The Walled City

There is another city within the boundaries of the independent Virginia city known as Alexandria.

You won't find it on Mapquest. You won't find it on Zillow. And you won't find it on Alexandria's Web page.

That other community is known as Parker-Gray.

It is not a legal entity and to a surprising degree it is not a physical entity. People don't need to reside within its geographic bounds to consider themselves its citizens. In fact, they feel entitled to dictate how it evolves even if they don't live in the City of Alexandria proper.

Parker-Gray is a political construct based on race and income. It is not logical or rational. It is costly and inefficient. It exists less in the realm of the tangible than in the minds of certain prominent Alexandrians, including Mayor William D. Euille and others, many of whom left the place decades ago.

If you currently live in the local historic district called Parker-Gray, the odds are that you are not a citizen in good standing in this peculiar world. You are an alien, and even those who moved here 10, 20 or 30 years ago are seen as foreigners.

The fantasy construct of Parker-Gray is based on an unthinking commitment to separatism. It is an insular world in which nostalgia for long-lost loved ones and vanishing landmarks has degenerated into a stubborn refusal to face the future. It is a community whose dwindling ranks of citizens are often marked by an inability to integrate into the larger world and accept change.

If you want to understand the phenomenon known as Queen and Fayette, this is what lies at its heart.

A casual observer might surmise that this second city was born and shaped by a long history of racial segregation. But in fact, as the Growler and others have labored to demonstrate with demographic facts and statistics, this community was for more than a century a neighborhood where blacks and whites lived and worked side-by-side, though Jim Crow dictated a separate and unequal approach to their children's education.

No, this city within a city is a development of surprisingly recent origin. Listen carefully to its spokesmen and you will discover that the point of reference for many of its champions is some golden age between 1970 and 1980. Not 1880, or 1930 or even 1960.

A few key Alexandria players of a certain age have used their political power and the City of Alexandria's resources to help freeze this community in 1980, a date when the nation's cruelest and most restrictive laws that denied opportunities for better housing and education had already been revoked.

We shall never known all of the motivations that drive key leaders to insist on locking this neighborhood in amber. Undoubtedly some feel their motivations are of the best -- that their actions and advocacy constitutes leadership, and that they are taking on a solemn and important duty to protect those who simply cannot move on. But it sounds suspiciously like traditional paternalism to the Growler.

The question that really needs to be asked is whether those who promote this city within a city are actually nurturing or harming its citizens. Are the invisible walls around this city really meant to protect or to keep its citizens confined?

Hot Flashes

True Blue

Detailed election results from Tuesday's races are now available, and not surprisingly voters in the Durant precinct leaned heavily Democratic. Some two-thirds of Durant voters supported gubernatorial candidate Creigh Deeds while only a third voted for the successful Republican candidate Bob McDonnell. The split was similar for other statewide races. As the Growler and others have observed repeatedly, this is a neighborhood that typically leans left.

So while Tuesday's results are no surprise, we are still left with the question of why Republicans Frank Fannon and Alicia Hughes swept the precinct in Council elections earlier this year.

Was that a fluke? Or was it a protest vote, signaling discontent with City policies in our neighborhood?

Say What?

The Growler was puttering around the cave last night half-listening to NBC News 4 at 11, when the furry ears perked up at a story on the City's proposed ban on more sex shops in Old Town.

The Cranky One was dumbfounded to hear Planning & Zoning Director Faroll Hamer telling the reporter that “There is no intention to shut down either one of the existing shops."

But wait a tick. That's not what's in the staff report on the proposed text amendment, which states "The recently opened store at 1017 King Street is different and should not be allowed to remain permanently... and would be required to close after 18 months."


A Streetcar Named ADAM

Neighbors have been reporting receiving E-mails about a kick-off meeting of the "Northern Virginia Streetcar Coalition," which will be held on Wednesday, November 18 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. in Room 158 of Bisdorf Building at the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College.

The meeting will include information about the latest trends in streetcar projects and is advertised as part of a new initiative to create a regional streetcar network to connect Alexandria, Arlington and Fairfax Counties.

Who is behind this new group? Our old friend ADAM (Alexandrians Delivering Smart Growth Around Metro Stations).

Tricks 'n' Treats

What's In A Name? (I)

Besides dealing with sex businesses next Thursday, Planning Commission will also be hearing a staff proposal to name new private streets to be created by the James Bland redevelopment project.

Normally when new streets are being planned, City staff will research historic land ownership records to determine who originally owned the property. In the case of Bland, one of the most prominent property owners were the Alexanders, for whom the City was named.

In the case of Bland, the City has apparently rejected the notion of naming streets after any whites in favor of honoring the African-American community.

