Excerpt from 1992 article titled "Grant Circle: Residents Warily Eye Going Green" by Stephen C. Fehr, Washington Post (March 07, 1992). Submitted by neighbor Kevin Morton.
To save space, the abridged text is published as a comment to this post. Click on the comments link below.
The story was mainly about Metro construction, but has a nice bit of history - both long-term and more recent - of the Petworth area.
Grant Circle was built in the early 1900s as the center of the Petworth section, considered a "streetcar suburb" then. The 1.8 acre-park within Grant Circle is lined with 50-year-old trees, hedges and benches, and is anchored by two churches, Petworth United Methodist and St. Gabriel's. There is no statue of Civil War general and former president Ulysses S. Grant.
The neighborhood of two-story brick rowhouses built from 1910 to 1920 is home to working people, families and senior citizens who love where they live.
Many of the houses trace their functional, simple design to the Arts and Crafts movement, which flourished in the United States in the early 1900s until World War I.
"It's such a house of character," John P. Goodloe said of his two-story, four-bedroom home, built in 1913 in the 4200 block of New Hampshire Avenue. "Consider the era it was built—it was not just thrown together. The area is stable, and is ideal because of the splendid transportation situation."
In recent years Goodloe and other residents have worried more about crime. The circle has no lights, providing cover at night for drug dealers. Thugs break into cars parked on the street.
Now, with Metro, there are additional fears. Transit officials originally proposed wiping out 10 homes between Upshur Street and the circle to build a fan shaft and power station for the Georgia Avenue-Petworth subway stop at New Hampshire and Georgia avenues.
The neighbors protested and Metro backed down, saying it would build the fan shaft and power station at the circle, which will leave a scar there but won't destroy any homes. Still, residents are apprehensive about the potential damage to their neighborhood during construction.
Benjamin L. Spaulding, 81, who has lived in the 4100 block of New Hampshire Avenue for 41 years, said when the street was widened to six lanes from four lanes in 1958, the city took seven feet from the front yards of residents and made them walk and drive on muddy wooden planks for months.
Metro plans to build a road to detour traffic away from the construction area, use concrete mats instead of wood mats over which cars will travel, penalize the builder for delays and enforce cleanup of the area.
Home prices near Grant Circle range between $80,000 and $160,000. The Petworth section has one of the most active real estate markets in the city, real estate experts said, although fewer homes are being sold throughout the region because of the recession.
In 1990, 112 homes were sold in the Petworth area, compared with 84 last year. Most sold for less than $150,000; the median price in the District is $156,000. There are 222 homes on the market in that area.
One resident of Grant Circle who is considering selling his home is Thomas Ashcraft, an artist who lives with his wife, Georgia Deal, also an artist, and the couple's 18-month-old daughter, Kady.
They moved into their 76-year-old home about five years ago, paying about $80,000 for the two-story, three-bedroom home and renovating much of it. The home is worth twice that amount now.
Their decision to leave has more to do with wanting more room than with Metro or the crime threat, Ashcraft said.
Ashcraft [and his family] are white, yet it is a sign of the character of the predominantly black neighborhood that they have been accepted.
In fact, Ashcraft said, the controversy over Metro united the neighborhood as never before. Residents got to know one another through numerous meetings. A Grant Circle Neighborhood Association is forming to monitor the Metro construction.
"It's given me a sense of community and identity," Ashcraft said. "It's made a nice bond between all of us."
Posted by: Bill Crandall | October 11, 2004 at 02:13 PM