Mari – Page 104 – Truxton Is In Shaw

Random thoughts on housing and affordablity – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

There was a recent report on the relationship between minimum wages and the affordability of a two bedroom apartment. I’m going to reveal a little of my philosophical bent when I write a minimum wage job has as much to do with a 2 bedroom unit as a studio apartment as to do with housing a family of 4.

I remember a lovely trip to NYC where we visited the Tenement Museum, I highly recommend it. Large families would live in these cruddy little spaces which were the size of some studio apartments. We learned laws to make these places more sanitary slowly and later quickly incentivized landlords to close up the tenement apartments and just rent to commercial enterprises. There are costs to renting residential housing borne by the landlord, in the case of Lower East Side landlords, it wasn’t worth it.

So what are the costs to rent out say a small apartment building in DC. Well for one, you need to get a small apartment building. The cheapest building so far is an empty 4 unit near Ft. Totten for $895K. From what I can tell it needs work and could turn into 6 units if you have a lot of 1 bedroom apartments. The minimum monthly payment and we haven’t fixed the place for human habitation is around $6000. If the owner decides to fix it up, that costs money to pay for permits, labor and materials. Over $1500 a unit if we have 4 apartments, $1000 with 6. Insurance, maintenance, utilities for common areas, property taxes, and property management haven’t been added. There are some other concepts such as vacancy, that time when no one is in the unit covering the mortgage. Then there is the idea of profit because what is the point, unless you’re a non-profit with another motivation.

Even companies and persons who’ve owned their properties a while still have to pay for updates, maintenance, management (the people you call when you need maintenance), insurance, property taxes and a bunch of other stuff.

But when you are the one looking to rent, that doesn’t matter. There are many people looking to rent and if a landlord can charge $X,xxx for their dinky little 1 bedroom they will, provided it is worth renting it out over mothballing it.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 30, 2016 9:12 PM.

Make your suburban friends jealous – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Okay so if you’re young enough or new enough you’re probably spending half, or more than half of your income on a small apartment or tiny townhouse in the city. There is probably a reason why you chose to live in Shaw or Bloomingdale or Mt. Vernon Sq. over Springfield, Beltsville, or Mt. Vernon. For me it is the awesome commute (20 mins from front door to butt at desk) and the ability to live over a decade without owning a car. Maybe for you it’s the 5 minute walk to your favorite bar, or your second favorite bar. Or maybe you see the ridiculousness of driving 10 minutes or more to a gym to spend ½ an hour on a treadmill staring at CNN, when you my citified friend can walk or bike or take a bus to the kickbox-parkour-pilates-power-hot-yoga place…. While on your phone updating your Twitter. Do that in a car and you’ll find yourself wrapped around a pole, or in a ditch.

Our suburban friends, we love them, and I’m sure they love us, but they don’t see why we’d choose less than 1000 sq feet of urban jungle over .25 acres of grass that needs mowing and private parking. Remind them of what they’re missing and why it’s worth it. At least remind yourself.

It helps if your neighborhood is great. I have a bias for Shaw. Even in the bad old days of Shaw, with hot a cold drug dealers and gunshots every other night, it was walkable and close to Downtown with lots of transportation options (bus and metro train). Yes, no one wanted to deliver food to you, or come by and pick you up in their cab, but I had more options in early 00s Shaw than I did in Hyattsville. Now, Shaw is amazing and gets more amazing each day. There is still crime and drug dealing but the good mostly outshines the bad. There are more transportation options, I can start sentences with, “Lets get an Uber …” and have one at my door in less than 4 minutes. There are 2 Capital Bikeshare stations within a 3 minute walk from my house. And there are those little Car2Go things all over the place. I can walk to church, to either the Giant or the Safeway, to the metro, and to more than 50 bars, restaurants, and other eateries. There are a handful of places that want to deliver food to me from more than 100 restaurants.

