I’m calling this lunchbreak history as this is something I can churn out on my lunchbreak. Anyway, somewhere on the Big Bear site, which has now disappeared (as the right hand column, with the history, was not there when I went there last) was a history of the Big Bear Cafe, which was the Big Bear Market, and that sort of was the history. So that inspired me to wander down to the library in the building and check out the city directories.
1919 was the first year I grabbed. The index by street is available in earlier years, but I can’t remember how early. Anyway, in 1919 at 1700 1st there was a man by the name of Earnest D. Thorne, and he was a grocer.
Second book, was 1930 and the next guy at 1700 1st NW was Oscar Bernard Diskin. He was also a grocer. I looked for a Big Bear Market, but none was listed.
The last book I grabbed because well, lunch is nearly over, was 1967. At 1700 1st Street NW was the Fairway Market Grocers, telephone number DU7-7969. I did see a listing for a Big Bear Market in 1967, listed at 1018 North Capitol owned by Jack Mehlman. Well Big Bear Cafe, sounds way more interesting than Fairway Cafe, so I’m glad it eventually became the Bear. I wonder if Big Bear Market moved to 1st Street or if it is just a coincidence? The directories go up to 1970something. However, lunch over, back to work.
Tag: neighborhood history
A new day, now get to work
Lot of stuff I wanna cover … It is September and InShaw has entered semi-retirement, or an active retirement. It may be another way of saying I’ll post when I darned well feel like it, and post what moves me to post. So there may be several days when there is nothing, and periods of furious posting.
I’ve also changed the name slightly. So “(now with more gentrification)” has been dropped, in favor of what interests me, history. Gentrification still is in there but isn’t the focus. The mad real estate boom has passed and the gentrification it fueled, has calmed a bit. If that rooming house, crack house, liquor store, vacant building hasn’t been developed yet, it may be a while before it does. Maybe during the next wave of real estate fervor, maybe between now and then, and maybe never. In the meantime, there are other things to look at, like the past.
The past couple of years, the past couple of decades, whenever. I’m going with what a co-worker defined as history, anything that happened in the past. So anything between the Big Bang/Let-there-be-light and last week is up for grabs. But to be more DC focused I’ll start somewhere in the 18th Century.
Today I just want to talk about Sunday’s Washington Post.
Sorta under the title of ‘gentrification’ is Income Soaring in Egghead Capital. Where I see the DC metro area is where the nation’s well off African-American households live. Yet $55,547 is a pitiful amount compared to our Asian ($83,908) and Non-Hispanic White (94,290) colleagues. The data the Post provided kinda proved a belief that I had about the black middle class, they wanna get as far away from “Pookie” as their middle and upper-middle class white colleagues do. The highest median Black incomes $92,492 in Loudoun and $89,096 in Stafford, are far from the District ($34,484 and the highest percentage of population living below the poverty line).
Looking at my own middle class Black family, I and my blind great-aunt are the only ones in the District. The next closest relative tried to escape inner Beltway Prince George’s County because of all that’s going on around, but couldn’t due to a failure to sell the house. If the house did sell, outer-waaay past Upper Marlborough would have been the new address. Then everyone else is in Fairfax Co. and Howard Co. I’ve noticed when the relatives move up in house, they seem to move further out. They express a desire for more space, more amenities (planned communities w/ clubhouse) and less crap.
But back to gentrification…. So if high earning African-Americans are engaging in black flight from the city and inner-ring suburbs, that could mean that they are leaving a residential void. A void filled by poorer Blacks and middle-upper class non-Blacks. Add to that the great big gap in incomes ($91,631-white; $67,137-Asian; $43,484-Hispanic and $34,484-Black), housing prices, and you got a problem. And I wonder, even if District employers provide the higher paying job opportunities, what is there to say that African-Americans who fill those positions will be from the District or will stay in the District? Okay, now I’m rambling, next…
Back from Behind Bars has a graph, that shows Truxton Circle as one of the communities where 5.1 or more (per 1,000 residents) ex-cons return to after being released from the criminal justice system. The other parts of Shaw (except what looks like upper U Street) have a rate of 5 or less per 1,000. The articles goes in on how those released have trouble finding housing and employment, and staying away from the things that led to prison.
