A Boom Giveth, and It Taketh Away

"This is Pennsylvania trout," Seaver says.

"Is it farm-raised rainbow trout?"

The menu is more gourmet than the red-meat bistro fare that Mike Benson offered when he opened Saint-Ex two years ago. In the encroaching universe of cremini mushroom polenta, Benson tells his chef that taking the burger off the menu is non-negotiable. The burger stays.

Benson opens another bar a few doors down from Saint-Ex called Bar Pilar. It's a more laid-back place with a big-screen TV where Benson increasingly goes to hang out and watch sports, away from Saint-Ex. All he ever wanted was a bar he could walk to from his house at 13th and T. Now he's on the run from his own creation. He worries that the rise of the condo canyons will squash the galleries and small businesses that have opened on 14th in recent years. "It's just a matter of time before Pottery Barn and the Container Store come in here if we're not careful," he says.

Late this summer, after eight years of living in the neighborhood, Benson decides to move east toward North Capitol Street, to the land of scrappy corner markets and housing in transition. There is something alive about the neighborhood that invigorates him. Quietly, he begins visiting salvage shops to look for an old wooden bar. His wife goes on the hunt for vintage airplane seats. It's true: Benson is scheming to open a restaurant in his new badlands of North Capitol and Quincy streets NW. He wants to buy the old No. 12 firehouse.

His new neighborhood reminds him of how 14th and T felt in 1998. "It still has the character," he says.

So much character that Benson is robbed of his Vespa scooter, and when he confronts the young robbers, they pull a gun on him.

* * *

On a sunny Saturday afternoon, two employees from the West Group prop a tall ladder against the Church of the Rapture building. They have come to take down the church's signs.

For years, the fire-and-brimstone message -- "NOW! IT IS TIME TO COME TO CHURCH AND TO GOD" -- has hovered over the corner, and now as the signs are coming down, people on the sidewalk stop to watch. Cars pull over.

Brian Liu is sitting at a table across the street at Saint-Ex and comes trotting. The graphic artist thinks the signs should stay in the neighborhood. Andrea Evers is on her way to brunch and rolls down her window to ask if the signs are for sale. One of the men jokingly tells her to check eBay in a few days. Evers is persistent and drives away with the sign for fifty bucks. Liu pays $50 for the other one. Evers props her sign in the dining room of her Kalorama home, with plans to hang it in a third-floor gallery space. "Heaven or hell," she says of the sign's illustration of a cross and flames. "I love how they give you an option."

When church members arrive the next morning, they are greeted by a huge banner hanging down from the building.

"T Street Flats. A Style of Living That's All Your Own."

* * *

"Hey, write an address, we'll ride up to see you," a customer tells David Lee on his last week at Paradise. Lee is packing and preparing to move to the liquor store at First and Kennedy. His old customers tell him to be careful over there. Lee shrugs. "It's a risky business," he says. "I'm not here to be comfortable."

Not that 14th and T is some kind of Disneyland. In August, a woman was stabbed to death 20 yards from Paradise. Lee knew 55-year-old Gloria Banks, whose blood was still puddled on the sidewalk when he arrived for work. Her daughter came into Paradise later, and Lee said how sorry he was.

The sushi bar deal falls through, and the Paradise building is again up for grabs: anyone with $8,000 a month for rent and the fortitude to win the approval of the ANC, which questioned the sushi bar's true intent after noting that blueprints showed a small kitchen and a deejay booth.

"Not my problem anymore," Lee says.

The last days are full of hugs and handshakes. A longtime customer named Jerome stops in. Jerome doesn't drink. He just comes in to play Powerball before his spiritual group meeting Thursday nights. He doesn't know what he will do without Paradise. "They don't mess the numbers up, and it's orderly," he says. "David knows everybody. You come in here, and you ain't gonna get robbed. It's Northwest!

"Love you, man," Jerome says to Lee.

"Love you back," Lee says.

Two high school students appear at the bulletproof glass. The girl wears a "Jesus is My Homeboy" T-shirt, and the boy carries a warm pan of jambalaya for an after-school function. They buy two sodas, and as they leave, the boy stops in the doorway and looks at the deco block glass. "I remember this glass from when I was growing up," he says.

A woman with a platinum card stands at the scratched glass and asks Lee, "You think you'll be restocking the Blue Curacao?"

"Thing is, we are moving," Lee says.

"I'm sorry to hear that," she says.

"It's too rich for my blood around here," he says.

"I hear you."

A man named Louis buys a bottle of water. For years, he was a Velicoff drunk, several pints a day. Now, he's been sober for two months. Lee studies him, wondering how he's pulled off such a feat. Then Jermaine the KFC manager comes in for cigarettes and tells Lee he's saving a potpie for him.

On Paradise Liquor's last night of business last week, there is no climactic locking of the doors or turning out the lights for the last time. Just a slow night, so slow that Lee closes 40 minutes early. But first he steps outside onto the corner. The cracks in the sidewalk are filled with used matchsticks, cigarette butts, bobby pins and chips of glass. Down the block, men are huddled around a chess game. The cars are double-parked in front of Church of the Rapture for Thursday night prayer service. Cafe Saint-Ex radiates. Lee is bathed in the weary light of Paradise.

"They are gonna miss me," he says. "They are gonna miss this store, period. Eventually, the people gonna go away, too."

* * *

In the church building stripped of its signs, worshipers still faithfully fill the rows of seats in the upstairs sanctuary: old women on canes with their zippered Bibles and tissue, and toddlers with braided hair and patent leather shoes. A gray-haired Metrobus driver arrives for Sunday school in a three-piece suit and sharp hat. When he stands at the microphone with his gospel quartet, the harmonies echo from another era on this corner.

The search for a new church intensifies. Garrison wants the space to have a day care center and facility for seniors. The people don't seem to care where they go as long as they can stay together. "I don't know where the new building is," says Joy Mayo, who was christened in the church as a baby and now has a master's degree from Howard University. "I know who will lead us, though. Her name is Doctor Theresa. She's like God Superstar. She keeps it all so real. Some churches stay on top of the water. She goes deep."

Garrison's arrival at church always causes a stir. Heads turn and people stand or clap. One Sunday, she appears at the door of the sanctuary in a silky animal-print cape. "I love y'all," she shouts, making her way through the crowd. She is wearing blue slippers and is surrounded by five attendants. While a woman in a feather hat, Sister Marcus, sings a high-pitched hymn, two attendants deliver a silver tray of bottled water to the pulpit, giving papal arrangement to the water glass and stack of napkins. Garrison makes her way up.

"Good things are coming our way," she tells the church. "I'm waitin' to sign the paper. It's just that I got to sign the paper before I can talk about it. We'll get buses and go see what God has given us. My lawyer told me, she said, 'Doctor Theresa, you don't have to tell the people nothin' until you sign the dotted line.' "

She pauses. "Can I take my time?"

"Take your time," several people in the congregation shout.

Garrison's husband has already told the congregation that they had found a possible new home for the church in Prince George's County. It is a big building on a big spread of land that cost $13 million. He spoke matter-of-factly and courteously. No one had any questions. His wife's delivery is different, splicing in Jesus, Lucifer and serpents. Her audience is rapt.

"He suffered!" Garrison moans. "They knocked him. They threw stones on him. They looked at him like he was a nobody." By now she is weeping.

The worn tambourine rests on the amplifier, and the "T Street Flats" banner casts a faint shadow over the pulpit.