Bloomingdale’s Boxer Girl mural. Drama, drama, drama.

This is how it starts.

You see a pleasant, little announcement about a city-sponsored mural program. It asks whether you’d allow people to paint an exterior wall of your house. Pretty innocuous.

Then, the thing goes up, and your neighbors start complaining about how they can See it from their kitchen!!! And in other rooms!!! It’s outside all the time—every time they look, it’s there! This is upsetting.

A local news channel runs a story about their crazy preoccupations. The local listserv goes mad.

But you know what? It’s your wall, and you can do what you please with it. So, forget them. Art makes the neighborhood more interesting.

Sign up anyway:

The DC Department of Public Works has a program that pairs young people with property owners. The Murals DC program, created to replace
illegal graffiti with artistic works, teaches young people mural painting.

Read More “Where Will the Next “Boxer Girl” Turn Up?” »

Feelings about Boxer Girl are pouring onto the Bloomingdale listserv—everything from a high-minded “let’s consider this in a historical context” response (3) to a general screed about gentrification and bigots. (4) I don’t quite follow it.

(1) From a W Street NW resident: “Having just bought a house on W street, I also wanted to weigh in on boxer girl…. I LOVE the mural and the idea that we have public art on our street. It’s cool and funky and urban and I hope our neighborhood stays that way. Not all the newbies on the street are against the mural!”

(2) From a North Capitol Street NW resident: “When I first heard about the BoxerGirl controversy, I was thinking: Probably not as big of a deal as people think… but then I saw it. Man that is one ugly painting! The colors look like they were chosen by a 3rd grader! Its just not aesthetically pleasing. I’d be annoyed too if I had to see it outside my window everyday. And while I know we have bigger issues in the neighborhood, EVERY issue is open for discussion. (Although not that I give a crap about this issue since I don’t live on W).”

Read More “Boxer Girl Controversy Continues!” »

Now, here’s a controversy that just shouldn’t be one. A Bloomingdale woman allowed an artist—with a DC government grant—to paint a mural on the side of her house. She calls it “a boxer girl,” saying “It’s about strength. It’s about creativity.” The neighbors apparently think it’s about…Annoying them. They look outside and have to see it, and that’s terrible.

I’m not sure what’s so offensive about rainbows and stars. One neighbor wonders if it’s a “lesbian pride thing,” but that’s as close as anyone comes to proffering some sort of meaning to “boxer girl.”

It would never occur to me to get angry about this.

Plenty of people have pointed out Bloomingdale’s striking gentrification. But last week, neighborhood resident Natalie Hopkinson again analyzed the yoga studio/public housing dynamic in an article for The Root about ‘Do the Right Thing.’

The movie, directed by Spike Lee, is now 20 years old. In its pivotal moment, a black man throws a trashcan through the window of his employer’s shop—a white-owned pizzeria—after a black man dies at the hands of white policemen (see a ‘Do the Right Thing’ summary here).  Although it is set in Brooklyn, Hopkinson looks at the themes of black nationalism and racial strife through the context of her own neighborhood, which she describes as “in the throes of gentrification.”

Read More “Gentrification, ‘Do the Right Thing,’ and Bloomingdale” »

If Energy Secretary Steven Chu had his way, Americans would be painting their roofs white as often as homeowners in the Greek isles.

While speaking in London in late May, he extolled the virtues of white roofs as one of the easiest, simplest ways to lower energy costs.

“If that building is air-conditioned, it’s going to be a lot cooler, it can use 10 or 15 percent less electricity,” he said.

The sentiment was not lost on Bloomingdale resident John Henson. Read More “Paint Your Roof White, Save $20 a Month” »

EYA-representative Aakash Thakkar, center left in the blue shirt, opens the tour.

On Saturday morning, I joined roughly 100 other people for a tour of the McMillan Sand Filtration Plant.

Given the weekend morning time, I figured the crowd would be docile and relatively quiet. But true to what’s now becoming classic McMillan, there was an early disruption from a Bloomingdale local yelling about how the developers were controlling all the gatherings and stifling community discussion.

Read More “McMillan Tour Draws a Big (and Slightly Agitated) Crowd” »

I’ve written a ton about the development of the McMillan Sand Filtration site: The plan for the 25-acre Bloomingdale parcel, the opposition to the project, the various conspiracy theories surrounding McMillan:

• The people that think cheap chicken joints will dominate the supposedly classy retail
• The people that think the developers are planting supporters in community meetings
• The people that think the local ANC commissioner is being paid off
• The people that think the developers generally are full of shit

Alas, I’ve never actually been in McMillan though! The place is fenced off.

Read More “Tour the McMillan Sand Filtration Site” »

There’s more than old sand swirling around plans for the McMillan site.

On a recent Tuesday evening, about a dozen Bloomingdale-area residents gathered around a fire for wine, cheese, mini spinach pastries, and their shared desire to take down a group of D.C. developers. It was one of two strategy sessions-a pre-public meeting before a big public meeting last Saturday at Trinity University.

The subject of all this strategizing: 25 acres of green, one of the largest undeveloped parcels in the city, known as the old McMillan Sand Filtration Site. Since the mid-1980s, the land’s water filtration plant has been inactive. At least since then, the District has been deciding and re-deciding what to do with it. Different groups have lobbied for it be a museum, a library, a park, and a national memorial for dogs that died in war. In 2007, the city pulled the trigger, picking Vision McMillan Partners, a group of companies led by Bethesda-based EYA.
Read More “None Dare Call It Development” »

So this morning, I recounted the first half of Saturday’s meeting about the 25-acre McMillan site. The second half was a bit more chaotic.

After the developers shared their plans, residents were invited to step up to the microphone and ask questions about the proposal. Many were not so down with that format. They just wanted to share. One neighborhood woman Robin Buck, who held a residents-only meeting at her house earlier that week, used her moment before the crowd to ask people to sign up for alternative meetings—No developers allowed.

A few topics and concerns arose several times. Many Bloomingdale residents complained about traffic from the medical center already clogging up First Street and Channing Street (which runs parallel to the site’s southern border).

Read More “Saturday’s McMillan Meeting, All Hell Breaks Loose” »

Some people look at the McMillan Sand Filtration site and imagine fountains, running trails, strollers, skipping children—A glorious oasis of green with the city only peaking through the trees.

Others see an antiquated water filtration system with weird silos behind a fence.

On Tuesday night, I sat around listening to people with visions of green grandeur. Over cheese, crackers, wine, and spinach pastries, they shared their “wish-lists” for the site: Creating a self-sustaining park or memorial, planting a community farm or garden for children to visit, stopping the entire development from taking place.

Bloomingdale resident Don McKinnon, who lives at the corner of 1st and Channing Street Northwest, hosted the evening and maintained a burning fire in his living room for several hours.

Once the “wish-list” phase was over, it was time to strategize.

Read More “Neighborhood Residents Take on the McMillan Developers” »