every block has its own personality

i just walked around the neighborhood a little this morning, picking up some trash as i walked along and paying close attention to the vibe you get when walking on each block. it's evident that bloomingdale sure isn't homogeneous.



here's the bloomingdale farmer's market. it's on first street, which, far and away, as the main street of bloomingdale, presents a good face. almost all of the old houses from florida avenue north to the mcmillan reservoir are still there, and they've by and large been taken good care of. there are few vacant houses, and those that are vacant seem to be getting fixed up:


the house on the left (with the ugly faux stone facade is being gutted right now, and the boarded up one next door has been like that for as long as i've been in the neighborhood, with no apparent movement forward, though a sign is out front that looks like someone was trying to do something with it recently.


when you get up to the block of 1st between seaton and rhode island, you hit 'downtown bloomingdale'. while it's admittedly a long way away from being the nice neighborhood business district that it could be, changes have been noted lately.


here's the vacant space next to dc mini mart. other posts have noted the progress here, but no one seems to know quite what is going to go into this space. does anyone out there have some concrete news?


i've also taken a close-up shot of the detailing in the eaves. it's really a great job, waiting to call attention to whomever ends up leasing that space.


even the space on the corner of 1st and seaton has been cleaned up today. new mulch, no weeds, and it looks like it's ready for the rumored seafood restaurant to move right in.

now, over on 2nd street, some things are the same, but there's a lot that's different. first of all, there is some bright new paint on a vacant commercial space:




no idea if this is going to reopen as a corner store, or if it'll become something else. as you can see here, this building has changed quite a bit, but i'm surprised that they did nothing to fix the roof. it's obviously sagging and looks like it's not very sound.

there is residential reconstruction going on on 2nd street, just like 1st street, but this example at the corner of 2nd and randolph has not moved forward in a long time, and is a magnet for empty liquor bottles, trash, and high weeds:


up and down 2nd street between florida and rhode island, there are houses that are not in as good of shape as those on 1st street. some have garbage piled in the front yard, others have awnings falling off the porch. it just appears that the homeowners on 2nd street overall don't have the same pride in appearance that those on 1st street do. i don't think there's any real reason, it's just an example of how things in this city can be widely variable over short distances....