Month: October 2004

Restaurant Review: Windows Market & Deli

I’m going to try something, restaurant reviewing. I will attempt to go to places in eastern Shaw or on the border of Shaw in LeDriot, Bloomingdale, Eckington, or within a 4 block radius of my house. The general criteria is that there must be seating and cannot be a carry out. The list of places to go is very short.
Yesterday I wandered over to the corner of 1st and Rhode Island to the Windows Deli. It is a very new looking place. I was attracted to it by its big windows that looked out on to Rhode Island Avenue and it’s bright interior. Inside the decor says Ethopian/ Swedish, mainly because I recognize the furniture being IKEA and the staff is pretty much Ethopian. In the corner there is a display case of tiny coffee cups and an African(?) vase. You have a choice of about 3 blonde wood tables to sit at or two other chairs sans table. The table near the window is good for people watching.
The menu is extremely limited. Basically you have coffee, tea, and cold sandwiches made to order. This is more coffee shop than restaurant. I had a tuna sandwich. The tuna was ok, a little heavy on the relishy ingredient and a bit more soupy than I am accustomed.
Looking around and thinking about it a bit more, the place seems very cabbie friendly. If your main thing is to sit, wait, get coffee, leave, then this is a suitable spot. Sunday, when I spotted this place, I noticed a decent mixed crowd sitting, reading the paper, drinking coffee.
Up the stairs (3 steps) is the market part of Windows, which is a quickie mart with drinkable wine and a few veggies. I saw tomatoes and onions. I didn’t look too hard at the wine, but it wasn’t Boones Farm or wino wine (that I can recognize easy). Not to be too out of place there were some ghetto drinks and single cans of beer for sale in the refrigerated cases.
I hope this business does well. It is good to have a big windowed people watching coffee shop so close. I wanna ‘nother, closer to my house.

Next time I might try B&J or BJ’s on 3rd and Rhode Island.

Brrrr

Okay it isn’t that cold but I’ve put it off long enough. I’m going to have to clean the furnace, and turn it on. When I first moved in I had a guy come over, look at the furnace and tell me it needed replacing. He said a bad word to me… “four thousand dollars.” OK, 3 bad words, the worst of them being “thousand.” Since then I have cleaned it myself. I’ll replace the furnace, in 3 years or so.

House o the fortnight

229 R Street is the house of the 1/2 month, for the first part of October. I just like this building. It’s got a turret, and a little courtyard.

Walk by it and notice how it looks like it may have been a store when you see te corner has been bricked up. Just notice the house. There is a lot one could do to gussy it up, make it look 10,000 times better. But then, it looks fine now unadorned.

Oktoberfest

Bates Area Civic Assoc is PLANNING Oktoberfest
According to the little yellow flyer on my fence:
The Bates Area Civic Association is planning an Oktoberfest for Saturday October 30th. Their current ideas include a:
Chili Cook-off
Cornbread
Bratwurst and Sauerkraut
Hot Cider
Flea market
Live Music
Health and Wellness Table
Games
Prizes
and more
If you are interested in volunteering or renting space for the flea market contact the planning committee at oktoberfest AT arachnophile dot com.

Bates Area Civic Assoc is PLANNING Oktoberfest

According to the little yellow flyer on my fence:

The Bates Area Civic Association is planning an Oktoberfest for Saturday October 30th. Their current ideas include a:

Chili Cook-off

Cornbread

Bratwurst and Sauerkraut

Hot Cider

Flea market

Live Music

Health and Wellness Table

Games

Prizes

and more

If you are interested in volunteering or renting space for the flea market contact the planning committee at oktoberfest AT arachnophile dot com.

This IS a great neighborhood

Once you get past some of the houses and some of the people with chemical problems, and you stick around a while, you will discover that this is a great neighborhood.
Why?
The people. People make a neighborhood all worth while, of course a good coffee shop or other neighborhood hang out helps too.
I’m in this I love my neighborhood mood because something dear has been returned to me, my palm pilot. I lost it on the street, my street, getting out the car. Apparently a fellow named Larry found it. He contacted some of the people in the address book (note: remove some people) and one was a neighbor who picked it up and returned it.
The palm wasn’t the first thing I lost around here. I have lost my wallet a couple of times. Once the wallet was returned to me by a kindly old lady who lived on 5th Street, showing me the importance of having your business cards in your wallet is a good thing.
I need to learn to keep up with my stuff better.

