CITIZEN JOURNALISM:
Cultural Tourism DC is celebrating both its 10th anniversary and its 10th Neighborhood Heritage Trail this fall. Cultural convergence: Columbia Heights Heritage Trail, which will be inaugurated Oct. 24 at 14th Street and Park Road in Northwest Washington, documents the history of one of the capital’s most exciting communities and one that has seen its share of rapid and sudden change.
Recent media coverage of Columbia Heights in Northwest has tended to focus on new residents of the many large apartment complexes near 14th and Irving streets - young people who characterize themselves as pioneers. But the neighborhoods history is full of pioneers.
Longtime resident and activist Nia Kuumba is one. “We appreciate the renewal and redevelopment,” Ms. Kuumba said. “But as important landmarks are removed, were pleased that the trail markers will help newcomers and old-timers know and appreciate the historical significance of their neighborhood.”
As every one of the 19 Cultural Convergence signs will note, Columbia Heights has been home to every group of people that ever influenced Washingtons cultural life: men and women of every background, people who changed our world with new technology, revolutionary ideas, literature, laws and leadership.
The Heritage Trails poster-sized, illustrated signs tell the stories of these groups and individuals, offering residents and visitors alike the opportunity to become acquainted or reacquainted with myriad stories, including the first storekeeper on upper 14th Street, back around 1871; the only Supreme Court justice to dissent in the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” decision that legalized segregated public schools and just about everything else; an important inventor in the field of communications; black intellectuals and leaders, many of them associated with Howard University; churches with a tradition of social activism going back to the 1920s; Jewish business and civic leaders; church and civic groups that built housing and provided social services after the 1968 riots devastated the neighborhood; the citys first Afrocentric bookstore; more recently, the citys leading immigrant-services agencies; and many others.
In developing the trail, newer residents joined with old-timers and found common ground. Recent arrivals offered fresh energy and an eagerness to get to know the place they now call home.
Some of them interviewed longtime residents, who shared cherished childhood memories of matinees at the Tivoli and Savoy theaters and ice cream sodas at one of several dime-store lunch counters along the bustling 14th Street corridor. Some even remembered the Arcade, a converted streetcar garage that offered shopping at 100 food stalls and fun at a sports arena, bowling alley and dance hall. Today, the Arcades site is occupied by the giant D.C. USA complex, with its array of chain stores. But the Arcade lives on with the Heritage Trail Sign 2 at 14th and Kenyon. And those matinees at the Tivoli? See Sign 3 near the theaters old box office.
Did you miss the 1960s? Columbia Heights is still full of activists, and their stories pop up all over the trail. For example, Sign 4 at 14th and Monroe streets focuses on the brave souls who began picking up the pieces after the civil disturbances following the assassination of Martin Luther King in April 1968. King himself frequented Columbia Heights, and the headquarters for his Poor Peoples Campaign, which went on in May-June 1968 despite his death, is the focus of Sign 15, at 15th and Belmont streets.
Columbia Heights remains a neighborhood of many cultures and languages. Luis Marroquin opened his Taqueria Distrito Federal restaurant here because Columbia Heights has been his neighborhood since his arrival decades ago from Mexico. Mr. Marroquin, who participates actively with the local business association, looks forward to the trail - and the increased foot traffic it will draw.
“I love it here; everything I want is on the corner,” he said. That will soon include a Heritage Trail sign, just steps from his door at 14th and Oak streets.
• Anne Theisen is chairman of the Columbia Heights Heritage Trail Working Group.
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