No problem with that. A few years ago when the Berg was redeveloped as Chatham Square, the City made fitting choices for street names by honoring the City's first African-American mayor William D. Euile and Earl Cook (today Alexandria's new police chief). Both were raised in the Berg and their lives have demonstrated how hard work, education and perseverance can lift individuals from the shackles of poverty.

If the City were to again follow this practice, the new streets at Bland might include one named for James Henson, whose family moved to Bland soon after it was opened in the 1950s. Mr. Henson, a great-nephew of famed Polar explorer Matthew Henson, later became the first African-American Assistant County Solicitor in the Howard County Office of Law. Such a street naming would continue the practice of honoring individuals once sheltered by public housing who found a way out through achievement.

If a direct tie with Bland wasn't necessary, other living individuals who could be honored might include people like Earl Lloyd, the Parker-Gray High School graduate who broke the color barrier in the National Basketball Association. Or Jube Shiver, the former Parker-Gray teacher turned enterpreneur who became a prominent developer in southern Fairfax County. Or Ira A. Robinson, the first black elected to City Council since Reconstruction and served from 1970-1973.

What about Lionel Hope, a member of Council and the City's first black Vice Mayor? Hope Street has a great ring to it, don't readers agree?

Then there's Major General Leo A. Brooks, Sr. (USA-Ret.), a graduate of Parker-Gray High School. According to New England's largest African-American newspaper this gentleman not only attained the military rank of General but has two sons who have also achieved the same rank.

Perhaps the City is reticent about naming streets for living individuals. There is still a wealth of names to choose from, including George Soloman, a free black man recently identified to have lived on property in the 1830s that ultimately became the Bland project. Leon Day, an Alexandria native, was a star baseball player in the legendary Negro League and was voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1995.

What about John A. Seaton, the first black after the Civil War to serve on Alexandria's Board of Aldermen from 1871-1873? Or his brother George L. Seaton? And let's not forget T.B. Pinn, who served on the Common Council as a member of the 4th ward from 1871-1873.

Samuel Tucker, the young man behind the 1939 library sit-down strike, has been honored by a school naming. But what about the others who participated in the landmark civil rights action?

So with this banquet of choices available, City staff are recommending naming an Alexandria City street for an individual who was born, raised and died as a resident of public housing and many of whose children are (or were) long-term public housing residents. And it's the same individual who as head of the ARHA Resident Council helped stall the redevelopment of the Berg for nearly eight years with a flurry of lawsuits against ARHA.

One more illustration that even as City staff think they are being most sensitive they are actually at their most condescending, sacrificing an opportunity to do justice to some of the most important and illustrious African-Americans who lived in this community.


What's In A Name? (II)

The Growler is intrigued by the suggestion that something at Bland be named for ARHA Chairman A. Melvin Miller.

Which of his names should rightly be used? The one he is known by in Alexandria or the one he used throughout his career at the Department of Housing and Urban Development — Albert M. Miller?


What's In A Name (III)

Many readers have noted with amusement that developer EYA has dubbed the James Bland redevelopment site as "Old Town Commons" in its sales materials. (Click on the "Coming Soon" tab on EYA's Web site to read the description.)

Let that be a lesson for those who raised eyebrows when the Inner City Civic Association recently voted to rename itself the "West Old Town Citizens Association."

Younger readers may not know that in the early 1980s the City of Alexandria proposed adding our community to Old Town by placing it in the Old & Historic District and subjecting it to a single board of architectural review. Outcry among the ardent separatists in the community (most of whom are now dead) resulted in the City setting up a distinct Parker-Gray Historic District with its own BAR.

But the original intent was to fold us into Old Town.

Low Blow

A long-delayed zoning text amendment to regulate sex shops in Alexandria is now docketed for the Planning Commission's November 5 meeting, and one of the staff recommendations included with the text amendment is outrageous.

Le Tache on lower King Street is to be exempt as a grandfathered use, since it has been open for more than a year. However, Lotus Blooms, the swanky store which just opened at 1017 King Street will be forced to close. It is "different," according to the staff report, "and should not be allowed to remain permanently. It violates the pending prohibition on additional stores in the historic district and, under the proposed, would be required to close after 18 months, a reasonable period within which to recoup its limited investment in the retail space."

So let's try to understand this. For a year after Le Tache's opening, Planning & Zoning lallygagged on developing an adult uses amendment.

Yesterday at a Federation of Civic Associations meeting the Growler heard a past president of Old Town Civic Association state that former City Attorney Ignacio Pessoa already had the amendment drafted before he quit, nearly a year ago.

