I’m in Washington, DC this week. It’s warmer here than in Vermont, I feel overdressed. It’s autumnal, but in a mid-Atlantic kind of way.
Monday evening I walked northwest on New Hampshire Avenue. The evening was balmy; the leaves were piled thick and dry along the gutters and across the sidewalks. The air was rich with the aroma of vegetal decay.
One stretch of New Hampshire is crowded with embassies and consulates. The Argentine embassy was embraced by scaffolds. It looks like they’re having their masonry repointed. The art of diplomacy goes on, however, and a number of men in expensive suits stood before the plywood marquee around the entrance, conversing in Spanish. It seemed the evening’s affair had ended and the last pleasantries of the evening were being exchanged.
A few blocks further on, townhouses dominate the block. At one stretch, three in a row had “for sale” signs posted in the small plots of grass that pass for front yards in this part of town. That’s an unusual sight in DC, regardless of how soft the real estate market may be in the rest of the country. A local adage holds that when times are good, DC prospers, as players around the country try for a bigger piece of the action; when times are bad, DC prospers, as players try to hold on to whatever action they’ve got.
That adage assumes there’s such a place as “DC.” There are actually several DCs, some of which have not prospered in decades. The DC of the adage is the DC to which those townhouses belong, which is why I was surprised to see the signs. I remembered one of the signs from an October trip, the same realtor’s face blasting his hundred-watt smile at passers-by. Not only had the man on the sign failed to close a deal in the last four weeks, he now has two competitors directly adjacent.
A few blocks further on and the town houses give way to apartment buildings. There’s a small park where the intersecting streets create a triangle. Until recently, this was where homeless men passed their days and frequently their nights. Broken benches, hardpan soil and a few scraggly bushes were its features. A year or so ago, the city renovated the park, covering the soil with astroturf, fencing it in and adding a few metal sculptures. Now it’s a dog park for the people in the neighborhood. It’s filled with frisking dogs and sleepy-looking owners in the early morning hours.
Beyond the park, I saw three places where people’s possessions had been put to the curb. It seemed odd that people would be evicted in the middle of the month, but I don’t know how tenant law works in DC. From the appearance of the possessions, it was clear those evicted had little money. The buildings behind the possessions are populated by a mix of middle- and working-class Washingtonians. The evicted seem to have been from the low end of that scale.
The piles were disorderly – spilling, like the leaves, into the sidewalk and the street. Perhaps the owners had salvaged what they could and moved on to wherever or whoever would take them in. Perhaps the possessions were looted by others, as desperate as the dispossessed.
In my life, I’ve seen too many people’s worldly goods pushed to the curb. It’s always an occasion for solemnity, for gratitude for my good fortune, a prayer for the unfortunate. Three in one block in the capital of the richest country in the world seemed more than I could bear. I turned away and walked on.
Walking southeast Tuesday morning, I passed a city garbage truck, its crew picking up the worn furniture and heaps of clothing. The men stuffed the items into the open maw at the back of the truck and hit the lever for the compactor. I stopped a short distance away and watched. The men moved quickly. They did not glance at the articles at their feet, as if acknowledging the subject of their task might bring on a meditation they could not afford. Maybe not. Maybe I’m projecting.
OK, look. I know the tone of these commentaries depresses many people who read them. As Woody Guthrie said, “All you can write is what you see.” I see a society stretched to the breaking point – environmentally, economically, spiritually. Breaking seems inevitable, so the sane course seems to be to anticipate it and think hard about what happens when it does. How do we take care of the most vulnerable among us in these days and the days to come? That’s our challenge. In rising to meet it, we will find our redemption.
On New Hampshire
I’m in Washington, DC this week. It’s warmer here than in Vermont, I feel overdressed. It’s autumnal, but in a mid-Atlantic kind of way.
Monday evening I walked northwest on New Hampshire Avenue. The evening was balmy; the leaves were piled thick and dry along the gutters and across the sidewalks. The air was rich with the aroma of vegetal decay.
One stretch of New Hampshire is crowded with embassies and consulates. The Argentine embassy was embraced by scaffolds. It looks like they’re having their masonry repointed. The art of diplomacy goes on, however, and a number of men in expensive suits stood before the plywood marquee around the entrance, conversing in Spanish. It seemed the evening’s affair had ended and the last pleasantries of the evening were being exchanged.
A few blocks further on, townhouses dominate the block. At one stretch, three in a row had “for sale” signs posted in the small plots of grass that pass for front yards in this part of town. That’s an unusual sight in DC, regardless of how soft the real estate market may be in the rest of the country. A local adage holds that when times are good, DC prospers, as players around the country try for a bigger piece of the action; when times are bad, DC prospers, as players try to hold on to whatever action they’ve got.
That adage assumes there’s such a place as “DC.” There are actually several DCs, some of which have not prospered in decades. The DC of the adage is the DC to which those townhouses belong, which is why I was surprised to see the signs. I remembered one of the signs from an October trip, the same realtor’s face blasting his hundred-watt smile at passers-by. Not only had the man on the sign failed to close a deal in the last four weeks, he now has two competitors directly adjacent.
A few blocks further on and the town houses give way to apartment buildings. There’s a small park where the intersecting streets create a triangle. Until recently, this was where homeless men passed their days and frequently their nights. Broken benches, hardpan soil and a few scraggly bushes were its features. A year or so ago, the city renovated the park, covering the soil with astroturf, fencing it in and adding a few metal sculptures. Now it’s a dog park for the people in the neighborhood. It’s filled with frisking dogs and sleepy-looking owners in the early morning hours.
Beyond the park, I saw three places where people’s possessions had been put to the curb. It seemed odd that people would be evicted in the middle of the month, but I don’t know how tenant law works in DC. From the appearance of the possessions, it was clear those evicted had little money. The buildings behind the possessions are populated by a mix of middle- and working-class Washingtonians. The evicted seem to have been from the low end of that scale.
The piles were disorderly – spilling, like the leaves, into the sidewalk and the street. Perhaps the owners had salvaged what they could and moved on to wherever or whoever would take them in. Perhaps the possessions were looted by others, as desperate as the dispossessed.
In my life, I’ve seen too many people’s worldly goods pushed to the curb. It’s always an occasion for solemnity, for gratitude for my good fortune, a prayer for the unfortunate. Three in one block in the capital of the richest country in the world seemed more than I could bear. I turned away and walked on.
Walking southeast Tuesday morning, I passed a city garbage truck, its crew picking up the worn furniture and heaps of clothing. The men stuffed the items into the open maw at the back of the truck and hit the lever for the compactor. I stopped a short distance away and watched. The men moved quickly. They did not glance at the articles at their feet, as if acknowledging the subject of their task might bring on a meditation they could not afford. Maybe not. Maybe I’m projecting.
OK, look. I know the tone of these commentaries depresses many people who read them. As Woody Guthrie said, “All you can write is what you see.” I see a society stretched to the breaking point – environmentally, economically, spiritually. Breaking seems inevitable, so the sane course seems to be to anticipate it and think hard about what happens when it does. How do we take care of the most vulnerable among us in these days and the days to come? That’s our challenge. In rising to meet it, we will find our redemption.
© Mark Floegel, 2009