Author: Mari

In Shaw field trip

Went on a little field trip to take a quick peek at gentrification elsewhere. It is the same everywhere I guess. When there is a housing crunch, where the housing stock is not enough for the population, people with some money begin moving into neighborhoods where poorer people are. But there was cool stuff too, which I’ll share in pictures.
Went through Harlem. I don’t know where the gentrification began there. It is pretty near the Park at 110th. Which I think is the bottom of Harlem. I could understand the reasoning behind paying big bucks to live near Central Park. The further north you went from the Park, the less gentrified it looked.
I wandered through the East Village. What jobs do odd looking goths have to afford these crack fueled rents? What jobs do to the people of Greenwich Village have to afford any of these NYC rents? Yeah, yeah, NYC greatest city in the world, blah, blah, blah, known for high rents, but still $4,000 a month for a 3 bedroom walk up? Crazy.
The good things I found in the city, besides decent buskers on the subway, were the thousands of little grocers thoughout the city. My roommate thinks DC needs more of these kinds of stores. Even in the less nice parts of Harlem you will find stores with fresh veggies and fruits, like this one, where people can get the ingredients to make meals from stratch. Scratch, instead of some high in sodium, fat and sugar prepackaged crap that is sold in many a DC quickie mart, next to the 40s.
Also walking around the city that never sleeps….. well it does sleep, on a Sunday morning ’cause that’s the time to find a parking spot…. I digress. I noticed some great architectural details. Not just on the buildings of note but the everyday ones. I say doors and ironwork that was just inspiring.

Blogjam

FYI- Jimbo has put together an event for Oct 24 8pm at DC9. It features several DC gay bloggers and 1 straight DC gal blogger (Wonkette), doing selected readings from their blogs. It should be entertaining.
It is an ‘In Shaw’ worthy event, as it is a) in Shaw, b)on 9th Street & c)’cause I said so.

Small House Design

I gotta small house.

A small townhouse.

With a tiny front yard.

And the back yard is not much either.

General home ideas for redecorating or adding on mean jack to me because they don’t fit.

It’s not an apartment.

I can tear down the wall.

I can put holes in the wall.

I can tear out the floor.

I can replace a whole room.

I can paint

So decorating ideas for small spaces (ie apartments) don’t fit me either.

Maybe I’m just picky.

One of the bad things about owning my house is the deep need for creativity. I don’t like to think that hard. I did my thinking bit in grad school thank you. Unlike the folks who show up on This Old House, I don’t have this large grand home that can fit these large grand ideas. The small space issues demands extra effort, because the standard sized stuff makes the place feel smaller than it is, and demands more space than it really needs.

I went to Not So Big House for ideas. For those of you not familiar Not So Big House is a book about really cool decorating ideas for small houses. Yet the catch for me is that these small houses have felxability. I have some, but not that much.

Seeing the house on 5th Street, with the European interior reminded me to look to the UK for ideas. UK because my non-English language skills are just enough to to find a bathroom, much less design one. Donde esta el banyo. One of my favorite places to wander is the BBC’s home decorating website. Rooms are small, but they are small and really cool. I spent a good amount of time viewing Architect Search looking at the various firms’ websites and residental projects.

The other problem besides design is the stuff that goes into the house that makes it small. The refridgerator, the badly fitting oven, the HUGE king sized bed, ya know, stuff. For me I make use of futons. Real easy to get up the narrow stairs. Knock down furniture that can put together in the room it is going to. IKEA is a wonderful store. I came across someone’s blog and they mentioned a washer/dryer combo they bought from Compact Appliances. Looks small, but I was trying to figure out where does the hot air from the dryer go?

Lastly, besides the stuff you gotta cram into the house there is just plain living. We got bikes. They take up space, they make marks on walls getting them into their space. When we dump out stuff near the door, it just gets in the way. Two people cannot work at the same time in the kitchen. Two people can’t really pass each other in the hall or on the stair. The house is small, and it ain’t getting any bigger any time soon.

Last night’s Shaw Main Streets Meeting

I’m not really good at keeping up with some meeting dates. Really to be informed in this frickin’ city there are a ton of meetings one has to attend. And dang it, I don’t want to go to all of them. I did however attend this one for Shaw Main Streets. Well, at least I got free bottled water, cookies, development plan drawings, and there were some nice (unavailable) men to look at.

Held at the DC Housing Finance Agency, ’cause the basement of the DC public library is too dank, the theme was “New Development Projects in Shaw”. When they mean Shaw they mean the 7th and 9th street areas from Florida to the Convention Center, not Logan or U Street.

