Recently in Quality of Life Category

This morning I spotted the following at R and New Jersey Ave NW.

New CaBi station! Well since this is a decade in review this is a far cry from the old ugly bike.

This was first seen in the 2005 entry "Bike Handle on Richardson." Yes, people of Richardson Place, your street used to look like crap, with that mix of broken concrete and brick.

One of the great things about the neighborhood in the early days was it was a good place to get around without owning a car. Still is, but back in 2005, you had to own your own bike. None of this fancy schmancy CaBi stuff. I had a little series of posts called "Living in Shaw with no car" one of those was in regards to bikes. Looking back on that post there have been some changes. Chain Reaction is no longer there. It was a cool bike shop, where Red Toque currently sits, operated by the now defunct Shaw Eco-Village non-profit. It had young men, teenagers, fixing bikes at a nice price. Now I use Bicycle Space, which is a bit further from the house.  Also from that post I see that bike lanes were appearing on R but between 7th and 14th. Love that in the following years the lanes expanded. I really wish they'd expand more to have something between 7th and North Cap that gets you past NY Ave and Downtown. There is so much more around here to walk and bike to it is wonderful.

One of the great things about the neighborhood, and I say "neighborhood" in the general walking around space, ignoring political and civic boundaries, is the Bloomingdale Farmers Market. The BFM is coming back for another wonderful year of fruit, doggies walking around, meats, and baked goods. Saw the announcement that this coming Sunday it will be open again from 9AM to 1PM.

2007 was the first year of the market, per a quick look of my old posts. That was the same year as the opening of Big Bear, and as we know from experience, the two go together. I'm quite sure if I searched  I could find a post mentioning a previously failed market in Bloomingdale that sat around on Joe Mamo's lot. A farmer's market outside of the coffee shop just works, so it would be best to keep it where it is.

As  a resident and blogger I have enjoyed the market. I seem to have mentioned the market each year it has been open. It is not as big as other DC markets but it is great in its smallness. Neighbors can meet up with each other, kids can get introduced to unprocessed food, and people can talk to farmers.

I look forward to Sunday.

Last night we drove past the new Italian Bloomingdale restaurant Red Hen, and man that place was crowded. It looked fun but crowded. We'll probably wait a week or two before checking it out ourselves. But this got me to thinking that Bloomingdale is the place where the cool destination places are landing, while we over in the TC just get to look and walk over.

Part of me wants to say it started with Windows, they were there first, and pointed to as a signal of change in the neighborhood. This was in 2005. The next year Big Bear, the coffee shop, opened after much, much waiting and hoping and a few get to know the neighbors events. Then it became the tie for the Bloomingdale Farmers Market in 2007, and real estate ads began citing it as an amenity. Now the coffee shop is all fancy and stuff and popular.

In early 2008, Kim Wee opened Timor, now Field to City. Back then it was just a few shelves and some fresh milk in glass jars. Back then, if you wanted milk in glass jars you had to go all the way to the Logan Circle Whole Foods. Back then it was also quirky, as Kim would adjust and change things, like making the side door the entrance after he was robbed.

Two years later there was a hint of the Boundary Stone coming to Rhode Island Avenue. I'm doing this decade in review to check the copy of the old blog, so by the time the Boundary Stone opened in 2011, I'd moved from inshaw.com/blog to blog.inshaw.com. A bit before Boundary Stone's opening, Rustik opened in the fall of 2010. 

It seems each year after that Bloomingdale gets something new, some new place or thing that helps define the commerical part of the neighborhood, making the place more and more attractive. These changes did not come quickly, as nothing seemed quick about them as we waited for construction, and licenses, and stuff before we could start enjoying these places and taking friends to them. I predict Red Hen won't be the last new great thing in Bloomingdale, as there is something about the neighborhood. When we figure out what "it" is, maybe Truxton Circle can get some.

 

Note: I also found in my old blog posts EC-12 dating back to 2006, there is probably some 2005. EC-12 is the firehouse on North Capitol that was supposed to become a restaurant. In 2006, that's pitiful.

I tried to find a post that marked when the neighborhood turned a corner for the better, when it went from being a transition where one could question how long it would be transitional to a point where you could see the 'good stuff' on the horizon. Well with city services it appears to have been around 2007-2008.

