What Is This Valet Reading?

Fantastic post. Its inspirational.

This is somewhat unrelated, but a few weeks ago i was in a taxi on the way to National Airport and started talking to the taxi driver who was from India. He had moved over here and raised two kids.

He then went on to say that we was moving back to India soon because his kids were getting ready for highschool and the schools here were so bad (i think he was in Arlington) that he wanted them to get a better education so he was moving them back to India. A little scary.

Very inspirational post. I have found that my most rewarding and mentally stimulating conversations take place all hours of the night with the cab drivers of our city. They all listen to NPR and have a lucid understand of what shapes the world we all live in today.

I’m not entirely sure you can call PQ a very heterogeneous place to live b/c the valets and waiters are immigrants. I would guess that about 95% of residents who LIVE in PQ are white.

I have had a vastly different experience from Matt’s second statement. The residents of my building and people I know in the neighborhood represent a strong of racial and ethnic backgrounds, though what we have in common is a higher socioeconomic level. In addition, many of my neighbors were born in foreign countries.

If that valet attendant tries REALLY REALLY hard, and goes to all his English classes and doesn’t miss any of his pop quizzes–maybe (just MAYBE!) he’ll one day be able to read this post and understand the eloquence that is Penn Quarter Living.

Thank you for this inspirational story … there but by the grace of God go I.

When it comes to wealth/finances, which I think is the ultimate root of resentment of gentrification, there is practically zero diversity in Penn Quarter. The neighborhood, unless defined to include NOMA (or, more accurately, NOMAn’s land), contains virtually no affordable housing to rent or to buy.

pqresident, are you sure it was a list of “common” English words? He might have been studying for the National Spelling Bee. Or maybe he’s a coach.

a neighborhood is made up of more than the people who live there. I think it includes the people who pass through also whether working in the ‘hood or traveling in betwixt and between, and there is no doubt that this broad collective Penn Quarter ‘family’ gets exposed to each other daily. for example, witness the crowd (and I have to generalize here based on the many times I’ve walked by that intersection) that waits for the X2 bus on H Street under the Gallery Place billboards. you won’t see that crowd at an N4 stop at Mass Ave and Wisconsin Ave. or, take the fact that I can identify just about every homeless resident (like it or not they do live here, at least for now) within a three block radius of my condo. we had no homeless people in my old neighborhood. my understanding of our town and society is now decidedly more real than it was before I moved here and as a downtown resident I’m happy to gain this knowledge.

#8 – dave – click on the picture and have a look for yourself. with some straining, the first three rows are legible and the words are words such as ‘after’ or ‘always’ or ‘difficult’ or ‘different,’ common words that form part of a basic working English vocabulary. (I’m assuming you’re not being tongue-in-cheek otherwise you’d have put [tic] or a face in your comment.)

Thanks pqresident. I still can’t make out any of the words — but I don’t doubt you. Many cab drivers are college educated, alot of foreign nurses are licensed doctors back in their motherlands . . . just wanted to demonstrate that maybe I was mistaken about his story!