Month: May 2004

PSA 312 is gone.

Gone.

Gone.

Gone.

No more.

Some of the neighbors went to Jack Evans to complain, but I knew it was too late cause if people had been going to the boring PSA 312 meetings, or the Bates Street Civic Association (slightly less boring), they would have known.

So now we have PSA 501, which is big. It includes a lot of NE DC. It has Catholic U, Trinity, the Hospitals, some other large campus of some sort, Eckington, Truxton, and that other stuff on the other side of North Cap.

At the meeting the cops were talking big. We’ll see. That’s my view. Right now my big thing is getting the kids off the R and 4th corner. Some neighbors attributed the crowd of kids on the corner to the arrival of Dramma Mamma. Well I can’t blame her or her son entirely. There were people hanging out on that corner before her. Just now, they are younger.

Well, if I see them I will try to remember to call 911 when they start fighting with each other.

Neighbors,

Please be reminded that there will be a meeting of community residents

from PSA 501 (i.e., the PSA that we are now located in) on Thursday, May 20,

2004. Specifically, the meeting will take place in the auditorium of

Dunbar Senior High School, New Jersey Avenue and O Street, N.W., between the

hours of 7:00 p.m. and 9:00 p.m. This is the first meeting of residents from

this newly configured PSA, since the time of our relocation from the Third

to the Fifth District.

Please make your best effort to attend this important public safety

meeting.

And, also bring some neighbors.

Best,

Jim Berry

ANC 5C

I roam the Washington Post’s Real Estate discussion lists. When people from other areas or first time buyers start looking for houses the usual exchange goes something like this:

“Ohmagawd it’s expensive”

“Go live in West Virginia, BFE Virginia, Baltimore, Anapolis, St. Mary’s Co.”

“Traffic horrid”

“Don’t go to PG County or live in DC”

“Please suggest a nice safe neighborhood for a family”

“The Real Estate bubble will burst”

Well of all that I came across this:

From: dariaesq May-13 7:45 am

To: ALL

I think anything in that price range is going to come with some negatives. In the end you have to balance what negatives you can live with….moving a gazillion miles away to farout counties as I see people on boards suggesting West Virginia even!!! thats not a realistic or desirable option for many people (may not have to sit in traffic for a short distance but you’ll drive twice as many miles???); is living within the vicinity of METRO (not VRE or MARC…but the actual METRO System) important; dealing with Rt 7, 66, 270, American Legion Bridge, Wilson Bridge, 95, yadda yadda yadda (there are choke points all over this area…even those living in $600k plus neighborhoods have choke points to deal with and even if you live and work in the city sometimes getting from one part of DC to another part of DC can take 45 minutes!); you might compromise on neighborhood aesthetics and safety…but look into the neighborhood yourself versus assumptions about what it is like, the cheaper neighborhoods are not all as bad as many stereotype them to be; you might be limited to condos vs. townhomes or single family; it may need a lot of renovation if you are up to that.

I guarantee at $130k you’ll have to bend on one of those negatives, but despite the hype you CAN find something in that range close in, in nice neighborhoods and move in ready with limited renovation without having to give up or move to Bmore West Virginia Fredericksburg or some other extreme. Good luck.

Article of interest: Risky Neighborhood Or Investor Paradise?

Bold mine

I like Shaw. It’s my neighborhood. It is close to the metro, so I can ponder getting a car, and not get one. It is within biking distance of Dupont and Downtown. The buses take me straight through Dupont to Georgetown, or the Business district, or Catholic U, or Adams Morgan. But I think I have gotten tired of trying to sell it to middle class suburbanites who like a Disneyfied DC.

There are certain people who should stay in Arlington and Alexandria. Those areas fit them. There’s parking and lots of winding roads. At 40 mph you can ignore the immigrants. Oh and there are good schools for the children they hope to have. In DC, now I don’t want to seem as if I’m hating ’cause I do like a lot of NW DC. But parts of NW DC is too homogeneous and doesn’t reflect the diversity of the city. Some areas do, but we must face some folks aren’t comfy with a lot of diversity. That diversity could be economic, age, family, orientation, and race.

Shaw is a wonderful neighborhood. It is a very diverse neighborhood. It might not fit some folks vision of a “nice safe” neighborhood, but it is mine.

Observed this morning, good landscaping in the yard of a house of folks who never seemed to care for the years I’ve been here. Yardwork seems to be catching on.

The house that we were all hoping that would sell, didn’t. The owners, developers were too greedy. It was on the market for $400K, the highest offer was $380K, and that was generous, ’cause the quality of the house wasn’t that good. So the owners rented out the two unit property to a working class family and some guys.

With the family came a new crop of kids. Now I can’t say for sure that the crop of kids all live in the house. As these things go you have cousins, playmates, what have you who join the kids who do live there. They have been playing with the crop of kids who normally play on their block. 90% of these kids are boys. Little boys. So you have a gaggle of rough housing, ball throwing, ball bouncing, fight starting, highly competitive boys. One block cannot hold all this energy.

Most of the families on the block, I speak of, have been there for a while. Majority of the boys’ families are home owners and longtime residents. They know better than to run into their neighbors’ yards and tree boxes while playing. Yet, with the arrival of the new family this ‘knowing better’ seems to have gone out the window.

It is true that it takes a village to raise a child. It takes several adults who happen to be outside observing this bad behavior to yell at the kids. Apparently one lone adult isn’t enough. By yelling, I mean asking “what are you doing?” or saying loudly, “get out of Mr. X’s yard” or “why don’t you play over there?”. Kids.