By Guest Contributor, on November 10th, 2012 
Cross-posted from The District Chronicles
A hearing was scheduled last week, likely to be rescheduled due to Hurricane Sandy, in the case of Vaughn Bennett et al vs. Mayor Vincent Gray and the Union Station Redevelopment Corporation, DC’s most significant environmental justice case in recent years.
In a David and Goliath story, the tiny Ivy City community, a low-income African-American neighborhood settled originally just after emancipation, has filed suit against the Mayor and USRC to halt plans to divert hundreds of polluting charter buses into their community for the next 10 years while Union Station undergoes a billion dollar redevelopment.
When residents learned that the Mayor, in the midst of attending ribbon-cuttings and congratulating new homeowners, had authorized the Alexander Crummell School be turned into yet another parking lot for diesel-spewing buses, their outrage turned to action and attorney Johnny Barnes was retained and lawsuit filed to halt the construction. Built in 1911, the school, now in neglected shape, is a national landmark added to the historic registry 10 years ago.
“We will do whatever it takes to stop this parking lot,” said third generation resident Andria Swanson, a plaintiff in the case and President of the Ivy City Civic Association. “We demand that the city stop treating Ivy City as its dumping ground, because we deserve better.”
The Ivy City case has city-wide implications as it will set precedent in areas of law relating to the requirement that Advisory Neighborhood Commissions (ANCs) receive special notice and their views be considered with “great weight.”
The suit also hinges on the city’s failure to conduct an environmental impact study for the development of the bus lot, which the Mayor claims is not a “major action.”
Despite not receiving notice, the ANC voted 8 to 0 against the planned bus depot, once they discovered the plan. Other ANCs across the District have joined the opposition by passing resolutions against the bus depot.
Long treated as the city’s “dumping ground,” residents of Ivy City are already heavily impacted by respiratory illnesses exacerbated by heavy truck traffic along New York Avenue and the resulting air pollution. Generations of Ivy City residents have advocated improvements to their neglected neighborhood, and thought better days were coming when the city began investing in new affordable homes and revitalization planning. Yet early this year, the Mayor did an abrupt turn-around, authorizing the purchase of over six acres in the community to consolidate the parking of Department of Public Works’ fleet, on top of several acres of school bus parking already sited in the community.
For decades, the community has sought, and the DC government has promised, the restoration of Crummell School to provide services such as recreation, education and job training programs. Non-profit developers Manna Inc, Mi Casa and DC Habitat bought into the city’s stated goal of revitalizing Ivy City and broke ground on 58 new homes, now nearing completion. New homeowners and existing residents now face potential immediate risk to their health should the Mayor’s proposed charter bus lot move forward. The community is also burdened by overflow parking from Love nightclub, a youth detention center, homeless shelter, a new medical marijuana cultivation site and liquor distillery.
Just last year through the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, the DC Department of Housing and Community Development participated in a study that showed 36% of Ivy City and Trinidad residents lacked a high school diploma or equivalent, and 11% are unemployed. The Crummell School is situated in the heart of the community similar to a town hall, and is the last remaining place available to provide the services and gathering space the community seeks.
“Sitting a polluting charter bus lot across the street from residences is an injustice that the Mayor would never consider visiting upon a higher-income or more politically powerful community,” said Parisa Norouzi, Executive Director of Empower DC, a group working to enhance the organizing efforts of residents.
“By definition this is a case of Environmental Injustice,” Norouzi said. “The Mayor should be ashamed of himself.”
By Liane Scott, on November 8th, 2012 
Youth from Ivy City from left to right, Stephanie Chloe, Dedrica (Drica) Clyburne, James Batts, Moniya Walker and Santasia (Tay) Scarborough
This summer, Empower DC hired several youth from Ivy City to help organize their community. What follows are the impressions of a few of the participants and a lovely video of Ivy City’s Annual reunion produced by two of the youth, Stephan Scarborough and Amari McCray.
Dedrica: I loved being the assistant community organizer for Ivy City because I used my voice for a better purpose. I feel Empower DC is doing an awesome job fighting for Alexander Crummell School. I got the opportunity to silently protest Mayor Gray’s plan to park 65 Bolt buses on the grounds of the historic Alexander Crummell School. And I feel I was good at getting people involved and wanting to stand up for the community they call home. I am definitely going to continue volunteering for Empower DC to keep the fight going in the community.
Moniya: One thing that I learned with empower DC is that you can always help with stuff. And that it was good to visit and learn new things. Empower DC changed me. I learned that you can always feel comfortable going and talking to an adult and how to have confidence. What I did not like was talking to people and getting people to come to meetings because at times they were rude. But even though people were rude there was a possibility they would attend the meeting. When I first started I was tired of walking around but I eventually got used to it. And I felt so happy when I would attend meetings and people I made contact with attended.
Stephon “Steph” Scarborough at 3.
Steph: Our amazing organization, Empower DC, has taught me a lot and it was a wonderful experience. Furthermore it was pretty excellent that the program was constructive, positive and productive. Our campaign that we are pursing has a good sense of justice and a large amount of significance. I am looking forward to starting an Empower DC band. The band will aim to reach out to people and tell them about our Ivy City community and all the hardships that we endure. Empower DC has been great to me and I will love to stay for future initiatives.
