by Leigh Bailey
My favorite thing to do in Washington is walk. It's the best way to get a full impression of all the city has to offer--the many elements that come together to make up this multifaceted urban gem. Every walk in DC is different, but each is a showcase of the city, taking in the breathtaking and the battered.
Even a fifteen minute walk to the Metro--from my house to the Woodley Park Station (not the closest station but worth the walk)--passes through a package tour of sights, smells and sounds.
The trip starts with a stroll past Jolt & Bolt, which sports an ever-growing array of window signs advertising an equally blossoming array of coffee and pastries. The spot is infamous for its "way old" pastries, but the patio is always full. Franklyn's up the street a bit offers a cat-theme with its coffee, complete with "Litter Box" signs on the restrooms. A few doors up is Staccato--the piano bar that has been "coming soon" for the last 3 years.
A bazaar of shops and restaurants begins as I ascend 18th street. Musky spices drift from Ethiopian restaurants, and beans and grains adorn the window of Addisu Gebeya Exotic Ethiopian Market, which advertises such mysterious products as Foul Mundama. A little further up outside the cozy Belmont Kitchen, the "Compliment Man" stands asking for nothing in return as he offers "Nice haircut," "I like the hat," or "Great smile!" to all who pass by.
Across the street at the Marie Reed Community Center, little kids swarm over the playground while a knot of African American teenagers, often with one lone white guy, play basketball under the lights.
My favorite window-shopping is back across the street. Tiny blue painted paw prints lead to funky but pricey furniture at Sky Near. Lumps of polished amber shimmer in the window of Abou the Goldsmith, and clunky urban shoes beckon from Shake Your Booty--especially when they're having the annual "Big Ass Sale."
Idle Times Books is a good rest break, though the real reason I go there is to search out Minou, the dusty and grouchy bookstore cat, whose bed bears a sign "Beware I Bite," and bestow grudgingly accepted pats.
A peek at Cities restaurant offers a landscape of chic Euro types drinking glistening martinis. The restaurant becomes a different "city" every six months and it usually takes a couple of trips by to figure out which is is this time--Beijing, Venice or Bangkok.
A range of stores that seem to sell everything from hash pipes to rice cookers in faded boxes lines the street, enticing speculation but never patronage.
Bardia's New Orleans Café seduces with Beignets and coffee straight from the Big Easy's Café Du Monde. Next door, photographs of intricate henna designs in the window of Personal Image Hair Salon always make me resolve to come back that weekend and get my own sienna colored etchings. But I always chicken out or forget.
Back across the street is a small and shabby eatery dubbed "The Drunken Pizza Place." Slices the size of a laptop are sold till 4 a.m. to eponymous patrons.
Going to a shop named Botanica is like a trip to Haiti, with a statue of an elaborately dressed black saint in the window. Officially, it's a store of Herbs & Religious Goods and claims to help with "bad luck & unhappiness, insecurity & depression," or if you are "betrayed or cursed." Inside the smell of dust and cloves emanates. Statues of saints and protective medals nestle among plastic bags of mysterious powder. Hand-labeled tinctures promise the user an abundance of money, love, and more. If the guys sitting behind the counter stop talking animatedly in Spanish, you can ask to have your shells read.
This block really illustartes the variety of Adams Morgan. The McDonald's on the corner is next to North Sea Chinese Restaurant, which is next to a Cuban dance club, and then the Pizza Movers, Subway, Club Asylum--next door to El Tazmul--and finally the Ghana Café.
Crossing the street back to Meskerem, you can squat before an authentic wicker table while scooping up Ethiopian food with spongy injera bread.
A little further up, the doors of Bukum West African Cafe often swing open in the evenings to reveal a crowd of mostly dark faces bobbing to reggae or drummed African rhythms. If you stop there for dinner you can sample FuFu, Moi Moi, or Baaflo Vegetarian.
The corner of 18th and Columbia Road is a major crossroads. The cement plaza in front of the bank is home to groups of old men hanging out on weeknights chattering in Spanish, next to African American women on their way home from work. On the weekends it hosts a farmers' market where yuppie couples and Hispanic families intermingle to buy lettuce and apples.
Down to the left is Habana Village where a girl from Rock Hill South Carolina can salsa dance on Saturday nights with men of all nationalities and wonder at how far she's come from home. To the right, Pasta Mia has no set hours but when it's open has amazing homemade pasta. Across and down a bit is the Safeway where it's possible to shop and not hear a word of English the entire time.
But I must continue up 18th to Calvert, towards the Metro. I always smile at the basement office of Dr. Lee with its cardboard cutout of a dinosaur clutching a giant toothbrush.
After admiring neat rows of townhouses on Calvert and pausing to look for a light in my friend Rachel's window, I come to the pinnacle of my walk, often near dusk.
It is the trip across Duke Ellington Bridge, which even after 10 years, brings to mind the enigmatic visage of this son of Washington. The bridge crosses Rock Creek Park, a vast spread of urban park and woods, offering an amazing vista of the creek among the trees.
To have an expansive view of nature in the middle of the city is a blessing. The orange streaks of sun, the winding creek, the tiny figures jogging in the park below always make me pause and reflect on how lucky I am to live in such a city--one that offers a passport full of journeys on a 15 minute walk to the Metro.
Leigh Bailey
Photos by James Calder
