Check out this piece by Marc Fisher of the Washington Post on Vegetate's recent liquor license victory. Marc poignantly touches on Shiloh's role in attempting to thwart this new neighborhood business, even citing Rob Goodspeed's map of several of Shiloh's properties in Shaw.
Marc also asks the important questions "How long will the District continue to cater to the whims of churches whose members overwhelmingly live outside the city? How long can the political coattails of those churches be when they have little influence left on votes in the District?"
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Another thought: Shiloh's Reverend Smith recently told the Post that "Turning Shaw into another Georgetown is not what we should be about." I think this is, in large part, why the Church opposed Vegetate's license.
What's irritating is that, under the guise of being against the gentrification of Shaw, Shiloh Baptist Church is really against the stabilization of the Shaw neighborhood.
If only Marc Fisher would do an expose of ANC 2C.
what does the rev propose turning it into? another lanham? or cheverly? oh i know tuxedo maryland.
The best thing neighbors can do is keep the momentum going on 9th street and give those new businesses as much of our own support by eating and drinking there as often as possible...Vegetate, Be Bar, Queen of Sheba...even if its not to your personal taste, its important to show other potential retailers there is neighborhood demand for local business in Shaw! And it'll be worth it to fight Shiloh's insane agenda...
Wasn't there a comment about Jack Evans in on the Post web page? Seems to have disappeared.
Shiloh has been here since 1924. The average tenure for "newcomer" (read: White) residents in Shaw is about five years. Who are the pols going to listen to? Churches profit on the neighborhood looking like a dysfunctional run-down slum for worthless "programs" funded by city and the Feds to assist "poorfolk" (read: Blacks). When all is clean and viable, they don't get the dead presidents. Sorry for being so blunt, but that's DC racial politics.
What I don't understand is why DC apparently caters so much to Shiloh and other churches whose members come from outside the city. If the churches don't pay taxes, and their members don't pay taxes, or vote, in DC, what does DC get out of it? I really want to know.
These rich bourgies fled the city in past decades for PG but many of them still infiltrate the ranks of the DC Government, and for just that reason alone the pols kiss up to them. Also, if you look at the Maryland license plates on voting day in front of Shiloh, I would venture to say that a goodly number of them still vote in the city too. There are a number of folks with Maryland tags that pick up their kids in front of Seaton. This is the famous "Ward 9" vote.
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