I went out into the backyard to dump something in the composter when I heard a noise. I saw something climbing up the tree in the alley. At first I thought it was the white-faced cat I saw climbing decks and fences earlier this morning, but this cat had a gray-brown coat. Then I thought to myself, there aren’t any gray-brown cats in our alley. The critter turned it’s face to me and it was a raccoon!
Yelling “Shoo-shoo shoo, nasty creature. Go away,” is pointless.
Month: October 2008
Book Review: Home Girl: Building a dream house on a lawless block, pt 1
Several weeks back I got an email from the author’s publicist regarding this book about a woman who buys a fixer upper brownstone in Harlem on a street filled with Dominican drug dealers. In a quick summary I think the book will speak to several who have gone through or are going through the same experience, in other neighborhoods and cities.
We’re perfectly aware that demographic changes, that in shorthand we call gentrification can be hard on struggling old timers. After reading this, the author, Judith Matloff, illustrates that it’s no picnic for the new group moving in either. Fixing up and living in a house, having to deal with contractors of varying skill, competency, and temperament, is not fun. Nor is having to navigate through an active open air drug market to get home. Or living next door to a crackhead squatting in the building next to yours, who harasses you and your spouse, and has occasionally broken in to your house and caused damage.
I’m reviewing the book in parts. This part I’ll deal with the first 7 chapters of this 25 chaptered book. I can say quickly that it starts off slow. I recognized the necessity of explaining Ms. Matloff’s background as a devil may care foreign correspondent in dangerous war torn/corrupt countries. However, I found the first couple of chapters dragging and I wanted to get past the biographical material as soon as possible.
It begins to get interesting when she begins working on the house in chapter 5. In the next chapter she recalls a statement that I feel is unfortunately true:
…Three policemen on horses clopped past and told the dealers at Salami’s house to move on. The muchachos ignored the cops, and the horses rode on.
“There goes the cavalry,” the woman remarked dryly. “They can’t do anything. It’s legal to loiter. You bought this house?”
“We’re under contract.”
“I’m glad someone finally bought it.” Her eyes swept over my dust flecked jeans and untamed curls. As she pursed her glossed lips, I got the impression that I wasn’t her first choice of a neighbor. “That house has been empty since the doctor died six months ago, It’s a blight on the block. I hope you have the energy. If you don’t mind my saying so, and please don’t take this the wrong way, the police will listen to you whites. They don’t take us black folks very seriously when we complain about the problem.”
The woman is her neighbor Leticia, and old timer who invites her to a police meeting and into her home to talk. The author notes the pristine condition of Leticia’s home and writes:
This was yet another reason that our house was so cheap. It had been destroyed. Ruined. Wrecked. Lecticia’s immaculate abode was the ‘before’ version of my house.
….
In sharp contrast, my dilapidated property was a museum of the crack epidemic. It served as a reminder of all that had destroyed Harlem: crime, looting, despair, poverty, failing schools. My house screamed, “Neglect.”
Anyone around 3rd and R hear shots?
Walking to work this morning the police had most of R Street, from Florida to New Jersey Avenues blocked off. I had to ask as I saw the G2 bus rumbling down 4th St (normally rumbles down 3rd), I was told there was a shooting and they were trying to determine where all the shots came from. Then the officer asked me if I had heard anything. Ah, no. I heard nothing this morning. Did you?
_____________
UPDATE: According to the Washington Post a woman was stabbed at the bus stop at 3rd and R, most likely to catch the G2 heading in the direction of Georgetown. That stop is a little isolated with the high chain link fence fortressing the yard of the house on that corner, and diagonally across the Co-Op’s high fence, and across Mt. Sinai’s education center’s parking lot. Please keep the victim in your thoughts and prayers.
KIPP and the arts
I want to thank Neda for cc’ing me in an email inquiring about KIPP and FLUX, as it got me to get around to asking KIPP’s Mr. Alex Shawe about more informationwhich he provided (PDF). It’s the executive summary, there is a more detailed paper with diagrams and good stuff but it’s a big file. Anyway in the diagrams you would see where a proposed arts space would be in relation to the school part.
Yes, I know it is cruel to talk about a picture you can see and I’m not providing. But when I first heard of the arts/ school combo I was thinking of a shared building like it would be a duplex, or townhouse with English basement, where each party has separate space in the same structure. After looking at the drawings it is more like roommates but where one roommate dominates. Shared space really looks shared. There are separate rooms, but it looks like shared hallways, entrances, exits and the artists and kids would not be able to avoid each other. This sparks a list of concerns in my head.
