A tale of two cities
DC has a (well-deserved) reputation for having high levels of crime, but the reality is that a relatively small, wealthy pocket of the city--including the parts that tourists tend to see--has very low crime. The high crime levels tend to be concentrated in low-income areas in the vast eastern half of the District. It's almost as if there are two completely separate cities broken down largely (but not exclusively) along financial and racial lines.
One place these worlds collide is the area known as Capitol Hill. The Hill, as everyone calls it, is where Gretchen lived for many years after arriving in DC. It's a beautiful, graceful neighborhood of rowhouses, brick sidewalks, small parks and tree-lined streets a short walk from the Capitol and Supreme Court. It's also surrounded on three sides by relatively sketchy areas, which can sometimes make for trouble. Gretchen loved living there, but after a while she got tired of having to watch her back when walking at night, as well as hearing about break-ins and assaults on her block, acquaintances being mugged, etc.
This weekend we got a taste of both sides of the Hill. On Saturday morning we went to Eastern Market, a great food/crafts market we used to walk to on weekends when Gretchen lived there and we first started dating. Full of people walking dogs and families with young children, it was a great place to walk around and stock up on fresh produce.
When we finished shopping, Gretchen suggested we drive around and see how the neighborhood had changed. When she lived there, there were rough boundaries people had in mind as to where things got a bit sketchier. Over the past decade, as the housing market has boomed and DC has become a more attractive place to live, those boundaries have pushed outward. So we drove around and Gretchen pointed out blocks, now lined with expensive apartments and rehabbed houses, where 10 years ago she wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving her car. Then, as we drove past what used to be her closest supermarket (a Safeway that everyone called "the not-so-Safeway", to distinguish it from others like "the Soviet Safeway" and "the Social Safeway), we got a reminder that the two worlds are still closer than you might think.
As we drove down Kentucky Avenue, which was only about 5-6 blocks from where Gretchen lived, and which she said she always thought was a pretty street, we passed 6-7 police cars. While it was obvious that their work was mostly finished, where they congregated a man was hosing down the sidewalk, which is never a good sign. Sure enough, the next morning in the paper we read that someone had been stabbed to death there the night before.
(Despite that--and crazy stories like this--I still think it would be a nice place to live. For a variety of practical reasons it wouldn't make sense for us to move there, but the thought of living in a more urban neighborhood in an old rowhouse within walking distance of shops/restaurants/bars/cafes is quite appealing.)
One place these worlds collide is the area known as Capitol Hill. The Hill, as everyone calls it, is where Gretchen lived for many years after arriving in DC. It's a beautiful, graceful neighborhood of rowhouses, brick sidewalks, small parks and tree-lined streets a short walk from the Capitol and Supreme Court. It's also surrounded on three sides by relatively sketchy areas, which can sometimes make for trouble. Gretchen loved living there, but after a while she got tired of having to watch her back when walking at night, as well as hearing about break-ins and assaults on her block, acquaintances being mugged, etc.
This weekend we got a taste of both sides of the Hill. On Saturday morning we went to Eastern Market, a great food/crafts market we used to walk to on weekends when Gretchen lived there and we first started dating. Full of people walking dogs and families with young children, it was a great place to walk around and stock up on fresh produce.
When we finished shopping, Gretchen suggested we drive around and see how the neighborhood had changed. When she lived there, there were rough boundaries people had in mind as to where things got a bit sketchier. Over the past decade, as the housing market has boomed and DC has become a more attractive place to live, those boundaries have pushed outward. So we drove around and Gretchen pointed out blocks, now lined with expensive apartments and rehabbed houses, where 10 years ago she wouldn't have felt comfortable leaving her car. Then, as we drove past what used to be her closest supermarket (a Safeway that everyone called "the not-so-Safeway", to distinguish it from others like "the Soviet Safeway" and "the Social Safeway), we got a reminder that the two worlds are still closer than you might think.
As we drove down Kentucky Avenue, which was only about 5-6 blocks from where Gretchen lived, and which she said she always thought was a pretty street, we passed 6-7 police cars. While it was obvious that their work was mostly finished, where they congregated a man was hosing down the sidewalk, which is never a good sign. Sure enough, the next morning in the paper we read that someone had been stabbed to death there the night before.
(Despite that--and crazy stories like this--I still think it would be a nice place to live. For a variety of practical reasons it wouldn't make sense for us to move there, but the thought of living in a more urban neighborhood in an old rowhouse within walking distance of shops/restaurants/bars/cafes is quite appealing.)
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