Month: November 2009

SQUEEEE!!!! Census data

Ah, the best use of an unemployed college graduate and a spare room. I hired my cousin to do some data entry on the 1900 census and she has just completed enumeration district 64, which is the northern part of the TC. Enumeration District 64 (ED64)goes from the 1400 block (odd #) of NJ to the 1700 block, Florida and Rhode Island Aves, 1st St, to Q and O Streets. I immediately tossed the Excel worksheet into an Access database and created a query about working women. Now I’m still getting used to the updated MS Access program and can’t seem to figure out how to exclude women “at school”. Women over the age of 15, 595 of them had some occupation. Of those 595 women, 473 were black. In 1900 the TC north African American women were laundresses, nurses (child and sick), house servants, and cooks. White working women were saleswomen, teachers, house keepers, landladies, office workers, and seamstresses.

Disclaimer-
To clarify, my census project is sponsored personally by me. I get moral and other minimal support from my employer, as it sort of falls under professional development. Secondly, this is NOT a building or house history project. Things like houses are secondary, people are more interesting. I have no intention of putting the raw data on-line. For one, it’s too much. ED 64 is over 2,500 names alone, and there are 3 other EDs to go. I do hope to go on to census years 1910-1930. However the rate we’re going I’ll probably get through to 1910 or 1920.

Bad metro rider


Bad metro rider
Originally uploaded by In Shaw

This is not a good picture, but I really hate photographing people. The guy in black stood in the door for at least 4 stops pleasuring his cell phone. Regardless if people were coming on or off the train he’d hold his arm out fingering his cell phone, and physically blocking half the entry with his body.
Now you say, that train looks full. Not that full I was hiding behind some people while trying to snap this photo. He was on the train when it wasn’t full, blocking the doors. Even as the train filled up at Gallery Place he did not move or shift or do anything to acknowledge that maybe people might want to get on/off the train.

CDC comes up with something dumb

(Hattip to Frozen Tropics)
The CDC (Center for Disease Control), which I would like to trust for their timely health information has put something out that erodes that trust. Eroded, because Health Effects of Gentrification, is stupid.
I don’t deny that displacement because of neighborhood demographic changes is stressful and stress impacts ones health. According to the CDC:

These special populations are at increased risk for the negative consequences of gentrification. Studies indicate that vulnerable populations typically have shorter life expectancy; higher cancer rates; more birth defects; greater infant mortality; and higher incidence of asthma, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. In addition, increasing evidence shows that these populations have an unequal share of residential exposure to hazardous substances such as lead paint.

So is the CDC saying that gentrification, not poverty and poor housing is the cause of shorter life expectancy and asthma? Are all those new middle class residents moving in and fixing up vacant and run down houses polluting the air with lead paint? Is that what the CDC is saying? Because in poor neighborhoods in no danger of gentrification or reinvestment are healthy, lead free, utopias where the Popeye’s serve low fat vitamin rich meals and the corner mart has fresh fruit and lettuces. Oh wait, no. Those poorer neighborhoods in the other part of the District (think outside of NW) aren’t healthier because there is little to no gentrification there.
I see there was nothing for ‘Health Effects of Poverty’ because gentrification is a nice way to distract attention away from chronically poor neighborhoods.

Say it ain’t so- Vegetate Leaving

Oh no! CCCA reports that Vegetate is leaving us. Their lease is up and they are investigating a new location. Where? Dunno.
It was about 4 years ago the neighborhood was battling for the restaurant against the protestations of Shiloh Baptist Church. In the years they have been on 9th Street I’ve enjoyed their veggie burger sliders. They’ve also been the go to option when I or friends of mine were abstaining from meat for Lent or other fasts, but we weren’t abstaining from fine dining.

Monday Miscellany

Well someone is “thinking” about redoing the look of that prison school on New Jersey, called Dunbar.

The BACA blog announced that North Capitol Main Streets has announced an effort to clean up North Capitol from RI to NY Aves.

Somehow my Truxton Circle updates started up again. For a while I got nothing, and now, for no reason I can tell, I’m getting the TruxtonCircle.org updates. It’s a Thanksgiving miracle!

Speaking of the TC, I have restarted the TC Census project by bartering with my cousin. In exchange for a big ole spreadsheet tracking the 1900 era residents of the TC, their occupations and such, she gets to live with me free and I feed her. So far, she’s discovering occupations that no longer exist like milliner, coppersmith, and compositor. It appears that a number of folks worked down at the GPO on North Capitol, a walkable and bike-able commute.

The roof is leaking and the wind is howling

Well I got me a roof leak last night. Not my first, I still need to paint over the patch in the kitchen. Luckily I had my cousin in that bedroom and she noticed the first few drops seeping through a seam in the drywall. It appears the AC thingamajigger on the roof needs caulking or something, because that’s where the water came from. But last night’s rain was like a bucket and my sump pump in the cellar kept going off every 4 minutes.

Gentrification of Sesame Street

Sesame Street gentrified and I blame Elmo. Others blame Elmo as well, showing how this annoyingly voiced red hyper monster destroyed SS single-handedly by taking up a huge portion of screen time.
When I was a kid, we had two channels, NBC and PBS. So after I got home and Mom finished watching Days of Our Lives, I turned the channel to the PBS station to watch Sesame Street. People walked along, bumped into each other, started conversations, or ventured over to the independently owned shop “Mr. Hooper’s” and hung out, as people do here. Kim Wee as Mr. Hooper, because that’s the only small shop I hang out at, if I am hanging out anywhere. But unlike here, SS isn’t as trashy. We have more Oscars, and more guys in the alley (but unlike the SS characters they aren’t trying to give us a good deal on the letter “A”).

Where are the Warrenton Condominums?

Not too long ago we were informed of the Warrenton Group and their million + contract with the city to assist in the development of Northwest One. Then other bloggers noted that they had listed as their office the shuttered liquor store on 7th and Q here in Shaw. Then their website went down. Well now their website is back up and shiny and telling me to update my Internet Explorer. And they say their offices are on Wisconsin Ave.
Now I found some of their completed projects. Warrenton West is over on Missouri Avenue NW and the Taylor Flats on Taylor St NW. Both seem to be fairly small project compared to what is proposed for NW 1 and the other large projects.