Earlier this month, the New York Times Magazine ran a lengthy article on the clandestine doings of London guerrilla gardener Richard Reynolds.

If you’re not familiar with this rogue tilling movement, Reynolds supplies a neat explanation of the practice to writer Jon Mooallem. Guerrilla gardening, he says, is ” the cultivation of someone else’s land without permission.”

Gardeners like Reynolds home in on forgotten properties, whether public or private, in order to work horticultural wizardry over them, transforming formerly crappy parcels into botanical wonderlands or small farms. The movement, for which Reynolds has become the default spokesperson, has attracted its share of devotees. Reynolds’ Web site boasts impressive before-and-after guerrillla garden pics sent to the flora guru from such places as Toronto, Portland, Ore., and Brisbane, Australia. “There are hundreds of us around the world discreetly digging at night. Some like me improve their cities, some make the countryside that little bit more colorful, and some live off the vegetables they illicitly grow in roadside verges,” writes Reynolds on his site.

Scanning the site’s photos and extensive guerrilla garden map (evidently there’s a “dig” in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba) and finding no mention of the District might lead one to conclude that insurgent gardening is just one more vintage-clothed hipster phenomenon a decidedly Brooks Brothers D.C. is missing out on.

Not so. In what was a vacant lot across from Marcus Popetz’s two-story house in east Columbia Heights, a lot that was, as the 32-year-old computer engineer puts it, “attracting drug users, trash, etc…everything a normal nuisance property does” now grow tomato, squash, and cucumber plants.

According to Popetz, two years ago he and some other residents who’d been working on beautification projects around the neighborhood began thinking about what to do with the large, eyesore of a plot just adjacent to the playground of Bruce Monroe Elementary school. “We looked into who owned it,” Popetz writes in an email “and the city did a lien to clean it once they found that the owner was a corporation [that] hadn’t paid back taxes in 20 years. We cleaned it a couple of times and then started to think about planting flowers and then the idea sorta ballooned into a garden from there.”

Unlike celebrity guerrilla gardener Reynolds, who, in his recently published book– as the Times mag reports– makes “references to horticultural ’sleeper cells’ and ’shock and awe’ plantings,’” Popetz doesn’t act as if he’s involved in environmentally responsible espionage. There’s been no night-time gardening or “seed bombs” at the plot on Columbia Road. Popetz and crew (made up of the garden’s co-leader Sara Eigenberg and at any given time six to eight other gardeners) have never really tried to hide their work.

Though technically, the community-oriented green thumbers are trespassing, no one seems to mind, especially not the neighborhood kids who help weed or the senior citizens who get handed surplus veggies. And the city, which is still trying to locate the owner’s of the abandoned lot the guerrillas commandeered, has not only failed to give the gardeners any grief but erected a gate to help protect the project.

“It’s completely illegal, we don’t have any ownership, but morality is on our side,” says Popetz. In a neighborhood where dark, empty lots create the perfect hideaway for gunmen (which happened once in the lot, Popetz remembers), who could argue with him? Asked whether the Columbia Heights gardeners have–like many other guerrilla gardeners–a political agenda, Popetz snorts, “The grandest political aspiration we have,” he says, “is to keep the garden going.”–Rend Smith

I recently moved to the District from the other Washington (as in, I flew over Monday night), and while chatting up the sublettor as he packed the last of his things, he mentioned that he was taking his Brita filter with him. I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to my new roommate about this situation, but I’m concerned.

I never felt comfortable drinking water straight from the tap in my house in Seattle. Early on in my two-year stay in that house off campus, I filled a glass from the kitchen faucet and was dismayed and a bit disgusted to find swirling gray water almost touching my lips. From then on, I used botted water, even to cook.

My parents’ house in eastern Washington (the state) has great water, but I think that’s because we have well water.

When I visited friends in New Jersey and New York City earlier this year, I heard all about how great tap water is in the city, and yes, I definitely agree. The water in NYC is pretty darn swell. NYC is so big and still has awesome water, it would be logical to thing that D.C. water filtration systems would be of high quality as well.

What do you think? Should I buy a water filter on my way home from work tonight? Is tap water in D.C. rivaling NYC in water taste, purity and clarity? Are Brita filters so common in the District that it’s unheard of to drink straight from the tap? Does everyone know something that I, mere “newbie,” haven’t discovered yet? Or are filters for the health-conscious Seattleites and other West-Coasters who move east and fear for the worst?

As July 4 approaches, I am sure there are many neighborhoods that have started to celebrate our independence a little early with some imported Mineshell Mayhem or a Phandemonium 205 Shot. I’m sure police are having a grand time chasing down every dispatch to some little back-alley salute and corner tribute in bottle rockets. And I know the listservs go crazy on this issue. I understand all the arguments against: kids need working fingers on July 5, cops need to chase after gunshot noises not the blast off a roman candle, it’s all such a noisy racket well past the time the Mall has emptied out. But still.

I secretly love driving around the city and watching the illegal stuff go off all sparkly in the air. In my experience, Columbia Heights is awesome with unregulated mini-finales (particularly 13th Street is gold).

So where are the best and worst places to catch the illegal action?

Rant Of the Moment: The Heights Life gripes that they just can’t find a decent pair of shoes despite the neighborhood’s new glut of shoe options at Target, Payless, and Marshalls. Oh indeed, these megashops have a surprising lack of good finds. Their shelves are either empty (Target) or just all messed up (Marshalls). I griped about this last weekend(!) when I was on my own sneaker hunt. The Marshalls stock was clearly presented in such a way as to tell patrons: We don’t give a shit.