In 2007 the city finally took care of a dead tree. A tree I had complained about had been dead for a few years and I had alerted the city to it, but the city, for reasons beyond my understanding, did nothing. A complaint that we had in the hood was that we did not receive city services, simple city services and enforcement, like other well to do neighborhoods.

Before it would require effort to get the city to enforce parking rules (church parking issues excepted) and deal with suspected stolen cars. But in 2008 when I saw a big orange boot on a car on my street, a sign that the city was being proactive (ie not requiring residents to constantly complain) about parking.

Why the change? One theory in the comments was that the city figured it was a way to get more revenue and greater chance of ticketing someone who'd actually pay up. I have another theory, the departure of Vincent Orange from Ward 5. Vinny was our (useless) Ward councilman from 1999-2007. When he was replaced by Harry Thomas Jr., who dispite stealing money from children, was pretty in tuned to residents needs and aiding with city services.

This photo is one of the things I have to keep an eye on as I plan to delete things off the inshaw.com/blog directory. I can't delete this, photo P1010007a.jpg.

Anyway, I always fear jinxing myself when I write that the drug problem is getting better. It is getting better. This photo was taken back in 2005 writing about a fellow a observed standing in 20F weather for no apparent good reason.

I was writing about our 'friendly neighborhood drug dealers' since 2005, though they were there long time before that. Residents on my street who lived here decades before I showed up would tell me about how the dealers were so bad they had even set up a table to do business. By the time I moved in, the only furniture they had were chairs. They would sit at the corner of 4th and R on found chairs. They'd be there when I came home from work in the evenings, and they'd be coming around when I left for work in the mornings.

The 'friendly' is a mix of truth and something else, sarcasm? A play on your friendly neighborhood Spiderman. With the exception of the teens trying to be and look hard the drug dealers were friendly. As I mentioned in one post, they'd say hello, I'd say hello back, keeping the friendly vibe even though I was calling the cops on them on occasion.

When did it turn? Well they aren't really gone, just less visible. But they became less visible, I guess around 2008, when I mentioned that a set of dealers had moved on. Well at least in my area of the TC. I do see on occasion someone who I believe "managed" the low level dealers. There were a lot of things that heppened to make our street less suitable for dealing. Demographics helped, meaning more dog walkers and joggers, fewer people who allowed/tolerated dealers hanging in front of their house, more people calling the cops, fewer people providing labor and shelter for the drug trade, and more homeowners. Better policing may have helped, with the shotspotter and better communication with email, but there is still room for improvement. Better city services also helped with the drug problem, fixing lights, ticketing cars, and the like as crime likes the shadows and dealers would stash drugs in unmoving (possibly stolen) cars.

For other parts of the city where the dealers haven't moved on, be they friendly or not, I hope that you can just keep chipping away at the problem. Keep calling the police, demand city services, demand enforcement, and make your area attractive to the types of people who will help make your neighborhood a nicer place. 

I honestly don't know what to make of some of my early posts where I named some folks and well gave names to some, one being Drama Momma, whose actual name I have forgotten. Then there was a nickname I may have mentioned but I don't see it in a search, Cindy [insert title here]. Because I believe Cindy has changed and I see her everyso often, I feel no desire to dig up her dark past.

Dramma Momma, is another story. I see her rarely. I know she's around. But I don't think she has changed much, so I don't feel that I'm damaging any recovery. DM, or Dramma Momma was a neighbor that I (and others) had on again off again issues with. I first mentioned her in 2003. And I mentioned her off and on after that. She was a troublesome neighbor and a broken soul. She was a single mother with a very angry son. She'd be on the wagon and fall off. Some days she'd curse me out on the street, others invite me over for a bite. She was loud. She'd blast her music for hours.

I would be lying if I said I missed her. I'm very happy that her landlord was forced to sell most of his properties (probably because he was overextended), which resulted in a nice fellow from Maryland buying the house she rented. This nice fellow fixed up the house a bit, moved in, then moved out to follow his dreams. Now rent there is a nice couple who are musicians who make waaaaay less noise than DM. Heck I never hear them.

