April 1, 2007

putting up a picket fence

After making the rounded pickets last weekend, we were able to get a good run of the fence put together yesterday.

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Posted by john m at 8:30 AM | Comments (11)

March 29, 2007

little purple flowers

The abandoned house next door is in that first nice blush of spring; it is all down hill from here.

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Posted by john m at 6:44 PM | Comments (3)

March 6, 2007

a house nearby will probably be on your television

A house up the street will be on a new, more renovation-oriented house flipping show. It is already a good story and they haven't even started yet.

Posted by john m at 4:16 PM | Comments (4)

December 28, 2006

press

Our neighborhood (and city)(but mostly our neighborhood) got a write-up in USA Today as an area that is "reinventing [itself]... starting to adopt tenets of the burgeoning, European-born 'Shrinking Cities' movement."

Posted by john m at 11:43 AM | Comments (1)

December 18, 2006

another walk around the neighborhood

Our neighborhood holiday house tour was yesterday and there are some wonderful old houses.

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Posted by john m at 11:08 AM | Comments (1)

December 3, 2006

a walk around the neighborhood

In what has become a yearly tradition, we walked around the area over Thanksgiving weekend with a eye for what has & has not changed in the neighborhood.

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Posted by john m at 8:00 AM | Comments (7)

June 25, 2006

another house being renovated

We recently went on a tour of another neighborhood house undergoing renovation.

Posted by john m at 6:53 PM | Comments (2)

June 16, 2006

during which a marsupial enters the house

Upon returning home from dinner we found a freakin' opossum in the upstairs hallway tonight.

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Posted by john m at 6:54 PM | Comments (0)

May 15, 2006

some small neighborhood news

We attended a neighborhood meeting that had a little bit to do with the local zoning. We were able to find out what we thought was an illegal day care and boarding house down the block is one of only 2 legal boarding houses in the city. Damn! Now about that day care...

Posted by john m at 6:44 PM | Comments (0)

September 17, 2005

1104 North 20th Street

We've fallen for another house nearby, a small and wasted Victorian that sits right on the projects.

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Posted by john m at 8:19 AM | Comments (6)

August 5, 2005

restoration near by

Removal of the stucco from a former fish market a few blocks away has uncovered an old Bromo-Seltzer sign.

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Posted by john m at 5:48 PM | Comments (7)

July 22, 2005

a newer house near by

Our neighborhood is an old one and parts of it have really suffered from neglect. This is changing, though.

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Posted by john m at 6:54 PM | Comments (2)

July 20, 2005

the neighbors

Just for the record, these are not our neighbors.

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Posted by john m at 9:11 PM | Comments (1)

July 10, 2005

commercial sites

There are 2 big condo projects underway within walking distance, each involving the restoration of a large and interesting building.

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Posted by john m at 1:08 PM | Comments (2)

July 4, 2005

seen on a walk

We saw a neat planter on a fence the other day. The camera phone came in handy for recording this good idea.

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Posted by john m at 8:09 PM | Comments (3)

June 3, 2005

plant for more beautiful streets

In a perfect compliment to our recent tree planting and other reading, I found some neat old stamps at Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space, an urban revitalization blog out of Washington DC.

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Posted by john m at 3:11 PM | Comments (3)

May 14, 2005

a neighborhood lifestyle

I've been offered a position at the neighborhood middle school for next year. This is good.

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Posted by john m at 7:21 PM | Comments (6)

May 5, 2005

why restore (part 2)

I've been reading The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape by James Howard Kunstler.

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Posted by john m at 4:38 PM | Comments (3)

April 23, 2005

old maps of Richmond and our neighborhood

In our one prior attempt at tracking down some of the history of our house, we had previously discovered that the date that it was built won't be easy to ascertain. Yesterday I found a map from 1864 that shows the streets in our area.

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Posted by john m at 8:38 AM | Comments (5)

April 21, 2005

officially spring

The ice-cream man has been making his rounds, playing his special song (mp3).

Posted by john m at 6:57 AM | Comments (7)

April 20, 2005

privacy fences

Sometime this summer we'll be pushing forward our privacy fence. We'll need new fencing in the most visible spot and this will be an opportunity to have something a little nice showing. In typical fashion, we went walking around the neighborhood as research.

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Posted by john m at 6:26 PM | Comments (4)

April 19, 2005

the abandoned house next door

The city came by and cut the grass of the abandoned house next door (previously). This is apparently a biannual service... As soon as they were finished, we went over and scattered a bag of wildflower seeds over the front yard.

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Posted by john m at 5:17 PM | Comments (0)

March 2, 2005

assessment shock

We've just received our real estate tax assessment this year. The assessed value of our house rose 33%! This would be great if we were looking to sell... Some houses on our block had their assessments go up 200+%. One property went from $36k to $112k -- and it's a boarding house as far as we can tell.

Posted by john m at 3:45 PM | Comments (3)

February 6, 2005

from a short walk

We went for a walk this afternoon and I got one good picture.

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Posted by john m at 6:42 PM | Comments (3)

January 20, 2005

a snow day

It snowed enough to close the schools and get one of us out of work for the day.

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Posted by john m at 12:59 PM | Comments (1)

January 10, 2005

the projects nearby

At some point around the middle of the 20th century, a series of public housing projects were built in Richmond, with most of them being placed in the eastern area of the city. We're 3 blocks off of the Mosby Court projects.

