"The Light City"

For the past twenty-five years I have lived in Montgomery County, Maryland, and spent most of my time playing around Washington DC. I have seen her under many conditions, occasions, and to say the least, under many different influences; substantial, personal, and political. The amount of changes I have seen, good or bad, could not be expressed in words, so I can’t imagine the tales one could tell whom has been here twice, or three times, that amount.

My first relationship with DC was that of skateboarding. I was skating this city when it wasn’t “cool”. This was during a time when you would get chased by police officers, your skateboard taken, given a citation, and would always be looked at as a pariah. Remember, this city is under federal jurisdiction, and skating on D.C. Public Properties, as skateboarding was considered “defacing property”, is an actual Federal Offence. Regardless, I have many fond memories of the city during those younger days, and needless to say she had an edge.

A lot of the neighborhoods during those times were some pretty scary places, especially at night. It was the tail end of the crack epidemic, which had crippled this city and its citizens for over a decade. During those times, you didn’t see white people past Georgetown, 20th & K, or any farther south on Connecticut Ave. past Dupont Circle. Hence the name, Chocolate City. Don’t forget this is where Million-Man march took place.

There is a lot of history in this city, and I don’t need to convince anyone of that. I have a lot of history with this city. Every inch of this city reminds of me of some memory, some situation, something my friends and I got into, or something I did by myself, and somehow came out the other end unscathed.

By the time I had come of age and had started going out to clubs, bars, and music venues - a department in which this city had a lot to offer – I began to see a very different, yet parallel, side of this town, and the world that I had created around me spun into view from a very distinct set of lenses. Places like Buzz, Trax, 9:30 Club, House of Secrets, and Fight Club, just to name a few, were not only the “it” spots, but some of her best kept secrets.

I have seen many talented musicians come through this city, and I have enjoyed many sleepless nights banging around her sidewalks. I have walked through most of what this city has to offer, and in fact, I have walked home, back to Bethesda, Maryland, on many occasions under the influence of many different substances, spending countless hours taking in the very breath giving this city life. Most of these places were closed as the new baseball stadium was being built in 2006, which was the first time I really started noticing the changes. This city was going through major financial and constructional shifts, and not for the best, even though that’s how “they” packaged it. However, the changes were so minuscule, they were barely noticed by anyone. And, to my surprise, there had been plenty of changes before, but they had escaped my attention like an unseen runaway train blazing through a desolate desert.

I have been here since the Clinton presidency, and we used to call every administration and their constituents “suit case people”; the president elect would bring in a whole new set of characters and would make the exodus together once another emerged. All of that changed during Obama’s two terms, and I noticed the people whom came here during that time did not leave. More and more people, mostly white, kept pouring in, while the rest of the country was going through one of the worst recessions it had ever experienced. A great friend pointed out one of the main reasons this was happening was because Washington D.C. did not fully go through the recession as was the case with the rest of the country, and property values might have plateaued for a bit but never actually dropped with no major layoffs.

I began to notice the changes, and how they were impacting my life. It was not that great of an impact on my life. They were subtle, and they were implemented with such precision they went unnoticed for a long time. I began to notice buildings coming up. Some were already mid-construction, but had been put on the back burner as the global economy was taking a deep nose dive into an abyss, and the major changes could be seen in the torn neighborhoods since the days of the crack wars. One of the worst parts of this district was the South Eastern sector. Most people wouldn’t dream of going there unless it was a matter of life and death, which in most cases meant getting illegal substances not readily available in the safer parts of the city, or in the suburbs.

Four years ago, I worked in Petworth, D.C., which, until recently, was not a great part of the city either but had also been experiencing the gentrification. I would leave this job at all hours of the night, sometimes with a friend or two, but most of the time by myself. In the two years that I worked there, I started to notice white people in the streets at those hours. What I also realized and kept seeing was property purchases, reconstruction, and the rise of their value.

