Author: Mari

The other side of the fence looks a little greener. But not by much.

My good friend Jonathan dropped by last night and we did our occasional comparison of neighborhoods. Jon bought his house a few months before I purchased mine in a slightly improving area called Colmar Manor, MD 20744. Yet the rate of improvement hasn’t been as fast as Shaw, so his tales give me some perspective.

Now a little about Colmar Manor as I know it. It is a small blue collar town with a Shopper’s Food Warehouse and a IHOP. There is a bike trail that runs along it and a small park where wild blackberries grow. It is just across the border from the NE DC neighborhood of Fort Lincoln and runs along Bladensburg road. There is no metro station.

Jon bought his house for about $89,000 over three years ago. It is a 2 bedroom 1 bath 1930s bungalow with a sizable backyard with a southern exposure that he ignores, sloping floors, no AC, gutters that need replacing, and a big stone fireplace that needs servicing. Also it is quiet. Except for the occasional dog barking in the night it is a quiet neighborhood where neighbors know each other.

Sadly Colmar Manor has a bunch of bored kids. They don’t stand on the street corner looking menacing like they do here. No they travel around. Then there is gunfire. Kids are blamed.

Like my part of Shaw, Colmar Manor is benefiting from the positive changes happening in neighboring areas. Ever drive up Rt 1 (Rhode Island Ave/Baltimore Ave) around Mt. Rainier? Notice the new construction around that annoying traffic circle (lines people, would it have killed them to paint lines in the circle?)? Mt. Rainier, home of THE GLUT, is a 15 minute walk from Jon’s house. That area is trying to be some kind of arts center and hopefully it will reflect the funky crunchy flavor that is Mt. Rainier.

So when Jon and I compare we both are a little jealous of each other. I would love to have his backyard for gardening, walls of my own, a greasy IHOP and unhealthy MickyD’s, THE GLUT, as well as a bike path. He would like my metro and near by theaters. *sigh*

When I bought the house they said it was built around 1900.

When I started doing census research I found the house occupied in 1880.

I was pissed.

I discovered that there was a house on my lot in 1874 for the tax assessment.

Even. More. Pissed.

Why pissed? The house mind you is not of the lovely This Old House variety with historical details and any sort of quaintness, except for it being small. The things that reflect its age is the crumbly as sand quality of the bricks and the crazy uneven floors. Also it has been rental housing for most of it’s existence. Rental housing for over 100 years. I am so not happy. I get all the crap an old house brings and none of the charm.

The Post has been running articles in the Metro section about the

rising property values in the District. Today’s Post features our neighbor Bloomingdale with a picture of the Windows Cafe. The basic point is prices are going up, people of modest means cannot afford to buy houses, and those who continue to remain have to deal with the tax bill.

Yesterday’s article was on the level of appreciation well over 130%. I tried plugging in my old numbers looking at Old City II’s Ward 5 region (ie Truxton

Circle) and this is what I came up with, excluding the $0.00 sales. Warning I am poor at math. Below are the average of the prices various houses sold for in Truxton.

2003 2004

Rowhouse $281K $299K

Conversion $269K $431K

SingleFamily$125K $317K

I have no clue what a conversion is, but whatever it is it has gotten expensive.

Tried posting earlier via email, didn’t work

I saw it on News 4, but can find nothing on their website and apparently it is still not worth mentioning in the Post. I’ll admit it may be old news as teenagers have been robbed of their North Face jackets in PG County and other spots, so there is nothing special about the robbery at the Shaw-Howard University station.

I did find the news report on Channel 4 entertaining. The reporter took up valuable space on the stationary escalator for the S Street exit side of the station as he narrated. How long has that escalator been down? It was down back when people were wearing shorts. There’s a story right there! Broken escalators! People forced to climb stairs or stand in a smelly elevator. Then he interviewed some adults, who, no, weren’t afraid to wear their jackets while riding the metro. Some scenes of teens from the shoulders down wearing North Face. Then a remark that Metro would not go on camera to address the jacket robberies at their stations because it was bad PR.

I thought there was a robbery at the Shaw Howard University metro stop this weekend of a male being robbed of his North Face Jacket. But I can’t find a mention on the Post or Times websites. It is too early for it to be posted on the Crimereports websites. But I swear I saw it mentioned on the local news, but even on those sites, yesterday’s news is not worth keeping up. Maybe I just imagined seeing it.