Scenes in Shaw

Scene 1
Driving down New Jersey Ave to attempt to turn on New York I spy three street vendors under the shade of a tree. One is a Salvadorian(?) woman selling flowers. The other is a guy selling bootleg CDs. The other guy, it looks like he’s selling bootlegs too.

Scene 2
There are a gaggle of kids running up and down the stair case of a house. I see the white occupants sitting on the stoop as the neighborhood kids run around. One kid is fooling around with one of the occupant’s hair. It looks liek she’s trying to plait the hair.

Scene 3
Over at the Florida Avenue park I spotted three people walking out of the park. Two of the people are holding up the one in the middle. Apparently middle guy can’t walk. No one seems phased by the scene. Just another day in the park.

Anyone need a trash can?

Anyone need an extra big green city trash can?
They cost $60 to replace.
Really we have an extra one.
It is currently sitting on the corner of 4th and Q. It has an address written on it, but if you go by the address you will see a much nicer can in the yard.
I called the city 2x about picking it up. It has been on the block, unclaimed for 3 weeks. So if you think you may need it, feel free to grab it. It may have trash in it considering it is a trash can on a corner. But trash day was yesterday so it shouldn’t have too much trash.
If you do grab it, spray paint your house numbers on it, so it won’t wander back here.

Part of the gentrification problem

I want to thank John for leading me to this blog about gentrification in Baltimore City [corrected]. Funny, Baltimore is the place I point people to when the gentrified prices of DC are too high.
Which reminds me. TechBalt is not purposefully trying to displace people but move into a poorer neighborhood take over a block and reap a return on their investment.
Wandering around Techbalt’s website I wound up linking to the city of Baltimore’s crime map. It is so cool. Crime isn’t cool but a colorful map of what type of crime happens where is sooo totally cool (yes I grew up in the 80s).

edited to change County to City

Not Georgetown

Shaw is not Georgetown.
Shaw may never be another Georgetown.
Shaw has 3 metro stations; Georgetown 0.
Shaw rocks.

“The folks in Georgetown get what they want!”
“What do you think this is, Georgetown?”
occasionally I hear, at civic meetings the comparison to Georgetown. Not so much now as before but it does creep it’s little head up now and again. Georgetown ain’t all that. I grant you that yes, it is a tony and expensive neighborhood, with tony and expensive shops and restaurants, and expensive people. However the comparison between Georgetown and Shaw is useless in many respects.
With crime, Georgetown is different. Comparing the stats from Police District 2 (Georgetown & west of the park) and Police District 5 (Shaw, Bloomingdale, Galludet area, rest of Ward 5), we’re doing quite well considering. PD 2 has 1,093 thefts for the month of August, PD 5 585. Biggest problem in our area is auto theft with over 800 reports of stolen autos, PD 2 just 231 reports. Of course, west of the park, finding a parking spot is difficult. People just know not to have a car or have a secure garage.
Gangs, probably not too many of those in Georgetown, possibly because little Maison and Jeffrey have overscheduled lives and no time to ‘hang out’. Maybe if Shaw parents were overzealous in getting their children in the BEST preschool and the BEST private school and the BEST college, we wouldn’t have kids hanging out on the corner up to no good. They’d be stuck in some college application enhancing program that will assuredly get them into [insert big name private university here]. There are a lot of parents in Shaw who are just in survival mode, so college and the programs to get their offspring into said programs is an afterthought, if even a thought. So, the children are left alone, on the corner, hanging out.
The people are different. I don’t mean color, but that’s part of it. Besides having over scheduled kids, you have power brokers. Not that non-profit people have no power, but compared to Kennedy wannbes with money for campaigns or other worthy cause donations, and connections we might be a bit more limited in making things happen.
Needs are different. Part of me doubts there are many section 8s living in Georgetown. I know they don’t have the great number of homeless wandering around, waiting around for services as we do here on this end of Shaw. They have horrible traffic. No parking. No metro stations. They have rowdy college kids. Where are the Howard students? Their retail is okay, gawdafully expensive, but ok. We need more retail. We have open air drug markets. I’m quite sure there are drugs in Georgetown, but you gotta know a guy. Prostitution? Both have it, but you can find ours on the street. Some of Shaw’s problems are more visible.
Georgetown and Shaw. Both in the district, but with different needs, people, and environments. A better comparison would be Shaw and Michigan Park, both in Ward 5, both have parking, both have limited retail and both east of the park and west of the river.
[5/27/07 note- As I’ve gotten to know Georgetown more, my attitude about the place has changed.]