I started this by stating the changes I have noticed in the last twenty-five years, and some of my close friends in this city have been here most of their lives. I can’t imagine what they have seen. One of them actually grew up in the Petworth area, or to them known as Uptown, and on many occasions took the time to explain the war stories of surrounding areas, and the carelessness of its guardians. Even during the time I worked there, between 2016 and 2018, two adolescents were murdered in cold blood about a block away, yet nothing was done, and most people went about their lives as if nothing had happened.

Another friend told me a story which took place at a roundabout three or four blocks away. On his way home, he got shot in the leg by a group of kids who tried to rob him. Thankfully, he survived the incident. He explained how most of it had to do with the roundabout being without lights for years. He also told me about another friend of ours driving straight through set roundabout high on whatever he was on that night, but that’s a story for another time. This area was the breeding ground for anyone trying to rob another for their possessions. What he told me next made me sick to my stomach. While the police did not care about him getting shot, being that he was black, chalking him up as a “usual suspect”, they didn’t even investigate the case, and the shooter was never identified. However, couple of months later, a young white male, buying crack, was shot and killed at the same exact spot, which not only started the police presence in the area, but somehow, magically, every light within a two-block radius was fixed and kept on to make sure this did not happen again.

I began to think about the street I worked on, Georgia Avenue, and remembering the times we took this same road down to the 9:30 Club. How it used to be boarded up facades, and how much darker it looked. Back then, you could smell the danger and fear consuming this city, as if a cold and dark winter had fallen on her, forever taking hold of her breath and controlling her heartbeat. I started remembering D.C. was like an ominous entity, only to be appreciated with careful demeanor as she pulled you in closer with embracing arms.

All of these images came back to me with vividness, as I began to realize how and why this was all happening; property value, as the saying goes, “buy property when there is blood on the streets”. I started to realize how many times this had happened throughout time, to every major metropolitan city throughout the world. The waterfront properties, the historical row homes, political agendas, being bought, sold, torn down, renovated, and if only the sidewalks could talk, the tales would fuel countless pages written in blood of those who once lived through the sweat, tears, and carnage.

Throughout the years I have watched the makeup of this city change from the ground up. I have watched Georgetown become Yuppie-Ville to a degree I did not think was possible. Georgetown used to be a college hangout with dive bars, jazz lounges, restaurants, record and tattoo shops. They have spiked up rent on every food and drink establishments to push them out just to be able to bring in high-end boutiques to cater to a clientele this city used to laugh at. And to think Georgetown used to be slave quarters, just as lobsters used to be what they fed prisoners in Boston.

U street, which is now one of the best night-life scenes of this city, before the pandemic was in full swing, was mostly boarded up vacant lots and store fronts. The only thing left of what it once was is Bukam, an Ethiopian Restaurant. In all sincerity, it used to look a lot like the images they show you on CNN as to what Syria, Iraq, and Afghanistan is like, only this is a car ride away for most of us, if not a couple of blocks.

Every inch of 14th Street between Euclid and U Street was covered with “ladies of the night”, and one of my best friends and I used to drive down there as teenager and talk to them; an adventure we used to call “Hooker Hunting”. There was nothing sexual about this activity in its nature. The idea that this group of people were a part of society known but would rather not recognize the existence of, not that we knew it at the time but, was something we could relate to. The only reason we all were an important part of society was so we could have a finger pointed at us as a dire warning to say “do not be like them”.

This stretch of the city sits in a neighborhood known as a Columbia Heights, and was a place housing mostly people of Latin descent. Meridian Park was once known as Malcom X Park, which is what I still call it to this day. A place one was able to get weed from, and a place we used to skate around. In the last decade I have watched the people who used to live there being pushed out to usher in a new era, and you can’t go on calling the park in the neighborhood the name of a person who would not have agreed with the changes. A name which still scares white people, hence Malcom to Meridian.