This morning it was 20F again and silly me was out on the bike doing some grocery shopping. With 3 scarfs, 3 layers of shirts and jackets and two pairs of gloves, it wasn’t half bad. I wasn’t the only one one. The Latino men waiting for construction work on the corner of 15th and P were out standing around. They must really want to work! Also out by the Giant were Jehovah’s Witnesses handing out literature or just standing there as they usually do. But no dealers spotted! Then again it might have been too early for crack.

This is my logic.

Draw three circles one for the homeless, one for the working poor, one for beggars, and have them intersect (is that the word I want?) with the other circles with between 5% or 75% of one circle in the other circle. And this is my logic, not all homeless are unemployed, not all beggars are homeless, not all homeless are beggars.

Last year I went on a tangent about giving to street beggars and making the point, you’re not really helping the homeless when you plop a dollar or spare change in the cup.

First, not all homeless people, which includes homeless families, have been reduced to begging on the street. If you really want to help the homeless support the institutions that support the homeless such as health clinics, soup kitchens, shelters and other programs in the city such as Bread for the City, N Street Village, and S.O.M.E. Your handouts to beggars do nothing to coax people off the streets and into programs that with address their physical and emotional needs.

Second, not all homeless are unemployed. A minimum wage job in this city will have one spending more than half of one’s pre-tax income on rent. Throw in our friend gentrification and other DC housing woes and you have fewer units that low wage earners can afford.

Last, not all beggars are homeless. Some are con-artists, some are begging to support a habit, a habit that makes my part of Shaw unwelcoming by supporting the drug dealers, and the liquor stores on EVERY OTHER CORNER!

As I said, you want to help the homeless, I mean really, really help the homeless, make their lives better, live longer to see another day? Give to the Shaw charity of your choice:

Bread for the City

Helping Hands (508 P Street)

N Street Village

S.O.M.E

Covenant House (okay not in Shaw but across the street)

Catholic Charities

But don’t give money to beggars. The only thing you are doing is supporting a chemical habit and the drug economy in Shaw and encouraging begging in the area.

Last night a neighbor came to me with a copy of an invitation she’d

received for an Fenty 2006 Exploratory Committee for Mayor fundraiser

hosted by Jim Graham and Phil & Jan Fenty for this weekend. Well I

don’t believe I will attend but I will cut a check because of the

Council people even thinking of running for mayor, I’d pick Fenty.

Why not my Ward 5 councilman Orange? First, I am not holding that the

NW side of Ward 5 was nearly ignored by Orange against him. But I

don’t know him well enough to want him for Mayor. Yes, I like the Home

Depot and the Giant across the street, very nice. I’m sure everyone in

the northern part of the city appreciates it, and would appreciate it

more if the Home Depot was decently stocked. Yet what about my Ward 5

needs? Has he addressed things that would make my day to day quality

of life? I’m not saying he is a bad councilman, no! He is a decent

councilman.

Fenty, however, has been known to focus on constituent services and

get out to hear the needs of the people living in his Ward. Face it

I’m still in love with the man for banning single sales of containers.

Don’t take much to make me happy. Look at the man’s website he is not the main focus, his ward is. The site (compared to

Orange’s)

seems more Ward 4 specific and designed to help those in Ward 4 and

geared to help his constituents find the information they need as

residents in the city who need services.

Well anyway if you want to attend the fundraiser for the Fenty 2006

exploratory committee it’s 1/30/2005 from 4-6pm in Adams Morgan, call

202 263 4386. Or you can just send $$$ payable to Fenty 2006

Exploratory Committee, PO Box 7700, Washington, DC 20044-7700

Took this picture this weekend when the temperature was about 20F. Notice the figure in the bottom left corner.

I just saw this guy, just standing there on the street. It’s 20F f’ing degrees out. Who the heck just stands out in the cold like that?

There is the chance that he’s just a normal guy waiting for a ride. Possible. He could be a dealer waiting for a customer. Just as possible given the block. Since I was trying to hustle back to the house, I didn’t have time (or the will) to observe him for too long. I did think the scene was just not right so I snapped this picture over my shoulder.