And something that has more of a history bent an opinion piece about Dunbar High School in its hey-day. It’s more about integration and colorism than the school itself, but the print version has a nice photograph of the school in 1931. The original school is no longer and it has been replaced by that prison-like building that dominates the TC skyline.
InShaw: A historic blog
I’ve decided that September I will slowly start doing more history related posts as I semi-retire this. I’ve been inspired to go into a historical direction because of the work I’ve been doing at that place where they pay me to show up and do stuff. However, the problem is though I’m dying, dying I tell ya, to talk about all the gems I find while, doing the stuff they pay me to do. Since I’ve shown an interest in local/regional DC history I’ve been given (and I’m so thankful) projects that deal with the District of Columbia. However, I can’t write specifically about those cool things I find on the blog, something about ethics and abusing my position. I can yak about it to friends, but not publish it on the web, or that’s how I interpreted what my boss said. Any government lawyers read this blog? Wanna offer any advice?
In general, and I think I’m safe speaking generally, it seems to take projects that transform neighborhoods in this city decades from start to finish, not years, decades. Also I’m amazed anything gets done, ask me in person what I mean. I am amazed when I spot something that I swore was a 21st century fixture in the city, being advocated for/ or protested against, back in the 1980s. Oops, maybe I was too specific there.
Yes, and 1980 is history. I used to say that if I was alive during that time period it isn’t history. I had to stop saying that once I hit 30. And in general 1980s DC is a whole ‘nother city. Walk around downtown, and there are buildings that are just part of the landscape that weren’t there in the 70s. The mayor was Barry.
Our neighborhood history, and that is everything that happened, oh yesterday on back, is interesting because we live here. It explains to an extent of why certain things are the way they are. Knowing what happened can enrich our lives here as residents and give a sense of our place in space and time. The other history stuff, the packaging to tourists crap, I have no care for. Nor do I care for simplified sanitized history, life is messy. And even worse, a sort of invented history, where you take a long period, say a 75 year span, pick and choose parts a la cart, slap them together in a vague narrative that puts an image in others minds that was never reality.
Okay, I’m ranting, I gotta stop.
City of Magnificent Intentions
I can see why children hate history. I’m returning the textbook on the history of the District of Columbia to my library since it is ILL (inter library loan) and it is just depressing. Really, I can see why school children can hate history. I love history. It is like learning about another country, where you can’t get a visa.
The textbook, City of Magnificent Intentions: A History of Washington, District of Columbia is useful in that it is crammed, crammed I say, with dates and facts. What I learned from what little I read and skimmed through has been fascinating. However, I read very little because I could not read this like I have been able to do with other books. Reading, I felt like tons and tons of facts were being shoved at me and the story, the narrative was secondary. It was like reading the encyclopedia…. for those of you who remember encyclopedias when they were in book form.
I understand why the book was written the way it was written. Gotta shove those dates and facts at the kids. You can test for that. But it does not make for leisure reading and I can see how a reader can get resentful.
It is most enjoyable when you flip through it. The photographs of people and locations around the District are interesting and the maps showing growth in the region has been helpful. Reading subsections of chapters is do-able, and pausing to think about what was written, and applying it to the present, allows for ah-ha moments. For example there is a section on neighborhood history and white flight to the suburbs and an organization “Neighbors, Inc”. A caption in the chapter reads:
By fostering communication and cooperation, Neighbors, Inc. helped halt “white flight” in the part of Northwest roughly east of 16th Street and north of Kennedy Street.
It ends on a sad note as it was published in 1997. It leaves with a Control Board overseeing the District government, Marion ‘the bitch set me up’ Barry was re-elected, and downtown DC decaying. Sitting here 10 years in the book’s future with no control board, a young bald mayor named Adrian and a vibrant downtown, I feel good.
