Observations – Truxton Is In Shaw

Ray Milefsky- His observations on Model Cities

I was looking through some old email to “attempt” to clean up my mailbox and found an email from Ray Milefsky or “Ray of Sunshine” as I would think of him.

Ray Milefsky was a Shaw neighborhood fixture. He had bought his Shaw home in the 1980s (according to his obit), but I had the sense he’d been in Shaw for much longer. He’d freely share his opinion and knowledge on the Shaw listserv before Yahoo and more sensitive voices quieted him. He passed away in 2016 and Durham University in the UK has an award in his honor.

Model cities program – RLA tie-in

Ray Milefsky

From:mrrayj gmail com

To:mari inshaw com

Fri, Apr 6, 2007 at 6:17 PM

Mari,
Enjoyed your peek at the RLA, a much failed organization, I agree.
Thought you might appreciate the following sign for the Federal
Government’s Model Cities Program for DC, which I think was tied up with RLA in a scheme to rebuild DC to look like East Berlin through
“slum removal” in the 1960s. The sign is in an alley between P and
Q, and 13th and 14th, NW of Logan Circle. Otherwise, I don’t know
anything more about the tie-in between RLA and Model Cities. Would appreciate anything you might glean in your research!

Model Cities was different from the Model Inner City Community
Organization headed by Walter Fauntroy, which attempted to thwart or at least redirect the mass redevelopment of the city, that, he correctly argued, would displace many poor people, especially Blacks from the city as happened in the Greater Southwest Redevelopment
Project.

Cheers,
Ray Milefsky

Construction memories- Dust gets everywhere

I’m having the bathroom redone in my current home and I forgot how dust gets EVERYWHERE.

You’d think after 4 renovations on the TC house, I would know. But I forgot and second guessing our decision to stay put.

I was a single woman for renovations #1 and #2. I stayed around for the kitchen redo in 2003. I stayed with Scott & Matt on 1st Street for the big to do in 2007/2008.

After getting married, I did the basement and put on an addition. We stayed with Rose across the street then rented a friend’s place on the unit block of Bates St NW for the addition. Even with the basement, and the plastic barrier, dust got everywhere.

So now we’re doing a 1st floor bathroom renovation. Silly us left doors open and dust really got everywhere. We had moved the kid upstairs because his room was right next to the bathroom. After a few days we moved up with him.

And no. Those plastic barriers do not keep all the dust out. Anyone who has shared a wall with a place undergoing renovations knows, that stuff is like a ghost and travels through walls.

So that’s why posts for the next month or so is going to be meh or non-existent.

Memory Lane: Lucky Kitty & the Contractor

Cat sitting on fence at 1616 4th St NW. Taken October 31, 2003

I wrote the post below back in the early days of the blog in 2003. I was undergoing my first major house renovation, the kitchen with a contractor I found via some swing dance friends who live (still live) in the H Street area.

That contractor had his own company and paired up with a fellow and they created a company. I see that company’s trucks all over my new neighborhood. But this post is about a kitty.

My neighbors down the street had a cat. They kept the cat outside most of the time. Lucky was a very sweet cat.

Lucky Kitty

My contractor has run off with the neighbor’s cat. She’s doing much better now he says. I kind of miss her. Lucky is an extremely affectionate cat. Of course she mainly wanted food and tried breaking into my house often. But now she’s in a warm house, the neighbors kept her outside, eating regularly, I used to feed her a little & thought her owners were too, and she doesn’t slobber anymore.

My contractor took her home. She was well cared for. She became an indoor all the time cat and got fat. She was in kitty heaven. Well she died after many, many years and is now in kitty heaven.

Memory Lane: 23 N St NW

I’m going to guess it was 2005 when I visited 23 N St NW to look inside the home. I was impressed by its storage.

So many cabinet doors…. Interesting floors. It had a slightly arty bo-ho look. A look that has been renovated away by the looks of the real estate photos from its 2017 sale of over a million dollars.

I vaguely remember it having a loft in the bedroom, along with wooden bookshelves. It was a neat home.

Preparing for Washington DC History Conference- Black Homeowners of Truxton Circle

I’m very excited to announce that I’ll be presenting at the 2024 DC History Conference and I’ll be talking about the Black Homeowners of Truxton Circle.

So if you are available Saturday, April 6th at 10:15 at the Neighborhood History and Housing panel, come see me. Ask some questions.

You can register now for the April conference, and take a look at the program here.

