Gentrification

RECENT POSTS

November 8, 2010 | 12:22 PM | By

Gentrifying a Small Town like D.C.

NCinDC

Blagden Alley - Naylor Court Historic District

One of you pointed me towards an interesting post on BaancBlog: Blagden Alley and Naylor Court Jesting. In it, blogger Alley Denizen discusses the controversial piece Megan McArdle wrote for The Atlantic last month (“The Gentrifier’s Lament“):

What bothered me was the “here’s how gentrification works” attitude of it when I had the feeling that the author hadn’t been to many community meetings in DC and hadn’t spent that much time here. It seemed rather an attempt to put an abstraction of the New York model, with reference to the West Village onto DC. It didn’t seem DC concrete.

DC isn’t New York for various reasons, which is obvious. One of them is that DC is in many ways a small town.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification
November 3, 2010 | 2:34 PM | By

The Kojo Nnamdi Show is at The Arc, tonight.

As I mentioned yesterday, The Kojo Nnamdi Show will be in Southeast D.C. this evening, hosting another “Kojo in Your Community” event, at The Arc. Doors open in three hours.

If you read this blog, you’ll probably be very interested in the topics they will be discussing– including the employment gap, how Ward Eight is changing (organic groceries! art galleries!), plus gentrification. The event is free and metro-accessible (Green Line: Southern Avenue Station). The show will air tomorrow, so if you can’t make it tonight, you won’t miss it entirely…but wouldn’t it be much cooler to ask Kojo questions, in person?

FILED UNDER: Delightful City, Gentrification, Kojo, WAMU
November 1, 2010 | 11:33 AM | By

“I think the bike lobby liked Fenty.”

merfam

Random cab in D.C. I was too busy typing to photograph mine!

I opened the door and threw my laptop bag and purse down the expansive backseat of a weathered American sedan. “NPR, please”, I said. The driver looked at me in his rear view mirror, eyes crinkling.

“They are building a new building.” His voice was low and lovely. I instantly relaxed, as I often do, when I hear the lilt of an accent.

“NPR? Yes, they are.”

“I hope they tear all the walls. It’s just a warehouse, that thing was old.” He pronounces thing like “ting”. I love it.

“You’re awfully opinionated about a company you don’t even listen to,” I teased. “Isn’t this WTOP I’m hearing?” He decisively punches one button on his radio, and the car is filled with the Diane Rehm Show. “I work for WAMU,” I tell him.

“I switch from time to time. Whole thing is great. Rehm is doing well, Kojo is doing fine. You work with Kojo from time to time?”

I mention that I work on the same floor but that no, I don’t work with him. He changes the subject.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, 2010 Elections, Fenty, Gentrification, Immigrants, NPR, Vince Gray
October 22, 2010 | 3:10 PM | By

“It is an entitlement thing.”

Another response to Megan McArdle’s “Gentrifiers Lament” for The Atlantic, this time from local blog In Bloom. One of McArdle’s neighbors in Bloomingdale penned this:

Gentrification is also hurting middle-income African-Americans and minorities. By “middle-income,” I don’t mean middle-class, because I am far from that monetary threshold. By “middle-income,” I’m talking about myself, friends, and others who are like me: young, educated professionals who make above the poverty level, but not quite enough to afford to buy or to rent in a neighborhood that is ideal to what we are looking for. Whether it’s due to the market, neighborhood, or gentrification, landlords and owners are pricing the rent at such an unaffordable rate that the $30,000-$45,000 income we earn annually looks even more dismal…

my plea to you, gentrifiers *, is to make sure to make this a mixed-income, or rather a melting-pot neighborhood with various incomes and socioeconomic statuses. Yes, the median neighborhood income is probably now well above my $39,000 annual income, but I’m a responsible citizen who works, goes to school, and adds value to our neighborhood and community at large. Please understand that this isn’t so much of a race thing as it is an entitlement thing.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Bloomingdale, Gentrification, Race and Class, Real Estate
October 20, 2010 | 4:45 PM | By

“Look what we did with it”

Mr. T in DC

1829 1st Street NW, Bloomingdale

I guess I’ll link to The Atlantic twice in one day; Megan McArdle is reluctant about gentrifying her neighborhood.

Yesterday, I rode the bus for the first time from the stop near my house, and ended up chatting with a lifelong neighborhood resident who has just moved to Arizona, and was back visiting family. We talked about the vagaries of the city bus system, and then after a pause, he said, “You know, you may have heard us talking about you people, how we don’t want you here. A lot of people are saying you all are taking the city from us. Way I feel is, you don’t own a city.” He paused and looked around the admittedly somewhat seedy street corner. “Besides, look what we did with it. We had it for forty years, and look what we did with it!”

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Bloomingdale, Gentrification, Race and Class
October 19, 2010 | 4:20 PM | By

Who are the people in your neighborhood?

gnagesh

Z Burger in Glover Park.

