Old Blog Posts Reposted – Page 2

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 They have been replaced by nice people who have yet to make their own mark.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.

Death and Taxes – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Back in 2013 I wrote about my dead Aunt G. who despite being very dead was still getting the Senior Citizen Homestead Deduction. I chose not to out my dead aunt because I wanted to give whomever I was related to enough time to probate the will and get auntie’s estate all straightened out. I figured I’d wait 5 years after her death for her estate to clear everything up, but due to a few things that have happened I’m gonna have to air this out earlier than planned.
I’d been keeping the voice mail where one of my relatives informed me of Aunt Geraldine’s death back in January of 2012. Well apparently voice mails have a shelf life and somehow it did not get saved in a backup. It was my reminder when looking at my list of voicemails to every so often to check and see if she was listed as the owner of her house in SE.
And recently I was speaking with another relative about the situation. I mentioned that the property was still in Aunt Geraldine’s name and the relative mentioned that her will was probated sometime ago.
I’ve held off long enough.
Uncle Randolph (pictured sitting on the right) has been dead since the late 80s
and after his death, her health went south. Her last years were spent in a nursing home somewhere in Maryland. She hadn’t lived in the house since the mid to late 2000s.
Before her death, she paid $570, and $635 in property taxes in 2010 and 2011. She died January 13, 2012, that year she paid $925 in property taxes, but they went down in 2013 to $799, $786 in 2014, and $865 in 2015. This year it appears her tax bill is $626. The house is valued by the city to be worth $220,810 (2016 assessment), but despite being very dead she (or whomever is running her estate) is getting the benefit of her (and my late uncle’s) tenure in the house, with the 10% cap on how high taxes can go up and double bonus points of the Senior Citizen Homestead Deduction.
It is great that DC has the deduction for seniors. However, the city does a poor job of checking up on seniors to see if they are still alive and kicking. I can’t judge them too harshly with Aunt Geraldine because she still does not appear in the Social Security Death Index. However, she’s not the only dead person in DC paying real property taxes with the Senior Citizen Homestead Deduction.
Mrs. Geraldine Lewis is very dead, laid to rest in a Maryland grave and should be free of the burden of taxes.

Missed opportunities? – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

I’ve been noticing the progress of the property at 1740 New Jersey Ave NW. Can’t help but to notice it as I pass it often coming home or going to the metro. I will admit that I haven’t paid too much attention to the back and forth that went on before and during the start of the work on this formerly vacant house. Yet there are some things I see, that confuse me and make me wonder if they were some sort of concession made.
The first thing that confused me was eliminating the half circle driveway and making the two curb cuts, one on Rhode Island and the other on S Street. If you are new to this area of DC let me tell you, curb cuts are money. Most of the time you neighbors will not support your efforts to get one. So if there is not a curb cut there now, there is a snowball’s chance in Miami of getting one. Yes, there is the possibility of being annoyed by drivers who might try to use the curb cut as a short cut and I’d understand eliminating one point of entry, but both were made useless. Also in the past that half-circle has been used as a temporary parking spot, a very valuable asset.
The other odd thing was this doorway that appears to be turning into a wall. I could be seeing this wrong, but that just doesn’t look right. If I am right, that’s a waste of some perfectly good stairs and a walkway going towards this doorway.
Lastly, I’m confused this thing is calling itself an Urban Land Company project. I swear that ULC used to have a better sense of place then what the sign below would suggest. I thought we were past the days of calling this end of Shaw, “Logan Circle”. Logan Circle is about 5 blocks west. U Street is sorta kinda a couple blocks away, and Florida Avenue, just around the corner from this place turns into U Street, eventually, so I’ll give that a pass. Shaw is the only accurate thing. It is in Shaw.
UPDATE- There is a door where the door is supposed to be.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on April 8, 2016 7:07 PM.

Nuclear Summit Neighborhood Mess – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Dear Organizers of the Nuclear Security Summit,

Next time consider the Dulles Expo Center. No it isn’t in DC but that’s never stopped some organizers of other events from calling their thing the DC Whatever.

