Washington had nothing like New York’s Greenwich Village, but in the early days of the New Deal Mrs. Roosevelt herself, during one of the fleeting moments she was in Washington, “discovered” Georgetown and conceived it as a genteel bohemian community where her sandal-shod friends could find congenial company. She wouldn’t allow the WPA to alter anything though sewage comes up from the river. Georgetown is overrun with rats, which frequently chew up Negro infants.
Ancient wooden houses, much the worse for the wear of centuries, which could have been bought lot-and-all for $2,500 in the ’20s, skyrocketed as it became “smart” for society to move to Georgetown. Some properties are now worth twenty times what they brought twenty years ago, though terrible odors emanate from a nearby slaughter house.
Following the discovery of Georgetown, the truly gentle Negroes who had lived there, some for a hundred years or more, were driven out. Few owned their homes. Into rickety structures which had once housed as many as ten Negro families—seventy-five people—moved one millionaire left-wing carpetbagger and his wife. With improvements, naturally. Equality is okay to talk about. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were spent on some of these homes, modernizing, beautifying, disinfecting and furnishing them. Now they have house-and-garden tours for visiting Kiwanians.
Not all the Negroes could be ousted. Even today, Georgetown has a considerable colored population, though it is the only part of Washington where there are fewer Negroes than there were twenty years ago. Those who remain live in shanties so undesirable that no rich white fairies can be found who want to turn them into something gay. In fact, there’s a saying in Georgetown now that you’re not “smart” unless darkies live next door to you.
The sight-seeing buses point out historic Prospect House, now used by the government for visiting notables, but they don’t show you the tumble-down Negro shacks behind it.
One of Georgetown’s most distinguished residents is Dean Acheson. Emmitt Warring, king of Washington’s gamblers, about whom more will be found in succeeding chapters, is in business nearby.
Warring is the kingfish of Georgetown. He controls its local police precinct as well as its local crime. As will be shown, he has direct affiliations with the national underworld syndicate.
Eleanor Roosevelt gave Georgetown that first big impetus after her son, Jimmy, who didn’t “got it” in California, moved across the street from the old Imperial Russian Embassy, in the 3200 block of Q Street. It looked like good business to build up the area.
Soon the section filled up with all manner of strange people. Many of these were buddies of the First Lady. We have seen a letter she wrote to one Ben Grey, in which she pats such types on the head.
One of the queerest sights visible anywhere is the one from a window on the second floor of Dean Acheson’s quaint home at 2805 P Street. It faces the 28th Street side over a back yard. The Secretary’s personal lavatory faces that way. His mind apparently weighted by cosmos-shaking affairs of state, the secretary forgets to draw down the shade.