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Posted by john m at 4:05 PM | Comments (10)

December 19, 2004

trash and gentrification

I spent yesterday morning cleaning trash out of the alley behind our house.

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Posted by john m at 8:44 AM | Comments (3)

December 18, 2004

stolen goods

Since we moved in, we've had one car stereo, one pumpkin, one bicycle pump, and now one aluminum extension ladder stolen.

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Posted by john m at 9:18 AM | Comments (5)

November 6, 2004

an old house burns

On one of the first really cold nights of the season, a house on the next block burned. The house was currently an illegal rooming house, making the whole thing a little disreputable. It looked like the fire started in the basement and might have something to do with the oil heating system.

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Posted by john m at 4:23 AM | Comments (4)

August 11, 2004

nice examples

Walking the neighborhood, there are a few examples of how we would like different parts of our house to turn out.

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Posted by john m at 12:39 PM | Comments (3)

August 3, 2004

National Night Out

Tonight was our neighborhood celebration of National Night Out, organized by the New Vision Civic League and Faith Holy Christian Church of Deliverance.

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Posted by john m at 9:52 AM | Comments (2)

July 25, 2004

1097 N 23rd Street

2 blocks up 23rd there is a small triangle median created by the overlap of Carrington St, Pink St, and 23rd St. On this median sits one of my favorite abandoned buildings in the city.

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Posted by john m at 9:33 AM | Comments (0)

July 15, 2004

the porch next door is slowly collapsing

The house next door was abandoned part-way through a half-ass restoration. It is now boarded up, and the porch and vinyl siding are coming off. Last night more of the porch collapsed.

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Posted by john m at 11:48 AM | Comments (3)

July 6, 2004

The New Vision Civic League of East End

There are a number of community organizations in the area. The groups are roughly geographically based on the sub-neighborhods that make up Church Hill, but most seem to welcome anyone that wants to join and be a part of what is going on. There is a group for Church Hill proper (Church Hill Association (CHA)), a group for Union Hill (North of Broad Concerned Citizens Association), there is a group for north of Fairmont (Unity Civic Association), and, among others, there is the New Visions Civic League of East End (NVCL).

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Posted by john m at 11:01 AM | Comments (3)

July 3, 2004

a new word

In our continuing celebration of R.'s new job, we stepped out for a funky and delicious dinner at Millie's Diner. On the way out, we saw an advert in the window for an apartment for rent on 'hoodstoric' Marshall St.. We immediately recognized a new and valuable addition to our vocabulary.

Posted by john m at 12:34 PM | Comments (4)

June 30, 2004

another shooting

I saw some police cars at Cedar St. and 24th last night on the way home from work last night. They had an area taped off and I wondered if the newspaper would have any info in the morning. This is what I found.

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Posted by john m at 10:20 AM | Comments (1)

June 22, 2004

pictures of old houses and businesses

"American Memory from the Library of Congress is a gateway to rich primary source materials relating to the history and culture of the United States. The site offers more than 7 million digital items from more than 100 historical collections."

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Posted by john m at 12:05 PM | Comments (2)

June 21, 2004

a big picture of Venable St.

I've added a hacked panorama of a few blocks of Venable Street to the Panoramas sections of the site.

Posted by john m at 9:46 AM | Comments (0)

June 14, 2004

another typical day

The house next door is officially condemned; we continue to frantically work on fixing where the leak is/was before the rain comes.

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Posted by john m at 6:57 AM | Comments (0)

June 8, 2004

Fairmont photos

Because of the sense of coming change in the area, I want to put together a comprehensive photo record of the neighborhood. I'm approaching this street-by-street, just walking and methodically shooting every house and vacant, over-grown lot. I've documented most of Venable St. ( a few days ago) and today I shot most of Fairmont Ave.

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Posted by john m at 2:39 AM | Comments (2)

May 1, 2004

NiB Walking Tour

We walk around looking at other peoples' houses.

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Posted by john m at 9:46 AM | Comments (0)

April 5, 2004

a few nearby houses

Photos of two houses at the intersection of 20th and R Streets. The first is on the northeast corner, the second on the northwest. The first is sitting empty and will probably be eventually torn-down.

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Posted by john m at 9:51 AM | Comments (0)

April 1, 2004

the name of the neighborhood

I'm not really sure what the name of our neighborhood is. To anyone that lives in another part of the city, the only name that they might recognize would probably be Church Hill.

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Posted by john m at 9:53 AM | Comments (0)

March 25, 2004

Less Tires, Stumps, Walls

A neighborhood clean-up; a service is provided; more walls come down.

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Posted by john m at 9:55 AM | Comments (0)

January 11, 2004

Walking Close By

We walked south from our house towards Shockoe Valley on a cold, clear winter day.

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Posted by john m at 6:14 AM | Comments (0)

December 31, 2003

xmas

Simply this: 5 trees, 5 colors. And for the first time in my life I live in a neighborhood served by a black Santa.

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Posted by john m at 6:01 AM | Comments (0)

November 30, 2003

Walking Tour

A Thanksgiving Day morning walk around the neighborhood.

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Posted by john m at 1:14 AM | Comments (3)