Lately, I’ve noticed various bloggers and commenters writing how they can’t imagine raising a child in DC. This opinion is not extraordinary. When people say this, I believe them. They are really actually admiting that they have no imagination. The only thing they can envision is raising kids in the exact same milieu as they were raised – most likely a suburban or exurban milieu. They have fond memories of wonderful childhoods, and assume that wonderful childhoods are the direct result of the physical places they lived. I propose that a wonderful childhood is a direct result of having a wonderful family and has little to do with place.
I grew up in a typical suburb, just like the vast majority of white people my age. I had a great childhood. I had woods to play in, places to ride my bike, and ball fields close by. My friend had a pool. We kids ran around the neighborhood unsupervised all day. It was great! (Of course, if I had an ugly family life, I probably wouldn’t have such fond memories.)
Generations of Americans believe that this suburban existence is what made their childhood happy, and therefore it is what will make their own children happy. They believe that life in the city would deprive their children of these basic childhood experiences. I see it differently.
As a child, I wanted for nothing. Or so I thought. But that’s because I didn’t think twice about having to rely on my parents for a ride everywhere I wanted to go: the mall, the movies, a pizza shop, a friends house. It didn’t bother me that we weren’t allowed to ride our bicycles to the shopping center, nor were we allowed to walk along or across the busy roads. At the time, I wasn’t aware that this was an impediment. It was simply a given. Same thing goes for rarely visiting a museum or going to a concert or a lecture or the zoo, all of which were amply available downtown, but required too much time, too much driving, too much money, to do more than a few times a year. Again, that’s just the way it was. Not knowing that a different life style existed, I didn’t feel deprived at all.
A child growing up in the city won’t know that they are being deprived of the ability to ride their bikes down the street and run around for hours unsupervised. What my child will know is this: his mom and dad took him to a pool (either the public pool or a hotel pool or a Y pool or the JCC pool) all the time; his mom and dad played with him in parks they walked to; his mom and dad taught him how to ride a bike in the same parks; when he is older, his mom and dad let him ride the metro and go to coffee shops/movies/shopping with his friends: no need for a ride from mom or dad, either. On top of that, he’ll remember going to the museums all the time (both the free ones and the ones you have to pay for) as well as the zoo, concerts of all kinds, and even talks and readings as he gets older. Plus, he won’t have to sit in a car seat for hours a day.
Perhaps even more important, he’ll be in daily contact with people who don’t look like him, who speak different languages, practice different religions, and make different amounts of money (or no money at all). At five months, he’s already made friends with the staff of a local Eritrean eatery. This interaction is good: he’ll learn about the diversity of the world and how to negotiate his way through it.
And besides, our little guy won’t miss what he doesn’t know about. I firmly believe that the benefits of living in DC far outweigh riding a bicycle down the middle of the street or running around unsupervised all day. Our little guy will have a far more enriched environment here in the city than if we lived in the suburbs.
I find the attitudes of young couples who simply cannot imagine raising a child in the city troubling for a two reasons.
First, where you live impacts the environment. Deciding that you can’t raise your kids in the city, based on the erroneous belief in what makes a happy childhood, merely creates another family living a wasteful suburban existence in a big house on a big lot; another family with two cars (probably SUVs, because they need them); another family that takes a car for every single trip it makes.
Second, this chasing after the perfect childhood is actually depriving their children of so much that the city has to offer – the diversity, the learning opportunities, the simple exercise of walking, and time with their parents. I spend time with him every day instead of sitting in hours of traffic.
We each value different things. I try not to judge others by what they value, but it is human nature to do so. So I do judge people who publicly state that they can’t imagine raising a child in DC. But I don’t judge them too harshly – these are caring people who want to create nice childhoods for their kids, and they will, but not because of where they live. They will provide their kids with nice childhoods because they are good people.
Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Washington DC. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Monday, December 10, 2007
Yeah, I'm Pro-Development
But not just any development.
I’m pro-dense, urban, well-designed, well built development.
I’m against crappy development, like the strip mall at W and 14th which, thankfully, now has construction fences around it.
To create good development, you need government oversight in the way of zoning and building codes, and you need community involvement. Constructive community involvement. The community needs to support good development and oppose bad development. The problem is, of course, that people have different definitions of what those things are. For instance, as I stated in my last post, the Dupont Conservancy is opposed to the proposed development at 14th and U, but where were they when that horrible strip mall was built a few blocks away? Perhaps they didn’t exist then, but that’s the kind of development that needs to be opposed.
There are other great things happening in that part of the neighborhood.
Along with the fence around the strip mall, there are two other big
projects underway. And they just took down the scaffolding in the most
well constructed building ever built on the NE corner of 14th and U. I
say that because they’ve been working on it for about 15 months, and
it’s a small three story building, so it better be the best building in
the history of the world! I’m not sure what’s going to go in there, but
right next door is the new Marvin. We’ve only been there for a drink,
but it looks fantastic and I have a feeling that the food is good.
Further up 14th is the new Union Row where a Yes! Market will soon open.
The silly European style alley they built through the middle of the
building is actually quite nice! I hope that building fills up. If
they build something of that quality at 14th and U, who could have any
concerns?
Thanks to all who read and commented on my last posting about the
project at 14th and U. Surprisingly, all the feed back I received was
positive. I figured there would be someone who disagreed with me.
I’m pro-dense, urban, well-designed, well built development.
I’m against crappy development, like the strip mall at W and 14th which, thankfully, now has construction fences around it.
To create good development, you need government oversight in the way of zoning and building codes, and you need community involvement. Constructive community involvement. The community needs to support good development and oppose bad development. The problem is, of course, that people have different definitions of what those things are. For instance, as I stated in my last post, the Dupont Conservancy is opposed to the proposed development at 14th and U, but where were they when that horrible strip mall was built a few blocks away? Perhaps they didn’t exist then, but that’s the kind of development that needs to be opposed.
There are other great things happening in that part of the neighborhood.
Along with the fence around the strip mall, there are two other big
projects underway. And they just took down the scaffolding in the most
well constructed building ever built on the NE corner of 14th and U. I
say that because they’ve been working on it for about 15 months, and
it’s a small three story building, so it better be the best building in
the history of the world! I’m not sure what’s going to go in there, but
right next door is the new Marvin. We’ve only been there for a drink,
but it looks fantastic and I have a feeling that the food is good.
Further up 14th is the new Union Row where a Yes! Market will soon open.
The silly European style alley they built through the middle of the
building is actually quite nice! I hope that building fills up. If
they build something of that quality at 14th and U, who could have any
concerns?
Thanks to all who read and commented on my last posting about the
project at 14th and U. Surprisingly, all the feed back I received was
positive. I figured there would be someone who disagreed with me.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
14th and U Street Controversy
A developer has proposed a ten story apartment and retail building for the southwest corner of U and 14th Streets, where the McDonalds now is. The proposal is to get rid of the bad one story development along 14th Street and incorporated the historically contributing structures into the design of the new building. This, of course, has brought out all kinds of opposition from various community group, including, for some reason, the Dupont Circle Conservancy and the Dupont Circle ANC, even though 14th and U is NOT in Dupont Circle.
But that’s OK, because in this great city of ours, anyone and everyone can throw their two cents into any issue at any time. Since I live two blocks from 14th and U and walk past that corner twice a day, I figure I probably have more right than people who live at 22nd and S Streets to comment on it. So here goes.
I support the development. To not support dense in-fill development in the middle of the city is to be both anti-urban and anti-environment.
Anti-urban because dense development, as Jane Jacobs pointed out in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is good for the economy and good for public safety. Anti-environment, because in a neighborhood that is well served by public transportation (the Metro is one block away), and in a world where global warming is a reality, leaving a huge plot of land like that under-utilized is backward looking. Us urbanites should be leaders in the environmental movement, not NIMBYs.
The arguments against it come down to traffic and “massing,” which is the same as saying “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big.”
The traffic argument doesn’t work because, again, Metro is one block away. Who on earth would move to that building so they could drive to work every day? Plus, I walk past there at rush hour every day, and there ain’t that much traffic there, something the Dupont Circle folks might know if they every actually ventured into my neighborhood.
The “massing” argument is also absurd. To support the “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big” argument (and I quote from The Dupont Current), the Dupont Circle Conservancy said that “unlike the Reeves Center to the north, which was built on a large site, this project is being wedged into an existing historic district with considerable adjacent existing residential areas.” The sheer idiocy of this statement is mind-boggling! First, to hold up the Reeves Center as some sort of model of development is lunacy. The first problem with the Reeves Center is that it doesn’t use all of it’s large site, not to mention that it has such things as huge ventilation systems fronting on U street and empty glass and ugly brutalist architecture, all of which make it relate extremely poorly to the prominent corner on which it is situated and not fit in with the historic structures all around it. Which brings up the second problem with the Conservancy’s statement: the Reeves Center is in the exact same historic district, surrounded by the same residential areas, as the proposed site. In fact, it is right across the street! Their argument is simple nonsense. A 75 to 100 foot building would have the same “massing” as the self-storage building it will abut, as the Reeves Center, and as all the other apartment and condo buildings that have been built along 14th Street.
The devil, of course, is always in the details. The plans have to be good. But since it is in a historic district, and there are zoning specifications it must meet, and a lot of it has to be reviewed by the ANC (the ANC that has actual jurisdiction over the area, not one from across town), the plan will have to be good to pass muster.