First off, no offense, but Alexander Padro talks to long. He was supposed to speak for 5 minutes. That was an exceptionally long 5 minutes.

There were 6 potential development projects on the table. The O street market, Broadcast Center One, the Howard Theater, the Dunbar Theater, WVSA AutoArts Academy, and a project at 9th and N Streets. So far 1/2 of those projects look like they’ll be actually done, as opposed to being drawings sitting on a pile. The reason is if you don’t own the land now, and you haven’t broken any ground or at least done some preservation, or buttressing, I’m just very doubtful it will get done. But that’s just me.

The big draw, for me, was the O Street market, which is the big block our beloved ghetto Giant sits on. Mr. Armond Spikell of Roadside Development, which I think owns the land, spoke of a new Giant, as the current one is inadequate and the loading dock on 9th Street takes up some valuable real estate. He had no plans to show because they are trying to incorporate the community’s (must have been some other community group) concern over loss of parking. So they have to think underground parking, which is expensive. The general plan is to build a new Giant while the old one exists, then create a better Giant with more retail and other mixed used things. Then later get rid of the old Giant, once the new Giant is ready. The possible start date on any of this is 2006, and will take about 3 years.

There were some other projects on the slate that were on their way. At 1301-1309 9th Street, Douglas Development is going to put up a mixed use space. It will have 20 effiencies and 7 one bedrooms that they believe will be moderately priced, not luxury. They will start work in 30 days and hope to be complete in 12 months. They will have retail and these apartments. The construction costs will be around $6.5 million dollars.

WVSA AutoArts, you can see their website hope to open at 1234-38 9th Street and Blagden Alley by September 2005. They plan on keeping the auto body shop there and hoping to have affordable apartments for teachers and artists. They are looking for community support.

The Howard Theater is doomed. My opinion, everyone else is hopeful. I say DOOMED, DOOMED I say, because the roof is not stable and if we get a big snow it could come down. Doomed.

Looking at the diagrams for Broadcast Center One, which appears that it is to sit on the empty lot and the shops behind the Shaw metro station between S and T Streets, along 7th. I’m looking and wondering what’s going to happen to the shops that are there? Like many projects, it will be mixed with some housing thrown in. They are proposing that it would be made affordable based on 60%-40% AMI (Area Mean Income). AMI is about $80-$90K.

I talked with my neighbor and roommate about this. L is of the opinion (L. tell me if I get this wrong) that the neighborhood doesn’t need THAT much retail. Throw in a bunch of coffeeshops with WiFi and she’ll be happy, nothing else needed. My neighbor too is concerned about the whole retail space thing, because apparently all the retail in the Convention Center hasn’t been filled. He’s not sure that the community can deal with all that much retail space for all these mixed used properties. I would like a bakery (Firehook) and a Wachovia and a sit down restaurant with wait staff. I say wait staff because the bulletproof KFC on North Cap is technically a sit down restaurant. Don’t want more of that.

We all seem to like the residential nature of the neighborhood. I mean I like it and don’t want to lose that flavor. I really don’t want to attract that much outside traffic coming in. I liked what the O Street Developers said about creating commercial space that is to serve the community. Business that serves the community. Before the developers, Dr. Warren Flint, the executive director of Shaw Main Streets, said they/we want to create “a village environment”. Yeah, a village.

Foul

I’m a prude.
Back when I was growing up [sniped long story short, it was different]. Of course, I grew up in the Bible Belt.
Here in Shaw, you will get an earful of m*therf**ker, f**k, sh*t, and such, and that’s just from the 10 year olds. It’s nothing to be walking down the street and hear two people, passing by, engaging in a conversation that is basically profanity linked together with conjunctions.
When I first moved to Shaw, after living in other parts of VA and MD, I was shocked, shocked I say, to see a woman cursing at her 4 year old kid. Now, it’s old. I’m used to it. And that is sad.
Now I know some may say, well that’s just how some folks talk. Yes, that’s how they talk and it is unfortunate that their vocabulary is so limited. Colorful, but limited.

