Category: Uncategorized

My better angel just walked off my shoulder to get a bite to eat, so…..
My lesser angel is wondering if one could make a game of matching the metal treeboxes with the “Re-Elect Leroy Thorpe” signs. Was it last week when I noticed those bright red and white signs all appeared at once?
I got an email stating that someone was a little overzealous in putting signs in folks yards. Not unheard of. I wasn’t surprised when I found a Linda Cropp sign in my treebox, but as soon as I saw it I removed it. According to my little birdie (just wub the widdle burdies) those signs are not necessarily there at the request or desire of the occupant. Some signs I have seen hint to that. Somewhere on 5th there is a sign that has been placed just so between the security door bars, like a large Chinese takeout menu. Another sign, further up 5th, sits on the ground, between the gate and a wooden fence. Also if you find such a sign in your yard and you really don’t want it, don’t return it, you will be confronted.

I’m still working on the 1900 census, so I really have no business looking at any other year until 1900 is done. But I did look at another year and this is a good project to pursue, for someone else, so feel free to steal this idea. The last census available to me is 1930. So, I’m going to have to wait a couple of years before the National Archives releases the 1940 census, but there is a way to find out who lived in the hood between 1930 and 1970, the city directories.
In the back of the city directories, there are names and businesses listed by address. So out of curiosity I picked the 1400 block of North Capitol. I was randomly looking at years and addresses but probably with the 1940 City Directory there is Catania Bakery, a grill, and another restaurant on North Cap. Actually several businesses. Got me to wondering what did the commerical corridor of North Capitol look like, pre-war, pre-riots.

|—————————————–|
| Blagden Alley Association |
| Monthly Meeting |
| |
| THURSDAY, September 28, 2006 |
| 7:30-9:00 pm |
| Breakwell’s |
| Ninth and M Streets, NW |
| (Note fancy location) |
|—————————————–|

The newsletter is at

http://www.pro-messenger.com/Blagden/Monthly%20Pages/2006%20Monthly%20Pages/BAN_2006_09_P1.html

Three topics:
1. The Charter School (that one!) is still alive.
2. How to put a surveillance camera (outdoors) on your PC. We’ll all
need it soon.
3. District Liquors. Update.

It’s been a week and I am now getting to it. Part due to laziness, people I have warned you about my laziness, part due to other things that have occupied my thoughts (radiators, pipes, leaks, foreign students without visas), and part being just annoyance with the whole thing.

Last week, Monday, at 2pm-ish, in the alley between the 1600 blk of New Jersey Ave and 4th St NW there was a shooting. There were several witnesses and they said that a vehicle drove into the alley from 4th St, tried to turn and go towards Q St but couldn’t because a truck was blocking the alley (renovation work on a house) and then there was shooting. Supposedly one bullet went into the direction of the day care center on the corner of R and New Jersey. The escape was made through the empty lot on New Jersey Ave. As there were several witnesses, 911 was called by several people…… no one showed up.
Query: If there is shooting and no person gets shot should one bother to call the cops?
My best guess right now, which might not be correct, is that this is some stupid turf battle with the 5th and O group. Two steps forward, one step back. Some have noted an uptick in graffiti and shooting in other parts of this end of Shaw ranging from the area around Kelsey Gardens to my area.

The Doll House, as some of us have come to call the house, on the corner of New Jersey and Q, is up for sale. $649K. The market will give it what the market will give.
This might be the third time I noticed it was up on the market in the 5 or so years I have lived in the neighborhood. Today was the first time I actually went inside the house.
We’ve called it the doll house because it is small inside. But it is so darned cute! It’s got a little porch. A little kitchen with a curvy fridge. Period touches. You are aware that it is small but the space is well used.
This weekend we (B. and IT) ventured over to 555 Mass Ave to look at the condos there. The way the model was staged the vibe that was expressed could only be described as ‘Sex in DCity’. The handbag shaped magazine holder in the living room, the style of the furnishings, the view of the city, and the “Sex in the City” book flipped on its pages on the nightstand kinda made it obvious who was the target audience. The doll house by comparision not really staged, more cleaned and neatened up, gave the impression of cozy quaint domesticity.
My favorites in the doll house were the bathrooms. One could imagine soaking in the tub, with lots of light streaming in as the sounds of life on New Jersey Ave (or at least the sound of the 96 bus) go by. One bathroom had a sliding door, so there was no space needed for a door to swing in or out. Because I’m in the planning stages of renovating I’m very curious about how others squeeze in a bathroom.

