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Okay. It is September 27th, 2024. We are at Art all night. Could you tell us your name? I'm Judy Fisher. Judy, could you tell us a bit about how long you've lived in the

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neighborhood for Mount Pleasant? Okay. I moved to Washington in September 1967 to attend Howard University. And in September 1968, I moved into Meridian Hill, which is part of, I guess it's called Columbia Heights now.

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And when I graduated from Howard in 1971, I moved into Adams-morgan. And I've been in this neighborhood ever since 1971.

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That's incredible. What a what a fascinating time period. Yeah, to be in college at Howard. So. Oh, gosh.

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Well, I want to focus in on your experience in and out in Adams Morgan and the neighborhood. Okay. Obvisouly being in college you would have had some experiences.

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But what are some of your earliest memories of the neighborhood? Well, Mount Pleasant Street was really pretty different. They had an antique store run by this guy named Logan, who I think he also ran the bar across the street.

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And his wife had a dry cleaners. Okay. And that's all gone now, of course. And the other memory, when I was at Howard, we used to come to.

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What is this, Lamont and Mount Pleasant Street on the corner there. There's a shoe shop, and there was a pizza place there, and it was run by this old Italian man and

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his African-American wife, who was also old. And, um, we would go in there and order a pizza and he'd, you know, be tossing the dough and then putting the sauce on it and so on, and putting it in the oven.

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And I think they were like $3 or something like that, $2.50. So I did that a lot at Howard. I ate a lot on Mount Pleasant Street.

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Um, and it was pretty lively. It was a pretty lively place. You know, not that many Hispanics at the beginning. They didn't come in till later.

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But there were a lot of black people and a lot of black homeowners in Mount Pleasant at that time. Wow.

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And what were some of the other businesses besides the pizza place that you remember? Oh, and Logan's. Um, the other places on Mount Pleasant Street. Now, I don't remember so much.

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Um, one on Columbia Road when I first moved in the neighborhood, um, where feet fleet is that stretch? There was a - what do you call it? A souvenir shop.

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Okay. That was, like, really big. And it was mostly like, um, it was run by Asians, and they had a lot of Asian artifacts there.

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And, you know, um, Buddhas and all that type of thing along that street, incense and candles and so on. And, um, so, yeah, that's what I remember. And also, on on 18th Street, not 18th.

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What is that? Columbia Road, there was um, and I can't think of the name of the restaurant. It was a Cuban restaurant. Um, I'll think of it when we end.

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Anyway, it was you had to order ahead of time. Oh, right. Because they just made everything to order, you know? And I'll think of it when this is

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over. Yeah, that was Columbia Road. Um, and, you know, there used to be a giant and a Safeway on Columbia Road.

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All right. And then the Safeway bought out the giant and expanded. Okay. So you you said you moved into the

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early 70s in Adams-morgan. Yeah. And what were some of the sources of community for you? The the people and the and the places?

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Well, there were a lot of little coffee shops in basements. All right. One was called Dingani's Den, and it was run by this guy named Piper.

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And, you know, they had black poetry readings and that type of thing. And in my neighborhood, when I moved out of the dorm, I moved on to Wyoming Avenue.

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And at the time, there were a lot of young people on Wyoming Avenue living in apartments. And the apartments were owned by these three men.

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And one was black, Mr. Cohen. Anyway, they wanted to make sure that everything stay affordable? And so they organized themselves into the Wyoming Associates, and they would just really rent to people like me, you know, because

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my father was covering my cost after that. But, um, so, yeah, there were a lot of young people on that street and we moved from apartment to apartment I, my first apartment was 1818 Wyoming, and it was in the basement, and it had a patio

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and parking. And it was $110 a month. All right. Yeah.

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And I had a friend who lived across the street. And what was Admiral Perry's house? You know, some historical house. And she was going off to graduate

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school in Michigan. And so I moved into her apartment, which was a one bedroom. And, um, was there for a really

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long time anyway, I mean, all the places that I've lived in Adams Morgan, I found through friends or people moving out, you know, that type of thing. Every last one of them.

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And where did you find those friends that helped you find the apartment? Okay, well, Malvina was the friend who, um. I moved into her apartment when

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she went to graduate school. And from there, I worked at what's called Barber Chambers Daycare Center. But at that time, it was called Columbia Road Children's Center.