In this day and age, with the price of oil climbing to ever higher levels, with the reality of global warming, NIMBY-ism and obstructionism should not be allowed to derail good, dense, urban in-fill development, which I believe this will be.
But that’s OK, because in this great city of ours, anyone and everyone can throw their two cents into any issue at any time. Since I live two blocks from 14th and U and walk past that corner twice a day, I figure I probably have more right than people who live at 22nd and S Streets to comment on it. So here goes.
I support the development. To not support dense in-fill development in the middle of the city is to be both anti-urban and anti-environment.
Anti-urban because dense development, as Jane Jacobs pointed out in The Death and Life of Great American Cities, is good for the economy and good for public safety. Anti-environment, because in a neighborhood that is well served by public transportation (the Metro is one block away), and in a world where global warming is a reality, leaving a huge plot of land like that under-utilized is backward looking. Us urbanites should be leaders in the environmental movement, not NIMBYs.
The arguments against it come down to traffic and “massing,” which is the same as saying “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big.”
The traffic argument doesn’t work because, again, Metro is one block away. Who on earth would move to that building so they could drive to work every day? Plus, I walk past there at rush hour every day, and there ain’t that much traffic there, something the Dupont Circle folks might know if they every actually ventured into my neighborhood.
The “massing” argument is also absurd. To support the “I don’t like it ‘cause it’s too big” argument (and I quote from The Dupont Current), the Dupont Circle Conservancy said that “unlike the Reeves Center to the north, which was built on a large site, this project is being wedged into an existing historic district with considerable adjacent existing residential areas.” The sheer idiocy of this statement is mind-boggling! First, to hold up the Reeves Center as some sort of model of development is lunacy. The first problem with the Reeves Center is that it doesn’t use all of it’s large site, not to mention that it has such things as huge ventilation systems fronting on U street and empty glass and ugly brutalist architecture, all of which make it relate extremely poorly to the prominent corner on which it is situated and not fit in with the historic structures all around it. Which brings up the second problem with the Conservancy’s statement: the Reeves Center is in the exact same historic district, surrounded by the same residential areas, as the proposed site. In fact, it is right across the street! Their argument is simple nonsense. A 75 to 100 foot building would have the same “massing” as the self-storage building it will abut, as the Reeves Center, and as all the other apartment and condo buildings that have been built along 14th Street.
The devil, of course, is always in the details. The plans have to be good. But since it is in a historic district, and there are zoning specifications it must meet, and a lot of it has to be reviewed by the ANC (the ANC that has actual jurisdiction over the area, not one from across town), the plan will have to be good to pass muster.
In this day and age, with the price of oil climbing to ever higher levels, with the reality of global warming, NIMBY-ism and obstructionism should not be allowed to derail good, dense, urban in-fill development, which I believe this will be.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Shameless Promotion: Les Champs Artists' Cooperative
I've come out of my blog-dormancy to make a quick anouncement about a new Artists' Cooperative based in DC. Based, in fact, on U Street. Actually, based right here in this building: Les Champs Artists Cooperative.
My beautiful and talented wife is the founder of the cooperative, and they just had their first highly successful show this weekend at the Junior League of Washington's A Capital Collection. They sold a lot of art!
The cooperative is made up of many talented artists who do what I like to call "representational realism". In other words, artists who can actually draw and have a real sense of color and create beautiful, amazing pictures.
Perhaps I'm biased. But check it out!
My beautiful and talented wife is the founder of the cooperative, and they just had their first highly successful show this weekend at the Junior League of Washington's A Capital Collection. They sold a lot of art!
The cooperative is made up of many talented artists who do what I like to call "representational realism". In other words, artists who can actually draw and have a real sense of color and create beautiful, amazing pictures.
Perhaps I'm biased. But check it out!
Thursday, October 18, 2007
DC Taxi Zones vs. Meters
Ah, cab fares! Nothing gets the DC blogosphere a-rockin’ like a good old fashioned bru-ha-ha over cab fares!
Mayor Fenty’s newest decisive decision (he’s nothing if not decisive when he makes a decision) to switch DC’s cabs away from the zone system and to meters has been cheered by most cab riders, and even some cab drivers, but jeered by many cabbies.
Which leads me to believe that perhaps it’s a good thing.
But it’s quite a bit more complicated that it may seem. First of all, all you people out there who complain about the zone system do so for one simple reason: you don’t understand it. If you choose to take a cab for five blocks, you’ll pay the same amount as if you traversed the entire zone. Sucks to be you, but you WERE NOT overcharged. Too bad you’re too lazy to walk those five blocks. There are also extra charges during rush hour, which is why the same ride can sometimes be a couple bucks more or less at different times of day. It’s all written down inside the cab.
Now, I’m not necessarily defending the zone system. On Capitol Hill, we lived one block inside a zone. We quickly learned that if we were going down town, we had to walk a block west to catch a cab. Today, we also live right across a zone boundary line, so we’ve learned to have cabs drop us off at the restaurant across the street instead of in front of our building. But you can’t game the system if you’re from out of town and don’t know the system. Meters will help.
But meters will also hurt. Right now, I know when I get in a cab in DC how much a given ride will cost me, because I can read, both a map and the fare schedule, posted in every cab. It doesn’t matter if we sit in traffic, or it’s rush hour, or if the driver decides to drive around in circles or stop of a cup of coffee; the price will always be the same. With meters, you’ll never know what the cost will be. It will be completely dependent on traffic, and on the route the cabby takes. Cabbies will have no incentive to find the fastest route, like they do right now. If I want to figure out the best way to get from one part of the city to another, I take a cab and see how he goes, because he wants to get there a quickly as possible under the zone system. With meters, he’ll want to get there as slowly as possible.
So if this is the case, why aren’t cabbies supporting the meters? Two reasons: first, I bet they make a lot of money downtown or in Adams Morgan/Dupont Circle from lazy people who don’t want to walk a few blocks. Second, they’ve already figured out how to cheat in the present system, and they’ve yet to figure out how to cheat with meters. The devil you know if always better than the devil you don’t.
When it comes right down to it, as cab riders, things won’t change very much. Maybe the lazy people will pay less to go 5 blocks. But the rest of us will still have to be vigilant. However, instead of being vigilant about zones and surcharges and fare prices, we’ll have to know if a cabbie is taking us for a ride to run up the meter, and then have the guts to tell him.
Mayor Fenty’s newest decisive decision (he’s nothing if not decisive when he makes a decision) to switch DC’s cabs away from the zone system and to meters has been cheered by most cab riders, and even some cab drivers, but jeered by many cabbies.
Which leads me to believe that perhaps it’s a good thing.
But it’s quite a bit more complicated that it may seem. First of all, all you people out there who complain about the zone system do so for one simple reason: you don’t understand it. If you choose to take a cab for five blocks, you’ll pay the same amount as if you traversed the entire zone. Sucks to be you, but you WERE NOT overcharged. Too bad you’re too lazy to walk those five blocks. There are also extra charges during rush hour, which is why the same ride can sometimes be a couple bucks more or less at different times of day. It’s all written down inside the cab.
Now, I’m not necessarily defending the zone system. On Capitol Hill, we lived one block inside a zone. We quickly learned that if we were going down town, we had to walk a block west to catch a cab. Today, we also live right across a zone boundary line, so we’ve learned to have cabs drop us off at the restaurant across the street instead of in front of our building. But you can’t game the system if you’re from out of town and don’t know the system. Meters will help.
But meters will also hurt. Right now, I know when I get in a cab in DC how much a given ride will cost me, because I can read, both a map and the fare schedule, posted in every cab. It doesn’t matter if we sit in traffic, or it’s rush hour, or if the driver decides to drive around in circles or stop of a cup of coffee; the price will always be the same. With meters, you’ll never know what the cost will be. It will be completely dependent on traffic, and on the route the cabby takes. Cabbies will have no incentive to find the fastest route, like they do right now. If I want to figure out the best way to get from one part of the city to another, I take a cab and see how he goes, because he wants to get there a quickly as possible under the zone system. With meters, he’ll want to get there as slowly as possible.
So if this is the case, why aren’t cabbies supporting the meters? Two reasons: first, I bet they make a lot of money downtown or in Adams Morgan/Dupont Circle from lazy people who don’t want to walk a few blocks. Second, they’ve already figured out how to cheat in the present system, and they’ve yet to figure out how to cheat with meters. The devil you know if always better than the devil you don’t.
When it comes right down to it, as cab riders, things won’t change very much. Maybe the lazy people will pay less to go 5 blocks. But the rest of us will still have to be vigilant. However, instead of being vigilant about zones and surcharges and fare prices, we’ll have to know if a cabbie is taking us for a ride to run up the meter, and then have the guts to tell him.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
My Wife is NOT Homeless
Contrary to word on the street, I work very hard to ensure that my wife remains housed. We found out about her street rep just recently. She was walking down U Street, carrying various attributes of her profession (paint box, palette, etc.), wearing paint spattered clothes, weaving her way through the crowds around Local 16 and Stetsons, when she happened by a homeless man. He was about to ask her for money, when he changed his mind and apologized. Then, reaching deep into a grimy pocket, he took out a couple dimes and actually offered them to her.
