Ward 4 In Profile

Faces of Hope
Area Shows City's Promise, Problems

By D'Vera Cohn
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 14, 1998; Page J01

This is the second in a series of ward profiles.

When Gregory Bridges looks out his front door, he sees the trash that passing drivers toss from their cars, the noisy neighbors police won't shut up, the fence around his yard that took four frustrating months to obtain a city permit to build.

"The service in this city is atrocious," says Bridges, 42, a lawyer who also is an advisory neighborhood commissioner. "You almost have to go in on bended knee to get someone to do their job."

Ward 4: A Statistical Profile Encompassing the northern-most point in the city, the ward spreads south over more than 3,700 acres, with 87 percent of its land being devoted to residential use, the highest percentage of any ward in the city. In 1991, an estimated 53 percent of the ward's housing units were owner-occupied, also the highest rate in the city. The 1990 census found that 74 percent of the residents were high school graduates and 25 percent had four or more years of college. Population • Estimated 1997 population: 69,002 • Population lost since 1990: 12% Population breakdown Black:  54,030 (78%) White:  8,256 (12%) Hispanic:  5,367 (8%) Asian:  1,006 (1%) American Indian:  154 Supermarkets: 3 Median household income (1997) Ward 4:  $38,800 Citywide:  $39,792 Age Under 18:  19% 18 to 64:  64% 65 or older:  17% Political affiliation Democrats:  39,731 Independents:  5,232 Republicans:  1,834 Children • In the ward, 56 percent of the households with children in 1990 were married-couple households. • Citywide, 47 percent of the households with children in 1990 were married-couple households. Government employment • In the ward, 36 percent of employed residents in 1990 held government jobs. • Citywide, 32 percent of employed people had government jobs. Private school attendance • In the ward, 19 percent of children attended private school in 1990. • Citywide, 16 percent of children attended private school in 1990. College attendance • In the ward, 48 percent of the adult residents had attended college. • Citywide, 52 percent of adult residents have attended college. Rental housing • In the ward, 42 percent of the housing units were rental units in 1990. • Citywide, 54 percent of the housing units were rental units in 1990. 1994 Mayoral Election • Primary election voter turnout:  Ward 4: 53%  Citywide: 49% • General election turnout:  Ward 4: 52%  Citywide: 51% Primary vote by candidate, Ward 4: • Marion Barry (D): 10,505 • John Ray (D): 6,415 • Sharon Pratt Kelly (D): 4,271 General election vote by candidate, Ward 4: • Marion Barry (D): 17,479 • Carol Schwartz (R): 7,609 SOURCES: 1990 Census, Claritas, D.C. Office of Planning

On the same block in Petworth, however, Pat Kelly points out that neighbors are not waiting for the city to solve their problems; they have organized a trash cleanup day this weekend. Too often, she says, people expect the government to pick up after them or kick drug dealers off their blocks -- tasks for which neighbors also bear responsibility.

"We can change it," says Kelly, 40, a consultant to nonprofit groups, "but government has nothing to do with that. The Congress can pass all kinds of laws, but it's the look we give kids when they litter that tells them that won't be tolerated."

Bridges and Kelly have lived in the neighborhood since 1994 -- they are married to each other, in fact. Their divergent attitudes -- one hopeful, the other not; one demanding more from city government, the other expecting more from her neighbors -- echo the opinions found throughout the neighborhoods of Ward 4.

Their attitudes also underscore the central issue in Ward 4, whose 3,700 acres include a higher share of residential property than any other ward. Residents are passionately concerned about how to keep the stable, pleasant neighborhoods they love from falling prey to drugs and crime, or to the smaller, corrosive nuisances of discarded beer cans, dumped mattresses and missing street signs.

Ward 4 extends north to Montgomery County, east to Prince George's County, west to Rock Creek Park and south to Michigan Avenue. Its northern and western neighborhoods include the lushly landscaped mansions of the Gold Coast elite, the funky Victorians of Takoma Park, the brick colonials and bungalows of Brightwood, Crestwood and Shepherd Park, and the tree-lined campus of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. These areas are home to many in the city's black middle class; at Shepherd Park Elementary School, only one child in six comes from a poor family.

The ward's south and east encompasses the tidy row houses, apartment buildings and homes of Petworth, Manor Park and Fort Totten, as well as a complex of institutions including the Washington Hospital Center, Soldiers and Airmen's Home and the VA Medical Center. In the seven elementary schools closest to the ward's southern boundary, 80 percent or more of the students come from low-income families.

The commercial spine of Ward 4 is upper Georgia Avenue, a mix of the bustling and the bleak, perennially destined for a comeback.

Ward 4 has an estimated 69,000 residents, including a larger share of longtime homeowners than the city overall and the largest number of registered voters in the city. The ward is 78 percent African American, more so than the city as a whole. But its racial and ethnic composition is changing, as more whites move in, as well as immigrants of all races.

Bridges is thinking of joining the thousands of other middle class black families who have snubbed the city for the suburbs. He is looking at houses in Maryland's Takoma Park.

"I want the same things my parents had," he says. "My parents didn't have to go through kids hanging on the corner and using profanity."

But Kelly is not so sure she wants to leave. There are days when she hates the neighborhood and its crust of problems, but she also believes city life entails a commitment to fight to make things better.

"I always have in the back of my head this dream neighborhood, where people wave at each other and tend their flowers," she says. "I know it can exist. It's a long process of changing the way people think."

There are parts of Ward 4 that come close to Kelly's dream; neighborhoods where the community groups are well-organized at fending off fast-food restaurants, shelters for the homeless and other threats to their peace of mind. In the well-off northern part of Ward 4, where many of the city's political upper strata live, neighborhood gatherings tend to be potluck socials, not anxious conferences about crime and litter.

The Shepherd Park neighborhood, with its tree-lined streets and brick colonials, is home to many in the city's black middle class. (Helena Pasquarella / The Washington Post)

Douglas Sloan, an advisory neighborhood commissioner for an area near Shepherd Park Elementary, says of neighborhood nuisances, "I can usually put the screws to somebody and get it fixed."

But residents keep a wary eye on nearby Georgia Avenue, where the drug trade flares up and dies down in response to police crackdowns. And although Shepherd Park Elementary has a good reputation, many parents in the neighborhoods send their children to city schools west of Rock Creek Park or private school.

Among them are Paul and Trish McKenzie, who moved to Shepherd Park from Capitol Hill four years ago, to the disbelief of their suburbanite friends. They love their big house, the energetic community groups, Shepherd Park's strong commitment to maintaining an integrated neighborhood where whites like them feel welcome. But the McKenzies -- he works for the Defense Department, she for the Peace Corps -- are not willing to trust their 6- and 10-year-old children to the D.C. schools, yet.

Trish McKenzie, 41, says their judgment was validated when the schools opened three weeks late in the fall.

"It outraged us so much," she says, "that they would care so little about the students."

Still, Paul McKenzie, 44, adds: "I notice a difference in what the control board has done. Things have gotten better."