Ward 5 In Profile

A Sense of Possibilities
Ward Encompasses What's Wrong And Right in City

By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 25, 1998; Page J01
This is the seventh in a series of ward profiles.

To Ruth Marshall, the impulse to move from suburban Adelphi to Northeast Washington came straight from the mouth of God, like a tip on the sixth race at Pimlico. She was standing in the shower -- "I do my best thinking in the shower" -- when she asked for guidance.

Ward 5: A Statistical Profile The more than 4,600 acres of the ward make up the greater part of the city's Northeast quadrant, including 17 distinct neighborhoods. Two major commuter arteries, New York Avenue and Rhode Island Avenue, are gateways to the District. The ward has more industrial acreage than any other in the city. Population • Estimated 1997 population: 67,632 • Population lost since 1990: 10% Population breakdown Black:  59,876 (89%) White:  5,081 (8%) Hispanic:  1,703 (3%) Asian:  729 (1%) American Indian:  127 Supermarkets: 1 Median household income (1997) Ward 5:  $35,100 Citywide:  $39,792 Age Under 18:  22% 18 to 64:  62% 65 or older:  16% Political affiliation Democrats:  39,157 Independents:  4,735 Republicans:  1,616 Children • In the ward, 46 percent of the 1990 households with children were married-couple households. • Citywide, 47 percent of the households with children in 1990 were married-couple households. Government employment • In the ward, 37 percent of employed residents in 1990 held government jobs. • Citywide, 32 percent of employed residents held government jobs. Private school attendance • In the ward, 13 percent of children attended private school in 1990. • Citywide, 16 percent of children attended private school in 1990. College attendance • In the ward, 40 percent of the adult residents had attended college in 1990. • Citywide, 52 percent of adult residents had attended college. Rental housing • In the ward, 47 percent of the 1990 housing units were rental units. • Citywide, 54 percent of the housing units were rental units in 1990. 1994 Mayoral Election • Primary election voter turnout:  Ward 5: 49%  Citywide: 49% • General election turnout:  Ward 5: 48%  Citywide: 51% Primary vote by candidate, Ward 5: • Marion Barry (D): 10,858 • John Ray (D): 5,314 • Sharon Pratt Kelly (D): 3,023 General election vote by candidate, Ward 5: • Marion Barry (D): 17,440 • Carol Schwartz (R): 4,929 SOURCES: 1990 Census, Claritas, D.C. Office of Planning

"I said, 'Lord, what should I do now?' "

And the answer came: Washington was the place. And Marshall saw that it was good. She immediately surrendered her search in Maryland and the very next day found a red brick house with a deep green lawn in Queen's Chapel.

Sweet serenity. On a crisp late spring evening, walking with her 6-year-old daughter on peaceful Crittenden Street, Marshall shrugged and said, "Hey, divine intervention."

A small boost from God or man is both welcome and essential in Ward 5, a thick slice of city that stretches from beauty to beastliness and back again in 7.2 square miles.

Ward 5, where 9 of 10 residents are black, is home to the flowers and trees of the National Arboretum and the gleaming dome of National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. It encircles the peaceful cloisters of the Franciscan monastery and the leafy, prosperous streets of North Michigan Park. At 10th and Irving Streets NE, it features a bright yellow house with round walls and a roof shaped like a pilgrim's hat.

Yet the ward is also the domain of the trash haulers and the garbage they move from city to country. Every day, great heaps of waste arrive for transfer to rural outposts. Garbage in, garbage out. The smell lingers, an irritant in the nostrils and the minds of residents who protest the truck traffic, the odor and the psychic damage of sharing their neighborhood with a dump.

The ward's southern trunk includes Trinidad, which offers nothing so verdant as its island namesake.

And Ivy City, where green vines are as scarce as opportunity. In the crook between the keep-out fences of the Arboretum and Langston Golf Course is a stretch of housing as bleak as a rainy November dawn.

In this year when the city will elect a new mayor, not much unifies Ward 5, if truth be told, except the desire at every level for something a little better, a little brighter and always more secure.

The District of Columbia owes them that, say residents. Now, if only the administrative organism everyone in the ward calls "downtown" can deliver.

"I'm doing my best, but it gets frustrating when you fight and work so hard for things and it doesn't go the way you want it to," said Dorthia Austin, leader of the Ivy City Patriots, a civic improvement group. "Most of the politicians aren't interested in here. They come around when they want our vote, then you never see them again."

The many-tiered leadership of D.C. government is like the nine-headed hydra slain by Hercules; cut off one head and two grow back. Faced with such dilution of political clout, many neighborhoods are inventing their own strength by managing things locally.

"The way things are going now, we're not going to wait on the city. We're going to do it ourselves," said Anthony Hood, president of the 11,000-home Woodridge Civic Association.

The city won't provide enough recreation for kids or a van for seniors in Woodridge? The neighborhood civic association got $1.25 million from Allstate Insurance Co. for sports, safety programs and other good works.

A youth league near South Dakota Avenue needs better facilities? Volunteers backed the Woodridge Warriors by raising more than $200,000 in a memorial fund, helping the 40 coaches who volunteer their time in a program now in its fourth decade.

Ward 5 D.C. Council member Harry Thomas Sr. (D) is trying to reduce the required 500-foot buffer between trash transfer sites and businesses? Opponents staged a protest this month and invited the media.

The leader of the trash protest was John Frye, an electrician and Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner who also is doing battle with liquor stores in his crime-plagued Trinidad neighborhood.

"Divine intervention" is how Ruth Marshall describes her decision to buy a home in Ward 5, where she lives with her daughter, Tyler (Tim Sloan / The Washington Post)

In fact, Frye has no trouble keeping busy, pushing development projects nearby and trying to build bridges to other parts of the ward.

"We want the boarded-up houses to be gone," Frye said as he drove the lower regions of the ward one recent Saturday. "Once you get the old stuff out, you've got to get some newer stuff in. If you wait too long, the bad will come back. You talk about saving the kids. You can't save them unless they have someplace to go."

In Woodridge, thanks to community effort, dozens of kids do have a place to go and a purpose once they get there. They play football, baseball and basketball for the Warriors, and launch homers and winning drives from the fields next to Taft Junior High.

"Watch your mouth, Mr. Hayes. I can hear you all the way over here," Tim Ellis called to a young first baseman on a crystalline evening. The boy looked up sheepishly and Ellis gave him a thumbs up and a smile.