My wife had a hard time explaining to him that she didn’t need the money. Telling him she always dressed that way was not convincing, for he always dressed that way, too. She said she’s an artist, and he said, yeah, he is too. I’m just coming from doing work, she protested. I’m sure this guy is used to seeing people dressed in non-filthy clothes coming from work, so he was rightfully skeptical. Finally, he understood. Perhaps it was her perfume.
She told me what happened as soon as she came in. I laughed.
I wish there were a better ending to this story. I wish I could say that we rushed back out there and bought him dinner or at least gave him some money. But, instead, we sat down and ate our food and drank our wine while he continued to rattle his coin cup at the bus stop.
My wife had a hard time explaining to him that she didn’t need the money. Telling him she always dressed that way was not convincing, for he always dressed that way, too. She said she’s an artist, and he said, yeah, he is too. I’m just coming from doing work, she protested. I’m sure this guy is used to seeing people dressed in non-filthy clothes coming from work, so he was rightfully skeptical. Finally, he understood. Perhaps it was her perfume.
She told me what happened as soon as she came in. I laughed.
I wish there were a better ending to this story. I wish I could say that we rushed back out there and bought him dinner or at least gave him some money. But, instead, we sat down and ate our food and drank our wine while he continued to rattle his coin cup at the bus stop.
Friday, October 12, 2007
The Mugging of City Neighborhoods
Madame M's post on DCBlogs, Muggin About (http://dcblogs.com/?p=625), hit a chord with me. I've been thinking about these very things a lot lately.
I think we're on the same Yahoo Group list serve. And while I've never been mugged, either, (although assaulted, yes), I have to agree with her. The common threads on the list serve: too much crime, and how to keep out new development (i.e., condos on 15th St. SE, taverns on PA Avenue SE).
Are these two issues related?
Jane Jacobs, the patron saint of all urban souls, would say yes: busy streets are safe streets. How do you make busy streets? 1. More density (i.e., more than 50 units per acre, which is what a row-house neighborhood averages) and 2. mixed uses, as in stores, cafes, print shops, offices, schools, churches, clubs, and yes, bars.
An urban neighborhood is not a suburban neighborhood and shouldn't be treated as such. A cut-off suburban neighborhood of single family homes can afford to have no commercial development because no one can get to it very easily. A city neighborhood, wedged in between other city neighborhoods, with mixes of socio-economic classes, races, cultures, and easily accessable by foot, metro, car, bus, taxi, bicycle, etc, can't afford to NOT have commercial development.
All the scariest, most unsafe areas of DC are residential neighborhoods. The lower the density, the less safe they are: east of the river, the density is lower than around RFK, there is no decent commercial development, and the crime rate is much higher. (I don't include upper-NW, which, for all intents and purposes, is suburban.)
These things are all related. My neighborhood (U Street, Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights, Mt. Pleasant) has much the same demographic as East Capitol Hill, but is INFINITELY safer. The reason: 150 - 250 housing units per acre and tons of mixed use development.
If you don't want to have any commercial development around you, and you want to live in a house, you have two choices: live in the suburbs, or live in an unsafe city neighborhood. There are lots of quiet streets full of beautiful rowhouses in my neighborhood, but they are all within a block of the businesses on U and 17th and 18th and Florida and 14th and P and Q and R, etc., probably too close for the complainers on the Yahoo Groups list serve.
To be safer, areas like Capitol Hill East need more density and more commercial development. 15th Street SE between East Capitol and PA Ave used to have lots of businesses. Most have been turned into housing or remain boarded up. 14th Street also had businesses, most of which are gone. Neighbors should show up at ANC meetings and encourage development, not try to stop it. Worrying about the historic architectural character of a neighborhood when people are scared to walk outside to enjoy that historic character is ludicrous.
I moved from Hill East about a year and half ago partly because I realized that the anti-development attitude and the NIMBYism expressed on the list serve meant many long years of stagnation and of crime. And boredom. However, I didn't move, strangely enough, because of the crime.
I think we're on the same Yahoo Group list serve. And while I've never been mugged, either, (although assaulted, yes), I have to agree with her. The common threads on the list serve: too much crime, and how to keep out new development (i.e., condos on 15th St. SE, taverns on PA Avenue SE).
Are these two issues related?
Jane Jacobs, the patron saint of all urban souls, would say yes: busy streets are safe streets. How do you make busy streets? 1. More density (i.e., more than 50 units per acre, which is what a row-house neighborhood averages) and 2. mixed uses, as in stores, cafes, print shops, offices, schools, churches, clubs, and yes, bars.
An urban neighborhood is not a suburban neighborhood and shouldn't be treated as such. A cut-off suburban neighborhood of single family homes can afford to have no commercial development because no one can get to it very easily. A city neighborhood, wedged in between other city neighborhoods, with mixes of socio-economic classes, races, cultures, and easily accessable by foot, metro, car, bus, taxi, bicycle, etc, can't afford to NOT have commercial development.
All the scariest, most unsafe areas of DC are residential neighborhoods. The lower the density, the less safe they are: east of the river, the density is lower than around RFK, there is no decent commercial development, and the crime rate is much higher. (I don't include upper-NW, which, for all intents and purposes, is suburban.)
These things are all related. My neighborhood (U Street, Adams Morgan, Dupont Circle, Columbia Heights, Mt. Pleasant) has much the same demographic as East Capitol Hill, but is INFINITELY safer. The reason: 150 - 250 housing units per acre and tons of mixed use development.
If you don't want to have any commercial development around you, and you want to live in a house, you have two choices: live in the suburbs, or live in an unsafe city neighborhood. There are lots of quiet streets full of beautiful rowhouses in my neighborhood, but they are all within a block of the businesses on U and 17th and 18th and Florida and 14th and P and Q and R, etc., probably too close for the complainers on the Yahoo Groups list serve.
To be safer, areas like Capitol Hill East need more density and more commercial development. 15th Street SE between East Capitol and PA Ave used to have lots of businesses. Most have been turned into housing or remain boarded up. 14th Street also had businesses, most of which are gone. Neighbors should show up at ANC meetings and encourage development, not try to stop it. Worrying about the historic architectural character of a neighborhood when people are scared to walk outside to enjoy that historic character is ludicrous.
I moved from Hill East about a year and half ago partly because I realized that the anti-development attitude and the NIMBYism expressed on the list serve meant many long years of stagnation and of crime. And boredom. However, I didn't move, strangely enough, because of the crime.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
What City Do You People Live In?
I like dcblogs new little brain tickler at the top of the page each day. Nice addition!
So I’ll devote this posting to a response to DC’s not quite an urban paradise yet, but we’re getting there.
My response is to the original post(s) at American Prospect by Ezra Klein and the comments specific to DC.
My first response: what city do you people live in? Cause it ain’t MY city.
The amount of mis-information floating around in the original posts and the comments is astounding, such as:
"...a plurality of [DC's] population is well educated and in many ways upper middle class, while far more of its population is poor and not well educated..."
Huh?
(First, I think the word “plurality” is misused: you’re either well educated, or you’re not.)
Some facts: DC Poverty Rate: 18.3%; Percentage of DC residents with a BA or higher: 39.1%
(From the U.S. Census) Please don’t comment that 18.3% is high. It is, but it is not a majority. And 39.1% is also high. Extremely.
DC has a bad rap as being a poor, crime-ridden place. There, of course, is a racial overtone to that bad rap, since DC is 57% black. But the statistics don’t back up the rap.
The black middle class in DC is HUGE, but they live in places few white people have ever heard of, because nothing ever happens there to make it onto the evening news and they don’t have any trendy night spots: Riggs Park, Michigan Park, Brightwood, Hillcrest, Fort Dupont, Fort Totten, etc. (Also in places you’ve heard of, like Capitol Hill and Anacostia and Bloomingdale and Ladroit Park and Shaw.) These people may or may not have college degrees (although many do), but they all have good, stable jobs (either blue or white collar), or own businesses. It’s true that some of these neighborhoods don’t have many “coffee shops,” but neither did McLean, Bethesda, Silver Spring, or Arlington until a decade ago.
The symbolic "coffee shop" comes down to culture: 20 years ago, a coffee shop was a diner. You went there for breakfast and a cup of coffee and sat at the counter. The United States has never had a tradition of cafes, or tea houses, or tea rooms, or hookah bars, or Hamams, or bath houses, or any other kind of "third place" (save neighborhood bars), except in ethnic enclaves, where people brought their old world traditions with them. (And by “old world”, I’m including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa: check out the coffee ceremony at Dukem some time.) To claim coffee shops are white is silly. They are a new phenomenon in most of the U.S., and are slowly spreading everywhere. At most, they are bell-weathers of new prosperity, which says little about race. By the way, Mocha Hut, Love Cafe, and Jolt-n-Bolt are all minority owned businesses. To add to the confusion, many of the new places on U Street (that cater to “Yuppies”) are owned by immigrants, minorities, or, brace yourself, partnerships consisting of whites and minorities together! How does this fit into the rich/poor/race/class/new-comer/old-resident/owner/renter/working class/yuppie calculus that so frustratingly dominates such discussions?
Ezra Klein seems to think that a city government conjures up things like coffee shops (and other amenities that make a city “livable”). While a city government can encourage local businesses in a variety of ways (something I think DC does a poor job of), the “free market” plays the largest role in how a city develops.
