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Okay, today's September 29th at Art All Night in Mount Pleasant. Could you tell us your name? My name is Carter. Carter, could you tell us about your relationship to Mount Pleasant? Yes.

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So I grew up in DC, and so Mount Pleasant was always on my radar as a really wonderful neighborhood. But I lived across the country for a really long time and moved back during the pandemic.

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And the person I started dating and my now partner is from Mount Pleasant. He was living here at the time and so like my whole entrance back into adulthood in DC has been

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primarily first in Mount Pleasant. And I lived here temporarily over this summer but otherwise was like kind of constantly in and out with my partner at his place.

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So I feel like it's my neighborhood in a lot of ways because it's the place where he is, but also the place where most of my friends are as well. And I work up here too.

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Yeah. Do you mind telling us where you work? Yeah. Well, I, on, I'm on sabbatical as

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a therapist, but I have been working at Bold Fork Books which is a cookbook shop on Mount Pleasant Street. Oh fantastic. And you said you were raised in

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Washington? What neighborhood were you raised in? In Chevy Chase. In Chevy Chase? Yeah. Yeah.

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So what have been some of the favorite things that have attracted you about Mount Pleasant? I have to say it was like initially I think through my partner's eyes that I started

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falling in love with it because he really loved it and was always kind of evangelizing about the neighborhood. And he's multiracial, he's from DC, and he always talked about how like this is the place that he still feels most at home in DC, as

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the rest of the city is being gentrified so much and changing so rapidly. And especially during the pandemic, I felt like I was able to come up here and see like such

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diversity and also at the same time, such a neighborhood feel and a community feel running into people all the time that are familiar faces that become friends. And like, it just feels like a little village.

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And so that's kind of been like the initial draw. Of course, there's like, I think this is some of what is really beloved about Mount Pleasant in general, but that it is by Rock Creek as well as having like huge access to downtown and feeling

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like you're in the bustle of things. But it feels like that quiet village nonetheless. Yeah. Fantastic.

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Yeah. And what do you think makes it such a welcoming place for you and your boyfriend? Gosh, I mean I think that it is that village feel.

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I think that there's something about the pace up here that feels a lot slower than the rest of DC. It feels like that's changing though, definitely.

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The village feel isn't, but like some of the pace and the energy feels like it's shifting slowly. But I think that it feels like there's an arts community that's still really alive.

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There's lots of families, but there's also a lot of young artists, there's a ton of immigrants, like there's just a mix. And I think that that's really cool.

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And you said that you sense some change. Yeah. How would you describe that? Well, I actually remember, I think it was like the Washingtonian put

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out, or maybe it was the Washington Post, I don't remember. But in 2020, they put out an article about Mount Pleasant being like the neighborhood in DC that had been like unchanged in a lot of ways.

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And it was also the place that had the most diversity left. And it was right in the middle of summer 2020 or maybe the fall afterward.

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And my sense is a lot of people, a lot of white people like myself were like, oh, that's a great place to live then. And like maybe wanted to be involved more in the community, but then it meant that a lot of people that were here before have

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been kicked out and it's become more and more expensive. And I think that there are like a couple of businesses that have brought in like a really kind of like young, professional, mostly white community that has like more disposable income, etc. It's just

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sort of changed things a bit and therefore it's also becoming kind of more desirable. So a lot of young families, mostly white, like it just is shifting and you get the sense that there's

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kind of two communities happening at once in terms of the immigrant population and then the younger families are the more wealthy white people. And that, there's that tension.

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I feel like you can especially see that on farmer's market days that used to feel like a little bit more mellow, but it feels like there's this big influx of people that come. And these more kind of fun, interesting, hip, good branding

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behind them, companies that come in that are so wonderful, and I love so many of them and then there's also like a woman on the corner that's selling sliced fruit and like not being paid much attention to.

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So there's this like there's just there's a tension that seems to be growing and I'm just gonna be curious what that continues to look like. Where would you like to see things go in the future?

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Yeah, I mean I think that I would love for it to stay a more affordable place, for there to be more housing like my friend had, that is more accessible and accessible to different communities and the immigrant population getting to be able to

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have more say in the community. I don't even, I don't know how to make that happen, but it feels like a really important piece of the puzzle, because I think it's what draws a lot of people to the

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neighborhood, but of course it's going to be the thing that's wiped out first. So I don't know exactly what that looks like.

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I feel like I've been kind of trying to wonder about that as someone that works in the neighborhood, like what kinds of events can be put on that actually are more inclusive and not kind of attracting people just from

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outside of the neighborhood. But that would be my hope, I don't know. Yeah, that's the big one.

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Any other things you'd like to share with us? If anyone wants to give me one of their houses, I'd take it. I love the neighborhood, I think it's so great. Yeah, that's it.

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Thank you so much.