Slightly OT: The History conference

I gave a very abbreviated presentation of “Ethnic Divides in an 1880 DC Neighborhood” at the history conference this weekend. It was abbrev. because the presenter ahead of me made her presentation about 2x than what it was supposed to be. That was fine with me. What wasn’t so fine was one of her statements/questions afterwards. She was amazed that information about race (as race was the central theme in my paper) is/was collected by the government and that sort of thing isn’t done in Britain and couldn’t see the usefulness of collecting information about race. Oh. My. G-d. Where do I start?
I’m not a lefty black power radical but I know that race plays a powerful role in the history of America. You really cannot have the history of the US South or the history of the republic itself without covering race. If you do, you’ll have a whitewashed version of history.
In library school they call this a teachable moment. The problem with teachable moments is they come when you are so not in the mood to make it a teachable moment, or you are so stunned by the different point of view that you don’t know where to even begin.
Turning to the other people who came up for questions and remarks made me feel good. ‘Cause really, it’s all about me. Apparently some other folks have been doing the same sort of research and found the same weird patterns I found in Truxton, blacks on one end of the block or street, whites on another. Basically, little bits of micro-segregation everywhere, as opposed to the macro-segregation that I’m familiar with in parts of the South, where whites are on one end of town and blacks on another. You could say we have macro-segregation in DC with whites on one side of Rock Creek and blacks on the other side of the river.
Anyway, glad that portion is over. I still have to map out Truxton for 1900-1930. But I’m going to take a break. In 1880 Truxton had 1,696 people, and tons more in 1900 and I’m just not up for more work.

BACA Meeting this Monday

MONTHLY MEETING NOTICE

“NEIGHBORS, ITS TIME TO GET INVOLVED!!!”

Agenda Includes Reports from the Following Committees:

Public Safety Committee

Land Use, Planning, and Economic Development Committee

Youth Committee

Environmental Services Committee

Monday, November 7, 2005

Mount Sinai Baptist Church

3rd and Q Streets, N.W.

Rooms 1 and 2

7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

For more information regarding the meeting and/or the Association,

contact Jim Berry at (202) 387-8520 or at jamojam ATmsn.com.

BATES AREA CIVIC ASSOCIATION

Shaw: Gentrifying since 1986

It’s amazing what you find in the ProQuest files when you loose a citation.
Here’s the story. So I’m still cleaning up my paper for this weekend’s conference when I realize that I don’t have a citation for a Washington Post article. This would not be a problem except I didn’t have the article title, date or author by-line written anywhere and gave my printout of said article to Scott, thinking I could get another copy. So I go on ProQuest to find stupid article again. I did find the article, but not before I had to wade through a sea of other Shaw revilitization articles. What I found was um, interesting and it took me on a trail of other searches to see a story of Shaw where you read one thing and know that it never works out the way everyone hopes.
The borders of Shaw are a 60s invention of the National Capitol Planning Commission, covering the service area of the Shaw Junior High School. Plug in a search for Shaw prior to 1960 and you aren’t going to find the neighborhood. So in the searches I found from 1965-1989 there is this neighborhood that is constantly under development. But you’re wondering about the “gentrifying since 1986” thing aren’t you? That’s from “Housing Signals a Shaw Comeback” by Linda Wheeler (Feb 22 1986 B1). Where she writes:

The neighborhood shows a few outward signs of activity, but real estate agents said that gentrification is reviving and that increasing sales will result in more renovations in the near future.