Moving on: the idea that DC doesn't have any University ties is also absurd. The city is full of Howard lawyers, doctors, and dentists who stuck around, as well as lawyers, doctors, and dentists (and every other profession you can name) from Georgetown, GW, American, CUA, Trinity, even UDC.
The assertion that DC doesn’t have bookstores or an arts culture is also ignorant. Within walking distance of my place, there are the following bookstores, some new, some old (you know, before all the hated yuppies moved in):
Red Onion Books, Second Story Books, Idle Time Books, Candidas, Books-a-Million, G Books, Kramer Books, Busboys and Poets, Lambda Rising, Howard University Bookstore, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
There is a large and dynamic arts scene is DC. It’s just that it’s filled with people who actually spend their time painting, writing, sculpting, acting, and dancing, and not a bunch of highly visible posers who hang out at cafes NOT painting, writing, sculpting, acting, or dancing, like in other cities. Because to be able to afford to live in this city, you better get off your ass and do some work. Here are some fine examples:
Washington Writer’s Publishing House
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
Mid City Artists
Brett Busang
Anna Demovidova
Agatekartstudio
Solas Nua
Lines and Stars
Burlesque Poetry Hour
And these are just the ones I know about.
Finally, I came to DC to go to grad school, and discovered that it is awesome, and so I found a job here so I could stay. It’s awesome because, unlike Portland and Seattle (overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly boring, overwhelmingly easy to live in (or "livable")), DC is diverse and challenging and stimulating. You’ll find a lot of people like me in DC, at least the DC in which I live.
So I’ll devote this posting to a response to DC’s not quite an urban paradise yet, but we’re getting there.
My response is to the original post(s) at American Prospect by Ezra Klein and the comments specific to DC.
My first response: what city do you people live in? Cause it ain’t MY city.
The amount of mis-information floating around in the original posts and the comments is astounding, such as:
"...a plurality of [DC's] population is well educated and in many ways upper middle class, while far more of its population is poor and not well educated..."
Huh?
(First, I think the word “plurality” is misused: you’re either well educated, or you’re not.)
Some facts: DC Poverty Rate: 18.3%; Percentage of DC residents with a BA or higher: 39.1%
(From the U.S. Census) Please don’t comment that 18.3% is high. It is, but it is not a majority. And 39.1% is also high. Extremely.
DC has a bad rap as being a poor, crime-ridden place. There, of course, is a racial overtone to that bad rap, since DC is 57% black. But the statistics don’t back up the rap.
The black middle class in DC is HUGE, but they live in places few white people have ever heard of, because nothing ever happens there to make it onto the evening news and they don’t have any trendy night spots: Riggs Park, Michigan Park, Brightwood, Hillcrest, Fort Dupont, Fort Totten, etc. (Also in places you’ve heard of, like Capitol Hill and Anacostia and Bloomingdale and Ladroit Park and Shaw.) These people may or may not have college degrees (although many do), but they all have good, stable jobs (either blue or white collar), or own businesses. It’s true that some of these neighborhoods don’t have many “coffee shops,” but neither did McLean, Bethesda, Silver Spring, or Arlington until a decade ago.
The symbolic "coffee shop" comes down to culture: 20 years ago, a coffee shop was a diner. You went there for breakfast and a cup of coffee and sat at the counter. The United States has never had a tradition of cafes, or tea houses, or tea rooms, or hookah bars, or Hamams, or bath houses, or any other kind of "third place" (save neighborhood bars), except in ethnic enclaves, where people brought their old world traditions with them. (And by “old world”, I’m including Asia, the Middle East, and Africa: check out the coffee ceremony at Dukem some time.) To claim coffee shops are white is silly. They are a new phenomenon in most of the U.S., and are slowly spreading everywhere. At most, they are bell-weathers of new prosperity, which says little about race. By the way, Mocha Hut, Love Cafe, and Jolt-n-Bolt are all minority owned businesses. To add to the confusion, many of the new places on U Street (that cater to “Yuppies”) are owned by immigrants, minorities, or, brace yourself, partnerships consisting of whites and minorities together! How does this fit into the rich/poor/race/class/new-comer/old-resident/owner/renter/working class/yuppie calculus that so frustratingly dominates such discussions?
Ezra Klein seems to think that a city government conjures up things like coffee shops (and other amenities that make a city “livable”). While a city government can encourage local businesses in a variety of ways (something I think DC does a poor job of), the “free market” plays the largest role in how a city develops.
Moving on: the idea that DC doesn't have any University ties is also absurd. The city is full of Howard lawyers, doctors, and dentists who stuck around, as well as lawyers, doctors, and dentists (and every other profession you can name) from Georgetown, GW, American, CUA, Trinity, even UDC.
The assertion that DC doesn’t have bookstores or an arts culture is also ignorant. Within walking distance of my place, there are the following bookstores, some new, some old (you know, before all the hated yuppies moved in):
Red Onion Books, Second Story Books, Idle Time Books, Candidas, Books-a-Million, G Books, Kramer Books, Busboys and Poets, Lambda Rising, Howard University Bookstore, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
There is a large and dynamic arts scene is DC. It’s just that it’s filled with people who actually spend their time painting, writing, sculpting, acting, and dancing, and not a bunch of highly visible posers who hang out at cafes NOT painting, writing, sculpting, acting, or dancing, like in other cities. Because to be able to afford to live in this city, you better get off your ass and do some work. Here are some fine examples:
Washington Writer’s Publishing House
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
Mid City Artists
Brett Busang
Anna Demovidova
Agatekartstudio
Solas Nua
Lines and Stars
Burlesque Poetry Hour
And these are just the ones I know about.
Finally, I came to DC to go to grad school, and discovered that it is awesome, and so I found a job here so I could stay. It’s awesome because, unlike Portland and Seattle (overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly boring, overwhelmingly easy to live in (or "livable")), DC is diverse and challenging and stimulating. You’ll find a lot of people like me in DC, at least the DC in which I live.
Thursday, August 9, 2007
Adams Morgan: Violence and the Tyranny of Parenthood
The recent article in the City Paper about Late Night Shots got me to thinking about Adams Morgan. The article quoted an on-line thread that went like this:
"If I have said it once I have said it 1000 times. DO NOT EVER, EVER even go near Adams Morgan. That place is Ghetto.
Adams Morgan is only do-able if you limit yourself to a few bars that are close together.
Every minute you spend outside of an actual bar your life is in danger. And do not, DO NOT attempt to get a late-night slice of pizza unless you are a pro.
Any by pro I mean ready to fight people.
Everytime I’m in Adams Morgan, I take on at least 3-4 Ethiopans. Skinny little bastards are feisty."
Obviously, this guy is an unsophisticated, narrow-minded, frightened pubescent (even if he is in his 20s and gainfully employed) with little life experience and little hope of gaining any. But at least he’s honest. He doesn’t want to go to Adams Morgan, and I, for one, don’t want him there.
But there are other, darker forces at work in Adams Morgan: parents.
As part of DC governments on-going crusade to ruin the city, it has decided to enforce a law regarding tavern licenses versus restaurant licenses. Without going into detail, many places on 18th Street have restaurant licenses but don’t meet the food sales standard to maintain that license and should properly have tavern licenses. Except the city has now put a moratorium on issuing new tavern licenses until it drives a bunch of bars out of business by revoking their restaurant licenses.
Why?
Because some people moved to Adams Morgan, had children, and now can’t believe they are living in Adams Morgan with children.
A couple local news stations interviewed some stroller pushing moms on 18th Street, and that the basic message I got from them.
What these mothers on the street were really worried about was violence. Apparently, they take their toddlers to clubs at 3 am, or line up for pizza at 4:00 am, babe-in-arms, and then pick fights with drunken revelers over, what, a girl? Posh’s new hair color? A timetable for leaving Iraq? And end up getting stabbed and bleeding to death in the middle of the street at the feet of a police horse while their babies watch. Happens all the time.
Come on! Does the extremely limited and extremely rare violence on 18th Street at 3 am on a Sunday morning really effect your life so much that you need to start a crusade to ruin the neighborhood for everyone else? You knew what Adams Morgan was like when you moved here, and unless you do indeed take your kiddy out for a stroll at 3:00 am (and NOT EVENT THEN!), you won’t get stabbed or shot or anything else.
Please move to Reston. I hear they have a pretty good Don Pablos there.
"If I have said it once I have said it 1000 times. DO NOT EVER, EVER even go near Adams Morgan. That place is Ghetto.
Adams Morgan is only do-able if you limit yourself to a few bars that are close together.
Every minute you spend outside of an actual bar your life is in danger. And do not, DO NOT attempt to get a late-night slice of pizza unless you are a pro.
Any by pro I mean ready to fight people.
Everytime I’m in Adams Morgan, I take on at least 3-4 Ethiopans. Skinny little bastards are feisty."
Obviously, this guy is an unsophisticated, narrow-minded, frightened pubescent (even if he is in his 20s and gainfully employed) with little life experience and little hope of gaining any. But at least he’s honest. He doesn’t want to go to Adams Morgan, and I, for one, don’t want him there.
But there are other, darker forces at work in Adams Morgan: parents.
As part of DC governments on-going crusade to ruin the city, it has decided to enforce a law regarding tavern licenses versus restaurant licenses. Without going into detail, many places on 18th Street have restaurant licenses but don’t meet the food sales standard to maintain that license and should properly have tavern licenses. Except the city has now put a moratorium on issuing new tavern licenses until it drives a bunch of bars out of business by revoking their restaurant licenses.
