In Shaw (an historically gentrified blog)

Diversity
Soon in a week or a month Brett and Ira will move in. At that point my block will have a gay couple, a white nuclear family, a coupla of white married couples, black families (nuclear and other), Africans (immigrants), a hispanic family, single females (black and white), 1 single black male, roommate situations, senior citizens, and a Howard U student group house. We got professionals, blue collars and section 8s. We are diverse. Tolerating each other almost appears possible. People who don't like each other aren't on speaking terms anyway, and since they are not actively going after each other, I'll call it tolerance.
Drama Mamma is getting tolerable. There is still the large band of kids who congregate in front of her house and bounce the ball up and down the walkway at all hours. But I'm not hearing the loud music at all hours. I'm not hearing the stereo blasting so loud that I can hear it from inside the house. The people coming through her house are less obnoxious now. I don't foresee any more guests simulating sex acts on cars in front of my house anymore.
The Seventh Day Adventist church on the block is tolerable. They feed the hungry on Sundays and manage it well. The people they serve don't congregate in large numbers outside. They don't loiter.
The mosque down the block is tolerable. So far (knock on wood) I have not been woken to the sounds of the 5 something-ish o'clock call to prayer.
The crowds and crackheads from the block up.... well we're still working on that.

posted by Mari @ 26.8.03 0 comments

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Residents in Shaw Fight for Their Street
Cars Damaged in 'Retaliation' Attacks
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 21, 2003; Page DZ03


The first attack came before midnight, and it was loud. A brick shattered the driver's and passenger-side windows in a blue convertible and thunked off the side of the green car parked in the next space.

Then another brick cracked the windshield of a white car. More bricks and some rocks began hitting the house, thudding against the wall, clanging on the burglar bars.

"It was so clearly an act of retaliation, it was beyond vandalism or destruction of property," said resident Brian Gehman as he stood in the glow of a street lamp at midnight last week, waiting for police to arrive.

Gehman and his neighbors have been at war this summer with drug dealers, prostitutes and shady customers who do business on the short street they're trying to call home. On many of the mornings after they've summoned police, residents have awakened to scratched vehicles and shattered windows, gunfire and, once, to find that the foam in a car's headrest had been ripped apart by a bullet.

"This summer is the worst I've ever seen it," said Jim Norris, who recently repaired several thousand dollars of damage done to his car by bricks and bullets. Norris has lived on the 400 block of Richardson Place NW for two years.

Richardson Place is south of the intersection of Florida, New Jersey and Rhode Island avenues. Twenty steps north of the small street are gas stations and liquor stores where prostitutes stand in the fluorescent glow, waving down customers.

Many nights, Gehman and his neighbors hear arguments and the screech of vehicles in their cobblestone alley. Stolen and abandoned vehicles are dumped there and left for months and, in one case, two years, residents said.

The neighbors record statistics on all vehicles left there and report them to the Department of Public Works for towing.

Late last Monday night, Gehman and Stephen Szibler, who has lived on Richardson Place for three years, circled a car with expired plates that showed up outside their homes.

Two people rounded the corner and told them to stop meddling. The residents went inside to avoid further confrontation and about 30 minutes later, the hail of bricks and rocks began.

Police arrived several hours later. No police were assigned to the local Patrol Service Area (PSA) that night, so officers assigned to other parts of the Third District left their posts to respond.

"We have no consistent policing here," Szibler said. "We meet a sergeant, he's around for six months, then he's gone, and we have to start all over again. Nobody has been able to do anything about the problems on this corner."

Convinced that the abandoned cars are the magnet for most of the crime there, he wrote a letter this summer to Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) explaining the situation:

"I do not choose to live in a junk car lot. I recently paid $150 to have my old car properly registered and the license updated, not to mention registration fees and repairs, and initial licensing and tax fees. Why can't the police do their job and ticket and/or have these cars towed? Why can't they do it on a regular basis? Why do they have to be begged and pleaded with to do their job?"

Lt. Alveta Dennis, the officer in charge of the local PSA, said abandoned cars are not the only magnets for crime in the area. A school playground near Richardson Place remains unlocked all night, despite police efforts to lock it down, she said. The schoolyard is a hangout for drug users and other troublemakers, she said, acknowledging the difficulty she has had with staff turnover in the area. "It's difficult to keep anyone in place for a while."

Of the block, Dennis said, "They have problems there. They are not outrageous problems, but they are unacceptable."

posted by Mari @ 21.8.03 0 comments

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Community meetings suck!
Just got out of a baaaad meeting. Heck at lest the ANC 2? meetings in Logan were entertaining with the catty gay men. What made the meeting bad:
1. Snide comments from the peanut gallery
2. A fill in speaker (the one scheduled was on vacation) couldn't speak on the topic of interest and spent time talking on another topic. Meeting attendees beat the topic speaker couldn't talk about to death.
3. Peanut gallery did not show up on time missing information that they bitched about later.
4. Every speaker received hostility. Basically making sure that any future returning of said speakers is nil.

Basically tons of negativity.

What is a good meeting.
Well it started as a good meeting.
A speaker, speaking as an individual trying to get tree boxes on Q St from 1st to 3rd St talked about how she was attempting to get grant money from Garden Resources of Washington (GROW). She spoke of iron fencing and pledges she had gotten from neighbors. Then a board member of the Co-Op on Q St said that her group was already in the process for putting iron tree boxes up on her side of Q St.
Good. Informative. Civil.

Then we got on the North Capital Farmers Market (see speaker who didn't know topic). And downhill we go.

Labels: BACA

posted by Mari @ 4.8.03 0 comments

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Drama Mamma
Drama Mamma and I are sort of back on speaking terms. Whatever.

Apparently she's doing a last harrah with hanging over at the neighbors before they ship out after selling. At the most 30-60 days and she'll have no excuse to come down the block. The taxes on the yellow house are too high to make it Section 8 (which is probably why the landlord kicked the renters out), the white guy doesn't talk to anyone, nor does the guy below him; Sandra doesn't like that crowd; the Hispanic family they are friendly but I don't see them hanging with DM; the Howard students are a heavy Jesus-loving crowd and ... nah, I don't see them hanging with her either.

posted by Mari @ 3.8.03 0 comments

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Trading Up
I told my neighbor I wouldn't tell anyone how much she's selling her house for, so I won't. But it is a sh*tload of $$. She deserves every single cent of it. She lived in the house for a little under 9 years. She's going to trade in a townhouse with leaky basement and no parking for a house with a yard and a garage in BFE Maryland. All the cool stuff in the city that is attracting people means nothing to her. She has a car and kids. Metro and clubs don't mean squat. Good schools and no shooting and no (as my Daddy would put it) dumbas$ n*ggas hanging out, that is what she wants and needs.
At the price the house is going for apparently only whites can afford it, so the demographics of the block will head in a particular direction. Called ET and told her to score one point for her people. Last month a white couple moved in on one end of the block, changing the trend of houses on the north end changing demographically from black renters to white homeowners and renters, so now the Euro-Americans are coming from both ends.
I am so thankful she did not decide to rent the house out to get Section 8 money. I pray to G-d above that Mr. Mesfin will sell his house too. Last I spoke to him he STILL had not decided if he was going to rent or sell. I hope he sells because I can tell he's cheap and will be a slumlord.

Labels: housing, neighbors

posted by Mari @ 1.8.03 0 comments

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