Month: April 2005

So I’m coming home after a meeting on the Green line, sitting on the train, just listening to my music. For most of the ride my eyes do not focus on anything, and then I notice a familiar face. It’s W., a friend and ex-boss of one of my former roommates, who lives on the other side of New Jersey in Shaw. I disconnect my earphones and she comes over to sit and chat. We exit out the same station and we just talk and catch up all the way to her door. After I wave goodbye to her I start to think, if I drove alone to and from work, instead of taking public transit, I would have missed such a wonderful opportunity to connect with one of my neighbors.

About a week ago I got an email from a Paul Bakalite who lives in Brixton, a London neighborhood. He sent me an article he’d written about the gentrification going around him and possibly it will get published somewhere soon. Although it doesn’t reflect my point of view regarding gentrification, because I have certain ideas about property and other things, it is good to calmly hear other points of view…. or at least that’s what they taught me in grad school.
Brixton and Shaw have a lot in common. Both are neighborhoods in capitol cities. Both have a large population of people of African decent. Both experienced riots that caused significant property damage and now both are dealing with gentrification.
My Brixton, particularly Brixton circa 1993, which was in between the 1991 riot and the 1995 riot, was an escape from the Central London areas I worked in for a Summer. I would go there for the small open air food/veggie market, to get my hair done, and to wander over to the Tesco’s (think Giant). And I believe at the time there was talk about parts of Brixton getting posh, gentrified. In Paul’s Brixton, the gentrification is not just displacing people but an atmosphere, an openness, a spirit of the neighborhood that attracts people to it in the first place.
So I present part of Paul’s article:

How Brixton is now facing different division…
Paul Bakalite urges newer residents of Brixton to show some humility and Lambeth council to take more notice of the real needs of local people.

March 2005

While I’d acknowledge I was a more naive person when I washed up in Brixton the best part of twenty years ago, I was never like the upscale types who arrive here now. I didn’t tell the weed dealers, on my doorstep back then, to “get off my property”. I got to know them. They were there first. It was their street, and my neighbours’ – not mine.

I first came to live in Brixton in the late 1980s. Part of me craved excitement and freedom. It’s an interesting area, Brixton. But looking back I see now that what I really craved, and what I have found here, is acceptance and somewhere to belong. I am an articulate man (although not for obvious reasons: I didn’t go to a posh school or to university) and I am white. Even so, principally because I am gay, I know how prejudice can gnaw at a person’s sense of self-worth. Especially if they start on you early! Alot of people rejected by elsewhere have gravitated to Brixton over the years. Damaged people somehow drawn to find spiritual kinship amongst oppressed people perhaps? A place where you didn’t have to be either wealthy or conventional to live… to count…

Do you now?

There’s always been something special here, an atmosphere of acceptance and understanding that Brixton has because of it’s history, it’s peoples… and its troubles. There is cohesion across communities, of black, white and others. Cohesion across race and to a lesser extent, across class. And a rightful defiance of anyone who’d dare push Brixton people around. In Brixton the marginal and the outsiders could be insiders.

But this is under threat, from people who don’t even know that their own security and sense of entitlement gives them power – because they’ve always had it. And from systems biased in their favour. The cohesion I mention is delicate. It relies on mutual respect. Some of the newer residents just don’t get it.

Brixton’s current fashionability was largely built on the backs of black people and on the backs of poorer people. And arty, radical types helped glue it together. Many are left out of this fashionability now or have been forced out. (Not everyone is a home-owner or a career high-flyer). Brixton is being re-packaged and resold by and for a more conservative consumer. Poorer people can’t move to the neighbourhood anymore as they can’t afford to rent here. Dissident minds struggle to find brotherhood here. Residents who don’t fit in with recent conformity (and Brixton’s current fashionability is a form of conformism) can sometimes feel crushed by the demands of professionals who’ve read in a magazine that Brixton is hip, moved in recently and within months want everything their way. Brixton is an area these people would previously have never considered as a home. They may have no real affinity for it. They attempt (and will fail) to control it. They don’t engage with it.