Why?
Because some people moved to Adams Morgan, had children, and now can’t believe they are living in Adams Morgan with children.
A couple local news stations interviewed some stroller pushing moms on 18th Street, and that the basic message I got from them.
What these mothers on the street were really worried about was violence. Apparently, they take their toddlers to clubs at 3 am, or line up for pizza at 4:00 am, babe-in-arms, and then pick fights with drunken revelers over, what, a girl? Posh’s new hair color? A timetable for leaving Iraq? And end up getting stabbed and bleeding to death in the middle of the street at the feet of a police horse while their babies watch. Happens all the time.
Come on! Does the extremely limited and extremely rare violence on 18th Street at 3 am on a Sunday morning really effect your life so much that you need to start a crusade to ruin the neighborhood for everyone else? You knew what Adams Morgan was like when you moved here, and unless you do indeed take your kiddy out for a stroll at 3:00 am (and NOT EVENT THEN!), you won’t get stabbed or shot or anything else.
Please move to Reston. I hear they have a pretty good Don Pablos there.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
How I learned to Love the Heat
You can ask anyone. If I look at a picture of the sun that, say, a kindergartener drew in the corner of his paper with a smiley-face on it, I start to sweat. On one of our first dates, my wife cooked me dinner and we sat out on the roof of her house on Capitol Hill in the 90 degree heat, and I ran out of things to mop the perspiration off my face with; there are only so many times you can use the table cloth, or your shirt sleeve, or your date’s shirt sleeve, before she’s ready to call the whole thing off.
I hate the heat. I grew up in Pittsburgh, where we have some cold weather and some hot weather, but mostly cool, overcast weather. So perhaps I’m just not used to the heat.
Over the past decade or so, around this time of year I question why on earth I moved to DC. But last summer, and now continuing into this summer, I find I don’t mind it so much. In fact, I kind of like it. All I have to do is walk a little more slowly, especially when I find some shade.
Maybe it has to do with U Street. U Street is hot these days. Soft asphalt hot. But I actually kind of like it. I don’t mind it at all. And I’m beginning to really not like air conditioning. I’d rather sleep with a window open and a fan on, even if it is 85 degrees out. Air conditioning makes my nose do strange things, and if there’s one part of your body you don’t want doing strange things, your nose would be it. At least in the top 5.
And I don’t seem to sweat quite as much, either. I can’t figure it out. My wife is beginning to question if I’m the same man she married. (Maybe it goes back to the fact that it was 97 degrees out on our wedding day, so now I like the heat.) (Aaaaaawww!) Or perhaps as we age our sense of temperature (like our hearing and eye sight and tolerance for “kids today”) begin to fail us. Soon I’ll be able to make extra cash walking across beds of coals. That’s be nice.
I hate the heat. I grew up in Pittsburgh, where we have some cold weather and some hot weather, but mostly cool, overcast weather. So perhaps I’m just not used to the heat.
Over the past decade or so, around this time of year I question why on earth I moved to DC. But last summer, and now continuing into this summer, I find I don’t mind it so much. In fact, I kind of like it. All I have to do is walk a little more slowly, especially when I find some shade.
Maybe it has to do with U Street. U Street is hot these days. Soft asphalt hot. But I actually kind of like it. I don’t mind it at all. And I’m beginning to really not like air conditioning. I’d rather sleep with a window open and a fan on, even if it is 85 degrees out. Air conditioning makes my nose do strange things, and if there’s one part of your body you don’t want doing strange things, your nose would be it. At least in the top 5.
And I don’t seem to sweat quite as much, either. I can’t figure it out. My wife is beginning to question if I’m the same man she married. (Maybe it goes back to the fact that it was 97 degrees out on our wedding day, so now I like the heat.) (Aaaaaawww!) Or perhaps as we age our sense of temperature (like our hearing and eye sight and tolerance for “kids today”) begin to fail us. Soon I’ll be able to make extra cash walking across beds of coals. That’s be nice.
Thursday, June 14, 2007
Confessions of a DC Gentrifier
When I bought the place I live in right now, I considered many things: what was best financially and emotionally for me and my wife and any future children. Being close to work and metro was a priority so I wouldn’t have to spend very much time commuting and thus spend more time with my family. I also took into consideration my core values: respect for the environment, my belief in the goodness of urban life, my appreciation of a diversity of cultures. City living is green living. We walk an awful lot, instead of taking our one car. Our place is small, and shares walls and floors and ceilings, meaning it uses less energy. We live in a pre-existing urban environment, meaning that no new open space is being destroyed, no new utilities are being installed, no new roads being built for my benefit. I considered all these things when choosing where to live.
But I never said to myself “oh, and as an added benefit, I can get rid of some poor people or minority people this way, too, by running up property values and taxes.” In fact, quite the opposite: I worried (and still worry) obsessively about my culpability for what happens to people who find themselves in a financial situation that forces them to move out of a neighborhood they’ve lived in for a long time.
When I bought my first house near RFK Stadium in 2002, I knew that a young black couple rented it, but had moved out months before I bought it. I didn’t force them
out, did I? I still felt a twinge of guilt about it, though. The landlord decided to sell it, but I was never sure if he decided to sell because his tenants moved out, or his tenants moved out because he decided to sell. (After I bought it, I was shocked that anyone had lived there: the floors were rotted away, the windows didn’t open, there was no air conditioning, there were rats under and in the house, there was one bathroom with a leaking toilet, the floors were sloped because of broken joists caused by a sunken wall caused by fire damage that had never been adequately repaired.)I don’t like the word “gentrification.” It’s an inexact jargon word meant to stir up class antagonism (the Gentry are moving in to oppress the peasants!). The word does little to describe the enormously complex reality of market forces, economics, poverty, racism, city planning, zoning, public policy, and private choices. The reality is so complicated that one word can’t even begin to describe it; instead, it clouds with emotion and anger and frustration any clear thought processes that would allow people to begin to come up with solutions.
Take my old neighborhood near RFK. Some old couples sold their houses for 20 or 30 times what they paid for them years before. Sometimes their children forced them to sell and put them in nursing homes. Sometimes owners sold the houses out from under their renters. And sometimes the renters bought them. Sometimes houses and apartment buildings that were vacant for years, even decades, were rehabilitated and sold or rented to the influx of middle class people. Sometimes rental buildings went condo, forcing out the renters who couldn’t afford to buy. Sometimes public housing projects were closed and the tenants relocated to other public housing, and the land redeveloped to include some affordable housing and some market rate housing. Sometimes the public housing was saved from the wrecking ball. Sometimes an old person died and the children sold the house for as much as they could get. And some people couldn’t afford the rising property taxes and sold for huge profits and moved out. Which of these instances is gentrification? Which isn’t?
I guess it comes down to two things: freedom of choice and the responsibility to help those less fortunate. Is being against gentrification to be against an old couple selling their house for an enormous profit? Is it to be against a person like me, who values diversity and the environment and urbanity, buying a home in a once-working class neighborhood?
Or is being against gentrification to be against the wholesale redevelopment of communities in the name of progress, like what happened in Southwest in the 1950s and ‘60s? Is it to be for government programs and private initiatives that help the poor have a safe place to live while they pull themselves out of poverty? I hope that’s what being against gentrification means.
One thing is certain: it sucks to be poor. Whether you get pushed around because you have no clout, like what Haussmann did in Paris, or you simply get priced out, like what is happening now in Washington, being poor makes you extremely vulnerable. I don’t have a solution. I suspect there isn’t just one mega-solution, but many, many small things that have to happen, and none of them are simple and none of them can be summed up in a slogan or by a "-tion" word. But I know that the right thing to do is strive to help poor people not be poor anymore, and not feel guilty about the decisions we make in the best interests of our families.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
The Long, Slow, Inevitable Ruination of U Street Has Begun
I saw it, and now I may just have to move: not one, but a whole family of tourists on U Street. I wasn’t sure at first; I mean, how likely is it that an entire family with no connection to the neighborhood would be on U Street in the middle of the afternoon when even people from Fairfax or Shady Grove are terrified to step foot on U Street? (That’s a subject for another blog entry, and I’m just the man to write it!)
But there they were, mom, dad, and two kids, perusing guide books and plastic-sheathed maps, a-slung with cameras and fanny packs, milling about indecisively in front of Ben’s Chili Bowl. (I assumed they were there to see the “Craddle” tags; those artistes are such a draw. Perhaps DC government should give them a grant.)
I just couldn’t figure it out. I walked past them aggressively, just to let them know whose turf they were on. Their reaction confirmed my suspicion: they were crazy. The mother rattled off some sort of gibberish, which the father, who pretended to understand her, answered with similar guttural, monosyllabic nonsense. Frankly, they scared me a little.
I kept walking. It took me half a block to figure it out: they were German. German! It all made sense now! Germans are everywhere! They’re as bad as the Australians: interested in stuff, like history and culture and food and cities, and just head-strong enough not to listen to anything someone from Reston might tell them about “that” part of the city.
They’re still crazy, though. And it’s still gibberish.