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And, um, I had a friend there who was the administrative person. Marcelle and Marcelle and her family lived in Harvard Hall. Anyway, Marcel's mother in law died and left Marcelle and her husband and their two kids a house in northeast.

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And so I moved into Marcel's apartment in Harvard Hall, which, you know, was a bedroom. But Harvard had those wonderful enclosed porches, you know.

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And so that was the second connection. Anyway, after I was there in Harvard Hall for a really long time, like maybe ten, 12 years.

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Anyway, I was a caregiver for my mom. And, um, we were living in a one bedroom apartment, and I was basically sleeping on the enclosed porch. And so I was running a daycare center at the time.

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And, you know, I talked to a parent about my tale of woe, about where I was living. And so one day, her name was Rashida.

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She showed up early to pick up her child and said, well, I'm leaving him here, and you and I are going to. She had pulled a listing of all

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the co-ops and condos in Adams Morgan that had vacancies. And so we went to all these apartment buildings, you know, that were going co-op, because that was happening a lot in the 1980s.

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And I went into this building and, um, you know, that was in renovation or moderate renovation, actually low key renovation. And I saw this apartment.

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And since my mother was living with me, you know, I saw this apartment on the ground floor. So there was a door. You could come into the building and then go into the apartment.

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And it was a two bedroom apartment. It didn't have a lot of light, but I figured it would work for us. Anyway, the story goes, um, I took my sister to visit it after I put down the earnest money on it, and my sister walked into the

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apartment and she said, well, you know, mom's not going to be living forever, and you're going to be in the basement. So I said, oh, okay. And so there was another apartment

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that they were using for storage that was up on a higher floor. And so I went and I looked at that and I ended up buying that. And I've been there for like 35, 36 years in the same apartment, raised my child there.

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I paid $54,000 for that apartment. All right. Anyway. And so how, um, how have things stayed the same or changed over

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time since then? Well, well, there used to be a lot of families. And now in the neighborhood, there are more families.

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But there was a period when there weren't a lot of families. And in my building, there was a period when my daughter was the only child, and then there was a

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period when there were lots of kids in the building, you know? So that's that's changed. I think when people live in apartments and they start having families, they moved to bigger

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places. But I was a single mom, just had one child, so it was big enough for us, you know? So that's changed a lot.

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Um, and, um, more dogs around, a lot of dogs around, you know. What do you think of those dogs? I mean, I don't care.

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Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, I like dogs, I like cats, I've had cats. Um, so what else has changed? Um, the park across the street has gotten renovated several times.

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What's that? Walter Pierce Park. And it used to be really bad, you know.

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I mean, it didn't have much stuff for kids and so on. I had a sandbox that was like a scourge.

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Anyway. Yeah. And of course, the prices have just skyrocketed, you know? Um, which is, um, kind of sad.

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You know. Yeah. Do you think it would be possible to do what you did, uh, back then? No. Oh, no. No, I mean, I live on a pension and Social Security,

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right? No, I couldn't. I couldn't afford to live in this neighborhood if I was moving. Well, I wouldn't even look at moving in here. I'd be in senior housing in Maryland someplace.

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And do you think anything for your daughter, did you say? Yeah, yeah. Well, she lives in Philadelphia. Oh, I see.

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Yeah. With no intention of coming back to D.C.. I mean, it really is just too expensive for a young, young family. And she has a family, you know.

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And she's doing fine in Philadelphia. You know, has a nice place. Reasonable.

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You know, just... Wow. And so in in the future, like, moving, let's say, five years from now.

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Oh, I won't be living here five years from now. No. Where are you gonna. Where do you see yourself? Um, probably in some type of, um, uh, senior building or some type

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of CRCCC. And have you thought about where or like? No, I mean DC doesn't have very much that's affordable now.

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Maryland has more. Or I may go back to Philadelphia. That's where I'm from. And my daughter lives there, yeah.

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And what would you like for the neighborhood even as you move on? Well, the neighborhood needs more affordable housing. Okay.

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And otherwise, you know, it's going to be like Georgetown if it's not already. Yeah. So it needs more affordable housing.

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And people talk about the nice mix and so on. Well, that's not really happening anymore. There's very little mix. Mhm.

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Anyway so that's it. I'm sweating. Thank you so much. I appreciate you.