Ward 7 In Profile

A Reflection of the City
'Part Is Shining Hill, Part of It Is Despair'

By Sari Horwitz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, May 21, 1998; Page J01

This is the third in a series of ward profiles.

The rains of May frightened many people who live across the Anacostia River in a neighborhood called Penn Branch. A heavy rainfall could literally cause a landslide, taking lives and homes with it.

Ward 7: A Statistical Profile The ward is the easternmost point in the city, including more than 3,700 acres on the right bank of the Anacostia River. About half of the land is tax exempt, with the federal government owning 1,454 acres, most of it park land. The ward's housing stock of 31,920 units reflected a loss of 1,227 units between 1980 and 1990. Population • Estimated 1997 population: 59,425 • Population lost since 1990: 19% Population breakdown Black:  57,238 (96%) White:  1,264 (2%) Hispanic:  595 (1%) Asian:  132 American Indian:  117 Supermarkets: 2 Median household income (1997) Ward 7:  $31,500 Citywide:  $39,792 Age Under 18:  27% 18 to 64:  60% 65 or older:  13% Political affiliation Democrats:  37,336 Independents:  4,151 Republicans:  1,302 Children • In the ward, 33 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, 45 percent of employed residents in 1990 held government jobs. • Citywide, 32 percent of employed people had government jobs. Private school attendance • In the ward, 7 percent of children attended private school in 1990. • Citywide, 16 percent of children attended private school in 1990. College attendance • In the ward, 33 percent of the adult residents had attended college. • Citywide, 52 percent of adult residents have attended college. Rental housing • In the ward, 62 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 7: 50%  Citywide: 49% • General election turnout:  Ward 7: 50%  Citywide: 51% Primary vote by candidate, Ward 7: • Marion Barry (D): 12,097 • John Ray (D): 3,767 • Sharon Pratt Kelly (D): 2,228 General election vote by candidate, Ward 7: • Marion Barry (D): 19,169 • Carol Schwartz (R): 3,180 SOURCES: 1990 Census, Claritas, D.C. Office of Planning, D.C. Board of Elections

For years, geologists have warned the residents of O Street SE, whose homes are held up only by a crumbling retaining wall, of the impending disaster. And for years, residents have been pleading with city and federal officials for help and money.

Walk out to Geraldine Boykin's backyard on Highwood Drive SE. It is slipping off the face of a muddy cliff. Large chunks of her back sidewalk have broken off and stick straight up. Heavy rains created a six-foot drop only a few feet from her back door.

"The more it rains, the more my house and yard slide," says Boykin, a political consultant, who lives with her daughter in a home that backs up to the 20-year-old wall sitting on unstable red clay. "You just don't sleep at night."

Boykin and her neighbors may finally get some relief. Nearly $4 million dollars has been put into the city budget to repair the crumbling wall. But not soon enough for people like Herbert A. Boyd Jr., who also lives on Highwood Drive with his wife, Rosalyn, and 12-year-old daughter Leah.

"It has taken too long for the control board to come to the need of citizens in distress," said Boyd, 46, a native Washingtonian, D.C. school administrator and co-chairman of the Penn Naylor Coalition of Civic Organizations, which has been fighting long and hard to get help. "It has been very frustrating."

The inattention to the deteriorating O Street wall is a symbol of the way many residents who live east of the river in Ward 7 feel they've been treated with disrespect by the rest of the city.

With this year's mayoral primary election just four months away, many on the east side of the river distrust government -- especially the D.C. control board. Its members, none of whom live east of the river, are perceived to be uninterested and out of touch with life there.

But Boyd looks at the wall and sees something else: empowered citizens getting results.

"We lobbied. We testified. We had to take matters into our own hands and we did," Boyd said.

Ward 7 is the city's easternmost ward, containing sections of Northeast and Southeast. It is bounded by the Anacostia River on the west, Naylor Road on the south and the District's borders with Prince George's County on the north and east. The ward has the largest percentage of African American residents -- 96 percent -- in the city.

The ward is filled with people like Boyd -- civic-minded, highly-educated, middle-class -- who live in suburban-style neighborhoods such as Penn Branch, Hillcrest, Fort Davis and Fort Dupont, with rolling hills, gently-curving, oak-lined streets, spacious, neatly trimmed yards surrounding ramblers, Tudor-style or red brick colonial houses and town houses. Teacher Emily Washington, a member of the board of trustees that oversees D.C. schools, lives there, as does former police chief Isaac Fulwood Jr., whose large stone and brick home sits high above Southern Avenue.

But the middle-class neighborhoods are often overshadowed by the ward's troubled pockets of crime, drugs, public housing and poverty in the northern half. The ward has one of the city's highest infant mortality rates, one-third of the city's residents on public assistance and the second-largest number of public housing units, behind Ward 2 -- grim places such as Benning Terrace, Lincoln Heights, East Capitol Dwellings.

As Fulwood puts it: "Part of Ward 7 is a shining hill and part of it is depair, just like the city."

Economic development, jobs, better housing, improved schools and crime prevention are key issues for the voters of Ward 7, who have delivered the largest percentage of votes to Mayor Marion Barry in election after election.

Ward 7 has suffered the most from urban flight. There were 100,000 people in the ward 25 years ago. Now, there are about 59,000. Since 1990, Ward 7 has lost 13,499 people -- more than any other ward. Some call Prince George's County, where many have bought homes, Ward 9. But longtime residents like Boyd say they have no intention of leaving.

"I'm not going anywhere," Boyd says. "The people here are down-home folks. Many of us have lived in Washington most of our lives. The quality of life has changed, but I see great potential in the city. And I'm committed to stay."

A colorful collage of photographs covers the walls of Johnnie Scott Rice's Massachusetts Avenue home. There's her father, who was a D.C. bricklayer. Her brother, a D.C. cop, who died seven years ago. One sister, who worked 32 years at D.C. General. Another who is a mortician. Aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces, nephews, all whom live in the city.

Rice, 57, is a third-generation Washingtonian. She grew up in a three-story brick row house on a tidy street in the Trinidad neighborhood in Ward 5. She went to D.C. schools and graduated from Eastern High School in 1958. Her sisters have moved into the family home.

Johnnie Scott Rice pets her dog Herbert, during their daily walk in Fort Dupont Park. (Sarah L. Voisin / The Washington Post)

About 20 years ago, Rice's brother told her about the new houses going up on a tree-lined street near Fort Dupont where there was no crime. Rice thought it was the prettiest street in the city. She lives there with her husband, John, one of the city's first black bus drivers, who retired as a station manager after 32 years with Metro.

"I have been in my home 22 years and I plan to be here at least 22 more," says Rice. "This is my community. This is my home. When I say I live east of the river, people say, 'aren't you afraid to live over there?' I say, 'Hell no. I choose to live here.' "

Still, it breaks Rice's heart to see what's happened to the city she loves.

"I would love to just tear down all this public housing and start over," Rice says as she drives past several gray, drab buildings -- some with broken windows, others boarded up -- that dot the landscape of far Northeast on the other side of the ward.

Rice is a Republican in a city that votes overwhelmingly Democratic. A former city council aide, she ran for council several times but lost. Like other Ward 7 residents, Rice longs for the day when "control is returned back to our elected officials."

"The school system is a mess," says Rice. An active member of Our Lady Queen of Peace church, she sent her two children -- now grown -- to Catholic schools.