When we had that big snowstorm (yes, I know it is summery now… finally) and the streets were blocked and folks who lived in less dense areas were stuck in their houses. We, were able to trudge to the restaurants and businesses that were open because some business owners were local. That was one little perk of living in town.

So enjoy the life you live, in the city.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 25, 2016 11:06 PM.

MISSING: Neighbor Cat Lila – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

A cat that is as much of a neighbor to me as her two cat parents, Lila has gone missing.
She is 20 years old. Yes, she is an old kitty, and like some of the elderly, probably has dementia and has wandered off.
She was last seen somewhere along 1st and Bates. Her home is the 1600 block of 4th St NW.
Yes, there are a lot of black cats wandering the neighborhood, but these are the features of Lila:

She is 100% black.
She has a red collar with a heart shaped tag with her name and her people’s number.
Her rear legs are a little stiff.
She hates being picked up but she won’t fight you.

If you see her, grab the old lady and call the number on her tag. Her people have put up signs so I’m not sure what phone number is listed. Please call 413-9699 if you see her. I’ll update this when I talk to her people. Please help us return her to our street so she may sit on top of her trash can again.

If time is no issue, email me at {removed}.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 21, 2016 2:21 PM.

2.5 centuries of DC architecture – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

I have no idea how old these Morgan Street houses are. Mid-Late 19th Century off the top of my head and I think there is some construction going on that block. So this photo is old.
DC has tons of old buildings. Call them historic if you want to get all fancy pants. The folks at RENTCafé sent me this from their post “D.C. Architecture: 260 Years of Home Design Evolution in the Nation’s Capital“. At first glance I thought they did this thing that a lot of people do, include parts of Maryland and Virginia but it looks like it is pure DC (a lot of upper and way west NW, but still DC). So enjoy.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 18, 2016 3:46 PM.

Visitors Stink After a While – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Let me start of with a story about my mom, who I think is a wonderful person. She lives way over in Florida in the same town as my sister. My sister loves my mom as much as I do, but doesn’t think mom is as wonderful for reasons that I will explain.
On the rare occasions my mom comes up to DC I love having her visit. Mom would visit my sister almost every other day, because she could do that because they live in the same town, the grandkids want rides (to the mall/ the movies/ etc) and she has a key to the house. So it wasn’t too hard to imagine sis being annoyed after coming home from work to find mom in her house. The occasional visit is nice, the constant dropping by and hanging out (not always at the request of the grandkids) became intolerable, even though it is mom, who’s wonderful.

Now if someone as lovely and nice as my mother can make a nuisance of herself, the same can be said of the old guys on the corner.

The old guys claim to the area is they used to live around here. Fine, but still not a valid reason to hang behind a shuttered store under the “No Trespassing” signs almost every day. They may have friends and family in the area. Cool, they should visit them. Let those friends feel the same thing I feel coming home to see a gaggle of 5-6 or more hanging out on the corner.

They also don’t help that commercial strip. Right now there is only 1 business operating there. The corner store is closed and having a bunch of men hanging out back probably didn’t help and may have hurt. I worry about the prospects of that strip with that crowd constantly there.

I could bring up the drug dealing, and the public drinking but I will leave that for now.

The problem with mom has been semi-resolved. She comes over less often, but now finds herself with little to do, so she’s thinking of going back to work as a nurses aid. Part-time.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 14, 2016 3:29 PM.

Losing Good Neighbors – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

I found out this weekend that some long term neighbors are moving to the wilds of Maryland after 33 years of living on the block. A week before, I saw another neighbor with a known Realtor guy, who we knew was going to move, but just seeing that guy made it more real.

Our block is losing two good neighbors. They aren’t good neighbors because they are nice people, which they are. They are good neighbors because the old timers and the somewhat new-timer actively tried, with their own style, to make our block a better place. The old timers are a couple and I’ve mentioned Lem once or twice on the blog. In winter Lem gets his Bobcat and shovels the sidewalk after a big snow. He’s also been the neighborhood handyman for small things that come up. His wife and another long-time person (moved away now) greeted me when I first moved here, providing me with a welcome packet. The other neighbor has been active with animal/pet issues that have arisen and addressed the possibility of a hate group protesting outside of the mosque.

