His name is a mouthful—Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy Joseph Thorpe Jr.—and he was more than a handful during his 18-year reign as an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Shaw. Thorpe was known for banging his gavel and cutting off visitors during ANC meetings. He even, according to Washington City Paper archives, “once led a campaign to transfer a police officer he disliked” and “attempted to stall a community project because he doesn’t like the person in charge.” Residents finally voted Thorpe out in 2006, but he quickly re-emerged. The new ANC chair appointed Thorpe parliamentarian and executive assistant to the chair.
Michelle Rhee scrapped her plan to close Shaw Junior High, perhaps out of fear that mixing kids from Shaw and Columbia Heights would only exacerbate their turf war. Kids can now continue to dodge gangs in their own hood.
Housing: 3As its nickname suggests, this hood bears the markings of the real-estate boom, and the ongoing bust is just starting to chip away at the inflationary spiral. A nice 2-bedroom condo will set you back $800,000 in these parts. A few hundred square feet more in a single-family home will fall in the same ballpark.
Eats: 9You won’t go hungry in the Land of the Loft. Penn Quarter is a regional—if not national—dining destination. U Street isn’t—except for the hordes from all over who flock to Ben’s Chili Bowl. Chinatown has a monopoly on chain fare.
Consumer Goods: 11Try U Street for overpriced designer heels, 14th Street for overpriced furniture, Chinatown for overpriced sporting goods and clothes. And don’t complain about the prices—you’re paying for convenience, style, and a vibrant D.C. retail sector.
Nightlife and Culture: 11Both yesterday and today, Shaw has been D.C.’s go-to neighborhood for good music and the occasional blowjob in an abandoned building. Penn Quarter’s the place to get pickled and to see history pickled in place at one of the many museums.
Intangibles: 6History—the good, the bad, the ugly—doesn’t get much better than the Civil War, Black Broadway, the ’68 riots, and the efforts to exploit Duke Ellington’s good name with seemingly every new restaurant and condo.
Comments
2:28 pm
funny that the picture is of the Floridian, on Florida between V and W, when it isn't even in this neighborhood according to the CP map
10:19 pm
yawn, yet another condemnation of "reverse racism" from an easily impressed yuppie who thinks extra vowels and steel and glass are somehow unique. Future low-income housing of tomorrow. Meanwhile the city is busying itself with trying to get rid of those pesky low-income families with children... cap rates, another concept the liberal-arts employed literati seem unfamiliar with when they yap on about how their neighborhood was saved by the business community. Chinatown is a pathetic imitation of Times Square -- the new festival-marketplace Times Square. The city actually FORCED a developer to demolish the last galleries in Gallery Place -- he didn't want to, but the city wanted high-income "loft-style" housing on the opposite side of the block from his project, so...
10:24 am
Terwilliker, instead of bitchin about the hood, why don't you contribute to make it better or do you want the hood to go back to a hellhole. Also, no one wants to get rid of low-income families. Where is your proof?? If they are displaced it's because of supply and demand. It's been around since time began. I was raised out in Fairfax and I can't afford a home in my old neighborhood. So I guess I should bitch that "Fairfax" wants to get rid of middle income families??