Off the books at First and T

Posted on September 16, 2015 by David Rotenstein

Salon owner Latosha Jackson-Martin interviewed by a local TV crew, April 2015.

Last spring a long-lived Washington, D.C., hair salon shut its doors after about 50 years in business, 27 of them in the 100 block of Rhode Island Ave. NW. Jak & Company’s owner spent a few weeks in the media spotlight after a Washington Post reporter spotted a letter taped in the storefront’s plate glass door.

The letter announced that the business was closing; gentrification was one of the reasons the letter cited.

The history of changes in people and businesses at the intersection of First and T streets NW in Washington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood includes a hidden history of ties to Washington’s African American underworld. Continue reading →

History is in the eye of the beholder

Posted on September 13, 2015 by David Rotenstein

In 2013, the Maryland National Capital Park and Planning Commission (M-NCPPC) evaluated recreation buildings in Montgomery County parks and recommended designating seven of them historic. The North Four Corners Local Park building in Silver Spring was not among the ones selected for protection under Montgomery County’s historic preservation law, Chapter 24A of the County Code.

Though county officials declined to recognize the North Four Corners building’s historical significance, that doesn’t mean the building doesn’t have a history and deep attachment to our community.

North Four Corners Park recreation building, March 2015.

Continue reading →

The incipient slum

Posted on August 28, 2015 by David Rotenstein

Formerly high-grade neighborhoods are subject to extraordinarily rapid obsolescence, since there are few takers for the aging and oversized dwellings vacated by the departing elite. Their prohibitive purchase price and maintenance expense rule out their availability to successively lower income groups and their continued use as single-family homes …. (Hughes and Bleakly 1975: 49).

Continue reading →

The gentrification post

Posted on August 24, 2015 by David Rotenstein

People who live in gentrifying neighborhoods enjoy many new things that accompany increased investment and influxes of new people: better police protection, more places to shop and eat, and cleaner streets. The changes may be gradual or they may appear in such a short period of time that it seems like overnight.

Something as simple as the appearance of a mailbox on a corner can reinforce longtime residents’ impressions that change is occurring.

And now that I’ve been over here and we’re getting whites moving in the neighborhood, we’ve got a mailbox on the corner. We don’t have to go up to the post office ….

The mailbox is new. And pickup on time: eleven o’clock very day. Eleven o’clock every day. So you see, you get different service and you get general services and so forth and so on. — Washington, D.C., Ward 7 resident, July 2015.

Branch Ave., 2007. Credit: Google maps.

Branch Ave., 2015. Note new sidewalks.

The Wilson house (Updated)

Posted on August 14, 2015 by David Rotenstein

To the casual viewer, the 1,064-square-foot brick ranch house at 235 West Pharr Road in Decatur, Ga., was just another midcentury home. Set just inside the Decatur city limits in the Oakhurst neighborhood, the house recently was demolished.

235 W. Pharr Road in 2013.

Continue reading →

Baltimore road trip: a trip down Homesteader Alley

Posted on August 9, 2015 by David Rotenstein

An urban homesteading property featured in an Atlanta newspaper shortly after rehabilitation (upper left) and the same home in 2012 (lower right).

A Decatur, Ga., urban homesteading property featured in an Atlanta newspaper shortly after rehabilitation (upper left) and the same home in 2012 (lower right).

In late 2011 I was introduced to the intersection of gentrification and an innovative 1970s affordable housing program: urban homesteading. The population of 113 urban homesteading sites in Decatur, Ga., and the overlapping 123 teardowns I documented between 2011 and 2014 form a large part of the analytical core of my book on gentrification and demographic inversion in that city.

Since I my earliest first-hand exposure to the houses cities sold for $1 to qualified homeowners, I have visited former urban homesteading neighborhoods in Atlanta, Washington, and now, Baltimore. My experience in Decatur moved (for me, at least) urban homesteading and similar programs from the static pages of urban studies books and journals to a significant place in my thinking about displacement, neighborhood upgrading, and the politics of history in urban and suburban neighborhoods.

Former $1 home (leftmost house), Washington, D.C.

Continue reading →

A gentrification irony

Posted on August 3, 2015 by David Rotenstein

Last week I attempted to email a Decatur, Ga., real estate professional. His uninvited and unwanted letters and flyers are delivered to homes throughout the gentrifying Oakhurst neighborhood and I wanted to ask him some questions about the “as-is” house buying business.

