Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-06-05
NORTHWEST AREA
HAS WORST ALLEYS
True Especially in Sections
Which Have Changed in
Nature of Population.

It is generally conceded that Wash.
ington's worst inhabited alleys now arr
found in the older areas of the North.
west section.
This is true especially with neighbor.
hoods which have changed from whit:
to colored within the last two decades
such as are found in the territory GOV.
cred by the second and eighth police
| precincts. Here the alley dwellings
have taken the dregs of the incoming
| population, affording a constant and
dangerous problem for police and social
workers.
In parts OF the Northwest where the
population has remained predominantly
white the multiplying apartment houses
| with the demands of their occupants
| for garages and parking space, have
brought about quite different trans
| formation by supplying a sound eco
! romic use for the property. The apart
| ment house has not eliminated entirely
the alley dwelling, but it has reduced
the occupants to minimum.
Thus in some sections there are
| found striking contrasts, not entirely
| without beauty to the artistic eye. It
Is worthy of note that following the war
| there was Spasmodic movement to
crea e in some of these hidden villages
! a local Bohemia. Their isolated prox-
unity to the life of the city, combined
! with a certain strangeneSs of contrast
and safety from prying eyes, seemed TO
provide the proper atmosphere.
Bohemian Move Falters.
But for some reason or other the
movement of the city's artist population
into the alleys has not proceeded far.
Perhaps Washington does not afford
the proper stimulus for Bohemia
even an obviously artificial one. Be-
sides, the demand for garage space and
automobile repair shops apparently has
been too insistent.
An interesting alley of the mixed
Bohemian garage type Is st. Matthew's
court, behind st. Matthews Church, be-
tween Rhode Island avenue and N
street. Here two or three of the little
houses are occupied by artists, who,
with trellised doors and hanging Ian
terms, have sought to produce charm
ing effect in the little H of narrow
streets under the shadow of the lofty
dome and golden cross of the old
church. But the open garages and a
few upstairs tenements still occupied by
the intensely practical colored families
rather spoil the Bohemian effect. 9th
erwiSe here might be the start of a
charming color thread in the civic body
of Washington.
st. Matthew's court is right of busy
streets, yet once inside looking over the
high-walled gardens on the N street side
and the modern world might seem far
away were it not for the parked automo-
miles. The same is true of most of the rest
of these persistent backwashes of an
elder day in this part of the city. A few
inhabited novels remain under the ivy
covered high brick walls of the fine old
houses and the garden walls arrayed in
the silken pink of tausendshoen bios
somS-as the one that hens in one
end Of HutchinS court, between Six
tenth, Seventeenth, Massachusetts, ave-
nue. ard o street. Then there Is the
long, narrow alley running all the way
between Sixteenth and Eighteenth
streets in the line between p and Church
streets, starting under the Stained-glaSs
windows over the pulpit of the Foundry
Methodist Episcopal Church and ending
in the rear Of st. Thomas Episcopal
Church. Apartment houses have taken
over the alleys for breathing spaces.
and the tin garage may not be espe-
cially esthetic, but neither are they
squalid, dirty or criminal
These alleys represent about the west
ward extension until one reaches
Georgetown. But turning eastward
across Fourteenth street, the alley at
moSphere loses this touch of charm ac-
quired from the neighborhood of grand
eur and the Bohemian tintings and
seems to degenerate steadily as the pam
Drama Is extended into the solidly col
ored sections.
Avenue appropriately Named.
Some of the worst alleys are found in
the reighborhood Of the eighth precinct.
Police from this station, under the di-
rection of Capt. Robert e. Doyle, have
been surveying the alleys recently and
ordering the removal of unsightly junk
from them, so that now they present a
fairly good physical appearance. That
is about all the police can do. They
can't, Capt. Doyle points out, improve
sanitary conditions which are unimprov-
able or change the character of the pop
ulation without changing the environ
ment.
One of the worst bears the map
propriate name of Temperance avenue,
hemmed in by Twelfth, Thirteenth, T
and U streets, where So persons are
congregated in tiny four-room houses
with practically no modern improve
ments and generally concealed from the
whose name sounds aristocratic, but
which, in fact, Is exactly the opposite,
is Waverly terrace, where AZ persons are
found in Is houses. Cedar court be-
tween Thirteenth, Fourteenth, S and T
streets, has a persons in II houses.
Altogether Capt. Doyle lists 10 alleys
in the precinct, all with about the same
living conditions and types of popula-
ton. Actually, he finds, there is no ex-
ceptional amour. Of major crime in the
alleys, but they are natural centers OF
gambling, bootlegging and drinking
ugly, tnsanitary and breeding places OF
vice The policeman whose beat In
cludes one of them finds he must give
a great deal more attention to it than to
the streets. 1t requires constant patrol
ling
No Incentive to Change.
The inhabitants are poor and many
of them of the lowest type morally. But
living in such surroundings, Capt. Doyle
points out, they have little incentive
to change their condition. He believes
that If these people, even the worst OF
them, could be got onto the street ana
into the open. where they would nave
the stimulus of even a slightly better
environment. not only would the burden
of policing the territory be greatly re-
duced, but there would be an actual I'M
provement in the inhabitants them
selves. A hidden environment, ne pc
lieves, is in itself natural stimulus TO
anti-social behavior.
what are generally regarded as the
worst alleys Of all are found in the ter
ritory of the second precinct, including
such notorious pockets Of crime as
Blagden's alley, hemmed in by Ninth
Tenth, M and N streets, which Is
congregating place for bootleggers, and
the populous MAYORS court, back OF
Convention Hall, whose inhabitants are
giving constant trouble to the police.
Altogether 20 alleys. some OF them
with only a few houses. are listed In