In the Post’s Real Estate section this weekend, University of Maryland architecture professor Roger Lewis writes about the opening of the New York Avenue-Florida Avenue-Gallaudet University metrorail station on the Red Line in a greater development perspective. With federal offices moving in, the station has the potential to launch a new wave of development that will transform the area near the intersection of New York and Florida avenues in Northeast, seen here in an map from the D.C. Citizen Atlas.
We realize there are many faces to gentrification and urban development, so we’re uneasy saying that X-development is better than Y-residents who are already there, especially in such a segregated city. We think the process is interesting to write about. With that, we’d thought we’d note that along Florida Avenue, some black residents are lamenting the coming of the NewYoFla station, which they view as portal that will bring waves of white people into their neighborhood, home to the infamous Methadone McDonalds.
We overheard the following conversation on the 90 bus this weekend detailing how D.C.’s black residents should take a stand before they’re bought out. Ever since a tanning salon went in on the ground floor of a luxury condo development named after Duke Ellington (sparking outrage in some circles), we fear that already-strained race relations in the city will get worse as development continues to bring gentrification to new frontiers in the District.