Like I mentioned before charter schools get first dibs on public school buildings. So if KIPP were to get Cook/Cooke it would be the primary roommate in this scenario who would set the tone. This may limit what an arts roommie can and cannot do or leave up/ lying around or perform during nap time. However, if the two parties can work something out in a way that the relationship is beneficial and enriching, the community will be changed for the better.
With the arts traditionally being on the bottom of public schools’ agendas (probably because you can’t put it on a standardized test), I think and active arts space would be great for kids. It is good for kids and adults to interact causally and formally with artists to make it more real.
What are your thoughts? (remember to ID your comments, anons will be eliminated).
24 hour drawing project
This Friday, the Warehouse Theater & Gallery in Washington, D.C., will host the fifth occurrence of the 24-Hour Drawing Project, an international collaboration between Kendall Nordin and Hannah Bertram.
Conceived and first performed by Nordin and Bertram in Melbourne, Australia, in 2005, the project involves a group of artists who work for 24 hours in a row. During the project’s duration, the working space is open to the public.
There is no exhibition after the conclusion of the event.
The artists involved are not obliged to “draw” in the traditional sense. They may instead work on any act of art involving what the project’s founders call “intensive attention or effort.” The atmosphere will be what you, the visitors, make of it.
Please join us for this endurance art experience.
The 24-Hour Drawing Project
Friday, Oct. 10, 10 a.m. thought Saturday, Oct. 11, 10 a.m.
Free and open to the public
The Warehouse Theater
1017 7th St NW, Washington, DC
www.warehousetheater.com
www.hannahbertram.com
http://artfile.wpadc.org/view_artist.php?aid=1407
DC Archives Holdings, pt 1
Why this isn’t on the DC Archives website, I don’t know. This is 15 years out of date, so I don’t vouch for the accuracy.
District of Columbia Archives
Holdings – Mar. 1993 [ca. 4719 cu. ft]
Auditor’s Office
DC Auditor. Printed Reports, 1980-, (3 cu. ft)
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, Dept of
Articles of Incorporation, 1870-1954 (40 cu ft) and related indexes (7 vols.)
Elections and Ethics, Board of
Board of Elections, “Voter Information Master” file. (1 reel of computer tape).
Emergency Preparedness Office (Civil Defense)
Records re. Demonstrations, Civil Disturbances adn Special Events, 1965; 1968-78. (25 cu ft)
Housing and Community Development, Dept of
Dept of Housing and Community Development. Redevelopment Land Agency Records, ca. 1965-1976. (11 cu ft)
Dept of Housing and Community Development. Redevelopment Land Agency. Shaw and H St. NE; 14th St.; Downtown; building survey forms, 1968-1972 (27 cu ft)
Dept of Housing and Community Development. Redevelopment Land Agency. Slides showing condition of houses in NE. (0.5 cu ft)
Dept. of Housing and Community Development. National Capital Housing Authority. Legal Division. Reading Files, 1943-54; 1964-71. Copies of NCHA minutes, 1954-68. Miscellaneous records. (6 cu ft)
Dept. of Housing and Community Development. Redevelopment Land Agency. Audiovisual materials re. to Washington, including films. slides, audio tapes, video tapes, ca 1976 (ca 12 cu ft)
Human Services
Dept of Human Services. Minutes of the Board of Health, 1822-78. (3 vols.)and Health Officer’s Scrapbook, 1920-25 (1 vol)
Dept of Human Services. Minutes and Other Records of the Committee on Child Abuse and Neglect, 1978-79. (2 in)
Dept of Human Services. Records of he Mayor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Teenage Pregnancy Prevention, 1984-1985 (.33 cu ft)
Dept Human Service. Public Health Commissioner. Disinterment Permits (Applications), 1937-48 (3 cu ft)
Law Revision Commission
Minutes, correspondence, recommendations, annual reports, adn other records, 1975-1991. (10 cu ft)
Parts 2 and 3 and whatever to follow when I feel like typing them up
Quick BACA review
In two paragraphs or less:
Mayor Fenty showed up after the police were happy to report that certain crimes were down. There was a big crowd and 1/2 of em disappeared after the mayor departed. KIPP presented a video and talked about the kind of school they would like to have and the improvements they would make to the Cook campus.
KIPP was talking mixed use and apparently they’d been talking to Paul Rupert (of Warehouse Theater) and seem open to a partnership with the arts community. Charter schools have first dibs supposedly, so if the arts group can ally with a charter school for the proposal than, win-win.
