Malcolm X Avenue at Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue, Congress Heights/Anacostia

I went apartment hunting today in DC. After a mildly disappointing visit to an apartment in Upper NW, I took a trip into lower Southeast, Anacostia and Congress Heights to be specific.

Repeated advice from friends and colleagues about "East of the River" certainly influenced my expectations of Greater Southeast, as have the crime reports from the police district serving that community. But I went across with an open mind, simply to observe and note.

I had expected a major four-to-six-lane road in Martin Luther King, Jr, Avenue, which runs more or less from the interchange at the end of 395 on the east bank of the Anacostia River down past Bolling Air Force Base, crudely parallel with I-295. Instead I found a small-town street that kept going and going, but not quickly, rarely widening to four lanes. The intersection with Good Hope Road, the official northern border of the Anacostia neighborhood, underwhelmed me. This is supposed to be "inner city" but it seemed pretty small-town suburban in density and activity. It looked like Eastport in Annapolis, not East Baltimore.

The greenness of the whole area surprised me. While there is a lot of green space along the Suitland Parkway that snakes through the middle of Greater Southeast to the mouth of the South Capitol Street bridge, there is a lot of green everywhere - trees, neat grass lawns, scraggily unkempt grass patches popping up around semi-abandoned blocks, churches and liquor stores. Churches were ubiquitous, many having long names even when measured by the yardstick of predominantly Black urban churches. It would not surprise me if my area of NW Baltimore County had the same population density or thereabout. No apartment towers, almost all single family houses on the route I took.

I was disappointed in the corner of Malcolm X Avenue and Martin Luther King, Jr., Avenue. A street corner bearing those two men's names deserved better than a near-vacant Popeye's parking lot. That corner should have something else, somehow: a cultural center, statues, something.

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Driving down Alabama Avenue from MLK, I passed the Congress Heights Metro station which is really on the far eastern edge of that neighborhood; "Alabama Avenue" would have been the better name for the station. Congress Heights proper, to the south and southwest of my chosen route, is a historically middle-class Black neighborhood adjacent to Bolling AFB and there are some decent bargains to be had in housing there. The biggest drawback to Congress Heights from my perspective is that it is not urban enough; it is a suburban zone with some significant urban problems, though less so than in some other parts of Greater Southeast. But along Alabama Avenue lies a big, "new-car-smell"-looking SuperGiant and related shopping strip with fairly upscale exteriors and fixtures. Across the street from it lies a significant block of squeaky new townhouses selling for $100,000+ more than my townhouse in Reisterstown just sold for, all within a reasonable suburban walk of the Metro.

I went down a short piece of the Suitland Parkway into Maryland and then back into the District along Branch Avenue to Pennsylvania Avenue. Along Branch Avenue I saw a horrible sight: tree-lined single family homes with cars parked in front of them. Branch Avenue intersects Pennsylvania Avenue adjacent to the Nation of Islam's Muhammad Mosque #4, which was probably a Methodist church in another era.

I kept looking for the depravity, poverty and chaos that plague West and East Baltimore. I am certain that such misery must be present somewhere, but I drove about 20 miles total within the District today and did not see it once. I won't be moving to Greater Southeast, as I actually want to enjoy a little urban life. It's just not city enough for me based on my limited observation, though the rents are pretty cheap.