We’ve lost other good neighbors in the past too, who have left their imprint. They have been replaced by nice people who have yet to make their own mark. Sometimes it takes a while to figure how you can use your talents, connections, and knowledge to make the block a better place. But when they do, watch out, something wonderful happens.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 9, 2016 10:46 PM.

12/24/2023 side note- Former neighbor Lem died November 23, 2023

A differing view – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Some time ago I was chatting with my architect neighbor, about what exactly I forget, and we either were looking at or talking about houses and apartments with these large windows.
As I recalled he mentioned how they were great, letting lots of light in. I on the other hand had a different opinion. When I look up or over at houses like the one pictured, I think,
“Look at me! Look at me!”
“Look at my cool house!”
“Look at my cool stuff!”
“Look at my cool life! and weep.”
Well mainly for the people who don’t make use of their blinds in the evening or at night so they are critters in a fish tank.
I’m sure this is not what the occupants mean to say or project to the passing world, gazing out their car windows at the light or me when I’m walking from mass and observe a few minutes of the “kitchen show” on my way to the Giant. However, it looks like the ‘haves’ broadcasting to the other haves and maybe-haves along with the have-nots in Shaw.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on May 7, 2016 1:40 PM.

People Who Show Up at Your Door – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

I’ve been talking with someone who lives in Baltimore and works in DC, and we have been comparing DC and Baltimore. We got on the topic of Jehovah Witnesses which led to talking about other people who show up at my door. However, it seems the other people I get beyond JWs are a DC thing, and others, I’m guessing a Shaw thing.

1. Religious People– These are your Jehovah Witnesses and more rarely Mormons. Everyone gets them, and everyone has their own opinion on the topic, so moving along.

2. Political/ Advocacy– They want you to sign to allow such and such on the ballot and they will come door to door to get those signatures because standing outside the metro and accosting people apparently wasn’t working. Lately, I had someone from Save the Children show up on my door. I believe they wanted donations. So, no.

3. Utilities– No I do not want to change from Pepco or switch to a cable company.

4. Wrong door or Alica don’t live here no ‘mo– This happens less these days but in the early days when I arrived and the neighborhood was truly gentrifying with lots of subsidized homes and transition and change, you’d have people showing up at the wrong door. In a row of townhouses they all look alike and it doesn’t help that the colors of the house changed and the fences changed when someone was looking for an old friend. Or when a house that used to have subsidized renters or so-in-so who was living with grandma has now been replaced by random white people. I got someone who was looking for someone three doors over who moved a while ago. I’d heard stories from other people who had people at their doorstep looking for people who moved several years ago.
I’m hearing fewer of these stories and I take it as a sign that Shaw is no longer ‘gentrifying’ it is gentrified. The middle-class and typically white people are no longer replacing poor black families, they are replacing middle class white people. There are still subsidized houses being replaced by market rate renters and owners, but not to the level it was in the 90s and 00s.

5. Sales– The door to door salesperson still lives. I think Capital Meats may have changed their name, but they do come around every so often. Typically, I say no. There have also been people hawking subscriptions for the Washington Post and other publications. Um, no.

6. Handouts/ Cons– This is seems special to neighborhoods like Shaw. I put handouts with cons because sometimes until later, until after you think about it or write about it on the neighborhood email list, you may discover it was a con. This winter we got a homeless couple at our door asking for whatever we could give. It was a cold night so we gave them a new hat and scarf I’d gotten as a present. I was planning to give those items to charity anyway, so I honestly don’t care if it were a con.
Many years ago I got a woman at my door claiming to live around the corner, saying a relative was in the hospital, her car won’t start or she needed gas because the hospital was in outer Mongolia Maryland, and she just needed something to help. I gave her a Smart-Trip card I found days earlier on the sidewalk.
Several months ago on one of the neighborhood forums there was mention of a white male going to doors claiming that he locked himself out of his house and had extra keys at work and needed money for a cab to pick up his keys. Like my lady with the relative in the hospital, he made a vague claim of being a neighbor. People who move to neighborhoods like Shaw tend not to know who their neighbors are, and con artists can use that ignorance.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on April 30, 2016 9:01 AM.

