Category: Uncategorized

via Jim Berry

Neighbors,

I am advised that the Board of Directors of the North Capitol Collaborative will be hosting a Town Hall Meeting on Wednesday, February 17, 2005, from 6:00 p.m. until 7:00 p.m., at McKinley High School, 151 T Street, NE.

As you may know the Collaborative is principally responsible for working with abused and neglected children in our community, as well as their families.

The purpose of the town hall meeting is to give a progress report to the community on the work of the collaborative and the public is invited to come out in order to let their voices be heard about the group’s work. For more information concerning this meeting, you may contact Ms. LaShawn Gantt @ 202-299-9802.

Best,

Jim Berry

ANC 5C

Today on freecycle someone in Adams Morgan is giving away a big wooden door with a window in it, just to give you a heads up.

Second, a former house of the week has begun to show some activity as construction stopped and now has started again. After serveral months of nothing, there is a for sale sign and stairs are now going up, just adding to the ugly. There was a way to make it look nicer, but would have cost money or forethought. Maybe I might be pleasantly suprised and the end result might look nice. But given this neighborhood and the crap I’ve seen, no.

Price: $619,000

Bedrooms: 3

Bathrooms: 3

Basement: Yes, finished

Fireplaces: 2 or 3

I was disappointed. But houses around a certain amount I have great expectations. Expectations that are dashed by the small things one notice as a homeowner that might go missed as a 1st time homebuyer.

First thing I noticed was in the bathroom. This was a blah, functional bathroom. No attempt to wow me. Regular Home Depot tub, with other regular stuff, but then I noticed the shower head. The thing wasn’t flush with the wall in that I could see the hole from where the pipe came from and it wasn’t caulked up or anything. This could allow water to get back behind the wall causing an expensive repair. This I noticed from the bathroom door.

The first floor of the main unit was fairly, ok. As I said, no wow, pretty much allowing me to believe that the money one would pay for the house is just location and not the house itself. I mean the wood floors were nice but, for $619K I would expect a little more care in how the house was fixed up.

Click here for image of upstairs

When I went up the stairs I noticed some problems with the wood work were problems were painted over. Sad. Sad because the house does have so much potential. If whoever was fixing it up had just taken a little bit more time with it and took care of the little details that would have made it look better….*sigh*. Anyway there were exposed brick bedrooms and small bedrooms with fireplaces. Do they work? Unknown, but they look nice. The house gets a decent amount of light.



The basement is supposed to be a legal rental unit. It has all one would expect from a finished basement, kitchen, living area, bedroom, full bath and damp. I noticed the problem near the bottom of the walls. The paint was bubbling away from the walls. A few dehumidifiers might help. Or not. But keeping water and dampness out of this basement might be cause for concern.

Should one buy this house? Oh, yes, but not at the price given. One would have to take something off the price to address the issues of damp and fixing the minor things.

Pruning Workshop for All Feb 26th!

Tree Pruning Workshop

Saturday, February 26th, 10 A.M.

Seaton Elementary School

(10th and P Streets, NW)

D.C. Greenworks will be leading a FREE training workshop for all of our

TreeKeepers in the Shaw community as well as other residents interested

in becoming TreeKeepers this spring.

Come learn how to prune young trees and identify the most common

species in the neighborhood. Then you can take your new skills back to your block

and prune your own trees.

Please contact us with any questions. We hope to see you there!

RSVP by phone at 518-6195 or email at trees@dcgreenworks.org.

(Rain date: Sunday, Feb. 27th, 1 P.M.)

Bethie Miller

Community Outreach Organizer

D.C. Greenworks

2451 18th Street, NW 2nd floor

Washington, D.C. 20009

202-518-6195

202-518-5507 fax

I won’t be attending this month’s Bates Area Civic Association meeting at Mt. Sinai because of prior commitments. If anyone out there does go, please reply or tell me what went on, especially if the police show up and mention a person being found dead this weekend.

MONTHLY MEETING NOTICE

Featured Topics for the Evening Include:

The DC Comprehensive Plan

Public Safety in the Community

John F. Cook School Library Initiative

Mini-Grant Application for Garden Resources of Washington

Monday, February 7, 2005

Mount Sinai Baptist Church

3rd and Q Streets, N.W.

Rooms 1 and 2

7:00 p.m. until 9:00 p.m.

For more information regarding the meeting and/or the Association,

contact Jim Berry at (202) 387-8520

2/8/2005 Correction: The person described in this post did not die. I repeat, did not die. I was wrong. What happened according to a neighbor who lives closer and who actually found the woman on the side walk, she was bleeding from her head and mouth and was unresponsive. The people in the house where the trail of blood began had locked her out and were inside when the police came and knocked on the door, but they did not answer. It is possible that she could have died from her injuries, but as far as we know, she’s still alive.

I was planning on writing about my exciting morning shopping at National Warehouse Liquidators and spending way too much money at a garden store on seeds, seeds! Yet apparently something far more interesting has happened on my block. One of my neighbors found a dead body lying on the sidewalk.

What do I know about the body?

I know Jack squat. I didn’t know there was a problem until I noticed the flashing lights outside my window. Even then I didn’t give it too much thought. For the past month the fire department and EMS van have been on my street for one thing or another. Usually carting off some talking, breathing resident for one age related ailment or another. Seeing where the truck and van parked themselves on the street I figured a) domestic disturbance b) chemical OD or c)sickness due to unhealthy living. So I didn’t really think anything was that amiss when there was a crowd of paramedics and cops around the person lying on the sidewalk.

I am about 5-6 doors down from the body so as far I could tell they could have been talking to and treating the person. Nope. I knew there was something wrong when the 5th cop car drove up and when the paramedic came out with a huge jug of bleach (I could smell it) and poured it over the sidewalk and hosed it down.

The police interviewed some of the neighbors who came out (flashing lights can do that). My interview was short.

Policeman: Did you hear or see anything?

Me: No. I must have been in the basement.

That was it. I am a worthless witness. I was in the basement and when I was upstairs I was on the phone, if I did hear anything I ignored it along with the hammering from the illegal contract work in the alley.

The police did knock on the door of the house where the dead person may have been visiting, but no one answered the door.

The body couldn’t have been out there long. I was over near that house just 2 hours before, chatting with neighbors and joking about being an axe murderer (if anyone want to check my hatchet, knock yourself out). After not being to do any digging in the yard because the ground is still frozen I came back into the house. A couple of hours later, body.

How do I feel? Eh. I’m alive. Until I hear otherwise, it could be one of those killings where the victim knew their killer. So I don’t feel any sense of fear or anxiety. Also I didn’t discover the body. That helps. My mom who works in an old folks home, where because of their age, old folks die, is still bothered by finding a dead patient she found last week. It may have been a different story if I found the body.

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.