Three who improved my Sunday
Let’s start with Peter. I made a 2nd run over to the Bloomingdale farmer’s market to pick up snacks for the weekend painting. While I was there I noticed some guy in front of the Big Bear playing guitar. His back was to the market, facing the R Street entrance of the Bear, but I knew who it was, it was Peter, a neighbor. He and his wife live a block from my house and it was great to see very local talent. The thing that made me feel good was, I asked Peter to play some blues to enhance my shopping experience, he did, and that made me happy.
Right after leaving the market with a bag of cherries, I ran into another neighbor and gave him a house tour. He validated some of my decisions about painting the brick and the new layout which made the place unique. If you count the kitchen that was done several years back, the renovations have been quite customized and geared towards pleasing me and not so much a future buyer. I don’t/won’t have the stainless steel, granite countertop, oak/maple floor, CAC, bricky exposed brick, standard tub, marble tile set up that has become quite common in many renovations. There is nothing wrong in liking and wanting those things, but they don’t reflect me and my desires. I like my counter tops to be forgiving with china and glass. I love my heated floors and I love my radiators. The living rm floors were recycled from what was under the carpet. The tub, a used and now repainted clawfoot, promises me some soaking enjoyment with showering utility. The house has character, now hopefully, the good kind.
Then later that day I met up with a colleague at a mixer (the American Library Association was in town, did you notice?). We were talking, and I mentioned this blog that I’m going to semi-retire and spin off something else that excites me, neighborhood history. Then he and I got to talking about historic districts and preservation and realized we were of the same mind. I can’t explain this joy that rushed over me, to encounter someone with a strong academic background in history and a true understanding that not every d*mn thing can be preserved. Then he mentioned that somewhere out there there is some data that recently shows that houses in historic districts do less well in the real estate market because of the restrictions. He also explained the difference between antiquarians and historians.
Friday miscellany
One. Shaw, or the Shaw School Urban Renewal Area is Florida Ave, North Cap, NY to M St, to 15th St. And if one of the creators (national capital planning commission) of that border keeps fiddling with the Shaw plan but not the borders, then what was Shaw in 1973 then it is still Shaw in 2007. There are enclaves within Shaw that have exerted their own identities, but in my mind they are still in the dysfunctional family called Shaw.
Community Reporter Jenny Johnson is incorrect in her article saying that Big Bear is part of Shaw’s Rapid Transformation. Eckington/Bloomingdale is the neighborhood the Bear is in. The Bear just sits on the border, so Shaw’s TCer’s are happy it is so close.
Flipping through some early 20th century neighborhood history Eckington and the TC have been closely linked. Or so it seems. My fav was the Eckington Citizen Association complaining that there were too many schools being placed in the 1st Street/ North Cap region along P.
Two. Going to see the family so no posting for a while. I’m going to Florida in the Summer.
Three. Sunday. Go to the Big Bear between 10 & 2 and hopefully there will be a Farmer’s Market.
Alternative Future
In the book “Washington DC Present and Future” published in 1950 by the National Capitol Park & Planning Commission (so its a govt doc, copy away) there is a proposed idea, that never came to be. The above picture (from Truxtoncircle.org) shows an area bound by 7th, Rhode Island, New Jersey and New York Avenues NW. The left is a part of Shaw in the late 1940s, the right is the idea of what it would be, large apartment buildings, snaky townhouse rows, and lot of open space. Roads went missing in this alternative future, M & N Street are gone as well as small road like Warner and Franklin. Anyway, never happened, well not in this version. 1/2 of Franklin did disappear and there are a bunch of apartment buildings along 7th.
Your house is crap
Today’s theme negativity. I must be in a mood.
Anyway, I hope my host has been able to find, or will be able to find, a MICCO survey done in the late 1960s of Shaw houses. I saw parts of the survey and hopefully the complete survey is located somewhere in the George Washington Univ archives.
