Newcomers: Don't Force Your Lifestyle on Us

Leo Gordon, 53, spoke to Marc Borbely, 536 13th St. NE, yesterday, next to Excello Liquors, 419 13th St. NE, where he had been reading a pamphlet. Mr. Gordon, who grew up on Constitution Avenue NE near 12th Street and now living on Tennessee Avenue NE, greeted by name many of the people entering the store. He attended Maury Elementary School and has been in the neighborhood since he was 3.

You were telling me how the neighborhood has changed.

It's always been close — a real close neighborhood. Everybody knows each other around here. And when the years go past, and people start moving out — it's not like it used to be. I guess you can expect that to happen — people be dying. Not dying from people getting harmed — just people getting older. So that's how the neighborhood be changing. People be moving away. You can't afford the housing any more, so you can't live here like you used to.

It's always been nice around here. I remember the time when Lincoln Park had nothing but bushes, and kids used to go in there and play all day. There's never been too much violence around here. Like this liquor store — everybody always comes around here, and there's never no harm done around here.

Most of the people around here is good people. They've been in these homes for years — at least 30, 40, 50 years. But now they're moving out — it's changing. A lot of old people don't like to see the changes made, but I guess you have to go along with the changes.

What are some of the things that have changed?

Like the homes — they were $20,000. Now, they're going for like $400,000. It's a very convenient city to live in now. It's so convenient here, you can't get stuck nowhere — you always got mass transportation here. That's why it's drawing a lot of people to the city.

Pretty soon Washington, D.C., is gonna be a city of the rich. Pretty soon, if you don't have the money to live here, you're not gonna live here. Especially a black person. And most of these homes are owned by black people. Once they sell out, they're not gonna be able to move back in. Because if you don't have $400,000, you're not gonna move here. You're not gonna be able to rent a home. You're not gonna be able to buy a home in Washington, D.C. I think it's already like that right now. Everything went up so fast. If I had the money to buy a home, it would be good to buy some homes right now and sell them. Because you can sell them with no problem, and definitely make a profit.

So are you thinking about selling your place?

Well, I don't have a home. I used to, but before I had any kind of knowledge of having a home and trying to sell it, or anything like that, it was too late. I wish I had the knowledge that I have now. You can basically take a basement and renovate the basement, and you can almost rent the basement out for $1,000 a month, with no problem. Because you've got your college students — you've got Catholic University, Gallaudet, GW, Georgetown. There's a lot of college students who live in this area.

At one time, Capitol Hill started locating down about 8th and C, somewhere around there, but it seems like Capitol Hill's coming all the way down to the Stadium. That means Capitol Hill now's gonna end up being anything that's around this Northeast area. Everything seems like it's Capitol Hill, pretty much, in Washington, unless you go across the bridge.

What are your thoughts about the liquor store — that's one of the issues in the neighborhood that people are thinking about.

Well, this liquor store's been here so long. I remember back when the liquor store used to have bicycles — they used to deliver liquor on bicycles. It was called Mars Liquor Store.

This liquor store's never been a problem. It still, really, is not a problem in this area. A lot of times, they think about kicking the liquor store out of here, but I don't see why they should. I mean, there are gonna be liquor stores anyway. They're gonna be all around the neighborhood. What's happening — there's a lot of white people moving in — and they're trying to move everybody out. And they figure they'll start with the liquor store, move everybody out. But I don't think that's right. Because the liquor store's gonna go someplace else anyway. Let it stay here just like it's always been.

Let the grocery store stay here. That's the only store around here now. They used to have stores all around here. That's about the only store left around here, where people can really go and get something from the store right away. Everybody don't have a car. I don't think that people that's doing better than someone else should have things better laid out their way. That's the way it's gonna end up, though. That's why when things happen — when riots get started — that's when things be backed up in people's heads. Why are they doing this? Why are they doing that? Why are they taking away this? People around here are not doing no harm to nobody.

One thing that some of the people say about having a liquor store is that they don't like people who are drinking or selling drugs or whatever.

Well, I'm not crazy. I understand that, too. But still, these things have been here. You're dealing with people that's been around here for a long time. Don't try to change things overnight. That's what causes the hostility with people — when you try to change things overnight. You know it's gonna change. But don't just try to jump in and change everything, just like that. That's not the right way to do things.

You wouldn't want it done in your neighborhood, where all your people are living a good life, and then you try to come to a neighborhood where people are not doing as well, and you'll try to change up them, because they're not doing that well, so you don't really care about them. But the people that's doing well — you're gonna have consideration for them. Why not have consideration for the people not doing as well as the people that's doing well? It's not right.

Say, for instance, D.C. General Hospital. Why would you take away D.C. General Hospital and have somebody travel all the way over to Southeast to the hospital? Why would you do that? That's the worst thing in the world could happen around here. That still doesn't even make any sense.

Not taking anything from Iraq, or nothing like that, but you go over to Iraq and build a whole city, whole new hospitals and everything. Here we have a hospital right down the street that's open — all you got to do is put in the supplies, or whatever you got to put in it to have it running again, and have a hospital here. `Cause I had a guy, I talked to him about two weeks ago. He's on 57th Street. And he had to go to the hospital. They had to bring him all the way from 57th Street all the way up to Howard University. There's no way in the world should anybody have to travel that far to go to a hospital. And without D.C. General Hospital being open, there's no hospital around here where a person can go to right away.