Dude this was about 20 years ago.
I also saw the comparisions to G’town. From “Logan Circle: The Next Georgetown” (May 21 1973 A1):

Georgetown, a busy sea trading town before the capitol city that consumed it was conceived, was ruined by the advent of steamships and ralroads. It remained undesirable habitat, populated by poor blacks until the 1930s when its 18th and 19th century houses and shops caught the fancy of whites who moved in and began restoring them…..
The Shaw area “certainly will not become an exclusively white upper-income kind of neighborhood like Georgetown, at least not as large a scale,” said Ronald Russo, RLA’s director of rehabilitation, because the urban renewal plan for Shaw, which includes the Logan Cirlce historic district, will be a “conglomerate” of low-, moderate and upper-income housing.

and from “Slum Landlords Buy Up Shaw Houses” (Mar 24 1968 A1)

Shaw is a unique Washington slum. It has not tall tenements as does New York’s Bedford-Stuyvesant, nor huge rambling frames houses as does Cleveland’s Hough. Instead its residents are crowded into the tiny rooms of two and three story row houses, such as those that have been restored to expensive quaintness in Georgetown and on Capitol Hill or have fallen under the wrecker’s boom and bulldozer in Southwest.

Over 30 years ago.
But the thing that got me were the stories of Bates Street from the 60s to the mid 80s. “The District of Columbia Revelopment Land Agency voted yesterday to sell 89 properties in the Bates Street NW area, for years one of the city’s worst slums for $422,100.” (Feb 1 1978 C2) Oh there is corruption, poor repairs, hopes dashed, proposals to raze the block, city mismanagement and Marion Barry. This is best captured in “U.S. Blamed by Barry for Bates St. Inaction.” (May 3 1984 B1) There are quotes from city managers who say work will begin on Bates that summer, but later you read that it doesn’t get done. You read that Bates is on a downward spiral and the houses turn out to be money pits for the individuals who buy them.
Semi-update= Later I found a September 3rd 1980 piece by William Raspberry “Coming and going in the District” talks about gentrification in the Shaw and Logan Cirlce (same thing) area.
Shaw- Gentrifying (at least) Since 1980!

For the ones who were here before

One of the comments on one of the gentrification posts mentioned that the neighborhood, after revitalization should go back to the “original residents”. My first thought was George Glorius? The whole block between FL, 4th, R and 3rd should go back to the heirs of florist George Glorius a German immigrant in 1880? Maybe the Native Americans who owned all of this before any of our ancestors got dumped here by ship or plane. Yes, I know that wasn’t what he meant. Maybe only the last 50 years count.
It got me thinking about place and space and ownership. Can any one group really own a geographical location forever? I’m not talking Middle Eastern levels of claims of ownership of place, but neighborhoods. How long will the once real Chinatown, now fake Chinatown, be fake Chinatown, before it is just Gallery Place? What claims do the Chinese-American Community have on that commercial section of town? And for how long?
There are plenty of houses in this town that date back to the mid-to-late 19th century. In the one and a half centuries that those houses have been standing just imagine the various families that have floated through. Your house may be haunted. Not by dead spirits but the lives lived in that place. And from my still incomplete research of Truxton, these lives were the lives of Irish laborers, Virginian clerks, African American laundresses, and German shopkeepers. They looked out the window you look out of and climbed the stairs you climb. Their weight pressed against the same floorboards and beams that carry you. Well, provided you or someone before you didn’t gut the whole place.
Yesterday was All Saints Day, the day for those who came before. Observing the day with a more secular outlook we can think of the Mt. Vernon Sq, Logan Circle, U Street, Blagden Alley, and Truxton Circle residents who lived here in 1880, 1930, 1950 and so on. And also know that we too will pass through, leaving our spirit and energy in the houses we work hard to maintain for the people who will come after.

Halloween III: Death & Candy

Kids came early. I saw bands of kids as I headed home around 5:30. I didn’t have time to change because the kids across the street hit me as soon as I got to the door demanding candy. Aggressive little men they were. And they came back again with some of their little cousins when they discovered I added Reeses to the bowl. “Hey why didn’t we get a Reeses! I want a Reeses!” There were more kids who tried this year. Someone did get into their mother’s make-up and came as “Indians” in regular street wear. I don’t ask that the costume be good, just that the kid tries.
There were moments when the one candy rule went out the window, when they came in droves. At a few moments the kids just kept coming and coming non stop. Gangs of kids, some in costume, some not, all ready to knock you down for candy.
In all it was a good holiday.
The death, by the way, was that of a crossiant eating peanut butter phobic mouse who invaded my house this week. Caught him in a glue trap I did. The trick with the glue trap is that you have to tape it down so the mouse can’t wiggle out and off of it.

