One Urban Panorama Fades, Another Rises

After the riots, 14th and T was a boarded-up marketplace for heroin and numbers. The beautiful Bali club operated as Jack's Lounge until 1976, when the owner was slain in his back office. Heroin gave way to crack cocaine. Prostitutes worked out of the second floor of the liquor store building. It was hard to imagine that Sarah Vaughan had once sung "A Night in Tunisia" here. Garrison called it "Sodom and Gomorrah" when she bought the building on the southwest corner in 1974 and made it her church. Arena Stage bought the Bali building in 1985 to use for its Living Stage theater company.

In the late 1980s, urban pioneers began snapping up nearby houses at rock-bottom prices, and multigenerational black families were suddenly neighbors with white gay men and other bargain hunters, a demographic trend that only gathered in strength. In a 10-year period, housing costs doubled, then tripled.

Fourteenth and T remained essentially untouched until 2003, when Cafe Saint-Ex arrived, bringing Dutch lager to a crossroads that was home to the 40-ounce. Replacing an Ethiopian restaurant and Laval's Good Food To Go, Saint-Ex was a cause for celebration for some, an elegy for others. "It was like Saint-Ex was putting its flag down on the moon," says Rachael Storey, a documentary filmmaker who lives nearby and misses Laval's.

Now, the conversion from rough-and-tumble intersection to a smooth-blend urban utopia is in full gear. On a recent afternoon, in the swirl of a single moment:

"MAYOR WILLIAMS IS A SELL-OUT," someone has written in pink chalk on the sidewalk on 14th, a frequent refrain of those who accuse the mayor of giving away the city to real estate developers. Brownie and Daisy troops are holding camp at Church of the Rapture while they still can. The rhythms of Latin cumbias bounce down the alley from a mechanic's garage, and a car with fender-rattling hip-hop pulls up to the curb outside Paradise Liquor. The packed No. 52 bus door opens, and the driver shouts for his passengers to get back and make way for new ones.

Crossing at the light is a ragtag youth baseball team wearing T-shirts that say "The Art of Hustle." Dropping mitts and blowing bubbles as they pass the sleek new furniture boutique with a $4,000 couch in the window, they are herded home by their coach, 19-year-old Jeremy Drummond. "Y'all keep acting like this, and y'all can just write off McDonald's," he shouts.

Drummond, a sophomore at Temple University in Philadelphia, has lived in the neighborhood most of his life. "It seems every time I come home from school, there's a new high-rise going up. A lot of families have moved away."

Burning in the sky above is the Church of the Rapture sign, illustrated with a cross and the flames of hell, shouting: "NOW! IT IS TIME TO COME TO CHURCH AND TO GOD."

Blinking back at the church is the liquor store sign that says, "Welcome to Paradise."

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At Church of the Rapture one Sunday morning, the blinds are partially closed against 14th Street below. Rows of good church shoes sink into the seafoam green carpet. On the pulpit there are three ornately carved chairs, but they are rarely used. The pastors sit down with the people, which is why members love this church. Many describe themselves as "country people" though they live in places such as Forrestville and drive Ford Explorers. What they mean is that Church of the Rapture is the roots of who they are.

Services last five hours. The drummer keeps a gallon jug of water at his feet, pounding out a military beat unique to Church of the Rapture. The music ranges from old-timey gospel to Christian contemporary to a free-form frenzy. The service thrives on the unexpected.