And the hospitals are so bad now, since they closed D.C. General. It got even worse. They don't treat you well. They don't want you there. If you don't have Blue Cross Blue Shield, or one of them other insurance companies, the hospital actually don't want you. They don't treat you right. And why would you cut off a hospital right here, in the midst of everything, and then you have to go in an emergency, and travel way uptown, or way over southeast, to a hospital. Maybe the reason why is `cause most people here are black, and they're trying to move everybody out of here.

Eventually, they want all the blacks to move out of this city. You can't say nothing different about it. They don't want you here if you ain't got no money. This is gonna be a totally political city. They've been trying to get this to be statehood, but it's not gonna be statehood until most of the black people move out, and most of the white people move in. Then they'll make it statehood. But right now, they're not gonna do it. They're not gonna give us what we want. They never have; they never will.

This community is a very developing-type community. It's developing so much that everybody wants to live here now, and that's not a hard thing to see. You got political people — they can walk to work down to Capitol Hill, now. They can just get up and walk down the street. A lot times, they be so busy harassing people that's on corners and stuff like liquor stores or whatever — this ain't the only liquor store, and there's no harm around here with this liquor store. Don't harass people because they stand on the corner.

A lot times when you see black guys standing on the corner, talking, they're not doing any harm. That's just their way of being brought up. It's something that's always been done — stand on the corner and talk, have fun, talk about football and boxing and all that. They're not into no cahoots about trying to do anything. That's just the way they was brought up. That's just the way it was.

At one time, it used to be a lot of playgrounds around here, where you could play ball. You'd leave out the house in the morning, and you go down to the basketball court — you'd stay on the basketball court all day. But they don't have a lot of that recreation around here no more. So when you start telling people about what black guys are doing and anything else, you got to always back up and say, Well why are they doing it? What can you do for them that they don't have to do it? They done took away all the recreation centers. There's no more recreation centers like it used to be, where guys could go to recreation centers and play ball.

Where did they used to have them?

They used have them all around, all around — playgrounds and everything. They tore a lot of schools down — you can't go and play ball no more. Like they're tearing this school [Kingsman] down right here. Before you can say, they're doing this or they're doing that, you've got to think about what are you doing to keep them from doing this or that. They're tearing everything down! They're disregarding everything!

Most black people — they love to play ball, and just talk — that's all. Excuse the language, but they love to play ball and just talk ***. When they stand on the corners, and things like that, it's just something that's always been done. Half the time, they stand on the corners singing, or rapping. That's all it is. And up comes the police. Instead of him standing on the corner talking to them, first thing comes to his mind is push `em off.

I remember a long time ago, when they used to have Number 9 precinct — it used to be right down the street — where a police used to walk up, and they'd get in the midst of everything, instead of running them away. They used to know all the people, but they don't do that anymore. Their first thought is chase `em off, run `em off, harass `em — whatever. The attitude is already bad from the beginning. Even if you're a police, you can say hi to somebody. But police don't say hi no more to nobody, especially young black kids. Their first thought is just chase `em off, and just to push `em, just harass `em. They don't even say nothing about nothing. They don't try to be the type of person that's gonna talk to them — they don't care.

Let me ask you something. Sometimes, some of the new people — let's say white people, moving in, they feel intimidated when they see kids — sometimes you can see `em selling stuff.

Well, you've got a lot of white people now — they don't even speak to you. They just move into the neighborhood. They won't even say hi. They won't say nothing. They move in the neighborhood, and now they're mad at the neighborhood that they're moving into. Why move here and feel bad about something, and you just moving in? Why should you move here? This is where people have been all their life. But as soon as you come in, you're mad at them. Why should you be mad at them? They didn't bother you. Most white people who move in this neighborhood are actually mad at you — they want everything to change right away.

They get these papers and stuff, and run people out of here — these people saying all this — you've got generations and generations of people living here, but when they come here, they want everything changed. They want everything to be right for them. A lot of people don't want to think of it like that, but it's the truth. You move in, you don't like the way we're living here, and all of a sudden, you want everything to change. That's wrong.

What would your advice be for the neighborhood? What could people do to help things come together a little more?

Well, first off, they've got to understand how black people been brought up. Most black people are brought up in their own culture. The average person you see around here is 50 years old or so — they've been in the same neighborhood all their life. They know everybody. They know every thing that happens. But you're not gonna change people overnight.

Because of the economy, you want to move somewhere, because you know things are gonna get better in that area. Then, all of a sudden, you want to change everything that's going around.

Black people don't go out of their community and try to change things. They don't do that. They've got to stay wherever they're at [and police their own communities]. Because you're not gonna have police patrolling anything in the neighborhood — they don't care. The only time a police come in the neighborhood is when the culture starts changing — you start getting white people in the neighborhood. That's when the police gonna come in. Other than that, the police ain't gonna come nowhere near a black neighborhood, because they don't give a damn.

You think things are getting better — they've really only gotten worse. In these neighborhoods, you used to leave your doors open all night. All night. No problem. You can't do things like that anymore.

Do you have any last things you want to say?

Yes. This city of Washington, D.C. — the only thing they do is treat people bad, especially black people. And I'm not prejudiced — a long ways from being prejudiced. But black people are treated bad, here. They do it in a different way than they used to do it, but black people are being double-crossed over and over again. I mean, just think about taking a hospital away from the neighborhood. Most people are just making money — city councilmen and all. They don't really care about a human being.

So use a little common sense, and treat people the way that you want to be treated.

Well, Mr. Gordon, I thank you very much for your time.

Okay. §