{"id":2613,"date":"2007-12-28T13:36:05","date_gmt":"2007-12-28T17:36:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/?p=2613"},"modified":"2013-01-21T13:15:58","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T18:15:58","slug":"walking-washingtons-14th-street","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/12\/28\/walking-washingtons-14th-street\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking Washington&#8217;s 14th Street"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm1.static.flickr.com\/247\/524381744_bbed05588a.jpg?v=0\" style=\"width: 500px; height: 333px\" align=\"middle\" height=\"333\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>WASHINGTON, DC &#8212;<\/strong> I flew down to the Washington, DC area earlier this week to celebrate <a href=\"http:\/\/youtube.com\/watch?v=w1uZ_W7atDE\">Christmas with my Jewish family<\/a>. Staying in the suburb of Kensington, Maryland, at a home that boasts a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.walkscore.com\/\">walking score<\/a> of 26, I journeyed inside the Beltway to the heart of the District to get the conventional and unconventional tourist experience.<\/p>\n<p>South of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/K_Street_%28Washington%2C_D.C.%29\">K Street<\/a>, known for its legions of lobbyists, think tanks and industry associations, is the National Mall &#8212; the destination of patriotic pilgrims from Maine to California and all points in between. It includes the Capitol building, the White House, the Washington Monument, the Supreme Court, various federal bureaucracies, and the national museums and galleries. It embodies the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153well manicured\u00e2\u20ac\u009d city that Liz Clayton referenced in her <a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/?p=2534\">November post<\/a> on DC.<\/p>\n<p>Everything in Washington is meant to kneel down before the neoclassical Capitol. In fact, until 1910, it was <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Geography_of_Washington%2C_D.C.\">written in law<\/a> that no building in Capital City could eclipse the height of the Capitol building. Now height restrictions limit new buildings to no more than 20 feet taller than the width of the road in front of it, which I imagine is almost always shorter than the 288 foot tall Capitol.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2104\/2142475967_566a1223bd.jpg?v=0\" style=\"width: 375px; height: 500px\" height=\"500\" width=\"375\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Walking Washington&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/14th_Street_Northwest_and_Southwest_(Washington,_D.C.)\">14th Street<\/a> north of K Street, however, is like being in an entirely different city than the White House. I started a couple miles north of K in the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Columbia_Heights,_Washington,_D.C.\">Columbia Heights neighbourhood<\/a>, in front of a dilapidated and boarded up pre-World War II row house (pictured). The home that appeared to have sat empty for decades featured the characteristic burn marks that are common among older buildings in this predominantly African-American neighbourhood that, historically, was home to many of Washington&#8217;s top civil servants.<\/p>\n<p>Fourteenth Street was the centre of the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1968_Washington%2C_D.C._riots\">1968 race riots<\/a> that broke out in Washington, and across the United States, in the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Until the late 1990s, 14th sat virtually untouched after the riots cemented the area as a black ghetto in the eyes of the city&#8217;s elite, leaving charred remains for close to two generations. According to locals, up until the earlier part of this decade, 14th was synonymous with poverty, drugs and sex trade workers. The regeneration (and gentrification) of the neighbourhood is now in mid-swing and it seems to be attributable to two major changes.<\/p>\n<p>Foremost, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dcch.org\/\">Development Corporation of Columbia Heights<\/a>, dedicated to community and economic development since 1984, finally began to get traction at City Hall in the 90s. Along with more elite groups like the Committee of 100 (similar to the Toronto City Summit Alliance), the community-based group was able to make the case for investment from local government and influence the changes to be made. The landmark development in the plan was the historic <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tivoli_Theatre\">Tivoli Theatre<\/a> (the first picture in this post).<\/p>\n<p>An architectural treasure since it opened in 1924, the Tivoli, like most businesses in the area, went under in the 1970s. In 2005, the curtain at the Tivoli lifted once again, an accomplishment many in DC thought would never happen.