Tobacco Factory

Traveled along the Urban Land Company’s parade of homes tour yesterday with the troop from the fortress of tea and dirty laundry. We saw about 4 places, walked in 3. We hit the tail end of the tour, so some were closing up when we arrived. Quite a few were not completed. Meaning, there where still holes in the walls and ceilings for the ducts and electrical outlets. We did see some cool funky stuff.
The house at 1911 6th Street, did something with the kitchen. They put a wall up, but it doesn’t go all the way up. Oh and the kitchen is small. Very small. As it was unfinished, it was hard to imagine how the walk-in closets would be walk-in. We could walk in them, but there were no racks or shelves. The bottom unit was also odd. Both the bedrooms have doors that lead out to the patio.
The bottom unit of 444 S St was tiny. Teeny. It was like a studio apartment. I think it’s a junior bedroom. You walk in and there is the kitchen, and then the bedroom. Good for people who don’t want to buy a couch. Unless you want to cook on the couch.
Lastly we all wound up at the main attraction, the Tobacco Factory, where there has never been a factory of any sort. The reviews I have heard from others, including the fortress crew has been mixed. Of course one fortress member’s reaction was *slobber*. The Factory is four levels divided into half. The top was available for viewing. Points should be given to the Urban Land Company staff just for presentation. The reviews I have heard were, all the others were less impressive, so by the time you get to the furnished and finished top level of the Factory condo, it is a great improvement.
The best home we saw yesterday was not on the Urban Land Company’s tour. It was across the street. The August In Shaw house [note link changed 5/55/13]of the week owners let the troop in for a tour after running into them at the Factory. Oh my G-d. They did a wonderful job. The house is still in various stages of repair, but the layout is truly amazing and actually understands the limits and needs of a small townhome. One party of the couple fixing the place up is a German designer and the house is a reflection of a European sensibility. The first floor is very open. The top floors are where it begins to look more European, reminding me of some flats I have seen in London. It continues to be open at the landing and doesn’t have that cramped feeling that you can get in DC townhomes. It also brings in a fair amount of light.
Talking with the owner, a problem they encountered was trying to get people to understand the concept of say the box bathroom. This is a bathroom sits on the level like a big ole box, where the top does not go all the way to the high ceilings, so that light from the outside can go over the bathroom, into the bathroom, and into the adjoining room. The other problem were contractors who don’t show up on time, on time meaning 1 hour from the time they said they’d show. All the time spent waiting they decided to do many things themselves.
I want their house. It is sooooooo cooool.

5th Police District

From our wonderful leader Jim Berry:

Neighbors,

A message from Art Slater, Chairperson of the Fifth District MPD CAC.

Jim Berry

ANC 5C

Fifth District Citizens Advisory Council Meeting –

Thursday, September 23, 2004

MPD Fifth District Citizens Advisory Council

Fifth District Headquarters

1805 Bladensburg Rd, NE

Community Room

Washington, DC

E-mail: Art Slater talader AT verizon PERIOD net

7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

The MPD Fifth District Citizens Advisory Council resumes its regular

meeting

schedule to meet with Commander Greene to help improve public safety in

the

Fifth District.

Agenda

* Commander’s Report

* Invited Speaker: Ken Wainstein, U.S. Attorney for the District of

Columbia http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/dc/

* Standing Committee Status

* Old Business

* New Business

* Community Concerns

* Announcements

* Adjournment

How gentrification can be just plain EVIL

Friday morning while trying to convince myself that getting up and going to work early is a good thing, I heard over NPR a newstory that riled up passions in my conservative heart. Property rights.
The story is about what’s going on in New London, CT where the city wants to redevelop a section of town to make way yuppie condos. Fine. Problem, they are threatening to use ’eminent domain’ as a way of taking land away from the few homeowners in that area. Eminent domain should only be used to build roads for polluting cars or waterways or big public utility projects, not privately owned condos. Yuppies and the working class are equal in the eyes of G-d, and should be equal in the eyes of the State, but alas no. Apparently because you can suck more money out of yuppies via taxes, yuppies are better people and thus the State chooses to kick out working/middle class homeowners, depriving them of their property. The State is dangerous.
Eminent Domain Watch, a blog, has a wonderful amount of information on this case along with other incidents of local and state governments encroaching on individual property rights.
The New London case is the best example of gentrification evil style. Gentrification done naturally invovles individual property owners selling to either other property owners or corporation when they so chose. They are not forced to sell (ok this can be argued on whaddya mean by ‘force’). Provided they can keep up with real estate taxes and local ordinances, individuals can choose NOT to sell. The residents in the New London area do not have that choice. And that is plain wrong. So wrong.
Should the Supreme Court decide in favor of the City of New London real property rights will be undermined for all US citizens. In DC I could only imagine the worst. My beloved Anthony Williams is already the bitch of the developers ’round here. I know the city likes sucking money from higher incomes and crack fuel housing prices, but if they were given this tool….