A week or two ago, I spent serious time commuting to and from Henson Ridge for a story on the struggling Hope VI community. As far as appearances go, the neighborhood is well-made, well-designed, and has some nifty new playgrounds. On closer inspection, teenagers still gravitate toward the decrepit rec center and crummy basketball courts, and have converted a set of jersey barriers into a hangout spot. Violence has inched up. Residents have started complaining about trash piling up at those new playgrounds, the lack of routine upkeep, and the need for more cops on their new streets.

There’s tension between renters vs. homeowners, grandmothers vs. bored teenagers, and residents seeking comfort and quiet vs. residents or visitors sipping the cheap stuff in public.

But what felt so much like the old housing project days wasn’t these gripes. It was hearing residents talk about the management company–Edgewood.

Of course, I didn’t interview every resident. And some I did talk to had no complaints and loved Henson Ridge. But there were others who shared a different history. There was the resident whose air conditioner had been broken for a week. She says she called Edgewood multiple times and even visited their offices in Henson Ridge twice. She was still without AC.

And there were the three residents who had bullet holes in their walls. Two of whom made reference to promises Edgewood had made to them. And still the holes hadn’t been fixed. I don’t know about you but I’d prefer a kitchen without a bullet hole.

Schnetia Green, 65, had lived with a bullet hole above her kitchen table for more than a month. She had complained but could get no one from Edgewood to fix it. Then I showed up at her door.

A few days after my story ran on Henson Ridge, she called to give me the good news. The hole had been fixed.

“It just got fixed Monday,” Green says. “But look how long it was open before they fixed it?”

Yeah. But that was before Washington City Paper came to the rescue, right? Did the management company, um, mention my story?

“They didn’t mention it,” Green says.

Very interesting. Edgewood not only fixed her pocked wall but they went ahead and fixed her droopy ceiling. They probably expected a follow-up expose! Right?

From the Woodley Park Metro:

I’ve long held affection for this ad campaign–it’s like an incredibly easy Where’s Waldo. But as I searched for the bars on my way out of the station this afternoon, something else caught my eye. AT&T, which has been doing swimmingly despite the economic downturn, appears to be cutting some corners with these “local” billboards. Cover D.C. they may; photograph it, they most certainly do not. Irrefutable evidence (beyond the yellow cab) after the jump.

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While researching the history of the Dissed-Trict, I spent a lot of time focusing on Forrester Street SW in Bellevue. I had never really spent serious time in Bellevue unless recording the complaints of homeless women (at the infamous D.C. Village), attending to some ceremony at the police academy or attending a debate at the Washington Highlands Public Library (it’s actually located in Bellevue). I didn’t think Bellevue had much to offer beyond those three spots. So I was encouraged to find plenty to fill a reporter’s notebook: stable homes filled with people who knew their neighborhood’s history, sweet ornamental improvements (those flags!), and the notorious side of Forrester Street.

When I started my reporting, one of my first calls was to Assistant Chief Winston Robinson. He had been the 7th District commander for more than 10 years (1993-2004); he would know stuff. When it came time to talk about Bellevue, he jumped all over Forrester Street.

“The drug activity on Forrester Street—it was unbelievable, like unbelievable,” Robinson said. “The street was unreal. It was just so awesome.”

It was 1993. Robinson said that the quality of weed sold on that street was good enough to lure potheads from Annapolis, Richmond and Delaware. At any given time, he told me, there were roughly 25 dealers working the unit block of Forrester. Even on that street, their territory was small. They mainly sold their product out of the apartment complexes clustered at the bottom of the block.

Captain C.V. Morris policed that street back in the day. The dealers, he said, were a confident bunch. “They had their own website—Best Weed in D.C.,” he recalled. “I know they had a website.”

The dealers were mostly Jamaicans. He doesn’t know how they turned Forrester into their own special stateside island. “For whatever reason, they had all those buildings,” he said. “They were entrenched in those four-unit buildings.”

Search warrants would lead Morris inside those buildings. What he founded was something out of Scarface or New Jack City—an over-the-topness that tends to stand out in one’s memory. “This one guy had a bar. His whole living room and dining room was a bar, fully stocked. You could tell it was professionally done.”

And money. The police found it everywhere.

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