Letter sent to elderly Oakhurst resident. The letter and envelope were printed on a laser printer to simulate personalization.

Credit: http://www.decaturish.com/2013/11/yellow-cards-stir-up-decatur-ga-residents/

One of the so-called "yellow stickers" let on our Atlanta home in 2012.

One of the so-called “yellow cards” left on our Atlanta home in 2012.

After I sent my email to him, I received an automated response triggered by his email provider’s spam setting:

What an irony. He blankets neighborhoods with gentrification spam, much of which ends up in old-fashioned spam filters: trash cans. At least he has the opportunity to screen unwanted materials even before they reach his eyes. You can’t say the same for the elderly homeowners who receive his literature.

Postscript: As for my effort to ask the individual questions about his business, I completed the form to get beyond the spam filter and I completed a “contact-us” form on his company’s website. I received no responses.

Gentrification signs

Posted on July 9, 2015 by David Rotenstein

This morning the Washington Post published a story about a D.C. homeowner’s very individual approach to opposing change in his neighborhood. Milfred Ellis posted three anti-gentrification signs in his Brightwood home’s front yard.

Anti-gentrification signs in Washington yard. Photo by author.

Post reporter Perry Stein is doing a solid job covering gentrification and other changes in Washington’s neighborhoods. I think her definition of gentrification is too broad, though: “gentrification is, by definition, wealthier residents displacing longtime poorer residents in neighborhoods.” There’s a compelling case for displacement and demographic change in Mr. Ellis’ neighborhood but there doesn’t appear to be a solid case for the disinvestment that’s essential to any rigorous definition of “gentrification.”

The signs in the Ellis yard are a great illustration of individual/neighborhood resistance to change that is being driven by the same forces that also underlie gentrification: real estate speculation. I think signs posted on utility poles near his home, though, tell the rest of the story:

“We Buy Houses” sign above a bike route sign, Brightwood neighborhood, Washington, D.C.

High school field trip

Posted on July 8, 2015 by David Rotenstein

Over the past four years I have collected thousands of articles, photos, and documents to write a book on gentrification in Decatur, Ga. The journey has yielded lots of WTF moments, some of which will be in the book; others that won’t. This post describes one episode that likely won’t reach print.

In the spring of 2012, Decatur High School social studies teacher Chris Billingsley took a group of students in the school’s “Close-Up Club” to Washington, D.C. Billingsley described the trip in a note to a local blog. According to the teacher, he and the kids had a “Capital [sic] Hill Day”:

The students took a tour of the Supreme Court, the Capital [sic.], met with staff from John Lewis and Saxby Chambliss offices, and had a seminar at the Heritage Foundation.

The Heritage Foundation’s Washington, D.C., headquarters.

We’ve spent more than a decade (split into two parts) living in the Washington metropolitan area. Like many residents, we frequently get queries from friends, relatives, and colleagues about places to visit on trips to Washington. And, of course, we also read local newspapers and magazines that report on the region’s most popular (and educational) tourist destinations. The Heritage Foundation — a conservative Capitol Hill think tank and influence peddling operation — has never been on any of those lists.

Designing a wealthy white suburb

Posted on June 23, 2015 by David Rotenstein

Residents of Decatur, Ga., who question whether their elected and appointed leaders have a genuine commitment to preserving affordable housing in the Atlanta suburb can find the answer to their query among the crop of 2015 Decatur Design Award winners.

Decatur Design Award plaque, downtown Decatur.

Last month, a home at 156 Feld Ave. was one of six recipients of a Decatur Design Award. The awards, doled out by the Decatur Historic Preservation Commission, recognize projects “that promote excellence in preservation, design, sustainability, and advocacy.”

Over the years, the Decatur HPC has given awards to teardown projects in the “sustainability” category. Under Decatur code, the Feld Ave. project is considered a “substantial alteration” to an existing building — an “addition” — and that’s the category in which it was recognized. In other jurisdictions, the Feld Ave. project likely would be considered a “teardown.”

Continue reading →

History Sidebar

Writings on history and the production of history

Off the books at First and T

Like this:

History is in the eye of the beholder

Like this:

The incipient slum

Like this:

The gentrification post

Like this:

The Wilson house (Updated)

Like this:

Baltimore road trip: a trip down Homesteader Alley

Like this:

A gentrification irony

Like this:

Gentrification signs

Like this:

High school field trip

Like this:

Designing a wealthy white suburb

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: