Several weeks after the initial hearing with the Historic Preservation Review Board, the Rapture Lofts project wins final approval, with modifications. But instead of calling it Rapture Lofts, the developers decide that T Street Flats is a more marketable name. So much for legacy. Pastor Theresa Garrison says she doesn't care what the lofts are called. From the pulpit one Sunday morning, she warns that the hallowed church grounds soon will be overtaken by the sinful. "See, I found out that the rent is gonna be so high that only the rich homosexuals and lesbians will be able to buy this condominium," she tells the congregation. One part of what the pastor says is true: The condos will be priced from $400,000 to $1 million, with no set-asides for affordable units.
The slow fade of the old 14th and T is underway. Engineers begin taking soil samples from church property. Cafe Saint-Ex, the trendy bistro that arrived two years ago, is hosting oyster night and Bastille Day night and is packing it in on weekends. Paradise Liquor on the other corner has less than two months left on its lease. Gone will be burglar bars that wrap around the doors like ominous orthodontia and the stale air of a package store that failed to change with the times.
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D.C.'s 14th and T Turns Another Corner
Race and class are colliding on dozens of other blocks in a city where demographics are shifting by the month, but 14th and T represents something else: that split-second before the curtain drops on one era and rises on another.
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Late this summer, Paradise customers begin to notice something amiss. The chip rack is empty and stays empty. The liquor shelves aren't as deeply stocked. The "Building for Lease" banner is strung to the roof.
"How you doin', Pop?" manager David Lee asks a man who is holding a pipe and a half-pint of gin.
"What they gonna do with this building?" Pop asks. "They trying to sell it?"
"I don't know. Why?" Lee asks. "You wanna buy it?"
In Paradise, where nothing is ever addressed directly, Pop knows he just got an affirmative answer. The Paradise building was bought last year for $900,000, and the new landlord is tripling the rent, forcing Paradise to move out when its lease expires.
Eager speculators come in to scope out the space. Paradise might be a wreck, but it's a prime location. One afternoon, a man asks Lee if he can take a look around. He wants to open a day spa. "A day spa!" Lee says. "What about the rats? Talk about jumbo! They so fat they can't even run."
Two entrepreneurs strike a tentative agreement with the landlord, and the sign for a beverage license goes in the window: Paradise is going to become a sushi bar.
Lee is a tough guy, but something about the agreement makes him know it's all real. "I'll probably pass by here and look at the building," he says. "I might even walk in and order me a sushi."
The liquor stores along 14th Street are going away. "The first generation of liquor stores were run by the Jewish," Lee says. "They call Koreans second-generation Jew because we took over all the liquor stores. Now, more Indians. We call Indians second-generation Koreans because they are buying the liquor stores."
14th and T Turning Another Corner