Peace ya'll,
It appears we're a step closer to finally getting a decent bar in our neighborhood. If you look at the corner of First Street NW & T St NW, you'll notice a Class C liquor application in the vacated bottom level of the building. According the application, the venue will have an occupancy of 99 people with an occasional DJ. The hours of the venue will run until 2 during the week nights, 3AM during the weekend. The owners, Baraki Inc, will be serving American Fare.
To me, this is nothing but a positive. After a couple of years of walking to U Street in order to grab a drink or eleven, that walk back can be treacherous at night. Uneven sidewalks are definitely not your friend when you're stumbling about. So, the dive bar a couple of blocks away from my house is always welcomed.
I'm curious as to the crowd. Will the people who have been here for years and years be the first into the bar, or will the neighborhood gentrifiers claim to own the air in there as well? I noticed that there was a meeting held at Windows (Which, if you're reading this blog, you should definitely be supporting over the gentrifying Big Bear Cafe) to discuss the pros and cons of this venue last night. I couldn't make it, but I wanted to. I love to see the viewpoints, no matter how off-the-mark they are, of other people in our neighborhood. It's vitally important to get the other side.
Now, I guess would be an opprotune time to formulate a game plan once the venue opens. I believe that if we can pack it with people of color opening night, the gentrifiers will leave almost immediately. Most are actually intimidated by groups of color, despite their ambivalent ice king/queen fascade.
So, my readers - can we organize such an event to nip that in the bud? What do you think? Concerns about the venue?
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8 comments:
The owners are of Greek descent. One of them bought a home nearby in 2004. That makes them gentrifiers by most definitions.
Wow - this is pretty closed-minded. I'm glad my neighbors up in Eckington are more accepting than you, even though they're ACTUALLY from the area, unlike someone who has lived here only a few years.
Let's take it up a notch. We'll just assign people nights.
Friday: Gays
Saturday: Blacks
Sunday: Hispanics
Monday.....
I'm hoping you can sense the sarcasm. Mixed venues can exist and I think bring a lot to the community. You seem to be part of the problem
Monday- Black gay night? People with Pets Night?
The problem with the written medium is that we can't always tell when you're being sarcastic.
I'm going to give the benefit of doubt and guess the "late a game plan once the venue opens. I believe that if we can pack it with people of color opening night, the gentrifiers will leave almost immediately. Most are actually intimidated by groups of color, despite their ambivalent ice king/queen fascade" is humor.
Because A) Who the Hell moves this far past 16th St if they have a problem with being around people of color? B) People of Color are part of the gentrifying process. I'm a middle class black woman who bought a house and fixed it up.
Also I go to the Big Bear because it's closer to the house and that's where the Farmer's Market is.
I think calling a city a "Chocolate City" denotes an ownership and is the equivalent of telling other races that they aren't welcome around here. Also, organizing an event for black people to scare off gentrifies is ignorant as well because you are excluding the possibility that black people may also be gentrifying. I think this blog has gotten of to a fairly racist start, but I welcome the new blog with a different view point. I hope this doesn't discourage you from blogging, just don't get upset when commenter calls a spade a spade. On similar note though, I am excited for Baraki and I would hope that the community would just allow them the freedom to run their business how they wish. I guess this now also includes not forcing a specific clientele on them.
Dear Sir,
I am actually moving to LeDroit Park, just at the border of Bloomingdale, in a couple of months. So, "Hello, Neighbor! Nice to meet you!"
Although...I guess I'd be considered one of those "gentrifiers" you seem to dislike... and that makes me kinda sad. I too grew up in the South, a child of a "third-world" man who somehow managed to make it out alive and with an education. And who moved back anyhow because, for all it's faults, my hometown was a great place to grow up. Sure, I'm super-sensitive to white privelage, social inequities, and religious fanaticism, 'cause all that crap surrounded me and MADE ME SO FRIGGIN' MAD, but I'm also very nice to strangers and willing to become friends with all sorts of people, even if off the bat they might not seem like someone I'd have anything in common with. Oh, and I married a "third-world" man who is part-white and part-Cherokee... so I guess our family isn't totally "white bread." Does that help?
So, present day--we've lived in DC for over 5 years. I fell in love with DC growing up because my great-aunt lived here and we'd come visit her nearly every summer. She lived in Anacostia and, though I didn't realized it at the time, we were the only white people there. Whenever we'd visit all the neighbors would be like, "you guys Lela's kin?", 'cause, as I know now DC's segregated and why else would two little 5-year old white girls be in Anacostia in 1986, unless they were related to the only white lady in the entire neighborhood? (At the time, I just thought we looked a lot like her and they had guessed really well.) Now that I'm older and see the truth about DC and race, I can see clearly (now that you've pointed it out) that, in fact, I don't want the world to be like Sesame Street where all types of diversity help each other grow and learn and living an equitable and full life, I'm actually bad and incapable of wanting to help or be friends with or love or give a shit about a person of color because I'm white. Which you know I totally picked on my way out of my mama's vajajay.
In our spare time between kicking kittens and puppies and giving the stink-eye to our neighbors, my boy works in computers and I work in museums and we finally have enough money (with some help from my parents and the downturning economy) to buy a house... we currently rent in Columbia Heights, but weren't liking the loss of community feeling in the neighborhood that had drawn us there years ago... plus it's very business-districty in its original planning (and replanning) and I like a bit slower pace of life, being a Southerner and all.
We looked long and hard and held out for a place in Bloomingdale or LeDroit because of the neighborhood feel, the sense that even if I might be different in color from many that live there, my values of community pride, civic responsibility and plain ol' niceness towards my neighbors would help me be appreciated for who I am and what I can bring to the community to keep what is already amazing about it safe from developers. 'Cause,even though I do alright and am "highly" educated by our sad country's standards, I can barely afford to go get one drink at U street, much less the eleven drinks that make you want for a neighborhood dive.
In short, there is a lot of socio-economic stuff at play in "gentrifying," but from what I can tell (albiet from rich-person blogs/walking the neighborhood/going to *gasp* Big Bear, Windows, and Timor), the majority of "gentrifiers" (aka all other white people moving to this neighborhood other than you) coming to LeDroit/Bloomingdale aren't like the "gentrifiers" you deplore. They aren't wanting the existing neighborhood or neighbors to go away as quickly as possible so they can have fancy stuff--they LIKE the neighborhood... they just want some places to eat and drink and shop, like you do.
You say you don't bite your tongue, and I admire that... but I sure hope you'll still say hello to me in the bar when you see me and my husband there our one night a year we can afford to go out and give us a chance instead of assuming you know anything about me or my motives because of the color of my skin... a chance just like the chance we all deserve, no matter our color or income or creed.
Sincerely (and I mean that sincerely, despite my bits of sarcasm due to frustration),
Lizzy
J.
Check out these photos of what one ethnic enclave of the city looked like before newcomers started moving in!
Change clearly tore that neighborhood apart.
http://anacostianow.blogspot.com/2008/08/anacostia-high-school-in-1939.html
Well, gee, I hope that you and your chocolate wife didn't melt into the gooey center of the chocolate city or otherwise fall off the face of the earth.
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