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Old Posted Oct 2, 2019, 7:29 PM
austlar1 austlar1 is offline
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Join Date: May 2007
Location: Austin
Posts: 3,429
Yes, I lived in a row house on Capitol Hill in DC for a few years in the mid 1980s. It was just a few blocks from Eastern Market, and the area was rapidly gentrifying but still a bit run down and dicey. It was a corner house that had a small front yard behind a low fence and a deck overlooking the back and the side street (10th St SE). Across the alley behind my place was a corner store with a large flat above that was rented out by the room. During my time there, the rooming house became a kind of crack house. This was during the period when DC turned into a real wild-west show, but just before I moved out, the building behind me was sold and converted into an architect's office! The house next door to me on D St. SE was occupied for a while by a Roma family who had a used car business elsewhere in DC. They were evicted after a year or so for non payment of rent. It also turned out that they had been stealing electricity from the house on the other side of their house. It amounted to several thousand dollars in free electricity over an almost two year period before the theft was discovered. I guess I dodged a bullet. My electrical service was located on the 10th Street side of the property. Overall, I liked living in a row house, and I liked living on Capitol Hill during this period of transition. I was still young enough that the situations I described above were more a source of amusement and amazement than a source of aggravation. I loved being three blocks from the Metro and also loved being able to hop on my bike and ride on the Capitol grounds (before all the security) and down on the Mall. I guess nowadays that location at 10th and D Streets SE is an urban paradise. It wasn't so bad back then either, just as long as you didn't get shot or mugged. I often stood my ground with the crackheads and dealers and probably was in more danger than I realized at the time.

Last edited by austlar1; Oct 2, 2019 at 7:47 PM.
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