The Washington Post, Sept. 25, 2019: Why Some DC Residents Want Landmark Status for a Public Housing Complex
On a recent tour of the remnants of the Barry Farm public housing complex in Southeast Washington, historians rattled off reasons the city should landmark the property, including that hundreds of freed slaves settled there after the Civil War.
Will Harvey, 39, a former Barry Farm resident, recognized his own personal landmarks as he followed along.
Here was where a friend was shot in the back, he said, pointing to a spot a few yards from where he once lived, a now vacant, dilapidated duplex behind a chain-link construction fence on Stevens Road SE. Another buddy was killed down the street, he said.
“It was like Iraq around here,” Harvey said. “You get PTSD.”
As the nation’s capital, Washington is a city of iconic American landmarks that draws tourists from far and wide. The city also has a slew of local markers of more debatable stature, places such as Barry Farm Dwellings, which a coalition of former residents and community organizers are lobbying the city to designate a landmark.
With a District review board scheduled to vote on the nomination Sept. 26, the administration of Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) is opposing the designation, in part because it could impede a plan to build 1,100 mixed-income housing units and retail on the Ward 8 site. Officials hope the project would help invigorate a historically poor and blighted area.
The District Housing Authority has already relocated nearly 200 families that lived at Barry Farm Dwellings to make way for the redevelopment and demolished more than 30 of the complex’s two-story buildings.
The developer was forced to hold off on razing 32 remaining buildings after the nomination to landmark Barry Farm was submitted in April. Opponents of the historic designation say the proponents are using the nomination process to create another hurdle for the development — a contention the advocates deny.