<\/p>\n<p>In the Tivoli redevelopment, Columbia Heights was able to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dcch.org\/html\/hcdd_commercial.html#tivoli\">strike a deal<\/a> with the developer that provides the community with a Hispanic theatre stage, the neighbourhood&#8217;s first major grocery store, a new restaurant, at-grade retail, condominiums (of which 20% will be designated affordable), a commitment to hire locally in the construction phase of the project and once the multi-use site began operating, and preservation of the historic fa\u00e0\u00a7ade of the building.<\/p>\n<p>Other large-scale developments have followed. Developments include a mix of condos (a rendering of one condo is pictured below. Through the holes in the canvass the construction site is visible), subsidized housing, big box stores and subsidized space for local businesses.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/farm3.static.flickr.com\/2273\/2142480159_631097e408.jpg?v=0\" style=\"width: 500px; height: 375px\" height=\"375\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The second factor in the north-western neighbourhood&#8217;s turnaround was the opening of the Washington Metro expansion in 1999, which included a stop at 14th and Irving Sts., in the heart of Columbia Heights.<\/p>\n<p>But while 14th Street is rapidly regenerating, three blocks west, Georgia Ave. is not. To an outsider, it appears that nothing has changed since the 60s. The street lacks everything but pawn shops, fried chicken and liquor stores. With the exception of a new loft development where Georgia meets Florida Ave. called the Floridian (what would Richard say?), this street seems like it may never cease to be depressed, even though it, too, has a Metro Station to call its own and it abuts Howard University.<\/p>\n<p>Although Toronto has similar dynamics to those I saw in Washington, the contrast between wealthy tourist areas, communities in the process of revitalization and sorely depressed neighbourhoods isn&#8217;t as stark in Toronto as it is in DC. While I would consider that contrast unhealthy for a city, it did give me the chance to get a fresh perspective on what makes some neighbourhoods work while others don&#8217;t. In brief, what I found was a confirmation that successful neighbourhoods have to be destinations for both local residents and people throughout the region and beyond. For Columbia Heights, that destination is the Tivoli.<\/p>\n<p><em>Photograph of the Tivoli by <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/77945684@N00\/\"><em>Eye Captain<\/em><\/a><em>. Other photographs by Adam Chaleff-Freudenthaler.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WASHINGTON, DC &#8212; I flew down to the Washington, DC area earlier this week to celebrate Christmas with my Jewish family. Staying in the suburb of Kensington, Maryland, at a home that boasts a walking score of 26, I journeyed inside the Beltway to the heart of the District to get the conventional and unconventional<a href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/12\/28\/walking-washingtons-14th-street\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"sr-only\">&#8220;Walking Washington&#8217;s 14th Street&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4037,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21758,33,50,18,8],"tags":[6316,7726,1153,7482,1158,7736,51,7727,7478,7737,7735,4411,7729,7733,7732,3312,1344,7728,7731,3854,7725,7481,21,22085,4354,19,4648,506,575,7730,7734],"class_list":["post-2613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-housing","category-infrastructure","category-neighbourhoods","category-transit","tag-adam-chaleff-freudenthaler","tag-at-grade-retail","tag-california","tag-capitol-building","tag-christmas","tag-columbia-heights","tag-community-development","tag-construction-site","tag-dc","tag-development-corporation","tag-eye-captain","tag-georgia","tag-howard-university","tag-irving-sts","tag-jr","tag-kensington","tag-liz-clayton","tag-maine","tag-martin-luther-king","tag-maryland","tag-multi-use-site","tag-national-mall","tag-other-cities","tag-politics","tag-supreme-court","tag-toronto","tag-toronto-city-summit-alliance","tag-united-states","tag-washington","tag-washington-monument","tag-white-house"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Walking Washington&#039;s 14th Street - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2007\/12\/28\/walking-washingtons-14th-street\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Walking Washington&#039;s 14th Street - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"WASHINGTON, DC &#8212; I flew down to the Washington, DC area earlier this week to celebrate Christmas with my Jewish family. 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