are two mentions in this 1989 announcement. The first is a 4 bedroom Bates St house for $80,000. That was a pretty good amount for the time period. The second, on Hanover, looks like a give away at $250 per unit. So I'm guessing that in 1989 it was in pretty bad shape.

The post- Home Rule District government has used Truxton Circle to describe the area. The DHCD ad clarifies a bit where. Other descriptions, articles, and ads from the DC government have the TC lumped in with Blooingdale, and Eckington.

The following is a list of the articles and advertisements (Other and Display Ad) mentioning Truxton Circle as a neighborhood descriptor. Lastly, the October 1991 article "Community Outcry Wins Reprieve for Lenny's." mentions a Truxton Circle Coalition, described as a "umbrella group for civic assocations in the area."

Wheeler, Linda. "Ward 5: A Mosaic of Neighborhoods." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Jun 23 1994. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Other 41 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Jul 22 1993. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Other 20 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Jun 24 1993. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Other 32 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Jun 10 1993. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

Elizabeth Wiener Special to The,Washington Post. "Community Outcry Wins Reprieve for Lenny's." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Oct 31 1991. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Display Ad 117 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 14 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013 .

"Display Ad 66 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 13 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Display Ad 52 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 10 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Display Ad 113 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 07 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Display Ad 28 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 06 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Display Ad 78 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 05 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013 .

"Display Ad 46 -- no Title." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Dec 03 1989. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

By Marcia Slacum Greene Washington Post,Staff Writer. "D.C. Cable Firm Unveils Wiring Schedule, Seeks More Concessions." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Sep 04 1985. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

By Sheilah O'Connor Special to the,Washington Post. "$5 Million Goes Begging." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 2. Oct 11 1984. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

"Subsidy Program's Nuts and Bolts." The Washington Post (1974-Current file): 1. Aug 02 1984. ProQuest Historical Newspapers: The Washington Post (1877-1996). Web. 27 Feb. 2013.

This is a 1903 map of Square 617 (N, North Cap, O, 1st & Hanover) where there is an empty space where the building that formerly held the Brass Knob. Before that, the 19th Century,  there was a brewery around there owned by the Kozel family. There is a place history for the location but I have yet to contact the author about asking him if he's interested in putting it up on his site. 

I'm feeling like doing some history.

Long, long time ago on a block not too far away (depending on where you live in the TC) was a dairy. There were no cows to my knowledge, but there where milk trucks and milk. I know this from the 1924 map here and from a few newspaper reports of people getting run over by milk trucks. Which is bad.

Anyway, a few years back I discovered that you could buy these bits of Truxtonia on Ebay. You still can. I found three today by plugging in the name of a dairy that was here "Fairfax Dairy" another name, as well as Alderney Green Meadow and plain old Green Meadow. Some have the address embossed on the bottle and some like this one, do. They also range a lot in price, which I guess these things matter more to collectors, but they go from under $20 to somewhere around $60 for pint and half-pints.

I bought two a while back and gave one away to Jim Berry, the former area ANC and BACA prez. The one I have is a half pint that serves duty as a change bottle. Many meals for Beau Thai have been paid out of that change bottle.

I'm sure there are other bits of TC history out there. The problem is finding what are the right search terms.

Haven't found too much else, not that I'm looking that hard but I have found these nearby gems:

Wonder Bread Wrapper- 23?? Georgia Ave NW

Antique Tin Automobile Gas Station Can- One of the several addresses is Bloomingdale Florida and Q St NW

Lehman's Tire Shop- Photo, no clue where this is in DC. Could look it up, but I'm lazy.

Photo-Piggly Wiggly Trucks, 1924- I'm guessing near the Post Office Pavillion?

Mom's Mabley LP- Recorded at two places, one being the Howard Theater.

I swear that I've written about Lucky C. Young before but I have not found him on my blog. Maybe it was one of those posts that never made it past the draft stage.

