Thursday, May 24, 2007

This week the District Extra introduces Jacqueline Dupree and her blog on development in Near Southeast Washington, a little-known industrial area a mile south of the Capitol. The swath between Capitol Hill and the Anacostia River was home to the Navy Yard, public housing, nightclubs, a few small businesses and not much else before this decade. But a series of changes capped by the 2004 selection of a site near the waterfront for the Nationals baseball stadium sparked a development gold rush that is transforming the neighborhood.

Jacqueline is a Post staff member who lives just north of the Southeast Freeway and started tracking changes in Near Southeast even before the stadium decision. Ballpark and Beyond is adapted from her blog ( http://www.jdland.com/dc), which describes itself as a "site that shows what happens when someone armed with a digital camera gets way too interested in goings-on around the neighborhood."