On this balmy Sunday afternoon, couples walked their dogs, a man assisted an elderly woman carrying her groceries to her apartment, and joggers briskly made their way along the sidewalk of the 1400 block of W Street NW — a narrow one-way street filled with colorful rowhouses and small apartment buildings.
Cole, 38, resigned from his post last week after news media outlets unearthed offensive and racist comments he wrote on his personal social media accounts over the past few years condemning his neighbors as “black miscreants” and “zoo animals.”
“So apparently the closing of the National Zoo has forced the animals to conduct their mating ritual on my street. #gentrifytoday Pt. 1,” he wrote in an October 2013 Facebook post while the zoo was closed during the federal government shutdown.
But, despite Cole’s hashtag pleas in 2013, gentrification had already long taken hold in his neighborhood — and residents whom Cole wrote unthinkable things about are presumably the same people who beat the odds and held on to their homes as their block saw an influx of wealthy residents and rapidly increasing property values. As the District’s repeated trope goes, the 14th Street NW corridor in 2015 is almost unrecognizable — in aesthetics and property values — from how it appeared a decade or two ago.
The building on the southeast edge of the block where Cole lives, according to public records, exemplifies the textbook definition of gentrification: Developers purchased the building, bought out lower-income residents who had long lived there and built luxury condos. The building is now called the Hamilton on W.
Before it was a boutique condo building with the tagline “Urban lifestyles start here,” the city condemned the complex for unlivable conditions and, in 2000, the landlord sold the building to the residents for $1 as part of a plea bargain. The residents tried to renovate the building and stave off developers’ offers, but they ultimately sold the building for $2.5 million, or $114,000 per household, in 2003. That was not enough money for those residents to stay in the neighborhood, so most left. In 2013, a unit in that building, according to city property records, sold for $469,000.
The block, however, has a more interesting and complicated history. In 2005, The Washington Post’s Debbi Wilgoren wrote how some of the block’s longtime residents were able to hold on to their homes amid rising costs and about the subsequent tensions between the new and old residents that resulted.
Capital Manor, a multi-building cooperative on that block, was converted into low-income apartments through federal tax subsidies in the 1970s. Those tax benefits eventually expired, and the owners of Capital Manor put it on the market in 2001 and signed a contract to sell it for $3.4 million.
Those who lived in the building, most of them low-income black and Hispanic residents, were able to scrounge up enough money — $1,500 each — to make down payments on their homes and stop the sale. (D.C. law allows current tenants of a building to match purchase offers of their homes.)
The headline of The Post article about the sale was “The Purchase Of a Lifetime,” and this purchase allowed for the make-up of the block today: recently arrived affluent residents in rowhouses and luxury condos living alongside lower-income residents, many of whom have lived on the block for decades. Residents also were able to purchase the building at 1424 W St. NW in between Capital Manor and the Hamilton on W in the late 1990s, making that building a cooperative as well.
From Wilgoren’s story nearly 10 years ago:
The saga of Capital Manor’s rebirth as a tenant-owned cooperative played out over 4 1/2 years, starting in spring 2001. It finished successfully [in November 2005], with the last original tenants moving into their freshly renovated apartments. In a neighborhood that has become one of the most sought after in the city, this was a rare accomplishment: the $12 million purchase and rehabilitation of three buildings by tenants whose average income hovered just under $20,000 a year.The undertaking, one of the largest tenant purchases in the city, was a struggle all the way. The residents had to convince the District government that their plan was worthy of funding and prove to a bank that they were committed enough to handle a loan. Even then, work progressed at an excruciatingly slow pace. They faced opposition from wealthier neighbors, who wanted them gone, and defections within their own ranks. Their renovation plan changed drastically.
For the most part, residents said block relations have improved and were shocked to learn that Cole made his statements perched on his apartment’s window on W Street NW.
“I don’t have any problems here. If I did, I’d move,” said Betty Johnson, who has lived in Capital Manor for 40 years, raised her now-adult children there and purchased her unit when developers tried to buy it. “If [Cole] didn’t like it, he should have moved.”
The sentiments behind Cole’s remarks, though, reveal a tension that is prevalent in these changing neighborhoods — a tension that has been explored over and over again as city leaders and residents try to find the balance between bringing money into neighborhoods while preventing longtime, low-income residents from losing their homes.
“I could see why people would not want to live next door to [1424],” said Brian Mark, who lives nearby, explaining that in the now-upscale block, the visibly older building is an eyesore. He said that he often sees the residents of that building congregating in groups in the area but that he has never had a problem with his neighbors or felt unsafe on that block. “This building doesn’t fit the neighborhood anymore … but you don’t want anyone kicked out of their homes.”
On Jan. 29, Cole wrote on Facebook that he filed an assault claim against a black female who threw an elbow at him on “14th Street at W NW,” after reportedly telling him “you white people need to learn.” When he later tried to tell a black police officer what occurred, the officer, according to Cole, asked, “Do you have a problem talking to me?”
Cole wrote in a subsequent comment on the Facebook post that he was “doing his best to put as many Black criminals who live and loiter on my street behind bars.”
Another night, when police vehicles lined the street, Cole posted a picture and joked that a new “installment of the Django series” was being filmed on his block, a reference to the gory films.
The rate of crime isn’t out of line with that of other blocks in the area. D.C. police crime data shows that in the past year, there were 46 instances of violent crime within 1,000 feet of Cole’s block, a decrease from the 62 violent crimes that occurred the previous year. Nineteen of these 46 crimes were robberies without a gun. There were five robberies and one assault with a gun. By comparison, the nearby 1400 block of T Street NW, which has a bakery, taco shop and upscale store selling “artisinal pantry items” has experienced 35 violent crimes between this February and last. The always busy 1400 block of U Street NW also saw 46 instances of violent crime during that time period.
In a statement last week, Schock called Cole’s statements “inexcusable and offensive.”
“I am extremely disappointed by the inexcusable and offensive online comments made by a member of my staff. I would expect better from any member of my team,” he wrote. “Upon learning about them I met with Mr. Cole and he offered his resignation which I have accepted.”