My OperaThe TV Problem
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 3:47:56 PM
We aren't talking about the upcoming switch from analog to digital. This is the transvestite prostitute problem. This remembrance of things past is occasioned by this post in the Life in Mount Vernon Square blog. Someone commented on the TV's at Fourth and K, and the problem they were causing. This got tons of comments, and the editor chimed in.
We in the Blagden Alley and Naylor Court have lived through the TV problem and, to some degree, the regular prostitution problem. I say "to some degree" in that the Logan Circle community saw far worse than we did on that score. (Did I just say "score"? Sorry.) It's not all gone, but just doesn't compare to the old days, say the 80's or 90's.
Historically, the corner of Eighth and M was the center of TV prostitution going back 50 years or so. At least according to some very old cab drivers we talked to in the 80's. The community tried everything to get the TV problem solved. At first, it was a "get them help" kind of attitude. After a few years of condoms under your front steps, syringes in the gutter and the front yards and back yards, attitudes harden to something like "get them the hell out of here". Late in the 80's (I think) we hung a banner across the corner of Tenth and M (thank you, Paul Warren) which said "The 'Girls' have moved to 5th and K". (They hadn't, of course, but It got us on Channel Four and put some pressure on the politicians and police. It was fun, too.) The authorities made us take down the banner, since they said a strong wind would use the banner to pull down the lampposts it was tied to.
Looking back, police pressure helped. Jack getting serious, car-taking penalties for Johns helped. But in the end, it was simple renovation of all the housing, or at least enough of it that the places to do business or shoot up got closed so that the remaining few could easily be watched and policed and boarded and reboarded up. After a while, it was simpler for the TV's to set up shop elsewhere. All of the fancy solutions ameliorated the impact, to a degree. But gentrification finally solved the problem.
We had done our turn, and now it was somebody else's turn.
Looking at the blog entry above brought back memories. And it sounds as if the Far Side is recapitulating what Blagden Alley and Naylor Court went through. If you want to see the problem, drive down Fourth and look left between K and I. Not a pretty scene.
Let me quote myself from their comments section:
You aren't going to "solve" the problem. You're going to gentrify it out of existence in that area. They will go somewhere else, but 5th and K has had its turn. The next place can't be too far away, and will need some rundown housing. "Not too far away" means that a lot of the clients come from the nicer areas and wouldn't be caught dead driving to PG. I have no idea where it will settle, really. But it will move soon (next year or two).
We had a guy renovating a house on M Street in the early 80's. Got into an argument with one of the TV's at 9th and M. The TV decked him. The police seargeant at the time said something like: "Don't mess with them, they got that way in prison". One was found dead about every two years or so until they moved. Where you've got the TV's, you've got drugs and drug sales. Nasty business.
There have been many, many improvements in dealing with prostitution over the years, including some rearrangements in the court system. (And, yes, Jack really did long, hard, good work there.) But the TV's are a nasty problem, and the cops and courts have never found a reasonable solution.
The best answer is to pick a rundown area somewhat to the east but not where an old guy would be afraid to drive his Mercedes, where there are already some problems, and hang the banner. Wait a few years. They'll go there.
We in the Blagden Alley and Naylor Court have lived through the TV problem and, to some degree, the regular prostitution problem. I say "to some degree" in that the Logan Circle community saw far worse than we did on that score. (Did I just say "score"? Sorry.) It's not all gone, but just doesn't compare to the old days, say the 80's or 90's.
Historically, the corner of Eighth and M was the center of TV prostitution going back 50 years or so. At least according to some very old cab drivers we talked to in the 80's. The community tried everything to get the TV problem solved. At first, it was a "get them help" kind of attitude. After a few years of condoms under your front steps, syringes in the gutter and the front yards and back yards, attitudes harden to something like "get them the hell out of here". Late in the 80's (I think) we hung a banner across the corner of Tenth and M (thank you, Paul Warren) which said "The 'Girls' have moved to 5th and K". (They hadn't, of course, but It got us on Channel Four and put some pressure on the politicians and police. It was fun, too.) The authorities made us take down the banner, since they said a strong wind would use the banner to pull down the lampposts it was tied to.
Looking back, police pressure helped. Jack getting serious, car-taking penalties for Johns helped. But in the end, it was simple renovation of all the housing, or at least enough of it that the places to do business or shoot up got closed so that the remaining few could easily be watched and policed and boarded and reboarded up. After a while, it was simpler for the TV's to set up shop elsewhere. All of the fancy solutions ameliorated the impact, to a degree. But gentrification finally solved the problem.
We had done our turn, and now it was somebody else's turn.
Looking at the blog entry above brought back memories. And it sounds as if the Far Side is recapitulating what Blagden Alley and Naylor Court went through. If you want to see the problem, drive down Fourth and look left between K and I. Not a pretty scene.
Let me quote myself from their comments section:
You aren't going to "solve" the problem. You're going to gentrify it out of existence in that area. They will go somewhere else, but 5th and K has had its turn. The next place can't be too far away, and will need some rundown housing. "Not too far away" means that a lot of the clients come from the nicer areas and wouldn't be caught dead driving to PG. I have no idea where it will settle, really. But it will move soon (next year or two).
We had a guy renovating a house on M Street in the early 80's. Got into an argument with one of the TV's at 9th and M. The TV decked him. The police seargeant at the time said something like: "Don't mess with them, they got that way in prison". One was found dead about every two years or so until they moved. Where you've got the TV's, you've got drugs and drug sales. Nasty business.
There have been many, many improvements in dealing with prostitution over the years, including some rearrangements in the court system. (And, yes, Jack really did long, hard, good work there.) But the TV's are a nasty problem, and the cops and courts have never found a reasonable solution.
The best answer is to pick a rundown area somewhat to the east but not where an old guy would be afraid to drive his Mercedes, where there are already some problems, and hang the banner. Wait a few years. They'll go there.