And the Cranky One was even more surprised to learn from West End civic activists at the same meeting that the City promised similar regulations several years ago after the adult theater in Foxchase was finally closed.

Some in our community have also questioned why P&Z's staff didn't check out Lotus Blooms more closely before it opened. Anyone who Googled the business could have found their Web site and a description of the business.

Instead, having let the horse take a leisurely walk through the open barn gate, P&Z is now promoting not only shutting the gate but sending the poor nag to the slaughterhouse to cover up its own inefficiency.

Despite all of the Growler's recent ribbing, the Cranky One doesn't think Lotus Blooms deserves this. It is a high-end shop that was previously located in Georgetown, and in fact many people think it is a much classier act than Le Tache.

Let's hope that common sense and fairness will guide the Planning Commission and City Council when they ultimately make a decision on the text amendment and staff recommendations. Killing off fledgling businesses to cover up staff screw-ups just isn't right.

Mid-Week Mash-Up

Tarting Wars

Following up on an earlier posting about another sex shop opening on King Street, the Growler notes with a chuckle that the docket for the Planning Commission's November meeting includes this item:

TEXT AMENDMENT #2009-0006
ADULT USES

A) Planning Commission initiation of a text amendment; B) Public hearing and consideration of an amendment to Section 7-2400 of the City's Zoning Ordinance to define and regulate the location of sexually oriented businesses within the City. [Emphasis added]

Now there's one staff report the Growler can't wait to read!

In a supposedly unrelated development at last Saturday's marathon Council hearing, elected officials have deferred consideration of a measure that would raise massage parlor permit fees.

Slurpee Madness

At last Saturday's public hearing there was even more fascinating discussion about retail. The topic came up during the discussions about the proposed 7-11 at 504 John Carlyle Drive.

Quote du jour: Council member Del Pepper wishfully describing the 7-11 as a potential "anchor" store which will attract more businesses to the retail-starved Carlyle community. (Residents there recently lost a bagel shop.)

The Growler admires Ms. Pepper's ability to put a happy face on any issue, but thought the term "anchor" usually applied to behemoth department stores like Nordstrom's.

Coming soon, we are told: a 7-11 on Upper King Street.

Flattened

The six-month battle over the fate of the old American Legion building at 224 N. Fayette Street has concluded with the Council sensibly upholding (by a 6-1 vote) the earlier Board of Architectural Review decision to approve demolition.

Developer and property owner Bill Cromley will be permitted to tear the structure down in six months if no buyer with a financially solid and binding offer appears to take it off his hands and move it elsewhere.

From the podium, Council members noted that the Old Town preservationists who spoke up for the building presented no viable plan for saving the structure.

It also didn't escape notice that only two of the 25 Parker-Gray property owners who signed Boyd Walker's appeal petition (including himself) bothered to show up to testify in favor of overturning the BAR ruling.

Footnote

Lest readers think our community doesn't care about history ...

A historic plaque based on the Growler's research four years ago has now been installed on the wall of the new Lorien Hotel at 1600 King Street. The plaque notes the property was once owned by the influential Peyton family and that the site later included a slave jail owned by Edward Home.

From the Archives of Justice

There's some good news lately for those of us living near public housing.

The Growler has learned that serious crime at ARHA projects such as James Bland and Andrew Adkins is trending down.

Nuisance crimes such as drunkenness and disorderly conduct are also taking a dive.

While drug offenses are up sharply, it appears this is due to Alexandria cops more aggressively detecting offenses and charging suspects.

All in all, our police force is to be congratulated for taking the community's concerns seriously.

While we applaud the police force for their effectiveness, the neighborhood also deserves a big pat on the back for its vigilant watch over crime and and for courage in speaking up to demand that City officials do more to curb disorder in Parker-Gray.

But it hasn't been easy to speak out publicly. A small group of citizens, self-anointed public housing advocates, have been sharply vocal about those of us who stand up and tell elected officials and the police about the crime we witness with our own eyes in the neighborhood. This group leverages shrillness and the race card to intimidate City Council and to intimidate us as a community.

So effective has the technique been in the past, it has now been honed to a fine point. While Councils in the past may have resisted some of this pressure, the controversy over the apologetic public remarks a few elected officials made last spring before the election illustrates that some of the current members find that hard to do.

However, it's about time to give Council some facts that may give them more strength to resist the screech crowd. Some of the information below is well-known to natives and old-timers in Alexandria, but may come as a shock to our current officials, who are mostly transplanted from elsewhere.

Sarah Becker's Old Town Crier article last month raised eyebrows with the sentence about the "questionable" supporters of ARHA Chairman A. Melvin Miller. There was good reason: it turns out many in the screech crowd have had significant brushes with the law themselves.

