Month: June 2005

Yesterday morning there were a row of townhouses on the 400 block of Rhode Island by the Lowest Price Gas Station. Yesterday afternoon, gone. Now just a pile of rubble and construction equipment to make way for ‘The Danielle’. I’m quite sure The Danielle and the Urban Land Company’s Monique (wait, what is this girlie name crap?) on the same square will go well together.

Today’s Washington Post pages G1-G10 is the Notice of Real Property Tax Sale.
What’s that?
Well a) it is a list of people who didn’t pay their property taxes and b) it is a financial opportunity. The opportunity is in the interest paid on the taxable amount owed and on the off chance that the tax is not paid by the property owner a chance to foreclose on the property. When you go to the tax auction what you’re bidding on is a tax lien and you must begin foreclosure procedures after 6 months. Most of the time property owners pay their taxes so it is just a way to earn interest. But still a lot of people believe they are buying the property and that is not so.
There are a few Truxton Circle properties with liens up for bid on Squares 507, 509E, 519, 521, 552, 553, 553W, 555, 614, 615, 616, 617 & 618. A fair number of them are empty lots that cannot be improved on. I was talking with some folks living up around Richardson Place and apparently some folks got the empty land around there thinking they could put a small house on it. Nope. Best thing for those types of properties would be a community garden. A very small community garden.
I’ve done the tax sale once. What I took away from it was that I should never bid angry. My hairdresser used to bid annually, and that was how she acquired some properties, but that was back in the day when no one wanted to live in the city. Will I bid again? Dunno.
For more information on the DC Tax Sale go to DC.Gov or click here. The site is still talking about the 2004 Tax sale but the rules are still valid.

Posting late in the day ’cause I’m sick.

Well I’m getting the summer veggies now. Yes, I could cook up the squash flowers but right now just now in the mood to cook. Anything.

It’s haaaaawht
I have no central air. My house gets hot. The only place for any relief is the cool-cool basement, which can be unbearable when certain people start burning food and the smell seeps through the walls. I’ve discovered that keeping the shades closed and the curtains drawn helps a bit, but it’s nothing like cold air being blow through.
So I have window units that for most of the year sit in the basement and have to be lugged up the stairs by some guy I’ve batted my eyes at, or someone’s husband who’ve I borrowed (no eye batting needed, just a deal made with spouse). If I have 3 of them going, 2 upstairs and 1 big one on the first floor, the house is bearable. Of course, it helps to go outside for a moment, then run back in, so the difference is noticeable and very much appreciated. The house will never, ever get ice cold, but I can sit without the danger of heat stroke.
I keep saying whenever I redo the house, I’m putting in some sort of air system. The problem is, is that I don’t want to rip out the radiators, ’cause I love the radiators. So no central air, because the logical thing would be to rip out the radiators if I did that. Spacpak, has been mentioned, but it ain’t cheap, from what I’ve been told. The good thing about Spacepak is that it can be run through crawlspaces and doesn’t need to be boxed in. Another option is Mr. Slim. I saw a unit in the basement of one open house and was curious and looked it up. I have a small house so I don’t need a big system. Also I tend not to hang out on my top floors for most of the day. Most of the time I’m hanging out on the 1st level, in the kitchen or watching TV in the living room.
Also my house isn’t that big. According to the city I have about 1,000 feet of living space, I don’t think they counted the basement. So I don’t need a really complicated system, and if window units weren’t such a pain to store and lug up and down the stairs I’d stick with them. And the 3 units that I paid less than $100 for each (1 free from co-worker, 1 bought from store, 1 bought used for $50) really doesn’t put me in the mood to spend $12,000 for a cooling system I’ll only use 3 months out of the year.

Everyso often someone mentions it and seems slightly worried about what it is.
The 7th Day Adventist church that had been operating on the corner of 4th and Q for years is expanding. They tore down two units of their 4 unit structure to make way for one part of their church. Sadly, it is eating a parcel of land they were using for parking, so there will be more pressure Saturday mornings, their Sabbath, for parking.
Currently, they have the foundation and skeleton parts up and are putting in the interior systems and putting some hard rock/concrete stuff on the exterior. It’s the yellow thing on the corner. Once that part is done, they will move their operations from the 2 crappy units they are in now and go to the new structure and tear down the crappy units and build something there.
The 7th Day Adv. do some missionary work with the homeless and I gather may continue with the new structure. On Sundays they have a breakfast where patrons have to listen to the Gospel. The people they serve do not hang out near the church, they go in and much later go out and keep going, no hanging about. If they were to expand their services to the poor I believe it would me more of the same, maybe with more of a desire to transform the lives of the people they serve and not just feed them and let them wallow in whatever has led them to the life they lead. Not like some other charities and missions I’ve heard of and noticed…..

Please dear G-d, don’t let those dying ants in my living room be termites.
Amen

The City Paper’s cover story this week covers the housing situation over at Kelsey Gardens (1500 block of 7th ST NW).
When I picked up the paper I was hoping for a happy story about actually helping people get off Section 8 and moving into homeownership or something better. Nope. It’s about a representative trying to use every trick and scare tatic to get people out of their homes so the land upon which Kelsey Gardens sits can get developed into a shiny high tax revenue stream. Yes, I know kicking out the poor people would do a lot to kick start development along 7th Street, but at what cost?
The church that owns the property seems to have no qualms about kicking residents to the curb. It is an investment and not a charitable mission. The only way to reap the goodies of the investment is to get rid of the residents. It would be nice if they made it part of their charitable mission to secure residents equitable housing in the city, or if there are school aged children, housing in Shaw.
The article was very informative in helping figure out what was the deal with 1330 7th St.