I live in Columbia Heights. I end up at DCUSA, or what I call the “vertical strip mall“, almost daily. I was overjoyed that the Target within it expanded their grocery section because I avoid the Giant supermarket near 14th and Park unless it’s an emergency; the last time I was there, it was during a blizzard and the infamously-long lines stretched to the back of the store– and then wrapped around it.

I’ve dined at almost every establishment within a block of the Metro except for the ones that weren’t vegetarian-friendly. I write all of this to say that I know the commercial, congested two-block strip of Columbia Heights between where I live and the historic, Tivoli Theatre, and I know it well. And that is why I am concomitantly happy and annoyed that Prince of Petworth announced the impending arrival of Z Burger, a local chain currently serving Tenleytown and Glover Park. Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Columbia Heights, DCUSA, Gentrification, Race and Class
October 13, 2010 | 3:03 PM | By

The Hate Graffiti that wasn’t.

jaundicedferret

Lorax tattoo by Paul Roe, British Ink

Yesterday, I went to Metro Mutts on H Street NE to find out more about the hateful graffiti which some vandal had spray painted on “their” door this weekend. I was surprised to discover two things:

- Metro Mutts has never encountered any negativity or hostility before this

- Metro Mutts shares the vandalized door with upstairs neighbor, British Ink.

In fact, the “door” which was tagged is really an outer door which doesn’t even have the six-month old pet shop’s name on it yet– there is merely a round, Metro Mutts sticker. It seems inaccurate to declare that Metro Mutts was the target of racist, anti-Gay, anti-gentrification graffiti but the mistake is wholly understandable; the first floor store front belongs to them. Anna Collins, one of the co-owners of the cleanest pet store I’ve ever been to, said that she didn’t think the ugly message was aimed at Metro Mutts– and that I should speak to Paul Roe, of British Ink about the incident. I did, this morning, for an hour.

Roe’s unique, by-appointment-only, couture tattoo studio has been open for four years. I asked him why he chose H Street.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification, H Street NE, LGBT, Race and Class, Small Business
October 13, 2010 | 9:15 AM | By

Was Metro Mutts the target of hate graffiti?

Window at Metro Mutts

Yesterday, TBD, Prince of Petworth and Frozen Tropics all reported that Metro Mutts, a pet store on H Street NE, had been vandalized with hateful, racist graffiti. Someone spray painted the following on their door:

“Cracker (large penis illustration) get out my city fag”

Since this unfortunate incident involves race, class and gentrification in the District, I wanted to learn more about what I had read, so last night I took my puppy to H Street to visit Metro Mutts and talk to Anna Collins, who has a fantastic name; she is one of the six-month old store’s owners.

Collins said that the door had been vandalized on Saturday night, after Metro Mutts closed at 6pm but before a regular customer walked by and spotted the graffiti at 9. She expressed some surprise at the gay slur since Metro Mutts is “primarily a woman-run business”– they do have one male partner, but he’s not in the store that often. Collins confirmed that the police had taken their complaint and then sent someone who investigates hate crimes (possibly someone from the GLLU).

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification, H Street NE, LGBT, Race and Class, Small Business
October 5, 2010 | 2:17 PM | By

“Expressing dissent through murder”

Kevin H.

Bryan Weaver has a powerful post up at Greater Greater Washington regarding Jamal Coates, gun violence and how such tragedy seems to replay itself on an endless loop.

Public officials will tell you that the crews have moved on to other parts of the city… so don’t believe your lying eyes. We have been here before, a high profile killing that grabs the up and coming part of the city. But then like collective amnesia we move on and forget.

The point being made in article after article is that last week’s murder happened in the rapidly gentrifying part of the city. But we can’t coffee-shop and bike-lane our way out of this tragedy. There are still numerous people in DC who have degenerated to the point of expressing dissent through murder and haven’t learned to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable, no matter where they live. But my hope is that the people who use those coffee shops and bike lanes can and will be the change — if they care enough to do so….

More:
Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: The People, Crime, Gentrification, Gun Violence, Race and Class, U Street
September 27, 2010 | 6:53 PM | By

IHOP Columbia Heights draws 300 job-seekers

_Fidelio_

Pancakes from IHOP

You may have heard that on November 16, an International House of Pancakes will be opening in our city’s favorite vertical strip mall, DCUSA. It will employ 100 people. Via TBD:

More than 300 have submitted applications so far for what will be an IHOP across from Columbia Heights Metro. It is owned by the same family who opened D.C.’s first IHOP in Southeast two years ago: the Jacksons. They say federal stimulus money’s made this new opening possible.

Clarence Jackson, co-owner of the franchise, is a D.C. cop.

They want to hire in the neighborhood; people who can walk to work. Some applicants have no job.

“I’m trying to get any job right now just to have some cash…” shared Godfrey Nnadim.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Columbia Heights, Gentrification, Small Business