After the riots following Martin Luther King’s assassination in 1968, Georgia Avenue and its surrounding neighborhoods in Washington D.C. were stuck in time. Houses and businesses looked run down, and there weren’t many visitors—unless you counted the traffic along Georgia Avenue, one of the main roads to connect Maryland and Washington D.C. Fast forward to 2015 and brand new condo buildings tower over 100-year old houses. Shiny new restaurants pop up next to ones that have been in the same family for generations. I see longtime residents and millennials waiting for the bus. It seems the only thing that’s stayed the same is the traffic. Some call these recent changes revitalization, others gentrification.
While my husband and I have been living in Washington D.C. for 20-odd years, we moved into the neighborhood a mere seven years ago, next door to a family that’s been living in their house for 55 years. The grandmother of the household remembers when the end of the street was just woods. Now there are two hospitals and circuitous roads connecting the Northwest quadrant to the Northeast one, Maryland to D.C.
There’s a new restaurant on Georgia Ave. called Mothership, and on the outside is a mural painted by local artist Nekisha Durret and funded by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Public Art Building Communities Grant. It’s called “The Wait.” On it are several characters watching a hovering spaceship. I walk by this mural every day. To me, it signifies the mixed feelings that come with any change. There’s anticipation, fear, curiosity, doubt. There are those that benefit and those that don’t.
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