Fooling around on the US Census site I found data on Truxton Circle, aka Census Tract 46.
I think one of the tools we need in judging what kind of businesses the neighborhood can and will support is data on what kind of neighborhood we are. The problem with the census is that it occurs every 10 years. Truxton was a different place back in 2000 and the census does not reflect 2005, but the 2000 data is all we have, so suck it up.
I’m looking at the demographic highlights and this is where I can find economic and housing info. There are 1,347 housing units, of those 1081 are occupied, with 45.7% owner occupied and 54.3% renter occupied. Quoting housing prices may not mean as much because a little over 1/2 the housing are rentals. The median income in our area is $33,142, per capita income is $16,452, with 18% of families under the poverty level and 24% of individuals under the poverty level.
The income levels mean very little until you can compare them with other areas. The median income for the whole city is $40,127. But compared to Logan Circle, Census Tract 50, with a median household income $33,257, we’re not that bad. Yet our per capita income of $16K sits well below Logan’s $26K.
I could try to play with the Census data a bit more, but it tells me something I already know. We are not as rich as we think we are.

Okay not Shaw or DC related but this is something I have been thinking about. I’m preparing myself for something almost as jarring a converting to a new religion. After decades of being a Windows user, I’m thinking of converting to Macs. What should I start with? I’ve heard bad things about the Panther OS, and I don’t want to go from one sucky system to another.
Any guidance would be helpful.

–Marie

Well I have yet to fill out the Bates Area Civic Association’s Straw Survey (see the Truxton site for the form). And as this is for North Capitol, I haven’t come up with much.
Now I know the kind of stores I like. I love bookstores, like Borders. I love Filene’s Basement. Other loves where I do spend money are Target, Whole Foods, Home Depot, various restaurants with wait staff, Giant (all over the DC metro area), and various farmers markets. Thing is there is already a Giant and Whole Foods in Shaw, the Target is going in at Columbia Heights, Home Depot is over in Brookland and well we tried a farmer’s market but it failed for many reasons. Simply said there isn’t the square footage available for a Borders or a Filene’s (besides crackheads would steal like crazy from Filenes) along North Cap.
Also I’ve thinking of the history of 14th street, which was sparked from the string of comments from my Bates meeting post. Though Whole Foods was a huge catalyst for the Logan Circle area, there were other, smaller businesses that were pioneers in the area before WF opened it’s doors, and it was still a while before chains, like Starbucks and Storehouse, ventured into Shaw after the 1st organically grown tomato was bought. Another thing about 14th Street, it helped that many of the buildings were larger former car shop that could be transformed into decent sized stores. Of course there are businesses that are in small buildings like Home Rule and the Garden District. Looking at an aerial map of North Capitol, the building stock looks to be townhouse sized, not large enough to house the businesses I would love to have. Sadly it seems some of those structures would have to be pulled down (or just keep the facades) in order to create space for an anchor business like Whole Foods or Target.
The other part of this train of thought focus on the businesses that are here. On 7th Street there is a dollar store. As far as dollar stores go, it is okay, but I don’t see it as a bad thing ’cause really sometimes you just need a cheap bowl. But what I wish is that the dollar store make the inside more visible. The most ghetto look a store or any business can have are dirty windows that are covered up with signs and whatnot that do not allow you to see what’s inside the store. The GG Store on NJ has that same ghetto look. Bright and open and welcoming is not the vibe I get and it doesn’t make me want to go it. But it doesn’t mean the store have to go, no, I just wish they spruced up a little. There are a long list of stores on 7th and Florida that in principle can serve the community but are in need of a serious, serious, commercial Extreme Makeover. For some it is appearances others it’s some operational changes (POST F*CKING HOURS OF BUSINESS & KEEP THEM!!!!) and for many it is both.
Development will also depend on what is going on around Truxton. I wonder if the ATF (or whatever fed agency going there) will get some business in the NYFAGU (NY Ave Station) area that service the people of that agency and XM Radio, besides the Methadone McDonald’s and the shady Wendy’s. Or if development moves up from North Capitol transforming the Sursum Corda area, what would that look like? And on the western front it is good to keep up and support positive changes on 7th and 9th streets.
But in the end I know what I don’t want. I know I do not desire to be in the middle of a major commercial destination. I would like businesses that serve the residents more so than passer bys.
When I think of neighborhoods I’ve lived in and the commercial health there are 2 that stick out. First is Hyattsville, MD. Not the whole of Hyattsville, but that section where I lived, where a few blocks over I had a Shoppers Food Warehouse, a bank, a Chinese takeout, a hair/nail place, and Ledo’s Pizza all in one strip mall. If I walked a bit further there was the Pho restaurant, the Asian grocers, the Pakistani grocers, the quickie mart and dollar store. The neighborhood was fine except no metro rail. Second was College Park, MD, where the College Park-UMD station is. At the time in its strip mall a short walk away was the WAWA, some eat in dining spot, the big discount clothing store, the pizza place, Mickey D’s, the CVS and the hair place. Around the neighborhood was Plato’s Diner, a Kinko’s, various local fast food joints, a tee-shirt shop, discount dry cleaners, Laundromat, and bookstore. In biking distance was the Smile Herb shop, a vegetarian eatery, Asian restaurant, bike shop, Town Hall Liquors, an Indian restaurant and another liquor store. And this is all before the recent new construction that has occurred in College Park in recent years. But the thing that got me out of College Park was it did not have a full fledged grocery store. I had to go to the Beltway Plaza for that.

…okay this is getting long. I’ll follow up later.