Yes, nuclear security is important. But your importance seems to require shutting down major thoroughfares (Route 1), MPD man hours not spent on addressing the terror of crime on DC streets, and a dozen or so humvees with a bunch of National Guardsmen from the Mall to the Shaw metro, f’ing up traffic.
I’ve lived in DC for well over a decade and I understand that “security” however you define it and however it is expressed is a big thing around here. However I find this expression offensive. I hate the militarization of civilian spaces. I’d understand if some of my fellow residents had rioted, burned down a bunch of buildings and were looting. If that’s going on, yes, send out the National Guard, the sooner the better. However, in the past decade the National Guard has been lingering around Shaw for special occasions, with heavy equipment at least 3-4 times. The past 2 inaugurations and this summit. I know not just Shaw, but Mt. Vernon Square and Downtown get a bit of this too.

I find it unsettling to walk to the metro in my neighborhood and see a tan humvee at the 7-11 on Rhode Island Avenue. I found even more offensive to my sight a humvee parked on the wide pedestrian sidewalk, at 7th and P next to Beau Thai. It appeared that even my church was blocked off by the National Guard, strangely I’m not that upset about that as I am the commercial corridors.

I guess the part I find most offensive is that someone thought it was okay to to do this to my neighborhood, a place where people live, a neighborhood of residences and churches and schools and daycares. Is security in the hands of a bunch of Virginians who think, “OMG that place has a bunch of black people, send out the National Guard!”

If security is so frigging important why the heck did someone or some group decide to pick one of the busiest places in the metro region. Surely Camp David is available. It just doesn’t seem to make sense to have an event in a highly populated commercial and residential area if security is a concern. Heavens knows you’re not taking advantage of the metro since Mt. Vernon Square Metro was closed down for this event and Metro buses were rerouted. I feel badly for the 9th St restaurants several of who have had to warn diners on their twitter feeds of the traffic mess, so I wonder, did you come for our fine dining? I sort of doubt it. But if you needed hotels and restaurants, maybe next time have it at the National Harbor and ferry participants safely along the Potomac.

Yes, I know it is only for a couple of days once every so many years, but someone seems to be making a habit of injecting the military into civilian neighborhoods. Pope Frankie’s visit had some crazy security and closings but with fewer firearms and heavy equipment. So next time, please pick another venue because your presence is a PITA.

Thanks.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on April 1, 2016 6:14 PM.

This McMillan not THAT McMillan Save McMillan – In Shaw – Mari in the Citi

Happy Easter. I’m doing my annual staying home on Easter ritual.

I thought of creating a post called “McMillan was an A-hole, Save McMillan Park!” Something that would address the problem of “Presentism” and McMillan Parkand throw in a little history. Thing was I confused my McMillans.

McMillan #2

By US Government Printing Office – Congressional Pictorial Directory, 89th US Congress, p. 131, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29009100

I was thinking of John L. McMillian, Democrat Representative from South Carolina who ruled the House Committee for the District of Columbia from 1945 until DC got Home Rule and he was defeated. I could go into detail, but for the District of Columbia, African-American citizens and Home Rule, he was an asshole. Google “John L McMillian” and racist, or segregationist.

McMillian #1

By Unknown – http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=M000567, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1486060

Republican Senator James McMillan is the McMillan the McMillan Park, or the McMillan Sand Filtration Site is named for and he’s an okay guy, so far. He had a positive impact on the District of Columbia (he’s the McMillan of the McMillan Plan) focusing on the Monumental Core, that area around the Mall and the Tidal Basin. His focus was more on beauty and parks.

So Save McMillan Park
I vaguely remember then ANC and BACA President Jim Berry convincing me to attend as a representative of BACA meetings about developing the McMillan area between 1st and North Cap. It must have been in the early 00s as I can’t find the emails and I really didn’t want to go to those meetings, so I probably deleted those emails. I favor less development in that area than more and it is a shame that what is proposed seems a little over developed, not leaving enough of the the unique qualities of the site. It doesn’t seem to matter that the reservoir and the sand filtration site are on the National Register of Historic Places. Well with enough lawyers and money….. Anyway if you want to fight the proposed development see Friends of McMillan Park.

UPDATE- Earlier I misspelled McMillan. I found that email from Jim Berry asking me to replace him on the McMillan Advisory Group. It was from 2009, not that long ago. My memory isn’t as great as it used to be.