But there they were, mom, dad, and two kids, perusing guide books and plastic-sheathed maps, a-slung with cameras and fanny packs, milling about indecisively in front of Ben’s Chili Bowl. (I assumed they were there to see the “Craddle” tags; those artistes are such a draw. Perhaps DC government should give them a grant.)
I just couldn’t figure it out. I walked past them aggressively, just to let them know whose turf they were on. Their reaction confirmed my suspicion: they were crazy. The mother rattled off some sort of gibberish, which the father, who pretended to understand her, answered with similar guttural, monosyllabic nonsense. Frankly, they scared me a little.
I kept walking. It took me half a block to figure it out: they were German. German! It all made sense now! Germans are everywhere! They’re as bad as the Australians: interested in stuff, like history and culture and food and cities, and just head-strong enough not to listen to anything someone from Reston might tell them about “that” part of the city.
They’re still crazy, though. And it’s still gibberish.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
All Hail Our Fuzzy Overlords (and Scratch Their Ears)
I no longer believe in pets. And I don’t mean that I no longer believe in the concept of owning a pet, or the morality of keeping a pet. I mean I no longer believe that there are such things as pets.
I believe we are controlled by cute little animals, and it may lead to humanity’s downfall.
I look around my neighborhood, and in all the little pocket parks and on any space not covered in concrete, there they are: people stooping down to pick up poop. And who is making them do it? The little fuzzy creature at the end of the lead sniffing happily at a dead bird or a rat hole or the base of a light post. These creatures are not pets. They are the narrow end of the wedge, the vanguard of the coming revolution when our animal overlords will make us not only clean up their poop, but rub their tummies, feed them from the table, raise their young, and in some cases, even bathe them. I hear it’s happening in some places already.
It’s not just dogs, either. Don’t even get me started with the psychological warfare presently perpetrated by cats. And those googly-eyed fish? I don’t trust ‘em. Nor do I trust any animal content with running on a little wheel for hours and hours and hours. Something’s going on in their little heads, and it can’t be good.
While we still have the upper hand, I suggest we force them all to run for Congress. This would not only solve the problem of keeping all the so-called “pets” busy, but also solve the problem of Congress. How much worse of a job could a pack of dogs, 200 cats, and a handful of exotic birds do, even if they do desire world domination?
I believe we are controlled by cute little animals, and it may lead to humanity’s downfall.
I look around my neighborhood, and in all the little pocket parks and on any space not covered in concrete, there they are: people stooping down to pick up poop. And who is making them do it? The little fuzzy creature at the end of the lead sniffing happily at a dead bird or a rat hole or the base of a light post. These creatures are not pets. They are the narrow end of the wedge, the vanguard of the coming revolution when our animal overlords will make us not only clean up their poop, but rub their tummies, feed them from the table, raise their young, and in some cases, even bathe them. I hear it’s happening in some places already.
It’s not just dogs, either. Don’t even get me started with the psychological warfare presently perpetrated by cats. And those googly-eyed fish? I don’t trust ‘em. Nor do I trust any animal content with running on a little wheel for hours and hours and hours. Something’s going on in their little heads, and it can’t be good.
While we still have the upper hand, I suggest we force them all to run for Congress. This would not only solve the problem of keeping all the so-called “pets” busy, but also solve the problem of Congress. How much worse of a job could a pack of dogs, 200 cats, and a handful of exotic birds do, even if they do desire world domination?
Friday, June 1, 2007
People Who Hate Metro
I’m sick of people complaining about Metro. People who complain about pan handlers, or rude people, or poor service. What I say to you if you make any of these complaints: if you don’t like Metro, get back in you car and drive to work. What’s that? You can’t? Because there’s too much traffic? Parking is too expensive? Gas prices are too high? Oh yeah, that’s right, you’re a chronic complainer. It defines who you are.
I’m not sure what Metro system you ride every day, but apparently its not the same one I ride.
First, what pan handlers? What in God’s name are you talking about? Have you ever been anywhere? Do you even know what a pan handler is? Trying stepping over half-naked hunchbacks with their hunchback dogs on the steps of some cathedral, or being accosted by families of gypsies who make pathetic moaning and crying sounds in some cobblestoned square. While there are some pan handlers in DC, they are not on Metro; they are outside of the metro stations or Starbucks or the Natural History Museum or St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and while there may be an occasional guy on the train or in the station asking for change, metro card in hand, because, like Charlie on the MTA, he doesn’t have enough to exit the station, it’s not as serious a problem as you make out! All you have to do is ignore them and go on thinking up other things to complain about.
Rude people? There are rude people everywhere, and it’s been my experience that people are a lot less rude on Metro than on I-66. Inside their own two ton hunk of metal, people treat other drivers in ways they would never treat someone face to face. On Metro, not a day goes by that I don’t see someone give up their seat for an old person or a pregnant person or a disabled person, or allow other people to board or exit first, or go through the turnstile first, or up the escalator first. While there are many people in a hurry, walking quickly through the stations, so what? That’s not rude, that’s simply a person who wants to get to work on time.
You say the service is poor. Really? You pay $1.65 (or even three bucks) to go miles to work, bypassing traffic and pollution, and you can read or sleep or write or stare into space and think up even more stuff to complain about, and not have to pay for gas or parking or maintenance, and you complain because every once in a while you have to wait an extra 5 or 10 or 15 minutes for a train? Ever sit in a normal traffic jam on the toll road, where it takes an hour and a half to make your 10 mile trip home? You’re spoiled, that’s all. You don’t know a good thing when you have it.
Go back to Florida or Texas or Arizona or wherever you came from where cars rule and you don’t have to interact with other people and stop forcing me to write stupid blog entries like this one!
I’m not sure what Metro system you ride every day, but apparently its not the same one I ride.
First, what pan handlers? What in God’s name are you talking about? Have you ever been anywhere? Do you even know what a pan handler is? Trying stepping over half-naked hunchbacks with their hunchback dogs on the steps of some cathedral, or being accosted by families of gypsies who make pathetic moaning and crying sounds in some cobblestoned square. While there are some pan handlers in DC, they are not on Metro; they are outside of the metro stations or Starbucks or the Natural History Museum or St. Matthew’s Cathedral, and while there may be an occasional guy on the train or in the station asking for change, metro card in hand, because, like Charlie on the MTA, he doesn’t have enough to exit the station, it’s not as serious a problem as you make out! All you have to do is ignore them and go on thinking up other things to complain about.
Rude people? There are rude people everywhere, and it’s been my experience that people are a lot less rude on Metro than on I-66. Inside their own two ton hunk of metal, people treat other drivers in ways they would never treat someone face to face. On Metro, not a day goes by that I don’t see someone give up their seat for an old person or a pregnant person or a disabled person, or allow other people to board or exit first, or go through the turnstile first, or up the escalator first. While there are many people in a hurry, walking quickly through the stations, so what? That’s not rude, that’s simply a person who wants to get to work on time.
You say the service is poor. Really? You pay $1.65 (or even three bucks) to go miles to work, bypassing traffic and pollution, and you can read or sleep or write or stare into space and think up even more stuff to complain about, and not have to pay for gas or parking or maintenance, and you complain because every once in a while you have to wait an extra 5 or 10 or 15 minutes for a train? Ever sit in a normal traffic jam on the toll road, where it takes an hour and a half to make your 10 mile trip home? You’re spoiled, that’s all. You don’t know a good thing when you have it.
Go back to Florida or Texas or Arizona or wherever you came from where cars rule and you don’t have to interact with other people and stop forcing me to write stupid blog entries like this one!
Friday, May 18, 2007
How to Shop for Wine
The thing about buying wine is that you’re not drunk yet when you’re doing it. This makes it rather difficult to grab whatever rot gut is cheapest and go on your merry way because your unaddled brain allows reason to cloud your judgment: “If this bottle is only $2.95,” you say to yourself, “there’s a good likelihood it contains something I would rather not drink, like antifreeze. Or goat urine.”
A $4.99 bottle might only contain rat hair or cockroach antennae, you reason, not as bad as the cheaper bottle, but still not pleasant. You continue reasoning on up the price scale: $6.99 probably just has dirt in it, $8.99 might be reasonably poison free but it’s probably made from something other than grapes, $10.99 must taste like gym socks, etc.
On up the pricing scale you go, until you are left with a wine from some unpronounceable French maison in the most expensive Appellation of France. And you can’t afford to buy that. So you leave, empty handed.
This is the problem I constantly run into while shopping, sober, at my little wine store on U Street next to The Ellington. They have a whole array of seemingly good wines at low prices all of which I’m scared to buy because of my unreasonable fear of blindness or hair loss or premature death.
There’s only one obvious solution to this problem, but it takes quite a bit of planning on my part. First, I must keep a half finished bottle of wine on hand in our apartment, a cheap bottle I purchased previously. I call this my “priming” bottle. Since I drank half of it before with no ill effects (except, of course, drunkenness), I know it’s safe to drink. So I polish off that bottle. But I must open a second bottle, because such habits indulged in frequently quickly build up mighty tolerances. I drink off half of that bottle, and then, thoroughly sloshed, I’m adequately prepared to go wine shopping. Off I go to my wine store, buying anything I want, because my reasoning now goes like this: “they don’t know whadahell they’re doing in this-here store, they got all the prices screwed hic! screwed hic! screwed hic! wrong. Mustuv left off some zeroes or somethin’.” In my inebriation, the inexpensive bottles seem quite the deal! You might be thinking to yourself that the opposite might be true, as well, that I could just as easily buy an expensive bottle using the same reasoning, but I’ve found this not to be an issue. Even drunk, I’m still a cheap bastard. And so I buy another bottle, take it home, set out a couple glasses, and pass out.
