The engineer and transportation planner spends her free time as a community activist in the Hillcrest neighborhood in Southeast. You say that your blog “Life in the Village” brings a different perspective of your Hillcrest community. Why is a different perspective needed?
For Hillcrest, we’re all Anacostia to the outside world. It’s bringing my experiences from living around different parts of the country to D.C. and figuring out what works and what won’t work in our neighborhood and doing things that we can to make it better.
You said it’s all Anacostia to everybody else.
Yeah, everything east of the river is Anacostia to them. And we’re about three miles from Anacostia.
What is Hillcrest like?
We have three distinct subcommunities. We have the single-family homes, which are three- to four-bedroom homes on pretty sizable lots with great front yards and backyards, almost a suburban feel. Then there’s Naylor Gardens, which is a cooperative. It’s an enclave built in the 1940s, very family-oriented, again garden-style, lots of grass. And there’s where I live, Fairfax Village, where it’s the same thing, garden-style condominiums that also have a lot of grass, a lot of mature trees. So our neighborhood almost gives you a suburban type of feel inside of an urban area.
You have a famous neighborhood resident, Vincent Gray. What’s it like having the mayor live nearby?
I feel since Mayor Gray came into office, we’ve had a couple more articles on Hillcrest than normal. But other than that, there is still this perception that Southeast is this dangerous area. And there are people who still won’t come over here.
As a community activist, what do you think is the most important thing the community needs to improve on?
Transportation is something that needs to be focused on. Especially with these gas prices going up, we keep talking about how [Metro] has a budget gap. Well, a lot of us as residents have budget gaps. We can talk about jobs but can the people get to the jobs? – Kytja Weir