The bad old days of Shaw is why I don’t believe in ghosts – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Over a decade ago when I was looking for a place to buy a home that was affordable and close to enough stuff to maintain my car-less lifestyle, I was doing some serious research on Shaw. In December of 2000 the Washington Post had a series called “Fatal Flaws: The District’s Homicide Crisis” and along with it was a map showing a big gigantic splotch of unsolved murders along Rhode Island and Florida Avenues. And when I moved to the neighborhood, I would hear gunfire almost nightly. Sad, and eventually ugly, memorials of rain sodden stuffed animals and empty liquor bottles littering the sidewalk were a common sight. The crack years were winding down and people were still getting killed over turf battles.

So with all these people dying violent deaths in the streets and parks of Shaw & nearby Sursum Corda, the area should be littered with spirits of the dead if you go by ghost rules. The Help and I, enjoy a good ghost story of the mild horror genre. The usual story is such and such a place is haunted because X number of years ago so-in-so died a tragic and violent death. By this logic 7th and O should be paved with the poltergeists.

We have friends who had to shoo people away from the Seminary up in Forest Glen when it was vacant and before it went condo. It was said to be haunted. People love haunted large buildings. People also like “interesting” haunting by interesting, middle class or wealthy persons or people associated with the wealthy. Haunted castles, yes. Haunted public housing, not so much.

I do relate to the supernatural, but in the regular practice of my religion. I am a skeptic regarding ghosts. That scratching in the walls? Rats. Maybe, squirrels. Lights flickering? Possibly crappy wiring by a crappy contractor or blame Pepco. Ghostly figures walking across the room? Obviously, your eyes are engaging in time travel.

I’m all about time travel.

History Amnesia – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

History is like the present, only it happened a while ago. However, when history gets written, and rewritten (historians are doomed to repeat other historians) a lot gets left out, and forgotten, particularly if it doesn’t fit the narrative of whatever tale is being told.

There is a book that I’m trudging through about discriminatory housing in Chicago. I got through a section that could have been called “Martin Luther King Failed in Chicago” detailing the civil rights leaders efforts to combat poor housing conditions, the Daley political machine, and other black ministers who worked against him. In the great narrative, this period of his life is either glossed over or forgotten, along with his opposition to the Vietnam War.

After Dr. King was assassinated, several cities erupted including DC. H Street NE, some parts of Downtown and Shaw, especially 7th and 14th St. But in this week I’ve posted on Twitter, other parts of Shaw (well the TC part) got some riot damage too. Pictured is 8th St NW. The business opposite Immaculate Conception, has written, and it is hard to see, ‘Soul Brother’ written on the door. Though it was 7th Street that experienced a lot of rioting fire and looting damage, it was 9th Street that bore the scars of the riot for 30+ years. With the exception of the area near Shiloh, 9th has been getting a lovely facelift, reflecting hip dining options, rather than post-riot neglect.

There is a narrative that goes with the riots, that fits in with a larger narrative about Black history and Shaw, which logically leaves out the Jewish and white story. Ray “of Sunshine” M likens the riot to kristallnacht, I don’t share that level of interpretation, but there is evidence that the riots wiped out the Jewish merchants in Shaw, eliminating the Jewish presence. The merchant narrative, the Jewish narrative, tells of businesses barely surviving, where they experienced break ins and armed robberies before the riots. The riots were the nail in the coffin, and the graves were the storefronts that sat empty and the vacant lots that sat in their place. However that narrative doesn’t sell. I doubt there will be a walking tour of burned out Jewish businesses. So thus it is forgotten.