So in order to get ready for the conference I’m going to slightly ignore the blog for a bit. Also I have some personal things I need to deal with. Even once the conference is done, there will still be some personal things that will need to be dealt with, maintained? So I’m thinking of a schedule of one researched post a week with a few Memory Lane posts. I’d like to get around to actually getting something published outside of the InShaw blog about Truxton Circle and that’s going to take some focus and time, in addition to some of those personal things I’ve been ignoring.

Memory Lane: Snowy City Scenes February 12, 2006

I’m looking into my collection of photographs and going down memory lane.

I took these photos eighteen years ago. The snow just fell and it was pretty. Pretty until you have to go to work and it gets packed into ice on the sidewalk.

Taken 2/12/2006. 1500 blk of New Jersey Ave NW,

Memory Lane: Buses Only January 19, 2009

I’m just going through old photos.

There’s the old 7-11 before it’s facelift not too long ago.

Memory Lane: December 26, 2005 1600 Blk of 4th St NW

Taken December 26, 2005. View of 300 Block of Q St NW from 1600 blk of 4th.

Happy Boxing Day.

A quick look at this photo taken in 2005 shows the block before the Fourth St Friendship Seventh Day Adventist church built their modern wing. It appears ground had been broken and fencing was up.

Armstrong Became A Functional School Again

Earlier I looked at Langston which, as far I know, is still a husk of a building. Langston was a school where African American children learned and played. But despite being on the Register of Historic Places, it is still a decaying structure. Armstrong was also on the Register and it was delivered back to the land of the living and in the 2023-2024 school year be a place where African American children learn and play.

Armstrong Manual Training School. Under renovation. Taken October 14, 2007

The school underwent renovation in 2007 to turn it into a charter school. The man heading up the effort was Kent Amos, who is still alive. He was operating a profitable looking non-profit and was able to funnel about $24 million dollars into turning a decaying building to transform it into a functioning school.

Armstrong Technical High School Ruins — Armstrong HS, view from P and 1st St NW taken 6/26/2007

In 2009 neighbors complained that the CAPCS charter school was renting out the building to the Metropolitan Baptist Church and turning the field on 1st Street NW into a parking lot. Yes, that parking lot got sneaked on.

View of Armstrong Parking Lot from Dunbar High School window. Taken April 2018.

There were problems with the CAPCS school and it’s founder. In 2015 Jennie Niles, the Deputy Mayor for Education issued a letter saying:

Dear CAPCS Parents and Guardians,

This morning, the District of Columbia Public Charter School Board (PCSB), an independent board, voted to revoke the charter for Community Academy Public Charter School (CAPCS). While the vote will undoubtedly cause angst for the 1,600 CAPCS students and their families, the District of Columbia is ready to make sure that the needs of the students are met for the 2015-16 school year.

At the request of Mayor Bowser, I developed a plan in collaboration with Friendship Public Charter Schools, DC Bilingual Public Charter School, and the Chancellor of DC Public Schools to provide as much continuity as possible for CAPCS students and families.

Armstrong Campus (1400 First Street, NW): Friendship Public Charter School will assume operations beginning next school year (2015-16) for all 523 students……

After that Armstrong has been operating as a regular old charter school. I’m happy it is a building that is being used and maintained.

Armstrong Technical High School, March 1942. Photo by Marjorie Collins.

Sometimes smaller is better

I’m going through my old drafts. Some I rewrite, such as this one. Some I delete. And some I rewrite, still think they’re crap and delete them. This was written October 8, 2008.

Sometimes.
I’ve just finished reading an article regarding the upsides of raising a family in a 1,200 sf house over that of a McMansion. The author writes:

Looking back on 18 years of living small, I see that our snug house has prevented us from easily avoiding one another by retreating into our own spaces. We’ve been able to eavesdrop on our kids as they played with friends and look over their shoulders as they did homework on the dining room table. It’s been good for our health too, forcing all of us, especially our sons, to spend more time out-of-doors. There simply isn’t room to get too rowdy inside, so often they have headed outside to a neighborhood park that’s conveniently located just across the street.I hope we’ve given our sons the message that wealth doesn’t come from our material possessions, but instead from the diversity of experiences we have and the richness of our community.

The author also mentions that with a smaller house she could pay off the mortgage quicker, heat it for less and have a better commute. I already have the great commute. It is my great luck to work for an agency whose DC metro branches are all along the Green Line. My current commute is a 30-45 minute walk, or 20 minutes by metro, and that is priceless. The house is small and there isn’t much to heat or cool, and I tend to be happy lounging in 1/6th of the space. And there is the possibility of actually paying off the mortgages in the next 15 years, but I owe that more to when I bought the house as opposed to the size of the house.

The article was in the conservative online magazine Culture 11 “Living Small”