Amari McCray
Amari: My name is Amari. My summer with Empower DC was good while interning with the Grassroots Media Project. The experience was really good for me because I normally would be out with friends stealing bikes. While working with empower DC I learned how to operate the video camera and learned how to film different progressive events.
By Guest Contributor, on August 20th, 2012 
…takes on Gray over bus depot Written by Darryl Fears, cross-posted from the Washington Post
(Jared Soares/ FOR THE WASHINGTON POST ) – Ivy City resident Andria Swanson near the grounds of the closed Alexander Crummell School.
On any scale, Ivy City is a 98-pound weakling among District neighborhoods. It measures only 1.7 square miles near the Maryland border in Northeast and has some of the city’s poorest residents, with an unemployment rate approaching 50 percent.
But that has not stopped the D.C. government from placing a heavy burden on Ivy City’s scrawny shoulders, making it a base of operations for large projects other neighborhoods shun, “a dumping ground,” residents say.
Ivy City is dotted with parking lots for scores of government vehicles — quarter-ton snowplows, salt trucks, parking-enforcement vehicles and school buses that belch exhaust as they rumble through the streets. Recently, when Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) announced a plan to build a bus depot for 65 D.C-to-New York motorcoaches in the heart of Ivy City, residents said “enough” and filed a lawsuit to stop it.
There is a lot at stake in the showdown between one of the city’s smallest neighborhoods and the mayor. Bus travel is a major boon for the city; ridership rose from nearly 2 million in 1999 to nearly 7 million in 2009, according to the District Department of Transportation’s 2011 Motorcoach Action Plan.
[Only a portion of the above article is posted here. For the complete article go to Ivy City, tired of being a D.C. “dumping ground,” takes on Gray over bus depot.]
By Guest Contributor, on August 18th, 2012 
By Luke, Crossposted from DC’s Independent Media Center.
The multi-billion dollar redevelopment plan for Union Station includes an ugly extra: an “Interim plan” to park idling inter-city buses at Crummell School, in Ivy City. Many residents there already have asthma. On the 15th of August, over half of participants in an “open house” at Union Station about the proposed “master plan” were from Empower DC.
This was not a speaking presentation, but rather a collection of tables with information about the planned project. As usual, they were not soliciting any real public input, just saying “here’s what we have already decided to do” while meeting legal technicalities required of such projects.
Children wore dust masks as a symbol of diesel smoke from idling buses. Empower DC T-shirts were everywhere, as were tough questions about parking “Chinatown” buses in an African-American residential neighborhood.
One of the tough questions was my own: where’s the money, an estimated $7 billion, for the project going to come from. The answer was that they don’t know-nobody is admitting to a funding source for the project. Artwork for the proposal shows office buildings built in the “air rights” over the tracks, but relying on the demand for office space for funding is chancy at best in an uncertain economy. If funding evaporates partway through the project, the proposed 10 year “interim” bus parking at Crummell School could become permanent.
Kids in masks, hopefully they won’t have to wear them for 10 years of “interim” bus parking!
Empower DC marches in, security says no but gives up after being ignored.
Who’s in the (open) house? Empower DC dominates event as not many other DC residents show up.
By Andria Swanson, on July 15th, 2012 
The Centennial of the Alexander Crummell School, a long-neglected historic landmark in the Ivy City community, was celebrated on Saturday, November 19, 2011. (Yes, this post is well after the fact, but certainly still relevant.) Empower DC released the Ivy City Neighborhood & Oral History Project, a book that features photos, excerpts from oral history interviews, and archival news clippings about one of DC’s most historic yet least known neighborhoods. The booklet will be distributed to participants, community members and libraries.
The reception was attended by many of the former Ivy City residents and alumni of Ivy City’s Alexander Crummell School. In 2002, several Crummell alumni played a key role, along with the Ivy City–Trinidad Civic Association, in winning historic landmark status for the Alexander Crummell School, which was built in 1911 and served as one of the District of Columbia’s first public elementary schools for black children until its closure in 1972. The Crummell alumni and current residents of the community share the goal of not only preserving the school but also having it renovated to serve as a recreation and workforce development center for the neighborhood, which currently lacks amenities of the sort.
Photos featured in the book demonstrate how Ivy City was a haven for middle- and working-class blacks during the District of Columbia’s more segregated past. The book also documents the efforts of the children and youth of Ivy City as they attempt to transform the abandoned Crummell School into a community center, including a photo of DC Mayor Adrian Fenty signing a pledge to renovate Crummell for community needs. “The book will be a resource for teachers, students and all DC residents, who can learn about this small but uniquely tight-knit community,” explains Empower DC Executive Director Parisa Norouzi. “This is the first known record of the community’s history.” The goal of the Ivy City Neighborhood and Oral History Project is to bring together the former and current residents who both have the best interest of the community at heart as well as to foster pride in the community through the sharing of oral history and personal stories.
In addition to the release of the Ivy City Neighborhood & Oral History Project book, the celebration was also an opportunity to screen the documentary Crummell School: Heart and Soul of the Community, which was produced by American University Anthropology student and Grassroots Media Project intern Sean Furmage.
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