This page contains a single entry by Mari published on March 27, 2016 10:57 AM.

In Shaw – Mari in the Citi: February 2016 Archives

February 2016 Archives

Living Large with FSAFEDS

By Mari on February 25, 2016 7:08 PM | No Comments The open season is over so, if you are a Fed and didn’t sign up for FSAFEDS, then just keep this in mind.

We buy lots of contact lens cleaner with our FSAFEDS money. And glasses. Well not lots of glasses, but we do buy glasses when the dentist fails to find an excuse to put a cap in our mouth. That or more fillings. And if dental bills, prescription glasses, and the several kinds of expensive contact lens cleaner the Help goes through doesn’t spend all our FSAFEDS cash, we get fancy.

UBER
I discovered that I could get reimbursed for Uber rides to and from the doctor a few years ago. When I was going through a health issue, the Help would drive me to the medical center, but that stopped after the valet service (normally we self park, but that day they were packing in cars) messed up the car’s clutch. After that, cabs were way cheaper than the $1,500 we paid to fix the clutch. I used a few cabs then one day I used Uber. And FEDSFEDS reimbursed me for the ride. So far it’s been UberX or Uber-taxi, I haven’t tried seeing if I’d get reimbursed for UberBlack.

Insoles
Yeah, not as fancy as Uber, but in a walkable neighborhood, in a walkable part of the city these help. So go for the super fancy Dr. Scholl’s. Or you can test if they’ll reimburse for the Birkenstock arch supports. They should, but I haven’t tried it.

Now there have been some changes in 2015-2016 and so I plan to test the following out.

Acupuncture/ Chinese medicine/ Massage-
According to their site “You can use your FSA or HSA to pay for ALL services at Pekoe!” on 9th St NW. I just submitted a claim for massage therapy elsewhere. I could have sworn that previously you needed a doctor’s recommendation to make massage therapy eligible. But I was recently going down the list to share with a co-worker what she could blow her money on from 2015 on besides another pair of glasses and saw massage and acupuncture listed. For massage there were no qualifiers but I chose a spot that advertised massage therapy. I do have an ache that needs soothing, so it is not for the fun of having a massage.

Re-hydration Liquids- or hangover cure
Pedialyte. I like some drinks, but as I get older more than one glass becomes problematic and that just doesn’t do when you are dining at Chez Fancy Pants with the wine pairing.

There are other things on the list of things we can buy adn get reimbursed for but they aren’t all that exciting (Breathe Right Strips anyone?) or they reveal a little too much about us.

If one wanted to they could maximize their FSAFEDS with a day at a place offering therapeutic massages, then a night on the town where next to your favorite bar/restaurant, you later pick up your prescription from the 24 hour pharmacy and a bottle of Pedialyte then from the pharmacy get an Uber home.

Live large and healthy my friends.

Oh Baltimore

By Mari on February 21, 2016 4:11 PM | No Comments Baltimore is one of the reasons for renaming this blog.
I’ve been spending a fair amount of time in Baltimore City lately. Why? I’m looking for an investment property there. I have another investment in my home state, but there is a time limit of how long I plan hold it so I’ve been looking for a replacement closer to home.

Anyway, I’ve spent days and some nights hanging out in Baltimore, getting to know the city better, and I couldn’t help but notice a few differences between DC and our sister city to the north.

More Industrial
DC was never an industrial city. The government is and was our major industry. Not just the government politicians, but government bureaucrats, and government contractors. Somehow you throw in a lot of non-profits, including universities and that’s us. This creates place for a lot of literate people who may or may not be intellectuals and thinkers, a knowledge based economy.

Baltimore has a strong unquestionable industrial history and sorta present. I highly recommend wandering over to the Baltimore Museum of Industry just to learn a bit about the various blue collar employing industries that made Baltimore great. But now, since American manufacturing isn’t as big as it used to be, the joke is maybe one can get a job at John Hopkins, the behemoth school that seems to be taking over a large portion of the city and is its own industry. The University of Maryland- Baltimore and MICA (two other schools) are attempting to carve out their own parts of the city at a much slower pace. Industry-wise a lot of people are placing their bets with Under Armour (you thought I was gonna write Horseshoe Casino?).

