Month: January 2009

I was doing a bit of background for the blog looking at the series of articles on the “Wickedest Precinct” regarding slum conditions. A big thing that made it slummy, besides the trash, poorly maintained housing, and crime, there was the lack of indoor plumbing and sometimes lack of electricity.
I called up the Great and All Powerful Mom, my mother, since she has a) lived in a house with no indoor plumbing and b) does not turn on the selective memory (like some old folks) to get a better sense of life without running water. Growing up in the country they had a well, from where they got their water from. To bathe they would get a bucket of water, heat it on the stove, and use a bath towel to clean. For the toilet they had an outhouse. I asked about using the toilet. There was the outhouse and at night there was the chamber pot or bucket, which got emptied each morning. Please note how labor intensive things are. Imagine washing clothes and dishes, when everytime you need water, you have to pull it from the well.
I thank G-d for hot showers and flushing toilets. Yes, I understand that a good portion of the world doesn’t have those things, which just makes me more appreciative.
But back to Shaw, and details of our slummy history.
In the Washington Post series on the “Wickedest Precinct” in S.L. Fishburn in a March 14, 1954 article “No. 2 Leads City in Vice and Violence” there is a photo showing a woman getting water from an alley spigot. We are told by the caption that it is her only water source. I know from other documentation that it is more than likely true for her and hundreds of other households in the Shaw region in the 50s. There is another photo showing where the outhouse in a sort of lean-to where there is a board to walk on, to walk over the seepage.
Before I close up there is a jewel I want to quote:

The three-story Victorian eclectic mansion at 6th and M sts. nw., which stands out in sharp contrast to the squalor of the alleys behind it, was once the home of banker William Stickney, who served as president of Washington’s city council in 1871-74.
Today, with a still-fresh exterior, the mansion houses the church of Bishop C.M. “Daddy” Grace.

His church being the United House of Prayer for All People, UHOP, a presence in the Shaw and Mt. Vernon Sq. neighborhoods.

In the 50s the Washington Post dubbed the 2nd Police Precinct as the ‘Wickedest Precinct’. The 2nd Precinct mostly was what we know as Shaw. It went from K Street NW on the south, the Union Station tracks on the east, Florida Ave NE to North Capitol then S Street NW to the north and 15th St NW to the west.
In “Illegal Liquor Sales An Industry in No. 2 :2d Precinct 1st in Drunks.” by S.L. Fishbein (March 17, 1954) The Washington Post p.1 there is a lovely map (sorry I don’t have a copy to provide to you) showing where there were illegal liquor sales busts and there is a big ol’ splotch of 1953 busts at 5th and Neal Place. I’m trying to think if Neal Place is still there, it’s where the Co-ops are now. There’s a smaller splotch between S and Rhode Island Ave between what looks to be 6th and 7th St. NW. Somewhere around there was a place called Glicks Alley. Anyone have an idea where that was exactly? Is it the unnamed alley between those modernist Susan Reitag buildings? I can find out in time, but I may as well ask.
The only Shaw mention in the article is the mention of Shaw Jr. High students who had the joy of walking past the drunks in the alley as they cut through to get to school.
There is something about ‘gill joints’ but I’ll write about that later.