H Street

H Street feels like a foreign country sometimes. Scratch that, most of the time. The most obvious reason is because I’m in the minority, but there are other more subtle things: bars on the glass, plastic flowers peering through windows covered in milky film, the peeling cracked paint decorating the brick facades. The city government is trying to spruce this place up. Parts of the street have been repaved with trolley tracks and evenly poured asphalt bordered by neatly laid sidewalks that declare the cross street in engraved concrete. Shiny black lampposts tack down the blocks like relics from the 1800s. Yet all of these accoutrements can’t distract from the local color or the glaring cement construction walls taking up most of the space that should be used for cars. It’s been this way for years, and outside of a daily dose of jackhammering, there isn’t much evidence of progress farther east on the street. Orange and white striped cones litter the landscape in more abundance than the neighbors walking down the street, the neighbors that carry on a conversation regardless of the fact that there’s an entire city block between them. Yelling is common place here, as are several colorful words that would be more conspicuous in their absence then shocking in their presence.

This place has a weird disparity of life. At the same time the poorer African-American neighbors are lounging on street corners and playing checkers in one of the eight barber shops dotting the street, the younger, hipper, richer white yuppies are creeping in like ants at a picnic. There’s a yoga place in between 3rd and 4th, a hip sandwich store just beyond 11th, an artsy coffee shop a block and a half past the 5 year old performing arts center. As good as these places may be for the revenue of the neighborhood, they don’t really cater to the neighbors. The flavor is changing, the taste is becoming more refined. Could the people here use the performing arts? Do they need sandwich shops and wine bars? Inherently, these are good things, but perhaps they should retain H Street’s original flavor, cater more to this culture made up of everything from overly confident youth on bikes to the elderly shuffling down the street with history stamped on their faces. These people are the backbone of this quarter. This is their hometown. Unfortunately, the ones inhabiting the rows of houses just off of this amalgam of brick and pavement won’t bring in the kind of revenue that could boost this part of the city’s economy. At the end of the day, it’s all about the money. H Street can’t afford to cater to them. If it did, it is doubtful the yuppies would care to venture outside of their chic haircuts, perfectly faded denim, and modern white walls spattered with designer art to experience a world so vastly different, yet right at their back door. Sometimes all it takes is a step...