When I again decide to buy wine, I have waiting for me my half-full “priming” bottle and a second full bottle, and the circle is complete. I must admit, it’s not everyone’s idea of a good time, and it’s not even my idea of a good time, but it beats the hell out of drinking goat urine. Or, at least I think.
A $4.99 bottle might only contain rat hair or cockroach antennae, you reason, not as bad as the cheaper bottle, but still not pleasant. You continue reasoning on up the price scale: $6.99 probably just has dirt in it, $8.99 might be reasonably poison free but it’s probably made from something other than grapes, $10.99 must taste like gym socks, etc.
On up the pricing scale you go, until you are left with a wine from some unpronounceable French maison in the most expensive Appellation of France. And you can’t afford to buy that. So you leave, empty handed.
This is the problem I constantly run into while shopping, sober, at my little wine store on U Street next to The Ellington. They have a whole array of seemingly good wines at low prices all of which I’m scared to buy because of my unreasonable fear of blindness or hair loss or premature death.
There’s only one obvious solution to this problem, but it takes quite a bit of planning on my part. First, I must keep a half finished bottle of wine on hand in our apartment, a cheap bottle I purchased previously. I call this my “priming” bottle. Since I drank half of it before with no ill effects (except, of course, drunkenness), I know it’s safe to drink. So I polish off that bottle. But I must open a second bottle, because such habits indulged in frequently quickly build up mighty tolerances. I drink off half of that bottle, and then, thoroughly sloshed, I’m adequately prepared to go wine shopping. Off I go to my wine store, buying anything I want, because my reasoning now goes like this: “they don’t know whadahell they’re doing in this-here store, they got all the prices screwed hic! screwed hic! screwed hic! wrong. Mustuv left off some zeroes or somethin’.” In my inebriation, the inexpensive bottles seem quite the deal! You might be thinking to yourself that the opposite might be true, as well, that I could just as easily buy an expensive bottle using the same reasoning, but I’ve found this not to be an issue. Even drunk, I’m still a cheap bastard. And so I buy another bottle, take it home, set out a couple glasses, and pass out.
When I again decide to buy wine, I have waiting for me my half-full “priming” bottle and a second full bottle, and the circle is complete. I must admit, it’s not everyone’s idea of a good time, and it’s not even my idea of a good time, but it beats the hell out of drinking goat urine. Or, at least I think.
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Golf Clubs on Metro
"Golf is a game whose aim is to hit a very small ball into a even smaller hole, with weapons singularly ill-designed for the purpose." -- Winston Churchill
I’ve carried lots of different things on metro trains: groceries, cakes, boxes, bicycles, hockey skates. And now, golf clubs. I was forced to borrow clubs from a friend, and this necessitated taking them for a train ride to get them home. I’ve seen people with lacrosse sticks, tennis rackets, pizzas, full football pads, even an air conditioner, on metro trains, but never, as odd as it may seem, golf clubs.
Taking golf clubs on metro is not as strange of an experience as I had hoped. I got a few funny looks, but they passed quickly. Only one man made a comment, and not a very witty one. Something to the effect of “where were you golfing down town?” And I had been rehearsing my responses all day, too, but never had a chance to use them: “Well, you see, I seem to have lost my balls,” or “Is the clubhouse this way?” or “You know, I’ve got this wicked slice, and…”
The worst thing about it: golf clubs are heavy. On the train, leaning against them jauntily, one arm akimbo, hat at a rakish angle, it's easy. Riding the escalator in a similar, if slightly more compact, manner is no big deal, either. But carrying them down U Street, having to wait for the lights and dodge other pedestrians, especially after a long day of work, is quite trying. I nearly threw them under a bus, but I persevered, although I was forced to drag them behind me the last block and a half, tug-of-war style. And I gave away the three iron along the way to lighten the load. It’s a terrible club, anyway, more fitted for street fighting than hitting a little ball. I hope its new owner puts it to good use.
I’ve been trying to think of other seldom seen things to carry onto metro: perhaps I’ll wear ice skates next, or maybe ski boots with the skis slung over my shoulder. Or maybe I’ll wear boxing gloves, although I’d have to ask the station attendant for help at the turnstile. Maybe I’ll just wear a motorcycle helmet. Maybe I should anyway, all the time.
In any case, I haven’t returned the clubs yet, and I don’t look forward to carrying them once again down U Street. Perhaps I’ll just take up street fighting. The motorcycle helmet won’t look so crazy then.
I’ve carried lots of different things on metro trains: groceries, cakes, boxes, bicycles, hockey skates. And now, golf clubs. I was forced to borrow clubs from a friend, and this necessitated taking them for a train ride to get them home. I’ve seen people with lacrosse sticks, tennis rackets, pizzas, full football pads, even an air conditioner, on metro trains, but never, as odd as it may seem, golf clubs.
Taking golf clubs on metro is not as strange of an experience as I had hoped. I got a few funny looks, but they passed quickly. Only one man made a comment, and not a very witty one. Something to the effect of “where were you golfing down town?” And I had been rehearsing my responses all day, too, but never had a chance to use them: “Well, you see, I seem to have lost my balls,” or “Is the clubhouse this way?” or “You know, I’ve got this wicked slice, and…”
The worst thing about it: golf clubs are heavy. On the train, leaning against them jauntily, one arm akimbo, hat at a rakish angle, it's easy. Riding the escalator in a similar, if slightly more compact, manner is no big deal, either. But carrying them down U Street, having to wait for the lights and dodge other pedestrians, especially after a long day of work, is quite trying. I nearly threw them under a bus, but I persevered, although I was forced to drag them behind me the last block and a half, tug-of-war style. And I gave away the three iron along the way to lighten the load. It’s a terrible club, anyway, more fitted for street fighting than hitting a little ball. I hope its new owner puts it to good use.
I’ve been trying to think of other seldom seen things to carry onto metro: perhaps I’ll wear ice skates next, or maybe ski boots with the skis slung over my shoulder. Or maybe I’ll wear boxing gloves, although I’d have to ask the station attendant for help at the turnstile. Maybe I’ll just wear a motorcycle helmet. Maybe I should anyway, all the time.
In any case, I haven’t returned the clubs yet, and I don’t look forward to carrying them once again down U Street. Perhaps I’ll just take up street fighting. The motorcycle helmet won’t look so crazy then.
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Mules Frites on the Hill
Eating mussels (not muscles; you only make that mistake once, I can assure you) is a strangely indulgent activity.
I had the great good fortune of having them at Belga Café last night. But when the waitress first put them down in front of me, I wondered why, exactly I had ordered them. There they were, piled in a steaming heap, their internal organs hanging limply from their open shells, bathed in garlic and wine and butter.
My first two beers at the Hawk-n-Dove, and the subsequent Duvel at Belga, got me to musing about what exactly I was about to eat. My thoughts left me reticent to shove the first peach-colored mollusk into my mouth. You see, I was at a loss as to what part of the mussel I was actually eating. Unlike crabs, where you know when you’re eating a leg or a claw or an eye stalk, or even beef, where you can at least identify which part of the cow you’re devouring: rib eye or rump or tongue, the mussel remains a mystery. The answer is, of course, that you eat all of the parts of a mussel: lips, brains, toenails, eye balls, and all. (I’m just speculating here, never having taken the time to really study a mussel.)
My reticence only lasted as long as it took me to tear the first mussel from its shell and raise it to my lips. I ate the entire vat, plus a few of my wife’s mussels as well, in a silent slurpy frenzy. The frites with mayo and a couple of Belgian ales later, and I couldn’t care less what parts of a mussel I ate, as long as I didn’t eat the shells. Although, truthfully, I probably wouldn’t have minded those very much, either.
I had the great good fortune of having them at Belga Café last night. But when the waitress first put them down in front of me, I wondered why, exactly I had ordered them. There they were, piled in a steaming heap, their internal organs hanging limply from their open shells, bathed in garlic and wine and butter.
My first two beers at the Hawk-n-Dove, and the subsequent Duvel at Belga, got me to musing about what exactly I was about to eat. My thoughts left me reticent to shove the first peach-colored mollusk into my mouth. You see, I was at a loss as to what part of the mussel I was actually eating. Unlike crabs, where you know when you’re eating a leg or a claw or an eye stalk, or even beef, where you can at least identify which part of the cow you’re devouring: rib eye or rump or tongue, the mussel remains a mystery. The answer is, of course, that you eat all of the parts of a mussel: lips, brains, toenails, eye balls, and all. (I’m just speculating here, never having taken the time to really study a mussel.)
My reticence only lasted as long as it took me to tear the first mussel from its shell and raise it to my lips. I ate the entire vat, plus a few of my wife’s mussels as well, in a silent slurpy frenzy. The frites with mayo and a couple of Belgian ales later, and I couldn’t care less what parts of a mussel I ate, as long as I didn’t eat the shells. Although, truthfully, I probably wouldn’t have minded those very much, either.
