November 16, 2010 | 2:04 PM | By Anna
I can’t stop thinking about my last post, where I highlighted the powerful piece Amanda Hess wrote for TBD, about an anomalous block in Logan Circle which is struggling with the exact issues this blog was created to address: race and class. One block in a desirable neighborhood, where gentrification coexists with an affordable housing development was home to at least two victims of appalling, violent assaults, because of their race and sexual orientation– and in one case, the perpetrators did not live where they committed their crime. They were just hanging out there.
It’s depressing to consider, because when I usually talk to people in this city about gentrification, the most optimistic types hope for an arrangement which sounds…exactly like the 1400 block of R Street, where the affordable R Street Apartments sit next to more expensive homes, creating a neighborhood full of ethnic and economic diversity. Unfortunately, Amanda’s investigation uncovered intimidation and what sound like hate crimes at R Street Apartments, which leads me to wonder if affordable housing can coexist with market-rate real estate? If off-duty cops are afraid to walk on a certain block of R Street, why isn’t more being done to make it safe?
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November 16, 2010 | 11:24 AM | By Anna
dnewman8
I couldn’t stop reading this piece on gentrification and hate crimes in TBD:
The 1400 block of R has always seen more than its share of crime, and the building’s new low-flow showerheads have done little to douse that problem. “If there’s a report of a robbery, assault, anything of that nature in the area, the first place that officers will go is the 1400 block of R Street,” one D.C. police officer told me. “If I’m off-duty and walking by myself, I would walk five blocks out of my way to avoid that block.”
According to a search on the D.C. police website, the 1400 block of R Street records a crime rate two to three times that of the surrounding blocks…The block’s criminal element occasionally has priorities higher than financial gain. When Puntanen came to, he found his watch still on his wrist and his wallet and cell phone in his pocket. “The assault had nothing to do with money,” Puntanen says. “Obviously, I had no money. Everything I have is from the dump or from the corner or from the secondhand store. I have a 14-inch TV. I don’t even have a computer. No stereo,” he says. Stanley, too, was never robbed in his four months on R Street. “They only wanted one thing: To get the faggot white guy out of there,” Puntanen says.
November 16, 2010 | 8:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were cringing at Monday Night Football, we were out gathering links!
Amid Montgomery’s affluence, plight of suburban poor worsens in downturn “Everyone I know is rich,” Willie said. “They have everything, and I have nothing. I’ve had these shorts for, like, three years.” He gestured down to his baggy black cargos. “I can’t afford to gain any weight or I’ll grow out of them.”…”We just bought a bike, they just bought an RV. We just paid our [utility] bill, they just got their house redone. It sucks,” he said.” (The Washington Post)
D.C. Swimming in Debt “Sure, the D.C. area is home to some of the richest counties in the country — Loudoun County, Va., is the wealthiest in the nation — but Washington, D.C., itself is swimming in debt. According the the Washington Business Journal, D.C. ranks high when it comes to costly household bills. Credit reporting company Experian found that Washington, Seattle and Baltimore top the list of highest average monthly bills. That includes a combination of credit card bills, car loans and mortgages.” (NBC Washington)
Barry seeks to enforce lifetime welfare cap “A stream of advocates testified against placing limitations on the cash allotments that needy families receive, arguing that families already in distress may fall into the abyss. But Mr. Barry said the D.C. program is broken and needs fixing because it may be “adding to the disintegration of the family…I consider myself liberal, someone who thinks government should step in when we can’t take care of ourselves,” said Mr. Barry, a lifelong advocate of the needy. “But this [welfare] program may be adding to the disintegration of the family.” (Washington Times)
November 15, 2010 | 6:29 PM | By Anna
turtlemom4bacon
The well-known red kettle.
This is unfortunate; ever since I was a little girl, I have associated red kettles and ringing bells with the holiday season. I won’t be hearing or seeing such things at my local Giant:
Ken Forsythe, spokesman for the Salvation Army National Capital Area Command, says that Giant Food of Maryland has reduced the number of hours and days that the group’s bell ringers will be able to be in front of the grocery stores.
The reduction of hours could have a huge impact on the Salvation Army’s ability to raise money, according to Forsythe.
“The Salvation Army has been partners with Giant Food stores for probably several decades or better,” says Forsythe.
He says that an estimated 45 percent of the funds raised during last year’s Red Kettle Drive came from bell ringers in front of Giant stores. [WTOP]
The Salvation Army will only be allowed to collect funds for one week in November and another in December. A spokesperson for Giant said something perfunctory about serving customers and being committed to the community. Apparently, the red kettles “hinder” the shopping experience. That’s a confusing reason to stop a decades-old tradition, though. If Giant were truly interested in the “experience” their stores provide, they’d focus on customer service, cleaner stores and courteous employees…but getting rid of a red kettle is probably easier and faster.
November 15, 2010 | 4:45 PM | By Anna
iwantamonkey
WMATA Bus Stop in Hyattsville, MD
Here’s a great post about how much the location of a bus stop matters. Poorly-located or -designed stops discourage riders from using the bus, unless they absolutely have to. Additionally, the fact that some malls don’t want bus stops on their property reinforces the “second-class” perception of that mode of tranpsort:
The result is to create additional burdens on those using the bus for shopping, requiring them to haul or push their purchases a significant distance to the bus stop, a process that would be particularly unpleasant in rain or snow (or, here in Vegas, when it’s 117 degrees), or for those with mobility issues.