There are many houses in Truxton Circle that have housed more than one household. Several homes were built as two flat units, so when I was cleaning up data for the 1930 census it wasn't so unusual to have two households at 1203 New Jersey Avenue NW. What was unusual, and why I thought there was some clean up needed, one household was listed as Black and the other white. The first family were the African American Chambers family, with a father, mother and their 17 year old daughter. At the very end of the page were the Youngs, Lucky C. and his wife Estelle and they were clearly listed as white. Considering everyone else on the 1200 block of NJ Ave was Black, the Youngs didn't seem right, so I researched them.

I could not find anything on Estelle Young. She was 27 at the time and the census doesn't show how long she and Lucky were married.

Lucky C. Young was a different story.  He was a driver, born in 1905 in South Carolina, however, he wasn't white. Later WWII records list him as a Negro widower, and a driver, so I knew I had the same person even though his race and marital status had changed. Between the 1930 census and getting enlisted, a 1937 city directory had him living at 1508 6th St NW, only a few blocks (walking distance) from his old NJ Ave digs. That ends what I could find using Ancestry.com's website.

Switching over to ProQuest (at fine Public Libraries everwhere) Lucky C. Young finds nothing but trouble. In 1950 he was caught up in an embezzlement court case involving the Capitol Cab Co. The case was dismissed. In 1964 his violent death was reported. He was shot October 10th near the unit or 100 block of Q St NW (nw vs ne is debatable) in his cab, a few blocks from his home at 47 Randolph Pl NW. November 19th he died at a hospital. He is buried at Arlington Cemetery and his murder was unsolved. Looking at the 1960 City Directory he listed there with his 2nd(?) wife Irene B. Young.

What I find very interesting about Mr. Young are his movements around the neighborhood. He doesn't stay put, but he stays 'around'. Cities are dynamic place with people constantly on the move. He was in DC, as far as I could tell, for decades, but not in the same place. So I wonder what or even how does this case reflect on the lives of other Washingtonians.

I am looking forward to 2013, despite various reasons not. It's comin' regardless of what I, you or anyone else wants.

2012 was pretty productive for me. There is the on-going Truxton Circle Project that took up most of my year trying to be in line with the grant timetable. I am so happy that the street level history, or elements of that history, is available to any TC resident to use as he or she pleases. In 2013 I'd like to do more and so I'll be ending the InShaw blog sometime in the coming year (March, May or June) to make room for Truxton Circle stuff.

The two sites share the same server with limited bandwith and space, so I'll be doing some data cleanup. The old Blogger version of the In Shaw blog also hangs out at http://dcinshaw.blogspot.com/ , which may allow me to clean up some space by removing what's sitting on the server, so I can put up big honking data rich files about Truxton Circle residents in the early to mid-20th century. I hope in the new year to add more data, such as city directories like the one seen here. Maybe if I can figure out the OCR software for the scanner or get a good OCR program, I might be able to put them in some searchable form. But first I got to clean up 10 years of InShaw.

The blog isn't going away, it will still be available on the web, with the bulk of it sitting over at Blogspot and a few years on this server at the blog.inshaw.com URL.

After InShaw, I hope to dedicate some more time to a blog I inherited but haven't updated as much as I would like, the Vacant Property blog. There are some other blogs too that I've neglected as well.

Since I started blogging there are now more neighborhood blogs with authors who cover more of what's happening on the hyperlocal level. One example is the BACA blog, it covers not just the area around Bates Street, but a bit of Blooingdale, the Hanover Street area, central Shaw and Mt. Vernon Square, since as neighborhoods we're connected and impact each other, good and bad. Also Scott Roberts of Bloomingdale of the Bloomingdale Blog and the BACA blog keeps residents very well informed.

13 doesn't have to be bad. You can be like Taylor Swift and believe that it is a very good number.  From my own area in the TC,  I can see Progression Place and the O Street market changing the skyline. They, as well as smaller projects nearby, will be done in 2013, changing the neighborhood, for the best. I'm looking forward to the new year, new neighbors, new eateries, new businesses, new challenges, and new experiences.

