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'Not Quite Dupont' to Some; an Inspiration to Many
Map: Shaw
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Who's Blogging  |
Jason Beard, 29, started his Shaw blog to drum up interest in cleaning the neighborhood. At TreeboxVodka.com, he posts pictures of debris he has found around his condominium: couches and far more needles and crack bags than you want to see in front of an elementary school. Once a month, he gathers about 15 of his neighbors, and they walk the neighborhood's streets, picking up trash and erasing graffiti.
While Beard's blog is about garbage, other Shaw blogs tend to focus on neighborhood identity, Beard said. "Shaw has a lot of different divisions of people. . . . There's the new residents, the old residents, the church people," he said. "Figuring out what Shaw is all about and what's the character of the neighborhood has driven a lot of conversation on the Internet."
There's also avid interest in new development, particularly a spate of construction near the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. In recent years, abandoned buildings have turned into yoga studios, art galleries and a doggie day care center. And a $250 million deal was recently struck to build a grocery store, condominiums and affordable housing at Eighth and O streets NW. The addition of affordable housing to the deal was largely the work of activist residents, including bloggers, Padro said.
But construction in Shaw isn't limited to multimillion-dollar projects.
Marie Maxwell has been renovating her two-story house since moving in about eight years ago. Built in 1874, Maxwell's home, like many on her block, had been neglected and needed structural help, she said. "The floor was uneven, some beams were not in great shape . . . some bricks were nothing but wet clay, sandy mortar, all sorts of fun things," Maxwell said.
Even with its imperfections, Maxwell is a fan of her petite, Federal-style house. She also said she loves that her neighbors' homes, which once were nearly identical to hers, have been painted different colors over the years, from restrained taupe to peacock blue. "It's so darn cute," she said.
Adam Isacson, who lives around the corner from Maxwell, said his neighbors have turned out to be equally colorful and surprisingly friendly. "In our old apartment in Woodley Park, we hardly knew any of our neighbors; everyone moved every six months there," Isacson said. "Our next-door neighbor here has been here for decades."