Leaf Pickup

Via Jim
Neighbors,

Leaves from our trees will be picked up by the city this year from November 7 to 19, 2005 and from December 5 to 17, 2005. During the first collection period, your leaves must be raked out by November 6, 2005 and by December 4, 2005 for the second opportunity.

The three options for collection are as follows:

1) Rake loose leaves into piles in your curbside treebox space. They will be collected with a vacuum truck;
2) Place bagged leaves in your curbside treebox space and they will be collected by a packer truck; or
3) If you have alley trash collection, you may place bagged leaves where you put your trash. Those leaves will be collected with the trash.

Please not that the above options are only available to us during the time-frames specified above.

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C

2nd chance for hazardous waste pick up

via Jim.
Neighbors,

In the event that you missed the opportunity to recycle your hazardous waste materials and/or your electronic equipment on 10/22/2005, please note that you will have a second and final opportunity to do so this fall on Saturday, November 12, 2005 at the Benning Road Trash Transfer Station, 3200 Benning Road, NE, between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m.

Please take note of this important date and opportunity to get rid of all of those old items that have been hanging around your homes for years. I know I sure plan to!

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C

Come and listen to the world’s most boring history paper

I’m presenting my paper at the Wash DC Historical Studies conference this Saturday. I’ve read my paper and the middle portion is boring. Dullsville. I’m working on making an exciting speech, based on the boring paper.
Why boring? I have a lot of so-in-so lived next door to so-in-so who was black/white/ Irish. Going individually, house to house is more exciting when mapping it out and seeing the neighborhood as a whole. The Truxton Circle of 1880 was a sparsely populated area. I say this because there were blocks with no one on them, or sections of blocks that are empty. This changes by the 20th century, but the 1900s+ aren’t covered in this paper. Gonna have to wait a few more years for the 20th century.
I’ll probably post the paper and all the images that don’t want to print on the &^%! printer, after the conference, on the web. If anyone with any editing skills wants to read it, e-mail me and tell me what kind of editing you do.

Halloween II: Curse of the signs

Some people have their yards done up for Halloween. I don’t. So I’m going to make a sign this year to say “yes, I have candy” because last time groups of trick or treaters weren’t sure if I was a candy house. I know they are definitely going to hit L&D’s house because they’ve got the whole spider webbing and lights going on, and nothing screams “hey kids, candy here” like that. Me. A measly sign.
Right now I debating wording and if I should have another sign for when I run out. As far as the 1 candy for no costume policy, that will be in the “small print”.
Then the other problem is what to use as tape. Duct tape might take off paint and painters tape might not hold. Well it only needs to stay up for 2-3 hours.
Talking with some other neighbors I picked up these miss-matched ideas:
1. Leave your porch light on and all the lights on the 1st floor on.
2. Don’t present the whole bowl to the kids. Some have, in the past, tried to grab all the candy, leaving nothing for the next kid.
3. Remove all tripping hazards in your yard.
4. Yes, your dog is friendly and all the kids love him/her but maybe “buddy” should not answer the door too.
any others?

Halloween

I’ve spoken with my neighbors about this but here’s the deal….
I like Halloween, kids dressing up, getting candy, good stuff, but there are kids that kill the holiday for me, the ones who don’t even try. These kids come in their street clothes with a plastic bag from Giant asking for candy.
Try dang it! Try!
Yo momma got make up? You can be a zombie, some dark eyeshadow all around your eyes, or lipstick that is the darkest of browns and a little powder to keep it stable, BAM! Zombie. Eyeliner to make stitches, rags from an old t-shirt round your head and red lipstick for blood, you’re an accident victim. Cardboard. Make a card board mask. What are you? I dunno, but at least you tried.
But there will be kids who don’t try. So you will only get 1, I say ONE, piece of candy. Kids who put some effort into it will get a handful of candy. Why do would I want to reward kids who are killing the holiday by not getting into the spirit of it?