Monday, May 7, 2007
DC Building Height Limit
There’s been some talk recently about raising DC’s building height limit. In a recent Washington Post article, an architect speaking at a development conference is quoted as saying: "We have a moral imperative to increase density, to get us out of our cars." This is a laudable goal: as population density increases, retail businesses move in creating a busy, thriving neighborhood; the busier the neighborhood, the safer the neighborhood. Since DC is well served by both subway and bus, and plus is a very walkable city, new residents won’t necessarily increase car traffic. Higher density is green by its very nature. Higher density is a good thing. But we don’t need 30 or 40 story buildings to achieve it.
The premise is that DC is running out of vacant land on which to build, and soon there will be no sites to develop from Florida Avenue south to the waterfront, and from Capitol Hill to Georgetown.
Right now, there is an awful lot of vacant land and under-developed real estate in those areas, and adjoining neighborhoods. Once those are all built out, perhaps the city should consider raising the building height limit.
But even then, there is really no reason to.
A critic of the plan to raise the building height limit said that “…high-rise buildings would spoil a low-lying, Parisian-style city.” Paris is an interesting comparison. If only DC were like Paris! Paris has a population density over 6 times higher than DC’s. (Paris: approximately 64,000 people per square mile; DC: approximately 9,000.) How is that possible?
There are very few buildings in Paris that are higher than 6 or 7 stories. But there are also very few buildings that are lower than 6 or 7 stories.
I’m not suggesting that DC should strive to have that kind of population density. But a little more density would be nice. To increase density, we don’t have to get rid of the building height limit; we simply have to use our real estate more efficiently. Most of residential DC consists of neighborhoods filled with 2 – 4 story row houses. In Paris, these neighborhoods would be fill with 6 and 7 story apartment houses. We don’t need to destroy DC’s huge stock of wonderful row houses. But I am suggesting that places that are blighted with bad mid-20th century development be transformed into something more urban.
All over the city, there are examples of 1950s – 1990s one and two story buildings that are a waste of real estate. Look at 14th Street NW between, say, R and W streets. Or consider the building across the street from The Ellington on U Street: Crème is located there, and a dollar store, and the Rite Aid on the corner, among other businesses. Great uses, but the building itself is only a single story. Ten or 20 years ago, someone thought it would be a good idea to build what amounts to a strip mall there. Four or five more stories on top of it, which is in character with the rest of the neighborhood, and you’ve just increased density. Twenty years ago, a one story building may have made economic sense; today, the owner of that building is losing money (or at least not making money) every day that he can only rent out one floor. Development like this could happen all over DC’s central core.
There are many ways to achieve a good density. Getting rid of the over-all height limit in DC is not one of them. Encouraging the kind of in-fill development I described above could help.
The premise is that DC is running out of vacant land on which to build, and soon there will be no sites to develop from Florida Avenue south to the waterfront, and from Capitol Hill to Georgetown.
Right now, there is an awful lot of vacant land and under-developed real estate in those areas, and adjoining neighborhoods. Once those are all built out, perhaps the city should consider raising the building height limit.
But even then, there is really no reason to.
A critic of the plan to raise the building height limit said that “…high-rise buildings would spoil a low-lying, Parisian-style city.” Paris is an interesting comparison. If only DC were like Paris! Paris has a population density over 6 times higher than DC’s. (Paris: approximately 64,000 people per square mile; DC: approximately 9,000.) How is that possible?
There are very few buildings in Paris that are higher than 6 or 7 stories. But there are also very few buildings that are lower than 6 or 7 stories.
I’m not suggesting that DC should strive to have that kind of population density. But a little more density would be nice. To increase density, we don’t have to get rid of the building height limit; we simply have to use our real estate more efficiently. Most of residential DC consists of neighborhoods filled with 2 – 4 story row houses. In Paris, these neighborhoods would be fill with 6 and 7 story apartment houses. We don’t need to destroy DC’s huge stock of wonderful row houses. But I am suggesting that places that are blighted with bad mid-20th century development be transformed into something more urban.
All over the city, there are examples of 1950s – 1990s one and two story buildings that are a waste of real estate. Look at 14th Street NW between, say, R and W streets. Or consider the building across the street from The Ellington on U Street: Crème is located there, and a dollar store, and the Rite Aid on the corner, among other businesses. Great uses, but the building itself is only a single story. Ten or 20 years ago, someone thought it would be a good idea to build what amounts to a strip mall there. Four or five more stories on top of it, which is in character with the rest of the neighborhood, and you’ve just increased density. Twenty years ago, a one story building may have made economic sense; today, the owner of that building is losing money (or at least not making money) every day that he can only rent out one floor. Development like this could happen all over DC’s central core.
There are many ways to achieve a good density. Getting rid of the over-all height limit in DC is not one of them. Encouraging the kind of in-fill development I described above could help.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Suburban Youth Teach U Street A Lesson
MAGIC TRAGIC 2AM, NEHI, and so on. A couple mornings each week as I walk down U Street, I see the latest angry expressions that the oppressed masses of disenfranchised white middleclass suburban youths have spray painted onto my neighborhood’s buildings, bus stops, and sidewalks. Much like the ’05 Parisian riots of unemployed and shunned suburban youths, or the riots that tore apart this same stretch of U Street 40 years ago, these youths are expressing their outrage at the injustices they see all around them.
Apparently, this group of (sub)urban radicals has put together a searing manifesto, which includes such items as “one of the five televisions in my house may not be working”, “my parents didn’t (that’s right, DID NOT) buy me the latest nano for Christmas,” and “first Napster, and now just possibly Pandora!” One cannot help but sympathize.
In a show of solidarity, I suggest that the residents of DC take it to the streets (or the Drives or Courts or Cul-de-sacs or whatever). Let’s head out to Silver Spring and Bethesda and Wheaton and express our own outrage on their buildings and bus stops and sidewalks (if they have sidewalks, that is)! Meet me at the Duron Paint store on 14th Street in Columbia Heights tonight just before closing. Wear your most tattered hoody and we’ll head out to commit acts of, well, random vandalism, I guess.
I’m open to suggestions as to what to what our "tag" should be. It has to be of course cryptic, have a rather loose relationship with grammar, and strike fear into the hearts of suburbanites. I’ve come up with a few ideas, like “COMMUTER TOLLS ARE GOING TO GET YOU” or “DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE? (HINT: IN DC, AT NIGHT, WITH SPRAY PAINT!)” or “PLEASE DON’T RUN ME DOWN JUST BECAUSE I’M WALKING”; but perhaps those are too long and violate the “cryptic” mandate.
Or maybe DC should institute a new curfew, but only on white suburban kids.
Apparently, this group of (sub)urban radicals has put together a searing manifesto, which includes such items as “one of the five televisions in my house may not be working”, “my parents didn’t (that’s right, DID NOT) buy me the latest nano for Christmas,” and “first Napster, and now just possibly Pandora!” One cannot help but sympathize.
In a show of solidarity, I suggest that the residents of DC take it to the streets (or the Drives or Courts or Cul-de-sacs or whatever). Let’s head out to Silver Spring and Bethesda and Wheaton and express our own outrage on their buildings and bus stops and sidewalks (if they have sidewalks, that is)! Meet me at the Duron Paint store on 14th Street in Columbia Heights tonight just before closing. Wear your most tattered hoody and we’ll head out to commit acts of, well, random vandalism, I guess.
I’m open to suggestions as to what to what our "tag" should be. It has to be of course cryptic, have a rather loose relationship with grammar, and strike fear into the hearts of suburbanites. I’ve come up with a few ideas, like “COMMUTER TOLLS ARE GOING TO GET YOU” or “DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR CHILDREN ARE? (HINT: IN DC, AT NIGHT, WITH SPRAY PAINT!)” or “PLEASE DON’T RUN ME DOWN JUST BECAUSE I’M WALKING”; but perhaps those are too long and violate the “cryptic” mandate.
Or maybe DC should institute a new curfew, but only on white suburban kids.
Thursday, May 3, 2007
I’m Not Going To Take It Anymore
My wife has decided it would be funny to make a certain obscene gesture whenever anyone walks past our apartment. This may be directly related to her other decision to put coconut rum in everything: sauces, gravy, deserts, drinks, house plants, shoes.
Being the supportive husband, I’m happy with her decisions, and they've given me license to make a few of my own, the most important of which is the decision that I’m not going to take it anymore.
Now, what is the “it” that I’m not going to “take” anymore, you might ask? And to where have I been taking “it” up to this point? These are both good questions. “It” can be many different things, and their destinations are equally variable. “It” might be a banana I don’t want to eat because it has turned brown and mushy. Some people might like that, but I can assure you, I’m not one of them. Traditionally, I’ve taken such “its” to work as part of my lunch, only to dispose of “it” in a coworker’s bottom left desk drawer.
Other “its” might turn out to be small pocketable items arrayed on the shelves of local purveyors of sundries that I have no right to “take” (at least not without the requisite exchange of currency) but always seem to end up in my bottom left desk drawer. I believe I have a problem with bottom left desk drawers. You might even say I’m a “bottom left desk drawer” man.
But probably the most important “it” is an umbrella. I’ve taken “it” just about everywhere, and for what? It neither raises me in my colleague’s estimation nor is it useful as either a defensive or offensive weapon. Plus, I’m always leaving “it” everywhere, necessitating sheepish returns to stores, museums, offices, alligator nests, and scenes of drunken merriment in vain attempts to recover “it.” I don't need the hassle and I’m not going to take it anymore.
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