BACA meeting, Fenty might show
Once again, like every first Monday of the month there is a BACA (Bates Area Civic Association) meeting 7pm in the basement cafeteria of Mt. Sinai Baptist Church at the corner of Q & 3rd. Jim Berry says that Mayor Fenty will make a quick appearance. Also on the schedule is someone from KIPP to talk about their interest in the Cook School. Last time the KIPP person did not show.
I’m just happy there are two parties interested in the school. One being a collection of arts folk, called FLUX, the other KIPP. I have concerns about both. The question I have about the arts group is how open they’d be with the surrounding area. There are about two places with artists down in the Hanover region of the TC and they periodically open their doors. Would this be another art fortress, and I completely understand the need for closed doors, or would the doors open more often for regular exhibits and performances? With the KIPP school the problem is traffic and the attraction of students from all over the city. P Street can be tight already, add that to the Armstrong charter school and other KIPP school on P.
General Real Estate post
Hey I remember that doey eyed look. That’s the look of a young first time homebuyer. I used to have that look.
Meltdown, schmeltdown people are still buying in the hood if today’s encounter with a young woman and her Realtor was anything to gauge anything by. The pair were walking up and down the block pointing at houses, I assume, after they looked at the one house on my side of the street that is still on the market. I was outside puttering in the yard, and we chatted for a bit. Normally I’d talk up the neighborhood a bit more, but the house they were looking at has a family renting, with one really good kid in it. If Ms. Doe Eye or anyone else were to buy it, I’m sure the family could find equal and suitable housing, but moving is such a pain.
I believe the market is slow but not dead, as the house with the loud and out there residents disappeared from the real estate listings, I gather it is under contract. We’ll see in a month or so. I suspect another house on the block being fixed up will hit the market in a month or two, and maybe it might sell in the next 9 or 10 months. Maybe. Though it maybe wrong to judge a place that’s on 2/3rds done, I don’t think it would be a quick sell manly due to proportions and the aesthetic. IT and I took a quick peak at the place while workmen were still working. I think it reveals too much of a suburban Maryland aesthetic trying to shoehorn itself into a small DC rowhouse. The house was around 1,000 sf with 2.5 bathrooms. If you have a 1,000 sf house I think you may understand the problem of a 2.5 bathroom house. I have a 1,000 sf house and just 1.5 (would be 1.75 or 2 if I had $5,000 fall into my lap). One of the bedroom bathrooms was tiny and hard for IT to turn around in. IT is a thin man. The bedroom for this tiny bath was also quite small and maybe, just maybe could have a double bed and nothing else. More than likely it could have a twin and a dresser/ desk, or just be an office. Anyway it’s still not finished, and it will be interesting to see if the builder will do anything to make it easy to imagine the space as something besides cramped.
July 28, 1933: Low Cost Housing & Slum Clearance
I really have little to add to what Shaw & Bloomingdale bloggers have to say about the various things going on, so I’m going to go to history and type up more of City Planner John Nolen’s report “Low Cost Housing and Slum Clearance Opportunities in Washington Under the Public Works Administration”. I previously typed up the section “Washington’s Problem”. The following is “Objectives of a Housing Program”:
Many reports on this subject by Mr. [John] Ihlder and others to this Commission have indicated that the following program should be followed.
1. Concentrate on the elimination of the alley slums.
2. Provide suitable housing for the alley population either by repair or reconstruction of existing vacant street dwellings, or by the building of entirely new housing. New housing might well be for not only the alley population but similar economic and social elements of a population not now adequately housed.
3.Through the rehabilitation of blighted areas, pressure would be relieved on better neighborhoods inducting the natural flow of capital by private initiative for other modern reconstruction as the inevitable result of the rehabilitation of the areas originally causing the shift in population.
It may be that the present situation and opportunities will make advisable some change in the order of this program; for example,- the population in the alleys has been increased by the depression whereas the street vacancies in the same neighborhoods have increased. This situation will make more difficult the acquisition of alley property at fair prices, as well as work a hardship on the unfortunate elements of the alley population. At the same time the widespread increase in street vacancies may mean a willingness on the part of owners to sell their property at reasonable prices. A housing development only incidentally involving inhabited alleys as the first step to be taken may thus well take advantage of natural economic conditions.
-From part of a Report by John Nolen to the National Capital Planning Commission, July 28, 1933. Found in the appendix to the July 1933 minutes. National Archives and Records Administration, RG 328, A1-15.