South East D.C. was one of the scariest parts of this city. Made up of low-income housing, and for lack of a better term, an outright ghetto. The murder rate there crumbled the rest of the city in comparison. If I am not mistaking this city was “the murder capital” of the world for a bunch of years in a row, and most of the victims were black males under the age of twenty-five; basically children! Matter of fact, this city was full of People of Color, and the only quadrant of this city that was mostly comprised of white people was North West. Unless you were out looking for trouble you didn’t make it around this city the way people do these days, and for the most part people avoided most of this city because of her edge. In a split second, she would suck you up, chew you through and through, spit you back out the other end, and only god would be the final judge of your outcome.

I remember one night we were down in the southern district and had just left Buzz, which used to be called Capital Ballroom, where they used to have a weekly rave every Friday later to be known as Nations. Needless to say, we were not sober, and my friend had agreed to drive the unmarked company white van I used to keep for work. This was probably anywhere between five to seven in the morning, because the place we had just left was open till six am, and as we were trying to find our way home, we started being followed by three police cars. After being followed for about three or four blocks, all at once, the police cars just sped up and made a U-turn to the other side of South Capitol Street. When we looked over there to see what was happening, we noticed an industrial trash can with feet sticking out of it. That was a common occurrence in this city. This city used to have dead bodies lying around for days, without anyone losing a single second of sleep!

There used to be a 7-11 on the same block as Capital Ballroom, coming off I-395 and South Capitol Street, which used to be one of my favorite parts of the city. I used to be at the Rave, or Buzz, every Friday night for a long time, and I would usually go to the 7-11 before and after. What you would see in there was something out of the movies. This place was filled to the brim with all types of characters. An amazing place for people watching, and for the most part everyone got along just fine. There were pimps, hustlers, drug dealers, young street soldiers, black, white, Latinos, every other color in between, and young white kids half naked with pacifiers in their mouths trying not to chew off their own tongue after having ingested way too much MDMA. This was during the time when Fox 5 caught police officers molesting, and soliciting sexual favors from, young teenage women in exchange for letting them go after having cited them for possession, public intoxication, and disorderly conduct. And now, those very same blocks are covered inch by inch with luxury condos and commercial office buildings.  

Six years ago, I had to drive a friend to the same part of town, and was shocked out of my socks. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Most of the buildings of that time were gone, and replaced with high rises, condos, and office suites. There were half naked women walking their adopted Pitbull’s without a single care in the world.

Three years ago, I drove through a different part of Southeast. A part that used to be far worst, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. In fact, I thought I was in the wrong part of town. I was going to visit a friend in the D.C. lock up, which is something I had made a Sunday routine, since he had six months of time left. The surrounding neighborhoods were clean, the houses completely renovated, and what I saw were mostly white people with baby strollers and poppies. This was a part of town which looked like a war zone abandoned a long time ago, but was now gift wrapped with a ribbon and bow, and resold for ten times the entire lot was purchased for.

A close friend of mine had bought a condo on Rhode Island Avenue about a block away from North Capital Street, at the boarder of North East and West D.C., in the early 2000’s. During those days this city was still affordable, which meant most of its neighborhoods were not safe the way they are now, and you wouldn’t see young white women half naked walking the Pitbull they had just adopted at two in the morning. No, on most blocks, even then you used to have to watch your step when you walked the streets, even during the day, and hearing gun shots at all hours of the day were not isolated incidents.

My friend and I have walked onto the roof of this building many a night to smoke weed and to enjoy the landscape, as far as the eye could see. One day, and this was during the day mind you, my friend, his brother, and I were on the roof, and as we were enjoying a blunt, and randomly talking nonsense, not an uncommon occurrence, we suddenly began to hear gunshots, and they were close. We packed ourselves up and walked back in the house, and didn’t even think twice about it. A couple of hour later I had to leave, and my friend’s brother offered me a ride. When we got into his car, circled the block to be on our way, about a block away from the apartment building we had just evacuated, we noticed the police and EMT presence. A rowhome at the corner of North Capital taped up, and my friend’s brother very nonchalantly turned to me and said “you know no one survived when the EMTs are taking their time!”