I have a leak in my pipes. I didn’t notice it until about a month or so ago because it is in the basement, near the furnace, in the room with all the spiders. So I don’t go there much.
Anyway I figured if I turned off the water to the furnace I could dry out the pipe so I could sauder (is that the word?) it. A week later after turning the water off, it was still drippy. Not so much drip-drip, but drip, come back in an hour, drip. Still wet, so I noticed a rusty faucet thingy at the bottom and figured that would drain the pipe. Hooked up a hose to it and 4 ft of pipe should be drained in no time. No time took a good long while.
As I sat by, watching the water drain into the sump pump, I heard a periodic glugging noise. Then it dawned on me and I’m quite sure blood drained out of my face, I was draining not only the pipe but every single radiator in my house. My radiators are big and range from 4 to 3 feet high. All that water.
The problem with draining the radiators is that I would need to pump all that water back up and not all the valves are easy to work with. I can use a special key thing to play with the pressure on 3 of my 5 radiators. One needs a pair of pliers and the other…. I don’t even want to think about that one. Maybe I can find a replacement part for that one. *sigh*
Link:
Radiator key and valvy part that I need to replace so I won’t be fearful of bleeding my radiators.

If anyone cares I have restarted the 1900 census project. This is a continuation of what I did for 1880 and the paper I wrote for last year’s DC Historical Conference, “Ethnic Divides in an 1880 DC Neighborhood”(PDF), which looks at every single family in the NW Truxton neighborhood. There were about 1,000 people, hundreds of families/households and the area wasn’t that heavily populated.
There is no 1890 census to look at. Well, not a complete one, as story has it, that year got burned up in a fire. There are city directories, arranged by name, but they only give address and occupation.
So bad thing about 1900. More people. More households to slog through. More houses. There are alleys that people lived in that don’t exist now.
Good news. I did hired some help to collect the data and put them in the forms I created, so a good portion of the work has been done.
Bad news. I can’t seem to remember where I put 1/2 of it.

From Alex
Meeting on Neighborhood Tax Increment Financing for Shaw, 09/21/06

A public meeting on using Tax Increment Financing to assist in the
revitalization of Shaw’s commercial district and Georgia Avenue will be held on
Thursday, September 21, 2006, from 6:00 PM to 8:00 PM at the DC Housing Finance
Agency, 815 Florida Avenue, NW. Community residents concerned about ensuring
funding for key initiatives like parking, commercial rent subsidies, clean and
green programs, new sidewalks and street lighting, etc., should attend this
meeting and advocate for their priorities.
The Great Streets Initiative within the Office of the Deputy Mayor for
Planning and Economic Development is convening this meeting, one of a series of
four, to discuss the potential for four Neighborhood Tax Increment Financing
(TIF) sub-districts along the designated Great Streets corridors, one of which
is 7th Street/Georgia Avenue. TIF involves earmarking certain real property
and sales taxes within an area to pay for public and private investments. This
public/private partnership tool allows the District to pledge future tax
revenues–revenues not already committed to meeting citywide operational needs
or debt service–to support private investment in key redevelopment projects
in addition to supplemental infrastructure and public space improvements.
An overview of TIF and how it works as well as technical analysis about the
estimated potential revenue streams for each respective proposed TIF
sub-district will be presented to the audience. Residents, property and business
owners, developers, and neighborhood and business associations are encouraged to
attend and provide input on how the District might prioritize spending
within their sub-districts.
The proposed 7th Street/Georgia Avenue Neighborhood TIF district is roughly
bounded by O Street at the south, 5th Street at the east, Howard Place at the
north, and 11th Street at the west, and could generate approximately $3
million per year. These boundaries leave out critical portions of Shaw’s
commercial district, which extends south to K Street on the south side of Mount
Vernon Square. This will result in a failure to capture new taxes generated from
the proposed Convention Center Hotel for the benefit of the community
surrounding that major project, and ignores properties along 7th and 9th Street
that could house businesses that would benefit from amenities and services, such
as the new Green Team, that could be funded via the Neighborhood TIF. Be
sure to come to the meeting to advocate for extending the proposed Neighborhood
TIF to the south.
For more information on the Neighborhood TIF proposal and a map showing the
boundaries of the proposed Neighborhood TIF district, go to
http://dcbiz. dc.gov/dmped/ frames.asp? doc=/dmped/ lib/dmped/ pdf/G-S_Nhood_ TIF_Flyer- Shaw-081106.pdf.
For more information on the Great Streets Initiative, visit
www.greatstreets. dc.gov. For more information in DC’s TIF program, go to www.dcbiz.dc. gov.
Alex

