around my way...
HUD, HOPE VI, D.C. Housing Authority and ...... Def Jam Recordings re-developing Eastgate Gardens?Appearantly Def Jam is going to be involved in partially funding a community arts center here in The District, does anyone find that alliance a little peculiar?
Anyway, I guess it is good news nonetheless that this once vibrant commmunity is being restored and revitalized.
Read the whole article here.Below are some excerpts from the article: --------------------------------
Construction of the unnamed development in Marshall Heights is scheduled to begin in the fall and be completed in 2007. It is part of a U.S. Housing and Urban Development program called HOPE VI -- Homeownership and Opportunity for People Everywhere. Located on the grounds of the old Eastgate Gardens complex, it will be bounded by F Street and Queens Stroll Place on the north, Benning Road on the west, Fitch Street on the south and 51st Street on the east.
The $76 million project will be financed by a $20 million HUD grant, as well as private and city funds. Under the program, the D.C. Housing Authority will oversee construction of about 170 units -- detached single-family houses and duplexes -- for low- and moderate-income residents. More than 100 of the units will be sold; the rest will be rented as public housing.
The development also will include a 100-unit apartment building for senior citizens. The centerpiece, residents and housing officials say, will be a new public school and a community arts center partially funded by Def Jam Recordings.
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The group is in the process of selecting the building facades and deciding on a name for the new community.
She said she is thinking about calling it Noah's Landing, after a former slave, Noah Jones, who in the 1800s bought part of the land on which Eastgate was built.
"Noah was a gardener who used to sell his produce on Central Avenue," Jackson said. "It was quite an accomplishment for an e
lave to purchase land. We want to give him his recognition."---------------------------------------
more news from from around my way