You cannot make this up, nor can you explain what this city used to be like, and god knows I have tried. We, literally, used to wait for The District line just to light up the weed we had rolled up. This is before the recreational use of it was legal. Back then, unless you committed first degree murder, the police couldn’t care less; they had bigger fish to fry. Even if you did kill someone, it was still a matter of who you actually killed. A very dear friend of mine was shot twice in the stomach, and died on the spot, coming out of a liquor store at the corner of Florida Avenue and North Capital Street, trying to help and elderly woman from getting her purse taken from her, and this was in 2011.

I am not saying I am against this city being cleaned up, made safer, to be a place where you can raise your children, and a place you can leave behind for your grandchildren’s grandchildren. What I am saying is that it should be that way for everyone, regardless of your colors, race, creed, and or, financial status. Again, what I am saying is, we have not solved the problem, and this has been an ongoing issue for a long time, in fact, way before I had any experience with this fair city. The problem keeps being pushed beneath the proverbial rug, and into the care of someone else, but never actually dealt with; case and point Prince Georges’ County!

For decades, Prince George’s County was a place of modest suburbs. It was a place where lower middle-income families could afford to buy homes, and allow their children to go to public school. Most of them could neither afford D.C. rates nor private school, but this way could still be a car ride away from the city. However, when the new stadium went into plans, they needed property for it, which later gave birth to The Warf, The Anthem, and all of the higher end boutiques which relocated from Friendship Heights. This meant they had to do something about all of the residents of the properties they were to refurbish and resell. This meant they had to do something about the crime ridden corners, and the “criminals” occupying them. Instead of trying to solve the manner in a fair way, they just pushed “all of that” into Prince George’s County, and within a two to three year span, the murder rate of set county almost tripled. Again, you cannot make this up!

I truly want the best for this city, but somehow manage to come up short in answers when I ask myself what my motives are. I am always left with this question mark midsentence when trying to figure out where it all went wrong, and that includes my own life. I am always wondering if this is something other people have seen. I wonder if people just don’t want to pay this any mind. I wonder who we consider important enough to help, and who is less than essential to be stuff into the creases of this city never to be dealt with again. These are the shallow images who flicker in the depth of the light of a dying candle as the cold breeze of the night slowly seeps the warmth out of my memories encompassing my recollections.

I have taken thousands upon thousands of photographs aimlessly walking around this city at all hours of day and night. I have spent countless hours alone, processing, color correcting, curating, cropping, and posting these photographs, and, like most photographers, I have my favorites. A selection I am sure most would not agree with. But they are mine, and with most art forms, I have poured my proverbial blood, soul, sweat, and tears into, which allows me to at least have a say in the matter.

While most of my images have only bared fruit in the form of Instagram and Facebook “likes”, I have just recently begun to share them with the rest of the world, and only now trying to make a living at it, and thus far have not been very successful. Though some of my absolute favorite shots have happened by accident, once in a blue moon a photograph seems to come along which not only floors you, but also reminds you of the foundation the skyscraper of evidence sits upon as to why you do this in the first place.

Recently, because of the political climate of this country, I was near the White House and witness to the liberal front celebrating the victory and fall of the current presidency. I was, as usual, aimlessly walking around shooting what looked visually appealing. Most of the younger crowed present seemed to only be there because they were looking for a reason to get drunk, high, and or both. A reason to let loose after having been put on mandatory quarantine. I am not judging. God knows I have been there and done that. All I am trying to do is paint the background of what I was experiencing, and at this point I had probably taken about a hundred photos. I was surrounded by children. Most of them didn’t even know why they were there in the first place. People looked lost, and only seemed to bare a smile because they were supposed to.