Like the aged woman who was charged back in 1977 with assault and battery on an Alexandria Gazette reporter. She was found guilty of the misdemeanor in District Court, but then acquitted on appeal to the Circuit Court (with helpful testimony from another member of the screech crowd).

What prompted this attack? In 1977 fierce discussions were underway about a City takeover of the perennially-dysfunctional ARHA. In that era, the Gazette provided deeper and harder-hitting local reportage than it does now, and its employee was covering ARHA and working on a story about residents who earned too much income to remain eligible for subsidized housing.

In a footnote, years later this individual was evicted by ARHA. She has not lived in the neighborhood for nearly 20 years.

The Growler has learned that another prominent figure in the screech crowd was charged by a grand jury with grand larceny and embezzlement. The charge involved stealing from an elderly man, and the case required Social Services staff to be subpoenaed to testify. So frail was this victim that a transcript of his testimony was necessary, and the Commonwealth's Attorney ultimately dropped the charges when the principal witness died.

The screecher in question does not live in our neighborhood.

Then we have a well-known figure and current resident who has stood up at community meetings and verbally abused police officers like Sgt. Gerald Ford, the respected former resident officer at James Bland. Incredibly, this man was given an impromptu forum by City consultants Kramer & Associates to stand up at one of the Braddock Road plan charrettes in 2007 and lecture the audience on local history (of which he seemed to know little beyond polemics).

There was considerable chuckling back in the neighborhood among the old-timers when they learned about the incident. Not only had this man been gone from the neighborhood for decades (living at times in D.C., Maryland and Fairfax County), he also had accumulated a criminal record. D.C. court records indicate two previous drug charges — one in 1986 and another in 1991.

What is inexpressibly sad is that at the same day-long Braddock Road charrette two older African-American women plucked up their courage to attend to try to tell someone in charge about crime at Bland. None of the staff bothered to make reassurances or even point them to the police officer present at the meeting. What kind of message were they receiving when City staff propped up a criminal to pontificate about the neighborhood?

It must be asked why the City continues to favor people like this at the expense of law-abiding citizens who have never seen the inside of a jail or courtroom. Why are those who live outside our neighborhood (and in some cases outside the City of Alexandria) allowed to dictate and lecture about any aspect of a community where they no longer live or left for decades while others dealt with the consequences? In fact, are some of these players really advocates for residents or are they self-interested individuals who have family members in public housing or are themselves dependent on ARHA and can be mobilized at will to thwart further reforms? Are others attempting to wheedle money or position from the City government in their self-appointed leadership roles?

The most important question of all is why City staff — especially leaders in Planning & Zoning — are indulging this crowd and giving them forums from which they can harass and intimidate elected officials?

Pimp My Retail

Ooooh baby, more, more!

With little fanfare, another sex shop has opened on King Street. This time Upper King Street is feeling the heat.

Lotus Blooms, which replaced Nina's Closet (a children's clothing store) at 1017 King Street is just two doors down from the Catholic Pauline sisters' store which sells religious books, cards and rosaries.

The stimulating new business (formerly known as Dascha Boudoir Boutique) had its grand opening over the weekend. The shop has erected a prominent display of purple marital aids (as they used to be called when the Growler was young) near the front window, along with feather boas and other exotic apparel.

Give Lotus Blooms credit for fulfilling the City's eternal quest for a vibrant community.

If readers remember, the City's leaders found themselves in quite a firestorm when property owner Mike Zarlenga obtained sweet revenge for an unfavorable Old & Historic District BAR ruling by leasing his building to Le Tache on lower King Street nine months ago.

The first sex shop to hit venerable Old Town, Le Tache garnered publicity you just can't buy over the controversy, including a New York Times article which noted "The city is now considering restrictions on new adult businesses in Old Town."

Now, however, with Lotus Blooms slipping through the cracks, should we be concerned that City leaders' resolve to take action wasn't stiffened sufficiently by the earlier kerfuffle?

What does it take to curb and discipline such unruly commerce? Is the bondage of revenue shortfalls holding the City in such a tight grip that only dildo sales will turn the tide?

Hard-pressed King Street retailers are quietly fuming, remembering that the City has lavished hundreds of thousands of dollars on not just one but two retail studies in the last five or six years to help whip the drooping corridor, studded with empty storefronts, into shape as a soignee destination for shoppers.

But with some Council members talking about bringing national retailers to King Street, are we to expect Frederick's of Hollywood and split-crotch panties will be close behind?

In the meantime, let the Growler ask the question that may be dominating some readers' minds at this point:

Can you get a Jack Rabbit there?