Washington City Paper: Contents for Apr. 16

Dream City
The bereft Ellen Wilson Dwellings on Capitol Hill have been replaced by a remarkable mixed-income community. Unfortunately, most of the people who used to live there can only admire it from a distance.

Cover Story

Alice Stewart doesn't remember the former Ellen Wilson Dwellings as the hellhole people often describe. She moved to the Capitol Hill public housing complex in the late '70s with her young grandson, after severe asthma forced her to quit her job as a live-in housekeeper at a home in Northwest Washington. At the time, Wilson was a fully occupied project where hundreds of people lived in a handful of buildings that spread like brown Legos across the southern edge of Capitol Hill.

For a time, the story rolls out like so many flickering, nostalgic images in an old feel-good movie, when things were simple, good, true. Stewart kept her row house at 763 7th St. SE spotless. Her neatness spilled outdoors, where she planted grass and flowers in the courtyard out front. The white picket fence came from a local five-and-dime, lining her world in domesticity. It didn't take long before housing honchos took notice of her tidiness. "I wasn't there for more than a month before I got a certificate for being a good housekeeper," says Stewart. She still has the slip of paper she received from public housing officials more than 20 years ago.

The intervening decades have made the images even sweeter. Summers at Ellen Wilson meant cookouts and card games, Stewart recalls. She and her neighbors sipped iced tea on their stoops in the evenings when the heat inside was too stifling.... Continued

Issue of Apr. 16 - 22, 1999

News and Features

Dream City
The bereft Ellen Wilson Dwellings on Capitol Hill have been replaced by a remarkable mixed-income community. Unfortunately, most of the people who used to live there can only admire it from a distance.
Cover Story By Laura Lang
Desk Jockeying
The D.C. police need more officers. Here's a great place to start: inside the department.
Feature By Jason Cherkis
Basin Instinct
Wherein the author goes searching for beavers—and finds animals of a much different nature.
The City By Sean Daly
Lost-Cause Celebre
When Andy Carroll brings poetry to the masses, he uses a truck.
The City By Margaret Foster
The Abortion Bores
Time, changing tactics, and the law have made clinic battles look more like re-enactments.
The City By Mark Benjamin
Questionnaire: Eddie Gallaher
The City By Eddie Dean
Love-Hate Relationship
The Mail By Alicia Shepard
Copy Kitten
The Mail By Martin Morse Wooster
Backlash Bandwagon
The Mail By Tom Ballantyne
Ethic Diversity
The Mail By Nancy Moore
The Wrong Goodbye
The Mail By Jacques Gelin
Casualties of War
The Mail By David Isenberg
Our Fodder
The Mail By Thomas B. Allen
Soldiers of Good Fortune
The Mail By Steve Drummond
Make Mine a Large
The Mail By Geoff Simon
Priceless Education
The Mail By Matthew Rowan Norwood
A Budding Genius
The Mail By Todd Rohal
Sargent Slaughter
The Mail By John Franzen

Columns

Killer Recreation
Whenever local kayakers get together these days, Scott Bristow's name comes up. But he won't.
Cheap Seats By Dave McKenna
Why 2K?
Because there's profit--and loss--in Millennium Chic
Demimonde By Arion Berger
Turnkey Lockdown Holidays
City Desk By Ta-Nehisi CoatesNefretiti MakentaBrad McKeeAmanda Ripley, Michael Schaffer and Elissa Silverman
THE 13th STEP
Loose Lips By Erik Wemple
Beating Guns Into Hardware
Paper Trail By David Carr

Eats

Reverse French Colonial
Young & Hungry By Brett Anderson

Movies

City of Ploys
Film Review By Mark Jenkins
Sucker Up
Film Review By Arion Berger

Music

Chocolate Center
Music Review By William Jelani Cobb
Asphalt Jingles
Music Review By Glenn Dixon
Medicine Wheels
Music Review By John Dugan

Theater

Mass Appeal
Theater Review By Bob Mondello
Theater of the Observed
Theater Review By Trey Graham

Arts and Events

Hears the Grass Grow
Artifacts By Daniel Searing
It's a Dogwood's Life
Artifacts By Guy Raz
Shaddup, Already!
Artifacts By Bob Mondello
People Who Died
Books By Glenn Dixon

City Lights

This week's best in Arts and Entertainment.

Mick Rock
City Lights By John Dugan
Dick Dale
City Lights By Dave Nuttycombe
Low & Shannon Wright
City Lights By Christopher Porter
To Cure and Protect: Sickness and Health in African Art
City Lights By Ayesha Morris
Images of Cultural Artistry Inc.
City Lights By Holly Bass
Goodbye, Father
City Lights By Mark Jenkins
Johannes Ockeghem
City Lights By Amy Domingues
Malika
City Lights By Ayesha Morris
The Creation of the World
City Lights By Nefretiti Makenta
Christopher Buckley
City Lights By Sean Daly
Underworld
City Lights By Mark W. Sullivan
Paula Voge
City Lights By Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa
Liz Gerstein
City Lights By Tina Plottel
Frank Stella
City Lights By Leonard Roberge
The Hot Club of Cowtown
City Lights By Steve Kiviat