Happy New Year, y'all.

 

I got an exciting email. Well exciting to me. Mike Smorul created a block browser using the TC data I put up on TruxtonCircle.org . This is one of those things I hoped people would do, use the data, play with it, and share what they've learned. It's out there.

The link for this is http://www.unit201.net/tc1/ . It seems to work best in Firefox. IE didn't seem to like it. Go to it, play with it, it's fun.

I ran into an old colleague who asked if I'd be willing to speak to their African American group about my project. Truth be told I have about 2 projects, Truxton Circle is one, there is another one relating to history and DC, but it is a side-side project. So I am still a little unclear which history project we were talking about.

Whichever one we were talking about any presentation would have to be tailored to the group. Naturally. One of the few things I remember about my public speaking class in college was knowing your audience. More than likely it was the Truxton Circle neighborhood genealogy thing and my collegue mentioned that the last time I spoke I was talking about other types of people. Yes, I'm moving towards looking at the TC as a multi-racial history, where everybody counts because I'm trying to count everybody. Yes, I could look at the TC from a strictly African American perspective, that would be easy, I'd just have to focus on the 20th century and there isn't that much from the 19th. I'd examine the patterns of segregation, where Blacks were shut out of certain rentals, and the such.

Despite my own interest, I wonder if multi-racial history actually sells. I should thank Carter G. Woodson for his pioneering in the area African American (then Negro) history, so we could think about racial history in the first place. But right now I'd really like it if his house wasn't plotting to kill pedestrians with flying bricks or whatever that has the Park Service blocking off a portion of 9th St.

I don't know if there is an audience the type of history I'm interested in. The residents of the Truxton Circle neighborhood, a small section of the original Shaw neighborhood*, are my main audience. What I've been trying to do is a neighborhood history that has a multi-racial theme. I would love it if others did the same for their neigborhood or block, regardless if they find it has been one racial group dominating. The only way you'll find out is if you dig deeply.

 

*I like to throw this in to remind y'all.

Truxton Circle brochures- Some you all (y'all) got my nice colorful Truxton Circle brochures in your doors a few weeks ago, and a lot of y'all did not. If you want a brochure on how to use the TruxtonCircle.org website, I'll be dropping some off at the Decemeber BACA meeting, which is tonight (7PM, Mt. Sinai Church, 3rd & Q, basement, ring the bell to get in). I should have had these ready for last month's meeting, so I could do a presentation but stuff happened. Tonight's meeting is about getting together, having a good time, and giving away prizes. If that doesn't work for you and you are really interested in neighborhood history all over the city join me at the DC Humanities Council's 6th Annual Community Heritage Project Showcase on December 6th at the All Soul's Unitarian Church (click here to RSVP). I'll have brochures and the world's slowest laptop showing off the work done for the Truxton Circle website.

Live here, drink near here- Truxton Circle was featured in Curbed's Bar Crawl Living series.

Christmas Stealings- Apparently we aren't reporting stolen packages enough. The Bloomingdale blog presents a problem with potential presents being sent to your door.. the mail carrier leaving them in plain sight. If possible tell friends and family, if they must mail packages, mail them to an alternative address (work, c/o friends, a business you have a close relationship with, etc), if you don't have a spot where they could be 'hidden' from plain sight, or can't fit in your mailbox. But then again, it doesn't help if the carrier or delivery guy puts it where everyone can see it.

Costco advice- If you are not sure if a Costco membership is worth it for you, find a friend/relative in the area who does have a membership and ask to tag along. Bring cash. Before becoming a member, I tagged along with my Aunt and friends (before the 3rd kid arrived and they couldn't fit me in the minivan) who were members. In the old days I stocked up on meat, fish, trash bags, frozen shrimp, soups, and crab meat. I had a freezer and I used it. I got my TV via a relative's membership, back when 20 something inch flat screen HD TVs were pricey, now it's less than $200. I need to ask, is there another way to get to the DC Costco without getting on New York Avenue NE?