An Evening of Police Raids and Contemplation

I recently moved to Kingman Park in Northeast DC from Columbia Heights in Northwest DC. What a change of scenery! What a breath of fresh air! What an active nightlife!

I used to be one of those people who thought life didn't exist beyond the borders of NW. Two years ago I turned down a fantastic apartment on Maryland Ave because I thought, "where would we go to hang out? I mean, it would take us an hour to get up to Columbia Heights!"

It took me a solid three months of house-hunting to actually realize that DC consists of more than Adam's Morgan, Georgetown, Columbia Heights, Foggy Bottom and Dupont. I've lived here for almost eight years! That's tragic testimony to both my own unwillingness to leave the house and the segregated nature of DC.

I'm not one of those starry eye-ed newcomers who moves to Bethesda and blathers on about how "DC has so much to offer!" But after years of trashing on this town, I can honestly say it's growing on me. It has nothing to do with the new bars opening up on 18th Street, or Screen on the Green or even Fort Reno, but it has everything to do with moving to NE. I've found that everything I despised about DC--it's transience; it's obnoxious, stuck-up frat-guy residents; it's lack of community, doesn't really seem evident around here.

There was just a situation out my window. I heard a bunch of sirens and about a dozen cop cars cordoned of the block with shot guns and dogs. I'm not sure what actually happened, but they did eventually drag some kid off in hand-cuffs. It was a tense situation. While it was going on everybody stayed in doors. The neighborhood was uncharacteristically quiet. Then after a while people came outside, even though the cops were still canvasing the streets. We went outside and chatted with one of our neighbors, a woman who's lived here for 47 years. She said it's a nice neighborhood, and insisted that it was safe. I've met a lot of people who've been here for that long. It's really nice to live in an actual neighborhood where people know each other. It's even better to live in a neighborhood where you're expected to say hello to one another, and if you don't you're looked at as stuck-up.

There's a lot of poverty in this neighborhood, and a fair bit of drug use (on at least one occasion we've had to pull the dog away from a cigarbox containing used needles), but I wouldn't trade it for Columbia Heights any day. Sure, cops seem to always be raiding houses around here (using a show of force you wouldn't ever see in NW) but during the day kids play games in the streets, old ladies sit on their porches, and people wave hello to you when you walk by. How can you beat that?

I'll just have to pray my being here doesn't hasten the gentrification. Next thing you know Ruby Tuesday will be setting up shop next door. It happened to the last neighborhood I lived in.