D.C. Residents Wait In Stadium's Shadow

One group of kids sneered at a minivan with Virginia license plates and Nationals flags flapping like antennae, making it look like a giant potato bug seeking parking.

"You just keep going," one girl said.

Fulton Vinson, 41, who has lived on O Street SW since he was a baby, said he worries that the benefits of the stadium are being overblown. Down the street is a community recreational center, with a baseball field and kids who might never get inside the grand stadium.

"Kids are down there playing baseball every day, and I haven't seen a representative from the Nationals. I haven't seen them drive down there and line the fields. They have done nothing for us," said Vinson, who teaches social studies at a Virginia high school.

He said he is offended that the city calls the stadium "such a boon for Southeast."

"Anybody in the District knows that the stadium is only one block into Southeast," he said. "The part of Southeast that needs redevelopment is across the river, not on this side."

Julius Clay, 53, who fought traffic last night to come to Half Street SW and visit his sister, is unnerved by the multimillion-dollar project and the shadow it casts on a hardscrabble neighborhood.

"If the city's going to spend this kind of money, why spend it on a stadium? There are so many people with needs here," Clay said. "You clutter this neighborhood with traffic, but nothing good."

The Nationals held several job fairs in hopes of hiring District residents, including from neighborhoods near the ballpark.

Eglon Daley, 50, said he's a bit conflicted about the stadium. He owns several properties and a picture framing business in the area and describes himself as "the only black business owner who actually lives in the neighborhood."

Daley, more widely known for his giant paintings that grace One Judiciary Square and Reagan National Airport, has been a fixture in his neighborhood since he moved there in 1989.

He knows that once restaurants and fancy condos and shops move in, his properties will be worth a lot more than he paid. And even though his property taxes have doubled, he knows he can profit handsomely some day.

"Money can buy happiness," he said as he mounted a glass door on one of his properties.

What he would really like is a Nationals-sponsored youth training center in the neighborhood, he said. But he worries that the rowhouses like his, which have been there since the 1930s, will soon be gone, draining the neighborhood of its character.

"Already, all we have left are the stories of what it was like. The pool hall down the street. The family that lived here 100 years," he said. "Once they go poof, the history goes, too."

By 9 .m., trucks were still towing away Audis, Volvos and sport-utility vehicles, among other cars. And the neighborhood had largely fallen quiet, except for the roar of the crowd that could be heard from blocks away.