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?
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Por favor no tocar las ballerinas?
Peace,
This is my first post, as you can clearly view. I've always wanted to blog, but never could decide on what topics to touch. Living in the ever-gentrifying city of Washington, DC leaves me with plenty to blog about, especially as a socialite, but at the end of the day, I always had doubts if I had enough information to contribute. So, I perused through the other blogs about my city and noticed that most tend to view it with jaded lenses. As a matter of fact, the people blogging about the city, their surroundings, and the communities they live in were actually a sizable percentage of the problem, at least, in my eyes.
..and this blog has been born.
I guess in order to understand where I'm coming from, I should give you some background on myself.
I grew up in third-world poverty, deep in the rural mountains of Eastern Kentucky. When I say "third-world poverty", I truly mean it. I bounced between trailers and abandoned houses and eventually to a tobacco farm. Running water did not exist. We had a communal well, in our "holler" as we say, that we would have to walk a mile there and back with five-gallon buckets, so that we were able to cook and bathe. Since we did not have water, we didn't have plumbing. We used an outhouse, in which every few years, we'd have to dig up another hole, fill the previous hole up, and move it. I could give you more examples, but for time's sake, I'll spare you the details. You get the point.
I'm not old money, not new money. Like many of you, I live from check-to-check and attempt to provide for a family. I do not know what it's like to have money for a rainy day. While viewing other people's blogs, I got the notion that a good amount of the blog owners come from money. I hope to change that.
I am a white male, married to a black woman. We are in our mid-20's. Neither one of us grew up in the district, but we look at our paychecks and realize we're really not contributing to the gentrification. We both have third-world backgrounds, just from different ends of the spectrum.
Together, we live in the Bloomingdale neighborhood in Washington, DC. We are not home owners, but rather renters from a black home owner who has been in the neighborhood for 10+ years. In the few years that we've been renting here, we've viewed increasing change. We'll delve into that a bit more as the blog continues on.
..so what can you expect from me?
I don't hold my tongue for anyone. When you read what I type, hear what I speak, you're getting me. Expect to be appalled by my banter, expect to be down-right disgusted with my humor at times, but always expect the truth. Sometimes, the truth will leave a sour taste in your mouth. Whether you agree with me or not, isn't my objective. I want you to discuss this with your neighbors, discuss it with your children, and as always, feel free to discuss it through the comments section of this blog. Unlike other blogs, I will never censor any of it's readers. We all definitely deserve a voice.
Peace,
J.
This is my first post, as you can clearly view. I've always wanted to blog, but never could decide on what topics to touch. Living in the ever-gentrifying city of Washington, DC leaves me with plenty to blog about, especially as a socialite, but at the end of the day, I always had doubts if I had enough information to contribute. So, I perused through the other blogs about my city and noticed that most tend to view it with jaded lenses. As a matter of fact, the people blogging about the city, their surroundings, and the communities they live in were actually a sizable percentage of the problem, at least, in my eyes.
..and this blog has been born.
I guess in order to understand where I'm coming from, I should give you some background on myself.
I grew up in third-world poverty, deep in the rural mountains of Eastern Kentucky. When I say "third-world poverty", I truly mean it. I bounced between trailers and abandoned houses and eventually to a tobacco farm. Running water did not exist. We had a communal well, in our "holler" as we say, that we would have to walk a mile there and back with five-gallon buckets, so that we were able to cook and bathe. Since we did not have water, we didn't have plumbing. We used an outhouse, in which every few years, we'd have to dig up another hole, fill the previous hole up, and move it. I could give you more examples, but for time's sake, I'll spare you the details. You get the point.
I'm not old money, not new money. Like many of you, I live from check-to-check and attempt to provide for a family. I do not know what it's like to have money for a rainy day. While viewing other people's blogs, I got the notion that a good amount of the blog owners come from money. I hope to change that.
I am a white male, married to a black woman. We are in our mid-20's. Neither one of us grew up in the district, but we look at our paychecks and realize we're really not contributing to the gentrification. We both have third-world backgrounds, just from different ends of the spectrum.
Together, we live in the Bloomingdale neighborhood in Washington, DC. We are not home owners, but rather renters from a black home owner who has been in the neighborhood for 10+ years. In the few years that we've been renting here, we've viewed increasing change. We'll delve into that a bit more as the blog continues on.
..so what can you expect from me?
I don't hold my tongue for anyone. When you read what I type, hear what I speak, you're getting me. Expect to be appalled by my banter, expect to be down-right disgusted with my humor at times, but always expect the truth. Sometimes, the truth will leave a sour taste in your mouth. Whether you agree with me or not, isn't my objective. I want you to discuss this with your neighbors, discuss it with your children, and as always, feel free to discuss it through the comments section of this blog. Unlike other blogs, I will never censor any of it's readers. We all definitely deserve a voice.
Peace,
J.
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