Earlier this year we moved into the Parkwood subdivision. Located partly in unincorporated DeKalb County, Georgia, and partly in the City of Decatur, Parkwood is one of the last subdivisions developed in Druid Hills, the Garden City vision initially designed by Frederick Law Olmsted for Atlanta. Shortly after we arrived I asked myself, “How could I possibly live in an Olmsted suburb and not go rooting around in its history?”
A little Continue reading
People occasionally duck into Song Won’s Pro Cleaners to ask her about the large tree in the parking lot behind the dry cleaning store on North Highland Ave. NE. The thing behind her store, however, is no tree. It’s a cell tower constructed to look like a tree.
“The tree is kind of interesting,” she said. “I tell customers, these are antennas. It’s not a tree. They take pictures.” Continue reading
What would you do if you lived in a dense urban neighborhood that is zoned R-60 (a single-family residential district) and your neighbor had nearly 30 chickens, two ducks, an adult turkey, three pygmy goats, two dogs, two cats, a turtle, and some fish?
When we moved from the D.C. suburbs to the Atlanta suburbs in February, we exchanged a common 1930s house for a common 1950s house. We went from a Cape Cod built in 1936 to a ranch house built in the mid-1950s.
After we moved in we realized that we were living inside the Druid Hills Historic District and that the ranch houses lining our street were considered contributing elements to the district. Last year, the Georgia’s state historic preservation office released a well-researched and highly accessible ranch house context study. I downloaded the report and browsed through it before moving on to the business of moving. When I revisited the report a few weeks ago I realized that several of the homes discussed in there report were located just a few hundred feet from our new Georgia home.
I testified at tonight’s hearing. The HPC voted 6 to 2 against designating the First Baptist Church of Silver Spring. Here is the testimony I delivered earlier this evening: Continue reading
Each year I used to celebrate Groundhog Day with calls to friends and relatives and with home-made cards. People would send me Groundhog Day-themed cartoons and I would add them to my collection. Then, in 1993 Bill Murray’s Groundhog Day movie was released and the holiday went commercial. You just can’t compete with popular culture and I abandoned the annual Groundhog Day celebration. Continue reading
Last week we had a little snow storm that created huge problems for the Washington metropolitan area. A downed power line sent flames and smoke into our yard as the wire remained draped on our wood fence 20 feet away from our house. Using landlines and cellphones, our neighborhood was unable to reach Montgomery County 911 to report the downed lines and fire. We subsequently spent 45 hours without power (and heat) and we were lucky.
One hundred and five years ago, ethnic conflicts that had been simmering since the Civil War ended came to a boil along the banks of the Shenandoah River in West Virginia. A conversation yesterday with a researcher documenting aspects of African American life in the area where West Virginia, Maryland, and Virginia meet reminded me of the story of the 1906 lynching of Ed Howell. Continue reading