Trendy bars and gated-developments do not a happy community make. Lots of existing locals find the new prosperity and venues excluding, expensive and irrelevant. And just boring too. Rapacious “market forces”, allowed precedence over pretty much anything of real worth today, ensure that the needs of the well-to-do, floating from style-bar to luxury apartment, are met. Those with the deepest pockets are first in the queue, while schools and sports facilities for everyone are often left to rot.

Paul Bakalite is environment champion for Coldharbour/Angel Working Group, Brixton

There is more to it, but as it hasn’t been published in print I would like Mr. Bakalite to have the opportunity to have it fully published in a newspaper or other such thing.

For a moment the alley was as busy as the front of the street. I was out in the backyard puttering over my plants, ’cause I like puttering. Mxn and her gang of family and friends were out moving things into the house, and yelling, ’cause she wouldn’t be herself if she didn’t yell at somebody. After the Mxn gang moved on into the house, a large truck came easing down the alley, and may have hit a fence as our alley is kinda skinny. I watched the truck for a while because in the past trucks would come through and dump things in the alley. Now that there are few backyards left open, that rarely happens now.
The guys in the truck kept peering over the fences and I asked them if they needed any help. Apparently they were looking for a particular house number, and well we no longer have house numbers on the alley side. So they asked people in Mxn’s house, nope. Then they brought out the people in the monstrosity of a house, they had just moved in and were not really sure what their house number was.
I lost interest in the search for the right house number when IT appeared. He popped out around about the same time as the neighbors on his other side came out. He greeted his neighbors, then me and we got to talking. So for about 5 minutes there was all this chatter over the fences, the truckers, the new people, the neighbors and of course, Mxn yelling.
Can’t get this in the ‘burbs.

From the TC Dispatcher:
Friday’s TC Happy Hour was fantastic. Over 30 people attended. It was great to
meet so many of you. If you couldn’t make it…don’t fret. Several locations
were discussed for another HH some time mid-May.

**

Donna B. suggested we re-attempt gathering pet owners in the park at First and
Florida, NW. With nice weather and daylight on our side…I say let’s do it!

Bring your dog, cat, ferret… whatever and let’s meet between 6 and 6:30ish.
Don’t have a pet? No worries. I got a couple to spare.

Truxton/Florida Park is centrally located to Bloomingdale, Eckington and Truxton
Circle…so PLEASE pass this on to your neighbors.

See you tonight.

Scott

New restaurants on P St.
Well Merkado has opened up on the 1400 block of P this weekend. I probably won’t venture in until later this month. It is owned by the same folks who brought you Logan Tavern, which really isn’t a tavern and is just a few door down. If anyone has been to it I’d love to hear your reviews. Also, on the same 1400 block a new (French?) bistro was supposed to open up as well. I didn’t check back at it’s proposed opening time, and passing by on Sunday it didn’t look open. It does have a nice looking menu.

Shaw Eco-Village workshops
This weekend I attended in one of hopefully many Shaw Eco Village workshops. This one was a rain barrel workshop where for $5 and a talk by the kids on the evils of a combined sewer system, I got a 50 gallon rainbarrel that I dragged home. The goal is to get the run off from the roofs and other impervious surfaces from going into the sewer system. Sadly, one would need 12 such barrels to catch all the rain that comes off a typical DC roof in a 1 inch rainstorm.

You know screaming woman is yelling at her kids too loudly when…
So I’m talking to B. from one side of my fence and he’s on the other side, and we are about 3 feet from each other and then Mxn, screaming woman, starts yelling at her kids. Mxn is across the alley from us. In her house. Yelling at kids in the house. And I can barely hear B. over Mxn. That is too loud.

updated to have Merkado’s actual website with menu

Sometimes you just need a car.
There are two car sharing companies operating in the DC metro area, Zipcar and Flexcar. I can’t speak about Zipcar as I am not a member and I don’t use their cars. However I have been a Flexcar member for about 3 years and can talk about them from experience.
The reason why I joined Flexcar boiled down to this, Flexcar ain’t afraid of the hood. At one point in the company’s history it had 2 cars for Truxton Circle residents. One at Rhode Island and New Jersey and another at Florida and Q St., both at cheapo cash-only gas stations, that I figure kicked Flexcar to the curb so that now the closest Flexcar sits at 7th and R St at the Shaw/Howard metro station. The closest Zip car is over on 14th St.
I typically use the Flexcar car for trips to Home Depot to pick up dirt, or something that is too heavy or awkward for the bus. It is a 1.5 hour trip for me and at Flexcar’s current rates that’s about $13.50 which includes gas and insurance. The price may seem steep but compared to owning a car, especially at current gas prices, it is a deal. Other errands with the Flexcar have included grabbing the Greenbelt hybrid for trips to IKEA and Behnke’s, the pickup truck at Columbia Heights for a furniture run, and the College Park car to harass friends and family.
I really miss the NJ and RI car. It served both Truxton and LeDroit park and it was just minutes from the house. Oh well.
As Flexcar doesn’t have a monthly fee it works for me as there will be a month or so when I’m not using the car. I use it more when it is cold and waiting for the bus or biking is not an option. The other good thing is that there are cars at many of the metro stations around the District so it can be a decent supplement to one’s metro trip.
If you have questions about Flexcar feel free to contact them at (202)296-1FLX (1359) or e-mail me (see right side panel).
Other Living in Shaw with no car posts:
Living in Shaw with no car: Walking
Living in Shaw with no car: Biking
Living in Shaw with no car: Metro

Looking at the Truxton Circle daily dispatch I noticed this:

PSA 501
4/11/2005
2000 Hours
Assault With A Deadly Weapon – Other
100 Block Q ST NW
CCN #05045912
C1 REPORTS THAT SHE AND S1 GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT ABOUT S1’S BOYFRIEND AT WHICH
TIME S1 BECAME ANGRY AND GRABBED C1’S HAIR. BOTH C1 AND S1 FELL TO THE GROUND
AND THEN S1 BEGAN BITING C1 IN THE FACE. S1 THEN FLED

Guuurl, no man ain’t worth gettin’ bit in the face for. No man.

It isn’t New York or London or some other city where traveling on public transit is a given, but it is what we got.
The good thing about Truxton Circle is that there are several metro options around. The Shaw/Howard University stop is over on 7th and S and R Streets, about a 10 minute walk for some. A little ways over is the new New York Avenue (NYAFAGU) station over on the 200 block of Florida Avenue NE. From these stations the rest of the DC metro area opens up. I use it to get to College Park for work, or to Friendship Heights for fun or British food at Rodman’s. Quick jumps to Chinatown, just 2 stops away from Shaw or rare long hauls out to Vienna (bring a book). Switching over at Mt. Vernon Square, to the yellow line from the green I can go to the Pentagon City mall or the airport. BWI, the airport I can use, is a good bet because I go from Shaw to Greenbelt and catch the B30.
Then there are all the buses that pass through and by. The 96 to Ellington Bridge takes me through U Street and Adams Morgan and stops on the other side of the bridge from Woodley Park. In the other direction the 96 to Stadium Armory or Capitol Heights, takes me to Union Station, and the Library of Congress. I haven’t bothered taking it past those points. The G2 is only good in one direction, west. The westward G2 to Georgetown University, starting somewhere near Howard University, goes along P Street, past the Giant, past the Whole Foods, through Dupont, and eventually up at the gates of Georgetown University in about 20 minutes. The G8 to Farragut Square goes past the rear of the Giant, past the Convention Center, and by McPherson Square. In the other direction to Avondale, it goes by the National Wholesalers Warehouse whatchamacallit on 4th and RI NE, up to Catholic University metro, through Brookland, and ends at the DC MD border. Over on North Capitol, you can catch the 80 to Ft. Totten or the scenic route to Kennedy Center and the P6 to Rhode Island (Home Depot & Giant) or Anacostia Station.
Then there are the 90 buses (90, 92, 93 & X3). Good lord I hate the 90 buses. I step on a 90 bus I know there’s a good chance I’m going to get harassed. No matter what I’m wearing, and typically I dress conservatively, no matter, some old dirty man wants to hit on me. Or there will be some seriously disturbed person on the bus. It can also get crowded. I hate the 90 bus. But I love where it goes. Like the 96 going west, it goes through U Street, past Cake Love, and through the main drag of Adams Morgan. Unlike the 96, the 90s go over Ellington Bridge to Woodley Park, then over by the National Cathedral and stops at the Giant on Wisconsin in McLean Gardens. In the other direction heading south east, the 90 buses go past the New York Avenue station, past Gallaudet University, down 8th St NE, by Eastern Market in Capitol Hill and stops somewhere south of that.
You can check what comes close your home by clicking here.
I keep track of the buses and trains with my beloved Palm by copying and pasting the bus schedules from the Ride Guide, or downloading the Palm files. The 90, 92, 93 route has a PDA schedule. So I can tell when the next bus is coming and I can get where I need to go.
Next time: Living in Shaw with no car: Car Sharing

Well it is funny when you think about it.
After work I dragged my garbage can back to the back yard chatted with a neighbor and locked up the gate, only after the realization that I didn’t have the key for the rear door. I also didn’t have the key for the gate lock that I just locked, so I was locked inside my yard.
The sun was shining and it was warm so I figured I’d sit out there and possibly wait for my neighbor B. to get home and eventually go out in the backyard to putter over his plants. That waiting lasted a good 5 minutes and then I was trying to figure out how to escape from my yard. I tried to see if I could climb over the fence. Nope, too tall and an empty trash can wasn’t going to hold my weight. Under it. Nope, torso too big. And besides, I was wearing drycleanable clothes.
And that’s when the band of boys, who I’d been complaining about before wandered into the alley. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear them. I called out the name of one kid, who lives around the block. He answered, and I explained my problem and gave him the key to my front door and the ball they had thrown into my yard the day before. After some trial and error, he and the other kids let me into my house. I paid him $4 for rescuing me. Kid labor, cheap.
Of course, by the time the kids let me in B. had come home.

Part 2 of the Living in Shaw with no car series. See Part 1, walking for the begining.
One step up from walking is biking. Still requires human power to get around, but a whole lot faster. With a bike, I can get to more places, and places further away that I wouldn’t go to if I had to walk.
I bike to Dupont, U Street, Chinatown and recently Foggy Bottom. This is all on the crappy 3 speed. I have a mountain bike but I want to trade it in for a decent hybrid or road bike for part of my commute this summer.
Most of the time I run errands on the bike. A trip to Giant here, pick up a weeks worth of groceries. A trip to Rice or other spots along 14th like the Garden District, pick up more stuff. Trip downtown for research. And unlike a car, I can find someplace to park it in neighborhoods like Dupont or Adams Morgan, where finding a parking spot is difficult.
Not that finding a bike parking spot is a breeze. I don’t lock the bike to sign posts as they are not always in the sidewalk properly. I lock the bike to parking meters and lately, more parking meters have been popping up in Shaw. I’ve noticed parking meters near the Shaw metro station, when a few years back there were very few. Places where there are no parking meters one has to think creatively as to what public structure can be used as bike parking.
There is one place that I think makes having a bike easier in Shaw and that is the non-profit Chain Reaction bike shop. I bought the ugly bike (it was not pretty when I bought it and I’ve just made it uglier) from them for less than $50. They have been there when I needed new tires, when some jerk bent my rear wheel, flats, new brakes, everything. Yes, it is not a big shop, and it is very cramped but it is close enough from the house that I can drag my busted bike to them and get it fixed so I’m back on the road again.
Other cool things I’ve noticed pop up in the greater Shaw region are bike lanes. There is a bike lane on R St starting at 7th going until 14th? I’d love to see some on Q Street, and 7th & 9th Sts. There is enough space between the parked cars and the car traffic to ride between the two on those streets, but I really like the clearly marked bike lanes.
Next time, Living in Shaw with no car:Metro
Links
Washington Area Bicyclists Association
Kryponite Locks– They are recalling some of their locks