A Gentrified Neighborhood In Washington, D.C.
I have become a student of the community history of Washington, D.C., my hometown of nearly fifty years. I recently read a 2010 photographic history of the Bloomingdale neighborhood, which prompted me to want to learn more. I found this more recent and informative book, "Shaw LeDroit Park, and Bloomingdale: an Oral History" (2021) by Shilpi Malinowski, a writer, oral historian, photographer and reporter who lives in the community. This is Malinowski's first book.
The three neighborhoods are adjacent to each other in Northwest Washington, D.C. and share the 20001 zip code. They have had different past histories but what unites them is the gentrification they have undergone beginning about 2000. The communities suffered from flight, crime, and drug markets from about 1970-- 2000 but have changed in character. They now boast the most expensive properties in Washington, D.C.
Malinowski's short book is a history of the community and a meditation on gentrification. She asks at the beginning of the work:
"What is a home? What does it mean to the people who live in it and to the people who buy and sell it? Is it a shelter: a source of comfort and a place to retreat from a wild and unpredictable world? Or is it an asset: a way to build wealth or a way to extract wealth? Is it both?"
Malinowski's story begins with a 1948 decision of the Supreme Court which invalidated a racially restrictive covenant on a home in Bloomingdale. The three neighborhoods had different demographics up until that time, but they became almost entirely African American following the Supreme Court decision. The riots following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968 led to a long period of decline, with people leaving the area, resulting in many vacant deteriorating properties, high crime, and drugs.
Malinowski tells the story of the community through oral histories and interviews with fifteen individuals who have lived in the community for varying lengths of time and who bring different perspectives to the area, its changes, and current gentrified status. Malinowski interviewed long term residents, and then "pioneers" who came to the community when its character was beginning to change, and finally more recent residents from the period of gentrification. The interviews cover people who have lived in the community from the 1940s, 50s, 60s 80s, 2000s, and 2010. Malinowski herself is one of the subjects as she came to the community in the years following 2010. She interviewed her subjects in 2019. Some of the subjects have come to know each other, and some, interestingly lived in the same house many years apart.
The interviews are interspersed with Malinowski's own observations and with photographs of the area over time. (She took many of the more recent photographs herself). The book reflects on the days when the community was close-knit, predominantly black, and working class. Commendably, the book gives a great deal of attention to the long years of crime and drugs. Then it discusses the at first slow gentrification of the area with young, hardy settlers followed by real estate speculators, house flippers, and an increaslingly wealthy,mobile group of homebuyers paying high prices for homes in the area and for the trendy amenities which accompany gentrification.
The book offers different perspectives on the change in character of the neighborhoods as long-term residents and newcomers now live side-by-side and try to get along. There is discomfort and distrust among both the older and the newer residents, with some questioning whether the neighborhood has become cohesive in the face of its changing character. Many of the interviewees, recognizing the problems gentrification has brought with it, want to work together and seem seriously committed to the long term well-being of the area and to making it a home for all, rather than a wealty enclave. Crime continues in the area and perhaps has seen an uptick the past few years. The book and the interviewees display a sense of candor and, I think, some optimism and hope that the neighborood can offer a sense of cohesion and community to its racially and economically diverse residents.
The book concludes with a bibliography for readers wanting to learn more about the neighborhood and its history. This short, thoughtful book encourages reflection upon the nature of home and community and upon a changing neighborhood in Washington, D.C.
