Among the relatively new residents of the neighborhood is Till Bruett
(left) and his partner, Jim Nastus, who moved there
two years ago.
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JOE CREA
Friday, September 17, 2004
WITH GORGEOUS Victorian homes in need of a little “Queer Eye” treatment, plans
for retail neighbors like Whole Foods Market and a community organization dedicated
to preserving the arts, gays and lesbians increasingly are showing up in Columbia
Heights.
This racially diverse neighborhood in Northwest Washington, D.C., is bordered
by Spring Road to the north, Euclid Avenue to the south, 16th Street to the
west, and 11th Street to the east.
Historically, Columbia Heights primarily has been home to a mixture of black
and Hispanic residents, including gay ones. Increasingly, however, it also is
attracting more white gays and lesbians, among other city dwellers who have
no plans to head to the suburbs, and it also now boasts a strong Vietnamese
community.
Columbia Heights is also experiencing an urban renaissance: 10 projects are
under development in this area that will create more than 700,000 square feet
of real estate space, more than 600 units of housing (one-third of which will
be reserved for low- and moderate-income residents), 2,000 new parking spaces,
about 2,000 new jobs, and more than $19 million in new tax revenue, according
to Peggy Armstrong, a spokesperson for the National Capital Revitalization Corporation.
NCRC is a quasi-public entity created by the federal government and the D.C.
City Council to stimulate development and promote change in Washington, especially
in underserved communities.
Retail stores such as Target and Whole Foods have signed letters of intent
with NCRC to operate there, and a huge Giant Food grocery store, which will
replace a smaller one in this area on 14th Street, is slated to open by the
end of the year at Tivoli Square.
Tivoli Square, at 14th Street and Park Road, is an ambitious revitalization
project involving the old Tivoli movie house. Underneath the dome of this historic
theater, plans are unfolding to open the GALA Hispanic Theatre, a 250-seat structure
with 1,000 square feet of performance space.
And in another nod to Columbia Heights’ commitment to the arts, the Dance Institute
of Washington, a non-profit organization that focuses on building self-esteem
and instilling excellence in children and youths in underserved communities
through dance training and arts education, has plans to open a 16,000-square-foot
dance facility across from Tivoli Square. They are slated to break ground on
the Dance Institute this fall.
The first major grand opening in the neighborhood will be in late September
when the Greater Washington Urban League moves into the newly restored Hines
Funeral Home on 14th Street.
LOCALGAY RESIDENTS such as Joel Harder, a 31-year-old Red Cross employee, praised
Columbia Heights’ energy, friendliness and diversity.
“It’s just an awesome neighborhood with lots and lots of gay boys,” he says.
“People say ‘good morning.’ It’s very old-fashioned with a wonderful vibe and
great energy.”
Till Bruett, 37, and his partner, Jim Nastus, 27, who have lived on Monroe
Street in Columbia Heights for two years, playfully suggest that gay people
are moving to the neighborhood because of the chance to renovate a Victorian
home.
“There’s nothing gays like more than remodeling Victorian homes,” Bruett quips.
“Dupont residents don’t have that option. This neighborhood has great architecture
and a beautiful infrastructure.”
Bruett and Nastus, who have been together for three years, have a home with
close to 2,000 square feet of living space. Using some of the money Bruett made
from selling his condo, the couple renovated their English basement and now
rent it.
Like many gay residents living in Columbia Heights, Bruett migrated from the
city’s pricier gay neighborhood, Dupont Circle.
Bruett says that when they moved to Columbia Heights, the neighborhood “was
kind of rough,” adding that drug dealers could be found loitering on the streets
and occupying a few abandoned homes.
While neglected houses have been sold and, as Bruett says, “drug dealers are
there only two nights a week versus seven,” the couple has experienced some
problems with crime during the past two years. Their car was once vandalized
and their home was burglarized.