Gentrification-wise, her move was another African American renter being replaced by whites. Neighborwise, it was a switch out from one problematic neighbor where the drug dealers would comfortably stand in front of or in her yard, to new neighbors who don't assist the criminals and work to improve their yard and the street. Yes the story of gentrification has the sweet old lady who'd been there for years, suddenly tossed out by evil white people. This is not that case here. I'm sure I wasn't the only one breathing a sigh of relief to see her go. She was the sign of a bad neighborhood, with chaos reigning all about her, spilling into the sidewalks and seeping through the party walls. The party putting her out was a black landlord who had his own problems and had to sell the house DM rented and another house on the block. I suspect he had financial issues of his own, forcing the sale. So even the idea of white landords don't work with the usual gentrification line here. Was it gentrification that put her out? Don't know, don't care. She's gone and it is peaceful.

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.

We were pulling out of a Maryland Home Depot (not the world's worst HD on RI Ave) when I pointed to the apartments across the street and said, that if we lived there we'd be spending our money on fabulous vacations instead of fixing the house, again.
Maybe it how we're doing home ownership. We keep losing money because the damned house keeps eating it. If we didn't have a cellar/basement, we wouldn't have our little expensive problem, But then again, I do like having the storage space. And provided everything is in a plastic bin or a foot off the floor, it's all good.
As much as I love being a homeowner, it has it's challenges. The past couple of weeks have been challenging, and to address the problem it's gonna get expensive. It's times like this when I think that putting economically strapped people in homes is foolish. Homeownership is a great way to build wealth, provided you have enough "wealth" to deal with crap that happens to a home. Or not have the wealth and do like my parents and slap a band-aid on it, slowly creating a home unfit for human habitation.
Yeah, it's how we're doing home ownership. Addressing problems several thousand borrowed dollars at a time.

Addition- My problem is only slightly related to those experiencing flooding in Bloomingdale. A rising water table and I have problems. 11 years ago, I and my basement owning neighbors experienced the flood of August (I think) 2001. Then, like now, I got a damaged carpet. Unlike then, I think I'm the only one suffering on my street. Also unlike then, I'm not bothering with DC Water. 11 years ago my neighbors and I went over to Blue Plains to get our grievances addressed. What we got was time wasted and insults from some jerk with an African accent. We filled out forms and got jack shyte in return. The Red Cross was helpful and my insurance company was really proactive. They sent out an inspector and cut me a check with little muss or fuss.
My advice to Bloomingdale people is not to expect DC Water or DC government to address this anytime soon, since they were yapping about fixing the dual runoff issue back in 2001. But do try to hold the parties responsible, responsible. Ask how the McMillian project impact this issue, if at all. Also with that plan to address runoff, where are they with that? Still in the study phase?

Because of last week's regionwide experiment with not having electricity on of my co-workers dragged out the Lehman's catalog for non-electric devices after having to make coffee with a hammer. Her coffee grinder is electrical. And someone in Bloomingdale had suggestions of reducing the block's electrical load, all which got me thinking, particularly with the not using the dryer thing.

The dryer, the washer, and the dishwasher are wonderful labor saving devices, but they also use a good amount of juice, particularly the dryer. When I was growing up in Florida we had a clothes line and once a week or more my mother would drag heavy wet clothes out of the house and hang and secure them on the line. This is more work than I do, of throwing the clothes about a foot from the washer to the dryer. This takes about 5 minutes, with less bending that my mother did. Now most of the work is dragging the clothes from the upper floor downstairs, folding and sorting, and dragging them back up.

The dehumidifier clued us in first. It began beeping due to low power. When we turned on the cellar lights, they were very dim. Ah, a brownout. Then eventually, the whole below ground floor was without power while the 1st floor and the second floor lights were fine. It wasn't until later that I noticed somethings that the outlets for the second floor were on exceedingly low juice.
We ran an orange extension cord to the basement for essentials and were happy that we had ceiling fans. Oh yeah, the A/C also low juice. There was a low breeze coming from the vents. I figured it was best to turn that off and use the box, vent and ceiling fans to keep  cool.
Without A/C it got to about 83F. We normally keep it at 80F.
Then sometime in the night it went to black. No fans, no nothin'. I woke up because I was sweating like a pig. We were about to retreat to the cooler basement when the power came back on.
When it started that day, we did what we normally did, go outside where other neighbors were to compare notes. Like us, others had lost power in one part of the house and not others. Another thing, the meters were acting weird.
I understand the recent big power outage was hard for Pepco, but this is stupid. And disappointing.

NOT RELATED- Field to City will be closed today Sat. July 7th due to staff shortage. They'll be open Sunday 10AM-7PM