And Baltimore is either more accepting or comfortable with its industrial side as you could be walking along in a neighborhood, turn a corner and find garages where people work across the street from houses where people live. Washington wouldn’t stand for it. DC’s industrial areas are shrinking and being replaced by housing. At some point we’ll be nothing more than offices and housing, with a little retail on the ground floor. Yes, I know of the small breweries and distilleries, but we are not going to sprout a tiny Brooklyn (NYC) anywhere as there is very little industrial space for this sort of experimentation without having to hop through permitting and zoning hoops. DC may give industry lip service but our heart is not in it.

Poor White People
Baltimore has plenty of what you don’t see in the District of Columbia. Poor white people. Goes back to that industry thing. We (DC) don’t have a lot of the kind of jobs that hire poor people. No industrial jobs and job gentrification, where the job is more costly for the employer than it needs to be, so the employer is less likely to take a chance on someone with less education and experience.

Loosey-Goosey
It is hard to put my finger on and it does not apply in all areas.
The best example was experienced when the Help and I went dancing in Baltimore. The Help remarked there was more “flailing” on the floor than we were accustomed to. When we dance in around DC, even beginners make an attempt to do it the right way. The message we got in Baltimore was there is no right way, just have fun. And when people are just having fun it looks like a whole lotta chaos to those of us accustomed to more orderly events.
Sometime ago somebody foolishly tried to make “Keep DC Weird” a thing. That’s Austin, TX thing, not ours. Something like “Keep DC Wonky” is more appropriate, because we can get wonky. What do you expect in a city based on a knowledge economy? Baltimore is friendly, but not at all wonky.

Vacant Houses
As you may know I still control the DC Vacant Properties blog. It’s a slow project because really, we don’t have a lot of vacant properties with our real estate booming and all. Not a lot when compared to Baltimore. O-M-G! I see vacant houses coming in on the train, walking around scoping neighborhoods, they are all over the place. Blocks upon blocks, rows upon rows of vacant properties.
I know 20 years ago, DC also had blocks of vacant crumbly rat holes. Say what you want about gentrification, it does cut the number of vacant houses down, leaving the hard to deal with sticklers (Shiloh properties, 509 O St NW, etc).
Baltimore has a great vacant properties blog, Baltimore Slumlord Watch. I love how the blog’s author names the city council person, state senators and state delegates for where the vacant property sits, along with links to those politician’s contact info or websites. By naming those persons of power in the posts and tagging them, it can tie that vacant property to their name.

Maybe just don’t talk on your cell phone on the bus/train

By Mari on February 14, 2016 11:08 AM | No Comments Friday. 79 bus to Silver Spring. Woman, maybe 50-60 years old reads her credit card number into the phone on the bus.
I was close enough that if I were younger I might have been able to read her expiration date.

People. Do not do this. You are not in a cone of silence. I wish you were. But you aren’t.

I ride the bus and the train and for fun the MARC. I can hear people yabbering off very sensitive information like credit card numbers, the last four digits of their social security number, their address, oh and one time a “counselor” talking about a juvenile and his issues.

When I am on the bus, and sometimes on the train (I can’t hear my phone, I have a subtle ring for everyone but the Help) and I think the conversation isn’t confirming where I am or a meeting, I say, “Can I call you back in ___ minutes? I’m on the _____.” It doesn’t always work, but most of the time it does.

So to the woman with all those mystery charges on your card, I wish you well.

Churches & Bike Lanes

By Mari on February 8, 2016 8:37 AM | No Comments DDOT held a much, much better meeting Saturday than the first meeting in October about the bike lanes to connect Shaw with Penn Quarter and Downtown. It was orderly, no opportunity for hijacking, and residents, such as myself had a real chance to speak.

I did write out what I was going to say but public speaking nerves got the best of me so I only said a portion of what I had to say and quit before my time was up. As a pedestrian and cyclist getting past New York Ave and Mass Ave are the biggest safety hurdles for me. It is a shame that the 7th St bike lane ends at N St, because I need to get to D. I live, work, shop, eat & worship in the bike lane study area. My church at 8 & N, we might not be a historically black church but we’re a historically diverse church. My church lost its parking lot when the convention center took it over and until recently had to rent a shared lot at 8th and O. My church, Immaculate Conception, started 150 years ago at 8th & N without parking, and will still be there 150 years from now with or without parking. Supporting protected bike lanes is the best pro-life option for this Catholic.

