Breathing New Rhythm Into Tired Streets

"I was a little concerned about being a gentrifier," she added. "But I really liked this neighborhood. If you walk around Northwest, everyone looks down on the ground. Here, everyone looks you in the eye and says hello."

Greathouse's friends initially questioned the wisdom of her move, too. One teacher declined to work there, and a few students didn't follow her. "Some people won't come here because they're afraid," said Greathouse, who lives 10 minutes away in Brookland. "They ask if it's safe to park their car. It's 'the 'hood' for them."

Business was slow at first. Sometimes no one showed up for a class. "That doesn't happen any more," Greathouse said. Classes have gradually grown, although she has yet to turn a profit.

Half of the 500 customers on her mailing list live in the neighborhood. Most are relative newcomers. When she opened in October, her clientele was largely white, but over time it has become racially mixed. Now, half of the local clients are black.

On a recent evening, an economic consultant, a federal analyst and a foreign aid professional were among the students sitting cross-legged on the gleaming bamboo floor, trying to bring their navels to their spines as they inhaled. The class was overwhelmingly young and female.

Greathouse sprinkled rose petals along the windowsill, lighted candles in the sconces on the exposed brick walls and invited the class to chant "Om." Outside, in the alley lined with trash, three boys jumped up and down on a discarded mattress under a broken basketball hoop.

Cindy Runyan, a financial analyst for the American Red Cross, moved to the neighborhood in 2004 because she could buy a four-bedroom house for $350,000. Yoga House has become a de facto gathering spot for the newcomers, she said. "I've met a lot of people in the neighborhood in class," said Runyan, who hopes for another restaurant or two, coffee shops, a bookstore.

Georgia Avenue still looks worn and rough around the edges. Yoga House is surrounded by peeling storefronts, many of them vacant. There's a clinic that provides free HIV testing on the corner and a strip club down the street. The front window of a long-shut dry cleaner is punctured by a bullet hole.

Sharon Ray, 45, has lived in Petworth for years and noticed the yoga studio when it opened. "I wanted to try it, but I didn't have that kind of money at the time," said Ray, a condominium maintenance worker.

Some longtime residents cast a wary glance at the yoga studio. "They're bringing in the rich and sending the poor to Maryland and Southeast -- that's how I see it," said Brenda Allen, who has lived in Petworth since 1978.

"Let's face it -- yoga is something that people with disposable income can do," said Robin Heider, a 31-year-old economic consultant who bought a rowhouse on Seventh Street NW last year. She had been taking classes in Dupont Circle until Yoga House opened. Now she comes twice a week.

Two blocks north, the Bethesda developers Donatelli & Klein plan 156 condominiums and 17,000 square feet of retail space in a $40 million project on an empty lot adjacent to the Metro station. Four blocks north, the Jair Lynch Co. intends to build a $27 million development that includes 110 rental apartments, 19,500 square feet of shops anchored by a cafe, and a branch of Results gym, the upscale local health club chain. And eight blocks north, LaKritz-Adler plans 105 condominiums and 20,000 square feet of retail space.

Kimberly Perkins, 32, a speech pathologist from Rockville, took a class with Greathouse for the first time last month and left thinking that she, too, will move to Petworth.

"I don't know much about this area, but it has a yoga studio -- I could practice every day," she said.