On June 4, the North Columbia Heights Civic Association held a meeting regarding the park at 11th and Monroe. All were welcome, and all were heard, as evidenced by this item in the very comprehensive minutes: “Anonymous resident (self-described drunk who hangs out in the park): people in the park aren’t that bad, come on into the park, we welcome kids, we welcome the church.”–Brian Reed

I used to say I live on a pretty standard block in Columbia Heights. I knew the block well, had some serious history there before I made it my address.

An old editor/friend had lived in a one-bedroom across from my new apartment. We used to drink beer and smoke cigarettes on his fire escape. We’d look out and see clotheslines, and busy children. It felt like Brooklyn or something.

My brother and his soon-to-be wife had turned an empty lot into a makeshift garden (lead levels be damned) a few years a back. They grew all kinds of stuff. I just remember the handfuls of hot peppers they were always trying to give away. I kept worrying about the lead levels.

When I moved on to Newton Street last summer, the lot was still vacant. The number of old row homes untouched by gentrification still outnumbered the ones with the fresh green-and-yellow paint jobs and fancy new stoops.

But that was last summer. Recently, a new condo building opened up next door. I dutifully took the tour knowing I could not afford the fresh hardwood floors and weird cheap looking balconeys. The units are incredibly plain and incredibly expensive. Behind my apartment, construction is in full swing on another new building. Whether that building will be condos or rentals by the time the ribbons are cut, I don’t know.

Construction noise used to be in just one direction. Now, I hear the noise of hammers and saws in surround sound. I don’t care. It keeps me from sleeping too late.

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A few weeks ago, Mr. T in DC complained about the new crossing guards posted at the DCUSA’s Big Box Heaven in Columbia Heights. Mr. T writes:

In one sense, their deployment is a remarkable show of efficiency and planning by the DC government. In addition, the city repaved a bumpy stretch of 14th just north of Target, and laid down new crosswalk striping at some of the key intersections in the vicinity….

However, it seems to me the crossing guards are actually slowing things down for both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. The mere presence of people in the middle of the road, wearing bright yellow, waving arms, and blowing whistles is causing some hesitation, especially when they contradict the traffic lights. For pedestrians, they are slowing everyone down by insisting on strict but unrealistic compliance with the walk/don’t walk signals.”

I think Mr. T has a point. I know I hesitate just a little bit when turning on to my street. Hey! I don’t want to hit and/or piss off one of those whistle-blowing crossing guards! Still. At first the traffic wasn’t terrible with the new Target. It just meant that nearly every day felt like Sunday. Instead of churchgoers parking on my block, we have shoppers clutching huge reams of toilet paper.

The traffic has become terrible. I noticed with the opening of Best Buy, 14th Street NW became what we all thought it would–a huge headache. This past Saturday, a line of cars stretched from 14th and Irving to well past the old Giant. Basically, the traffic was backed up as far as the eye could see. It was around noon.

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Thanks to a tip via Prince of Petworth, we learned that Columbia Heights Coffee is expanding. The coffee shop, located at 3416 11th St. NW, is a neighborhood favorite (free wi-fi, good service). So we decided to phone the owner this morning and get more details.

The shop’s owner Nadew Delnesaw says construction on the facade should begin in about four weeks. He still has to get permits for the interior construction. But the expansion should provide a huge increase in seating. The place currently has a capacity for 15 coffee lovers. The new space, he says, could provide seating for an additional 40.

The expansion will also provide room for a performance space, Delnesaw says, and room to show hard-to-find movies. The expansion will also mean a bigger breakfast menu and room to start roasting their own coffee on site. The owner hopes to do “customized roasting.”

Sounds like some serious upgrades.

Delnesaw says this is not in any way related to a certain big-box store opening: “We’re not competing with the Target.”

Nothing seems to make our local paper happier than spotting a neighborhood in the midst of a renaissance, a rebirth, or just sort of coming back. Today, we get the happy headline: “A Rapid Renaissance in Columbia Heights” under the byline of Paul Schwartzman.

Let’s forget the bad crime rate, the recent conversions of condos to rentals (or the real estate market just tanking in Columbia Heights), the traffic problems, and the displacement of people as the neighborhood’s median income skyrockets. Schwartzman doesn’t see those things. He sees the big stuff: the big numbers and the big, big box stores set to open on 14th Street NW.

Schwartzman sees “a new world created at whiplash speed.”

It’s not the first time, Schwartzman has seen a “new world.” Schwartzman is the Post’s Renaissance Man. He can spot a renaissance from just about any street corner. He can quote residents wishing for it. And he can see a neighborhood teetering on becoming a Ren Zone.

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Target comes to Columbia Heights, to applause and (inevitable) hand-wringing. I say about time, mostly because the closest Target to my house is at Potomac Yard, which is flooded with D.C. shoppers, who, to the chagrin of the (inevitable) hand-wringers, desire and deserve goods and services that don’t cost more than they do 10 miles away.

Route 1 is too narrow for the traffic Potomac Yard occasions, and God forbid you should need something from there on a weekend day. Its parking lot, while gargantuan, isn’t sufficient for the hordes of bargain-deprived District residents who’ve descended to strip the shelves bare of cat litter, infant wipes, and surprisingly kicky Mossimo clothing.

So thank you for your sales-tax contributions, D.C.’ers, but hallelujah that you can finally shop closer to your homes than to mine.

Photo by Mrs. Gemstone

Lane Bryant Opens: At 11:43 a.m., I passed by the new storefront on 14th Street NW in Columbia Heights. I counted two customers. One on her way out (empty handed) and another still working her way through the racks. Kind of a quiet grand opening. But hats off to all the employees who asked me if I needed anything!

More proof of gentrification? An Ashley Stewart recently closed in Adams Morgan. Now we have a Lane Bryant.