The church representatives from UHOP (a large church and landlord) and some other black churches stood in opposition of bike lanes, because it would take away free parking. Several in this and the October meeting mentioned the disappearance of many black churches in Shaw and blamed it on gentrification, claiming that bike lanes would push them out too.

This is a map from the late 1950s of all the churches in the area (you may need to click to see better). The number of churches (steeple, store front, & house) have been decreasing for years so don’t blame gentrification. Since I have been here about 3 churches I can think of near me closed. One on 4th St was in a townhouse run by little old ladies who got too old to climb the stairs. Another church somewhere on 1st is gone, why? Dunno. And most recently, the screamy lady church on the 1500 blk New Jersey Ave is being converted into housing. With the churches on NJ and 4th the reason why they are gone have more to do with aging out than gentrification.

Many churches, urban, suburban, rural, suffer from too many grey hairs and are dying out. If most of your parishioners look like they belong in active living/ assisted living or hospice care, your church is going to die and no amount of parking is going to save you, just delay the inevitable.

I’m not sure what prize is won by sticking around either. The Help (my spouse) attends a church that before the 21st century was a very white church. In the past decade or more it is very diverse, lotta asians, some Africans, South Asians, and Latinos. They moved and grew. They moved to where their base lived, they moved to where they could share the gospel tapping into new populations, so grey hairs are a minority and families and college kids are the majority. They’ve grown so big that they’ve spun off new churches in far flung (metro don’t go there so it is far flung to me) Maryland. The churches in Shaw that are not tapping into the population of residents are staying to die out or waiting til it is time for hospice care. They are too focused on being a black church and not a church for all people. There are Christians among the newcomers but they are going to Capital Hill Baptist Church or Grace DC ( went once and felt so old, so-so old) and these churches trying to hold on to free parking are ignoring the Shaw mission field for the grave.

Old timers, new timers, and possibly misplaced credit

By Mari on February 6, 2016 12:03 PM | No Comments

If you work at a place that has been around for a long time and in an industry is not known for quickly chewing up people and spitting them out, you may have a number of old timers about. You know, the guy down the hall who has been working there since the 70s and should have retired a decade ago, but hasn’t because this is all he knows. Those are the folks with seniority, with lots of institutional memory, but if they are an asset or burden really comes down to the individual.

I thought of this during a portion of the last BACA meeting I attended. There was the perennial “we should respect the old-timers” discussion that came up. Yes, some neighbors helped make the neighborhood what it is, but there are also scores of people who also made the neighborhood a better place who have since moved on, and a bunch of lumps who at best have been neutral assets and at their worst helping hold the neighborhood back, who never left.

It’s a great injustice to have the lumps receive the credit of those who did positive work.

Jim Berry, former ANC and former BACA president moved on to Bates in the 80s maybe and moved out in the 21st century, he deserves a lot of credit. That man worked hard. Very hard for the residents of the northern half of Truxton Circle and parts of Bloomingdale. So hard I doubted he had a personal life. I have not encountered anyone since who was as dedicated and caring as Mr. Berry.

On my own street we have a range of hard neighborhood workers and useless lumps. We’ve also had people in the 15 years I’ve been here who have come did well, pitched in, started something, be the right man/woman at the right place/time, and move on. Miss Becky, Emil, Kelly, Liz, and Paul are the names of a few of those who came to my street, actively did their part to make it better, and moved on.

There are also those who did a lot of activist work for the neighborhood when they were younger or working or whatever and have faded in the background. I haven’t seen Mary Ann Wilmer lately, I know she’s still around. Nor some of that crowd of older women (who I’d complain about) whose gift was constantly complaining and calling the police. Newbies can be a little bit too tame in calling the cops, so the older women’s persistence was how they helped. I feel obligated to mention a neighbor, she and Miss Becky got me involved with BACA, and an accident and it’s super long road to recovery has kept her at home. She is one of those neighbors who deserves a lot of credit but isn’t getting it because someone else is swiping it up.