From the portion I saw, here’s the deal. Each square was surveyed for the condition of the all the houses on that square. Unfortunately, what little I saw, a majority of houses where in poor condition, deteriorating or needing extensive repair. A small percentage were solid. Now, taking that to the next conclusion, if those houses weren’t satisfactorily repaired or renovated, or if the renovations were as crappy as the one done on my house (renovated in the 80s), then y’all should be a little bit concerned about your house.
Have a pleasant weekend.
Slummy history
Okay I think I now know what direction I want to go with my blogging. I have been thinking of ending InShaw, as we know it, sometime next year. Well I might just put InShaw in semi-retirement, just reporting on the TC side of things and things close to the TC borders. What I may replace it with is good old Shaw history since I’m finding the stuff I find so friggin interesting.
I’m not talking Victoriana or great people history. I don’t subscribe too much to the idea that history is a glorifying narrative, nah. To me it is an explanation of why this world is broken, and screwed up. Why my house was designed by crackheads. We hear the phrase ‘we read about history so that we may learn from it’, well this is what I’m learning, and I enjoy sharing it with you.
Looking for more info on the Shaw School Urban Renewal Plan, I found a master’s thesis from M.I.T. “The influence of meaningful citizen participation on the urban renewal process and the renewal of the inner-city’s black community: a case study – Washington, D.C.’s Shaw School urban renewal area – MICCO, a unique experiment.” by Reginald Wilbert Griffith, written in 1969. I want to thank MIT for putting out those papers that normally only 5 people tops (10 people for PhD dissertations) would ever see, because it is a jewel, even though it is a quite biased bit of work, or “limited objectivity on the part of the author,…”
The PDF file MIT provides to non-MIT people doesn’t allow printing, but it is worth the read for two bits that I found enlightening. One was a late 1960s description of the area on page 20:
The Shaw School area, named after an aged and dilapidated junior high school known as ‘Shameful Shaw’ is third in terms of the evolution of communities in the District of Columbia and was the fifth blighted section of Washington to be studied and the latest to be approved, for urban renewal. It was planned from a ‘black community’ and ‘advocacy planning’ point of view.
And on page 15, the author mentions “Concentrations and/or differences in land uses, physical conditions and building types, income property ownership and race coupled with identifiable places of community activity, all combine to suggest several communities within the Shaw area (see map 3).” However, he doesn’t try to name them, which I found frustrating.
Renovation 2007: Inspections & Miss. Cel Lany
Well my contractor called and said that the electrical inspection passed. Yay. And because they can’t do anything until the plumbing inspection there has been a lull in the amount of work they are doing at the house. Meaning, no one is around when say the plumbing inspector drops by. So there was a big red sticker (not orange but red) on the door saying that the plumbing inspector was by and there was no one to let him in. So that holds back the work until sometime next week when the contractor will wait around the house for the city inspector to come by and look at the plumbing.
The plumbing looks, interesting. He’s using plastic or pvc or whatever the heck that is, instead of copper in some spots. I guess that saves me money, considering the price of copper. The radiator lines do have copper.
Once the plumbing inspection goes through then they will begin the dizzying fast paced work of insulating and sticking up drywall. That’s when the walls will seem more real and I get closer to moving back into my house.
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On the TC front it looks like the grant for the Hanover Civic people and their Truxton Circle confirming beautification project will go through. I say, looks like. Given that the city already calls the area Truxton Circle and the Hanover people need the money and a few of us sent letters in support of the Hanover grant, I think we should be good.
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In the Shaw history research area I went to look for Shaw, Washington’s premier Black neighborhood : an examination of the origins and development of a Black business movement, 1880-1920 by Michael Fitzpatrick at the MLK and it is lost. It might be misfiled but it wasn’t behind the desk, like it was supposed to be. Nor was it on the shelf in the Washingtonia room. Confronted with this problem, I decided to leave the MLK, hop on the yellow line and go to VA to buy shoes. Cloth flats totally make up for a disappointing research outing.