I live in a gentrified neighborhood. You know, yuppies to the left of me--crackheads to the right...and folks like me in the middle.
There used to be a garden next door where all the bums and winos would hang out and hoot and holler and carry on. The special days were when I would bring home company. Those were the days when they would really act out. One day I pulled up with some friends and they were dragging one of the drunker drunks out by his arms. Apparently they had drunk boundaries and he had over-stepped them. You gotta respect that.
"Beau" was the crackhead who would do my gardening for me. He was pretty cool and I liked him, plus he would hardly charge me anything for the work. Honestly, if you can find a crackhead you can trust, they're the best people to do your yard and fix-up stuff. You think I'm joking. Don't sleep on a crackhead.
The problem is crackheads don't last too long. Beau OD'd in the alley around the corner. They found him dead on an old couch. Folks really shouldn't keep furniture in alleys. That's ghetto.
"Bay-boy" was a hoot. He was a wino. He was tore down all the time. And I do mean ALL the time. My next door neighbor, a cool middle aged white hippy chick, used to have him walk her dog every morning.
One day we were talking and she says, "You should get "Bay-boy" to do work for you. He's pretty good if you can catch him before he gets drunk." Well I had to ask her when the hell that was...between 5am and 5:15am? At the time he died I had been living there for five years and I had never once since him sober. Not ONCE.
I finally assumed he slurred all the time because he had had a stroke. Imagine my surprise when I found out he was really drunk all that time. How in the heck can someone be drunk everyday for five years straight? I guess that's why he's dead. He was nice though.
"Bo-Bo" is another interesting character though he isn't a drunk. He's mentally challenged. You would always see him running around with drum sticks. I don't mean chicken drum sticks, I mean "drum" drum sticks.
Finally, people started putting him to work. He really likes to help out. Everytime there's some road crew on our street doing some work, there's "Bo-Bo" helping out...or getting in the way. Whichever. They pay him so he must do OK.
What irony. "Bay-boy," who had all of his capacities...when he wasn't incapacitated, chose to live a life of "forced retardation" while "Bo-Bo," who is mentally challenged, works hard to overcome his limitations. It's a poignant point...which I guess kind of gets lost in the ridiculous sound of the nicknames...
My Journey Through Gentrification
I sometimes wonder what it is about gentrification that is often so incendiary. I think part of the problem is that it begins with the facade that gentrification is really about diversity. We all want diversity because there seems to be this notion that a neighborhood can be too black or too Latino. People don't typically talk about a neighborhood being too white but believe me, there is such a thing.
People of color appreciate true diversity. In fact, most in predominantly minority neighborhoods will proudly point to the new white couple down the street as a sign of progress.
But gentrification is a whole 'nother issue. It is really diversity in reverse and while one white couple moving to an ethnic community may be cute, six or seven will usually begin to make the longtime neighbors groan, “There goes the neighborhood.”
The gentrification of DC is no different from what is happening in urban neighborhoods across the country. It’s happening to New Orleans in the post Hurricane Katrina era and it’s even happening to Harlem one of the country’s most well known African American communities. That it’s happening to the nation’s capitol and what has been long referred to in black circles as “chocolate city” is not surprising and probably long overdue. After all, it is the nation’s capitol—only those of us who've lived here long enough know that just a few years ago it was nothing but a sleepy little government town that shut down at five o’clock.
Let’s face it, most people don’t mind the upside of gentrification. The quality supermarkets that spring up in your neighborhood, the cute little sidewalk cafes, the Home Depots, the streets that are suddenly paved and, the most coveted prize of all, the increased emergency response.
But there’s obviously a downside to gentrification as well. The unique little mom and pop shops that sell the things you need get replaced by businesses that are nice but sell things you don’t really need. Old Ms. Johnson who was always sweeping sidewalks, knew all the neighborhood gossip, and letting you know when someone she didn’t recognize came knocking on your door while you were away is suddenly and mysteriously replaced by some middle age white guy who only talks to you to ask you not to throw anything in his trash can. The parks, which used to belong to romping children, now belong to romping dogs.
But some of the things that get lost in gentrification aren’t really quantifiable or visible. Like a neighborhood’s personality and its soul.
Before my neighborhood became gentri-fried, dyed and so many of its working class black folks became laid to the side (tucked away neatly in Maryland's Prince George’s county), I lived in what I would often call the “’hood”. Not on the level of HBO’s show “The Wire” or anything like that, but it definitely had its ghetto-like elements.
Have you ever seen something so crazy that all you can think is, “Man, if only someone else were with me to witness this”? I’ve had lots of those moments. I’ve found that living in the ‘hood is often underrated. OK, so maybe my suburban friends have never had the experience of spending a day planting beautiful new flowers in their garden only to have someone dig them up and steal them the very next day. But I’ve seen some of the best entertainment from my window. And the best performance for a middle of the street, raunchy cuss out by rival crack head prostitutes while pushing their baby strollers down the street at 3am in the morning goes to…
These postings started out as stories about my crazy crack head encounters, but then one day I looked up and all of the crack heads and winos were gone. While it should have been a time of celebration, believe it or not I was a little bummed. While my neighborhood wasn’t perfect, I felt pretty safe and it was rather colorful.
While the yuppies that have replaced my old neighbors aren’t nearly as colorful as the bums and winos, I have found them equally bizarre. Gentrification has brought a whole new culture of traits to my neighborhood—neighborhood meet ups, community clean ups, list serv mania, dog obsession, garbage can coveting, etc. So I decided to use it as an opportunity to catalogue my neighborhood’s full journey through gentrification as I have seen it. Bear in mind these essays have been written over a span of several years, beginning shortly after I left my job at a PR firm to travel Spain and consult for a short time, and are not in any particular order.
I would like to think these blog entries will serve some higher purpose. Decades from now, when the plans for this city has run its course, some little fair-haired, blue-eyed child may very well stumble across this blog and with a strange expression on his face look up at his nanny and ask, “What is diversity?”
13 comments:
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I sure do hope this is Nancee Lyons who attended Howard Univ. in the '80s. If you are, and I'm sure you are because I happened to see your picture on your blog, e-mail me jerard1@verizon.net tonight and we can exchange phone numbers.
I am some what confused. Are you for or against gentrifrication? In your earilier blogs it appeared you destested its influence. Now it seems you are more receptive. In NY, I see a positive impact in Harlem and Brooklyn. Although, there are some that wish the community would remain the same, as a whole there is a feeling of acceptance.
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