A capital neighborhood: in defense of Washington, D.C.

The city I live in - the capital of the United States - has a bad reputation. According to a recent survey by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a majority of Americans say they would refuse a good job offer in Washington, D.C., if it meant they would have to live within the city limits. An even larger proportion of Americans say they have a more negative impression of Washington than they have of New York City. Washington was faulted for drug-related crime, poor local government and leadership, racial problems, and transportation and traffic problems.

Yet most of the people who live here like the city. It is home. They do all the things people do in other cities - drive car pools, go to their children's baseball and soccer games, shop for groceries, follow the local sports, and fill the city's churches on weekends. Among those who have come to Washington's defense is Geneva Overholser, who came here from the Midwest a few years ago to be the Washington Post's ombudsman, and clearly is glad she did.

"The place is full of interesting people," she wrote in a op-ed piece in the Post, "the Metro is great, the foliage is lush, the monuments are grand, and the fireworks are the best. Neither ocean nor mountains are far away, the historical sites and museums are a rich feast...." She goes on to write of improvements on the political and civic scenes, with worthy mayoral candidates from both parties, a new police chief, a new superintendent of schools, and a new city manager. She refers to the nationally known universities located here.

But there is an aspect of Washington even more likable than those Overholser has listed. Washington is a city of neighborhoods - each a community where people put down their roots, bring up their children, and form life-long ties with neighbors. This is the side of Washington which surprised and impressed a well-known newcomer, Dr. Nils Hasselmo, former president of the University of Minnesota and current president of the American Association of Universities.

"This did not strike me on previous visits to Washington," he said. "Of course, one does not get a real sense of a city from a hotel room. But when my wife and I started looking for a place to live here we noticed the sense of intimacy with which people spoke of where they lived: They said, "We live in Cleveland Park or Chevy Chase or (as we do now) in Woodley Park. On weekends now when we go to the open-air market at one end of the neighborhood or the other, we enjoy the small-town feel."

What binds these neighborhoods are threads of shared connections - often surprising. This last summer, for example, the neighborhood of East Georgetown celebrated Buster Jackson Day. Banners streamed across the street and Mount Zion's church hall was packed to mark the retirement of a man who, in the words of the neighborhood paper, "is beloved by his circle of friends and community as an extraordinary person."

Georgetown is generally thought of as an enclave only of the distinguished and the affluent. But of Claude "Buster" Jackson, a fixture of a neighborhood market for fifty years, it has been said that he was the neighborhood's soul. For most of those fifty years, people were drawn to the tiny store by his warmth and good nature. According to the Washington Post, every morning neighbors collected at the market, often before it was open, tapping on the window for Jackson to let them in; He knew everyone, where they lived, and what went on in their families. He took children seriously and made them welcome. He also, it was reported, gently taught those inclined "to swipe" things not to steal, exchanging kind words and loose grapes for hidden candy.

Before Buster retired, neighbors spoke of the store as a haven. The store is "a gathering place where people come in with their kids and all their problems and sit around and chat with Buster," one said. "I go by and buy things when I don't really need them, just to see Buster. He's a blessing." I, too, lived in that neighborhood for a few years and Buster has been delivering groceries to me ever since. He is indeed a blessing - warm and welcoming on the phone, a cheerful presence when he arrives.

Claude "Buster" Jackson started out as a thirteen-year-old delivery boy in the 1940s when the neighborhood was still a mix of black and white families. A scattering of black residents are still there. Theaters, schools, and buses were not yet integrated but playgrounds were, so, as a fifth-generation Georgetowner, he grew up with white friends, noted the Post writer, Marylou Tousignant. His love of baseball and his skill at the bat earned him the nickname, shortened from "fence-buster." He went on to semiprofessional ball, was on the city's first integrated American Legion team, and played in the Tri-State and Northern Virginia semipro leagues while continuing to work at the market. He never really left the neighborhood. He himself modestly ascribes his popularity to the fact that "these days longevity on the job is pretty rare. There is too much change in peoples' lives."

Not every neighborhood has such an outstanding and unifying personality as Buster Jackson, but he exemplifies the way in which residents of our community neighborhood are present and known to each other. As Doctor Hasselmo said, it makes for pleasant living. Despite the trepidation of those polled by Hart Research, taking a job in Washington is not really a bad thing to do.