As I was walking, I came across and elderly black man with a cup in his hand sitting in a torn lawn chair asking people for their pocket change. I noticed he was missing an eye, a mask covering his face, Washington ski hat covered by a fishing hat on top, and looked extremely weathered as the cloths on his back matched the look of his posture. The amount of pain and suffering painted all over this man’s face was enough to fill a museum full of canvases. I can’t imagine the emotions this man has felt throughout his life, and needless to say he had the look of a human who had seen a thing or two, if not all. I kneeled to take his photograph, and saw the world from his perspective; a cocoon of solidarity and silence going unnoticed by everyone around too busy glutinously feeding their own agenda paying nothing else a single iota of attention controlled by their hyper focused consciousness being distracted, and “doing it live for the Gram”. He was looking up at the people who were just ignoring him, as I snapped the photo and moved on. It’s not like I was so cavalier or giving myself; I didn’t put any money in his cup either.

When I finally got around to processing the photos I got from that day, I had completely forgotten about this photograph. When I came across this photo my eyes filled up with tears. I probably couldn’t have told you the reason, but something about the photograph touched a part of my soul which seldomly gets stimulated. Most of the time I just chalk it up as being heartless, or, having seen this same scene too many other times, I have somehow become so jaded I have forgotten how to feel. Somehow this photograph reminded me that there’s a world out there I rarely get to touch. There is a world out there full of hurt no one wants to talk about, and more importantly, no one wants to admit its very existence.

We have been forced to believe that life has somehow moved on, that we are all just, educated as such, and that these things do not happen. We have been forced to believe that we are all giving, and that somehow the life of the poor and innocent, regardless of what got them there in the first place, has somehow vanished. Since the dawn of “the device” everyone carries in their pockets, we have been witness to the brutality of a world covered and varnished by a fictitious silk drape so thin and soft, not only do we deny its existence, but more importantly, we forgot we all have a hand in its fabrication. There are so many different devices, shows, and hurdles keeping us busy, most of the time I am amazed we remember to breathe.

The thing that struck me the most was that here was the true problem of America explained in a single snapshot I had taken, and, by god, it hit me like a roaring tornado gaining strength with each passing pixel comprising the image illuminating the unspoken truth through the screen of my laptop.

Let’s put aside the pandemic, which has taken control of the world, for just a few moments, and only concentrate on the political climate this country has been experiencing. Let us really look at the main issue; inequality and racial despair.

We have watched both sides act like children. Yes, I said it! Both sides! I have witnessed the racial apathy become the norm once more, and I have watched people of color sponsor segregation forgetting people have bled and died to end the very thing that divided us in the first place. I have watched clowns take over the minds of smart people by tugging and pulling at their heart strings, and I have watched idiots actually make sense. I have watched American forces publicly bomb multiple Muslim countries without abandon for almost twenty years, but now you want me to care about Ukraine? From where I am sitting this is about as backwards a time as I can remember. And this photograph is a reminder of that exact same feeling. We all yell and rave about how we want change, but we are unable to see the small changes we can make. We all want football games and hot dogs to top off the Super Bowl we think we want to conquer.

Here is a man clearly unable to make a living, unable to see, unable to take care of himself, yet every liberal there walked right over his very existence. I have no idea what this man’s story was, and I am pretty sure somewhere down the line, something went horribly wrong. I have no idea what that was, and I have no idea what kind of help would get this man back on his feet, and able to take care of himself once again. Though my question is, why don’t we find out? Why don’t we start with him, and forget the rest? Why are people so interested in world affairs leagues away, when clearly there are thousands of people within arm’s reach in need of help? Why do we do this over and over again?

Again, I am no saint; I am just as guilty as the next. It’s not like I have done anything to make any of this better, though my contention remains, none of this will matter in a decade. We have watched this movie over and over again. I remember very vividly, while the Occupy Wallstreet Movement was gaining strength, asking a great friend who was involved in the process, and the question is the same now: let us say we live in a perfect world, and we somehow brought down Wallstreet, what’s next?

That still remains my question today. Let’s say we got rid of all the corrupt politicians, jailed every dirty police officer, abolished racism, smashed every corporation to smithereens, eradicated terrorism of any kind, reduced our carbon footprint, reversed climate change, landed on Mars, made it back, cleaned the oceans, changed to renewable energy, laid down arms, and found a new hope in democracy, then what?