When mass transit stops are systematically located in inconvenient or isolated areas, it disadvantages those who are dependent on public transportation and discourages others from choosing to ride rather than driving their own car, and reinforces a common perception of the bus, in particular, as an inferior form of transportation…
November 15, 2010 | 2:21 PM | By Anna
tonbabydc
Tony Dungy and Donovan McNabb
I don’t know if “issues of race are often discussed head-on” in D.C. (unless the writer means “among people of the same color”) but I was glad that one of you sent me this story about our local NFL team: “Is Coach Shanahan Racist or Just Dumb?”
Here in D.C., in Obama’s so-called post-racial America, issues of race are often discussed head-on, and talk of the strained relationship between McNabb, who is black, and Shanahan, who is white, have dominated conversations in barber shops, offices and sports bars across the city – and across the country – for the past 14 days.
“Indications are now that the Shanahans, father and son, don’t much like the way McNabb prepares for games,” Michael Wilbon, a prominent sports columnist, wrote in The Washington Post. “Mike’s assertion makes it sound like McNabb is some dummy, an ominous characterization he’d better be careful about, lest he run into some cultural trouble in greater Washington, D.C.”…
This is not Denver, Shanahan’s last coaching job. This is the nation’s capitol, nicknamed “Chocolate City,” a place where scores of highly-educated African-Americans cheer for the Redskins – and the team’s black quarterback – every Sunday…
And so Shanahan’s humiliating insinuation that McNabb cannot intellectually absorb the complexities of the Redskins offense after 11 successful years as an NFL quarterback was taken as a collective insult to many black Americans in D.C. who viewed McNabb’s demotion – and the way it was handled – as discriminatory.
November 15, 2010 | 11:41 AM | By Anna
This video about the D.C. Central Kitchen deserves to be seen (and this program deserves to be emulated, widely):
If you’d like to get involved with the D.C. Central Kitchen, please go here.
November 15, 2010 | 8:52 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Here are today’s links:
Another gay bashing recorded along D.C.’s gentrification corridors “Given the presence of “not in this neighborhood” threats in many of these crimes, I asked him for his thoughts on the relationship between gentrifying neighborhoods and hate crime reports in the District. “We don’t want to dismiss the role that race and class and gentrification can play, but it’s also a fact that crime in D.C. spikes during the summer months. People are out of school, temperatures are warmer, everyone is out on the street a lot later with not much going on,” Montoni told me. “We can’t tease out whether the source is mixed housing developments and gentrification, or if it’s just the seasonal spike we’ve typically seen.” (tbd.com)
Metro escalator brake, maintenance problems widespread “Metro may be the world’s largest owner of an outmoded and problematic type of escalator, one that has suffered brake failure accidents in other transit systems and is notorious among experts for requiring a high level of maintenance…The escalator involved is a Westinghouse Modular 100…making up 83 percent of Metro’s 588 escalators. “There is a ton of them out there, and no one is really happy with them,” said Ken Smith, an escalator consultant and a member of the escalator code committee of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. In fact, the model was discontinued 30 years ago.” (The Washington Post)
Number of millionaires in D.C. area gets bigger – wtop.com “A millionaire household is defined as one with $1 million or more of investable liquid assets, excluding retirement plans and real estate. Simply owning a million dollar home doesn’t make you a millionaire. Virginia dropped two places from 2009. The Commonwealth ranks seventh on this year’s list with 180,638 millionaire households. That’s 5.94 percent of the state’s 3,043,091 households. The District rounds out the top 10 for the second year in a row. Just under 15,000 households have liquid assets of a million dollars or more, which is 5.53 percent of the District’s 262,976 homes.” (wtop.com)
November 12, 2010 | 5:42 PM | By Anna
marrngtn (Manuel)
So, last week Metro Transit Police heard from a Metro-rider that two men were engaged in shady behavior at L’Enfant Plaza and on the Orange Line (via WTOP):
The rider told Metro he saw two men acting suspiciously and videotaping platforms, trains and riders.
“The men, according to the citizen report, were trying to be inconspicuous, holding the cameras at their sides,” Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel says.
The rider was able to photograph the men who were videotaping and sent the photo to Metro Transit Police.
Metro Transit Police issued an internal memo to officers telling them to “be on the lookout for” the men, a standard tactic used by police departments to share information with their officers.
However, that internal memo was leaked. Metro says the memo was meant for an internal audience only and was not intended to be a public notice.
Some photographers are alarmed at how this memo could be misinterpreted, and as a brown female who always has her camera with her (it’s part of my job!), I understand why. At the same time, I worry about how vulnerable Metro is to a terrorist attack. How vigilant is too vigilant? And how much liberty should we lose to be safe?
November 12, 2010 | 4:42 PM | By Anna
Below the jump, you’ll find a video from WAMU’s The Kojo Nnamdi Show, featuring a brief discussion on food trucks. It stars Council member Jack Evans, the Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis and KNS regular/NBC 4 reporter, Tom Sherwood.
As someone who has spoken to food truck owners for this blog, I’m dismayed that “official” D.C. is so inhospitable to them. They increase the diversity of food offerings in this town, trek out to feed under-served neighborhoods and create a much lower barrier to starting a business– which is helpful if you’re young, a person of color, etc. Thankfully, Kojo points out in the video below that if we want “to be considered a major city”, food trucks are a part of that. The Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis also thinks that trucks are an asset to D.C.
Continue reading →