Alexander M. Padro
Commissioner, ANC 2C01
1519 8th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001-3205
Voice: 202-518-3794
Email: PadroANC2C at aol. com
Website: www.members. aol.com/PadroANC 2C

(I could write about about the shooting in my alley or another shooting, that according to an email I got, occurred between 6th and Marion, but I’m not in the mood for that kind of negativity right now.)

Walking to the Post Office, I saw a familiar face standing at New Jersey and S St NW heading in the direction of the Shaw station, Metro General Manager Dan Tangherlini. I wanted to say something. Something like, why the blankity-blank did my blanking bus not bother showing up Friday and what ditch digger school did Metro find the driver who showed up 1/2 an hour late on Monday. But I said nothing, I just looked in his eyes and smiled.
Once I finished my business at the Post Office I ran into a neighbor who was trying to remember where he parked his car. We exchanged pleasantries and I got on him about driving and not walking.
Going about half a block I ran into another neighbor, L’s mother. She was pushing her little ‘old lady cart’. We exchanged smiles as we continued to our separate destinations.
This is the thing I like the neighborhood. Yes, there is the crime that pokes its head up in various forms. But between the bad there is the good everyday where you run into familiar faces and good will is exchanged.

Neighbors,

More on the School Board forum on Tuesday, September 26, 2006. See below!

Best,

Jim Berry
ANC 5C

Premier Community Development Corporation
1309 Rhode Island Ave, NE, Suite B
Washington, DC 20018

(202) 832-2209 Fax (202) 832-3448
Premier1309@yahoo.com www.Premier1309.com

For Immediate Release Contact: Hazel Thomas

September 14, 2006 (202) 491-9245

Premier Community Development Corporation (CDC)
and the Ward 5 Council on Education will sponsor
A District III School Board Candidates’ Forum

On Tuesday, September 26, at 7:00 p.m., Premier CDC and the Ward 5 Council on Education will sponsor the second in a series of Forums to introduce the platforms of the candidates running for District III representative on the School Board. The District III winner will represent Wards 5 and 6.
Nikole Killion, WJLA/News Channel 8 Reporter and Anchor, will be the Guest Moderator once again for the School Board Candidates’ Forum. Parents, Community Activist and Residents of Wards 5 & 6 and the general public are invited to attend the Town Meeting and Forum at 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 26, at the Isle of Patmos Baptist Church at 12th & Rhode Island Avenue, NE. (Isle of Patmos is handicap accessible.)

The candidates (Ward listed in parenthesis) who have been invited are:
Sunday Abraham (5) Stephane Baldi (6)
Robert Brannum (5) Marc Borbely (6)
Mary Currie (5) Lisa Raymond (6)
Terrance McMichael(5) Marvin Tucker (5)

Each candidate will be given 3-minutes to make an introductory statement followed by twenty minutes of questions and answers led by the Moderator, Nikole Killion. Premier CDC Advisory Board Member Idriys Adullah, will lead the 30-minute Q and A session with the general public. To conclude, each candidate will give a 1 ½ minute closeout statement. For questions or additional information, contact Stephanie Rones at (202) 832-3442 or Hazel Thomas (202) 491-9245.
************************
PCDC is a 501 (c) (3) nonprofit, open membership organization. Our mission is to promote and improve housing, economic and community development for residents of Ward 5. Our objective is to enhance the overall quality of life throughout the Ward.