When I first moved to DC exactly five years ago, I remember making the trek out to the Salvation Army on H Street, NE, and being very uneasy there. Not only was there garbage right outside the building on a regular basis –garbage that you had to skip over to do your charitable thing and garbage that made me wonder if my contribution was to be eaten by rats at a later date– but the street itself was a pity. The sidewalks were broken and the people who had to huddle close to the garbage waiting for the X2 looked sad– sad because no one deserves to be waiting to get to one’s home or place of employment in a sad street, surrounded by garbage.
That was my initial opinion of H Street, NE: a place no one seemed to care about– a neglected place that no business owner cared about. A once-grand street now dotted with stores that did not look in the least inviting, except for the then-and-now shining jewel that is The Argonaut— now our proud neighborhood phoenix.
In the five years since that first impression, H Street has come a long way. Sure, it’s broken up by the streetcar-related construction– a streetcar system our current mayor wanted to withdraw funds from. But thanks to the magic of social media and to my deepening roots in this community, I have watched the H Street corridor flourish and become gracious host to an array of fun and tasty restaurants and world-class art, from the Atlas Performing Arts Center with their wonderful performances, workshops and the INTERSECTIONS Arts Festival, to the H Street Playhouse, to the H Street Festival, which is a happy marriage of both and which has been growing exponentially over the years.
So when I read a piece about how some H Street business owners resent that what is happening to H Street and want to turn all the progress made into a petty “us vs. them” argument, I can’t help but bristle. Why does everything good that happen in the city necessitate the picking of sides? H Street business owners feel that the way H Street has been developed –especially with the shuttle to and from Chinatown, which has since been discontinued– has been aimed at leaving mostly black businesses in the lurk, since the shuttle ferried people after work hours. However, coffeeshops, pie shops and a yoga studio also carry out their business during regular work hours, and they are still open and thriving, so what would be the rational explanation for that?
A businessowner’s burden is to weather good and bad economic times while still managing to stay open and keep customers returning, no matter what. If business is good, it’s good for everyone. Let’s stop trying to make the slow improvement of a much-beleaguered street a racial issue, and instead celebrate H Street, NE, as Washington City Paper’s Readers’ pick for Best Up and Coming Neighborhood of 2011.
Unless of course, you want to dismiss all City Paper readers as Myopic Little Twits.
