Performative security on Capitol Hill
Back in 2015 I wrote an article about security at the Library of Congress. I am reposting the article here because it is relevant to the January 6, 2021, insurrection that took place at the U.S....
View ArticleThe kernel of truth in Trayon White’s conspiracy theories
Washingtonians lay claim to an urban legend called “The Plan.” It’s a conspiracy theory-rumor-urban legend that has circulated among the District’s African American residents for decades. Basically,...
View ArticleThe Gold Dust Twins repurposed
A few years back I wrote about a ghost sign exposed in Atlanta by a tornado. It was a “Gold Dust Twins” sign that had been painted on a building facade that had subsequently been concealed by the...
View ArticleFake art and the right to stay put
This poster is one of three affixed to a boarded-up storefront in Washington, D.C.’s Anacostia neighborhood. The storefront, like many other properties in this community East of the Anacostia River, is...
View ArticleWashington’s Bloomingdale neighborhood tackles gentrification using history
One of the greatest injustices in South of Market redevelopment has been the callous obliteration of its past. — Chester Hartman, Yerba Buena: Land Grab and Community Resistance in San Francisco (San...
View ArticleThe curious history of Bladensburg’s Spa Spring
Open spaces are important parts of the cultural landscape. The Washington region is chock full of parks with histories as magnificent as the settings with which they are associated. The National Mall...
View ArticleTwo Dukes, one building, and a whole lot of speculation
Curious coincidence? About 1913 young Edward “Duke” Ellington began hanging out in a pool hall operated by Frank Holliday in a building in the 600 block of T Street NW owned by Washington, D.C....
View ArticleDC’s first tiny house movement was in the 1880s
Last fall, Washington, D.C., Councilmember Vincent Orange (At-Large) proposed building 1,000 “tiny houses” for low-income residents and millennials. His bill — “The Minimum Wage, Living Wage, and...
View ArticleHolding onto the Bible and the land
Yesterday the District of Columbia Department of Transportation held a public meeting to share revised alternatives for proposed protected bicycle lanes in the city’s Shaw neighborhood. The meeting...
View ArticleCan historians help defuse gentrification conflicts?
My latest article on the conflicts that arise in gentrifying neighborhoods when bike lanes are proposed has been published in the National Council on Public History’s History@Work site. Over the past...
View ArticleProposed bike lanes in Washington pit cyclists against churches
My latest History News Network article examines the historical basis for the conflict that erupted when the District of Columbia Department of Transportation proposed building bike lanes through the...
View ArticleDream City homesteading
The journalists Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood drew the title of their 1994 book on recent Washington history, Dream City, from Charles Dickens’ 1842 description of the nation’s capital: “city of...
View ArticleOff the books at First and T
Last spring a long-lived Washington, D.C., hair salon shut its doors after about 50 years in business, 27 of them in the 100 block of Rhode Island Ave. NW. Jak & Company’s owner spent a few weeks...
View ArticleThe gentrification post
People who live in gentrifying neighborhoods enjoy many new things that accompany increased investment and influxes of new people: better police protection, more places to shop and eat, and cleaner...
View ArticleBob Moore: civil rights era activist, community planner (updated)
Robert L. “Bob” Moore was the president and CEO of Washington, D.C.’s Development Corporation of Columbia Heights. He died earlier this week at age 74. Moore was a New Jersey native who did his...
View ArticleA queen-sized hug
Queen Elizabeth II visited Washington, D.C., in the spring of 1991. Her itinerary included parts of the Capital City typically avoided by most visitors, royal and otherwise. An affordable housing...
View ArticleColumbia Heights reborn
The riots that tore through Washington, D.C., after Martin Luther King’s assassination in April 1968 left many neighborhoods physically and emotionally scarred for decades. Columbia Heights was one of...
View ArticleMeridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, Washington
The Washington, D.C., Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) office has begun posting excerpts from the oral history interviews I did for them between 2007 and 2009. The first excerpt posted is...
View ArticleRevitalizing Washington neighborhoods
In 2007 and 2008, I did more than 60 oral history interviews and documentary research for Washington’s Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC) office. This week, LISC celebrated its 30th...
View ArticleAlbert Schulteis: Baker, businessman and preservation flashpoint
In 2007 a local preservation advocate wanted the District of Columbia government to designate a large brick home in Chevy Chase as a historic landmark. Although never designated, the brick home at 3637...
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