The
centerpiece of the revitalization effort unfolding in Columbia Heights is
Tivoli Square, an ambitious project at 14th Street and Park Road, NW, that
used to be a prominent movie theater. (Photo by Luis Gomez) |
The police have been more aggressive at cracking down on the neighborhood’s
crime but Bruett says he has not always felt that this was the case.
“The first year we didn’t have much luck getting them to acknowledge the problem,”
he says.
A spokesperson for the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department did not return a
call by press time.
Other Columbia Heights residents, like David Swaney, a 40-year-old high school
teacher and owner of a Victorian rowhouse on Monroe Street, says he has always
felt safe in this area.
“I feel very comfortable here,” Swaney says. “I don’t look over my shoulder
very often. I think more crime happened to me in Dupont than in Columbia Heights.”
Bruett say there was some initial tension between the new gay residents and
some members of the community, but blames the acrimony on drug dealers who “felt
they owned this end of the street.”
“Now we know who they are and they know who we are and we go our separate ways,”
he says. “Every time a house is sold, it becomes less and less like the old
neighborhood.”
Inevitably, some tension arises when a well-established racial or ethnic neighborhood
is suddenly experiencing an influx of wealthy gay homebuyers.
Linda Goode Bryant, a co-producer of the PBS documentary “Flag Wars,” a P.O.V.
film that explores such a dynamic in a Columbus, Ohio, neighborhood, said typically
when more affluent people buy a home in a relatively old, established community,
their primary focus is on protecting their new property. Such protections takes
on a number of forms, chief among them is getting city lawmakers to make their
new neighborhoods an historic district.
Such a move has an immediate impact on the established community. Goode-Bryant
says the cost to maintain one’s home usually goes up considerably after such
action is taken. The new prices have a direct impact on African-Americans who
have been in that community for a long time and are more likely to live on fixed
incomes and retirement benefits.
Gay D.C. residents willing to refurbish large rowhouses
in Columbia Heights are helping fuel demographic changes there. (Photo by
Luis Gomez) |
“What we observed in documenting ‘Flag Wars,’ and this is typical in similar
neighborhoods, is that you have two groups: the old-timers and the newcomers,”
Goode-Byrant explains. “The old-timers say you improve the neighborhood by ensuring
all the neighbors needs are met. Newcomers arrive and believe you come to the
neighborhood to protect the house, the architecture. One of the reasons tension
arises when these transformations are happening is because it comes from those
different intentions as to how one improves the neighborhood.”
She also added that often with newcomers comes an increased police presence.
“If some kid in baggy jeans with a hood on comes up to your door and asks to
mow your lawn for a buck, old-timers don’t perceive that to be a threat,” Goode-Bryant
says. “But a new person sees that as someone who is loitering. They call the
police. Now, an increased police presence is not something long-term residents
object to, but they do object to who now all of a sudden becomes a criminal.”
The centerpiece of the revitalization project in Columbia Heights is the renovation
of the historic Tivoli Theatre. The 1924 theater, firmly rooted in the Beaux-Arts
style, was constructed at the dawn of cinema when many naysayers predicted that
motion pictures would never succeed. To accommodate those concerns, New York
architect Thomas W. Lamb designed the movie house with a stage. The reasoning
was that if the movie idea failed, the Tivoli could always be used for live
theater performances.
According to Horning Brothers, the development firm responsible for the project,
the Tivoli, which closed in 1976, will be reopened around December 2004 and
renamed Tivoli Square.
Columbia Heights residents have grown accustomed to a large fenced in property
directly across the street from the Columbia Heights Metro station. Armstrong
says the entire block will be flattened for a 540,000-square-foot project known
as DC USA. Likely tenants there include a Target department store, a Bed, Bath
& Beyond, Whole Foods and, possibly, an Office Depot.
Groundbreaking for the project is on hold because there have been some problems
with funding the 1,300-car underground parking garage. But Armstrong says the
D.C.’s City Council recently approved a plan that could help pay for that.
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