#whitmanwalker

Four years ago, I was driving up 14th St NW with @ch_wanders and she asked me which of the storefronts between Scott Circle and U Street were the same as when I had first moved to DC in early 2002. In 2013, I believe there were a handful - HIT Wholesale (which just announced it’s going out of business), The Black Cat, the Chinese place at P St, Barrel House Liquors, Home Rule, and this building (which wasn’t as brightly painted back then) the Whitman Walker Clinic which is being demolished, are what I remember from that discussion. I’m sure there were a few more, but soon there will be a few less. The irony is not lost on me that I snapped this picture yesterday as I was walking back to do some work after a lunchtime talk about the gentrification of Shaw over the last two decades. I struggle with DC’s gentrification - as someone who was here when there was less here - less people, amenities, traffic, safety, cost of living - I miss some of the quirkiness and small townness of the place I moved to post-college. And yet I also recognize that I am part of the wave of folks who changed it, the people who are white and middle class that drove up cost of living and brought the big brand names and fancy amenities and tax revenue to the city and pushed the old spots and residents out of this geography and out of power. I’m not sure it has to be one way or another, but I worry that that’s the choice my town has made. #dc #washingtondc #whitmanwalker #demolition #14thstreet #gentrification #fridayreflection #optimisticanthro (at Whitman-Walker Health)

I feel like there had been a lot of attention paid to the murals on the front and other side of the old @whitmanwalker building at 14th and R St NW. For me, this parking lot is a bit magical with its colors and lines. I particularly like the magenta shed set off by the dark green dumpsters. #thelittlethings #streetart #optimisticanthro #washingtondc #logancircle #whitmanwalker #dc (at Whitman-Walker Health)

@capitalpride #PARADE was #amazing!! Thank you to #WhitmanWalker & @capitalpride for a #GreatTime!! See U 2moro!!! (at Hangin' w/C. Paige)