The extraordinary and rapid gentrification of DC's suburbs now spreads out to Wheaton. DC's suburbs have always been odd. The ring around the city of half a million that holds the millions of workers who bounce into the city all day to make things work. Bedroom communities that have meshed together into one, huge, suburb and, thanks to the population, have become cities in their own right. Because of the population, and the taxes, and the building limits, and DC's former lack of glory, the suburbs started to morph into proper high-rise cities. First Virginia went nuts, then, on the MD side, Bethesda changed from a happy little town into a few blocks lifted from a major city and dropped on top of locally-owned stores and tiny two-story commercial buildings.
Then came Silver Spring -- the warehouse train town, abandoned and lost. They changed it, tore out the heart, and called it "Silver Sprung" in the propaganda. A slogan that has two meanings to those of us watching gentrification with increasing concern. As the minorities were, simply, priced out by rents that rocketed into the clear, blue sky, the whites moved in. Silver Spring is on year six of a 20 year plan to become a world that nobody will recognize or be able to enjoy without a long, large, black SUV filled with hundreds.
Next up -- Wheaton. Home to the spanish and a small arm of the fleeing minorities from Silver Sprung. The gentrification has begun.
I hate it. It brings in the yuppie liberals. The snoot factor. And right in the center of this is the Great Devil. Chris van Hollen, our districts Democratic Congressman. The well to do yuppie liberals voted him in, primarily, because he had the "D" after his name. Before him was Connie Morella -- long of tooth, but sharp and cool when it came to dealing with the fucks who like to pack condos next to each other as far as the eye can see and execute any semblance of community that existed in the area. Morella was a Republican, and occasionally fell in with her party line, but she was a friend to the liberals, and an even greater friend to the sense of community in the area. Don't tear it down in favor of condos with Shining-esque hallways and walls you can punch through, revitalize what's already there, focus on parks and gathering places. But Van Hollen, in his slick suit, attracted the Democrats because he said Bush wuz bad and Iraq wuz bad and he had a D for Duh in his name. The Dems came out of the woodwork and nuked Morella, who tended to always get their vote.
I met Van Hollen once at a function hosted by my weekend job. He refused to talk to the staff. He would ask me a question through his organizer while standing right in front of me, and when I went to reply to him he wouldn't acknowledge me -- instead he replied, in turn, to his organizer. Like a fucking imperialist monster. His handshake was limp, his eyes soulless and empty. He's a man on a ladder, a friend of the realtors and developers. A friend of the racism and classism inherent in inhuman gentrification.
I'm not saying don't rip down the abandoned warehouse that's home to all sorts of dangers. I'm not saying, gee, the dying, filthy, crime-infested post-industrial town should be preserved. But gentrification doesn't stop there. Not the kind we're experiencing. It doesn't recover the old warehouse, it turns it into a honeycomb of million dollar condos, and then it spreads out and gobbles up the shit that is nice, and safe, and traditional. An example is in the quoted article below from today's Post.
And there's Van Hollen's doubletalk. Preservation. He swings around and talks like Morella, and fights the good fight, but Barry's Magic Shop will be part of a line of condos, or an office highrise, by mid 07. Mark my words. Friend of the family is a high powered Kensington realtor and, behind closed doors, whisper in the ear -- Van Hollen is a friend to him. God bless young Gary.
Morella would block, stand, dance, preserve. But "liberals" in our region don't want that, I guess...? Who needs community when you can just get rid of the blacks? Who needs community, anyway? We have community, right? I've been living in a brand new condo here in Silver Sprung myself, and I don't know anyone here. No names, no eye contact, no hello, no thank you, no excuse me. We're all enemies here. We're all distant and removed and distrustful. That's the DC way -- why am I worried? That was always the DC way. But, for some, there was a hello. Barry's Magic Shop and places like it had regular clientele. There's the locksmith I used to go to in Triangle Plaza (which is behind Barry's and, therefore, also marked for destruction) where they recognized you, said hello, said you could pay tomorrow for work done today.
Gentrification is good. But when handled by the developers -- a frenzy of building, moving in chain stores, racing to fill the storefronts, and raising the rents in leaps and bounds, then squeezing out the classic landmarks -- it can also be bad. Silver Spring, Wheaton, DC itself, all need to be revitalized and cleaned up. But not like this. Not by a bulldozer, a cabal of realtors and absentee landlords, a politician who doesn't care for anyone outside of his tax bracket, and no sense of the very unique communities that have existed and still thrive in pockets around the DC areas. Communities and institutions that have clung on since the trains fed Washingtonians into the independent towns of Wheaton, Silver Spring, Bethesda, and others for quick summer shopping trips.
Icon May Go Up in a Puff of Smoke
Revitalization Could Push Aside Md. Magic Shop
By Christian Davenport
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 24, 2006; B01
Check this one out, Barry Taylor is saying as he pulls a gold-colored coin from his pocket. He holds it aloft for the customers of his Wheaton magic store to inspect, then tucks it into his right fist.
He waves his left hand over the fist, opens it and -- poof -- the coin is gone. Nothing but palm and wiggling, taunting fingers. Another flash of the hands and the coin is back, conjured, it seems, from thin air.
How did you do that?
Magic, he says, grinning to the crowd.
For more than 30 years, Taylor, 53, has been performing all sorts of tricks at his store, Barry's Magic Shop on Georgia Avenue. In the cramped and dowdy boutique, where the novelties, gags and costumes are piled from floor to ceiling, he makes dollar bills float, shoots fireballs from his palm and always knows what card you're holding.
But Taylor cannot figure out how to make his problems disappear.
Montgomery County has used eminent domain and spent nearly $1 million to acquire the building that houses Barry's Magic Shop from Taylor's former landlord. The county plans to tear it down and build a walkway as part of an effort to revitalize Wheaton's downtown.
If that happens and he is forced to relocate, Taylor could be out of business because he can't afford higher rent, he said. Taylor pays about $2,500 a month to rent the two-story building. He has looked at two other storefronts in the area, but the landlords wanted to charge more than four times his present rent, he said.
Still, Taylor is hoping that his shop might be able to remain where it has been for decades. An e-mail campaign has sprung up, and U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and County Council member Steven A. Silverman (D-At Large) have gotten involved.
Silverman called Barry's shop an "icon in the community" and said the council committee that approved the walkway project did not realize it would be displacing the magic shop. The council will look at the situation, he said, and try to help the parties come to a resolution.
"We're in the middle right now of trying to pass a zoning change to allow revitalization of downtown Wheaton while preserving small businesses," Silverman said. "And here the other arm of the government is looking at evicting Barry's from its longtime home."
Last week, the council approved the zoning change, which would allow for more dense development and taller buildings in the downtown.
Since 1974, Barry's has been one of the few magic stores in the region and a pranksters' paradise. Pamphlets titled "The Very Modern Mind Reader" fill the racks, rubber chickens hang from the ceiling and tarot cards are piled on the counter. There are hand buzzers, spring-loaded snakes in cans, whoopee cushions. A standing store rule is that a clown making an emergency balloon stop on the way to a gig can cut the line. Even the store's mascot, a border collie named Frankie the Wonder Dog, performs by catching balls that customers kick to him.
For seasoned magicians, the store is something of a locker room, a place to hang out and swap stories and tricks. For Taylor and his wife, Susan Kang, who performs with him, it's a stage on which to dazzle customers with dollar bills that stretch a few feet long and books that burst into flames when opened. It's about eliciting smiles, but it's also about something deeper: extending the boundaries of reality.
Magic is not in making the coin disappear, Taylor knows. It's doing it in a way that makes people think, if just for a moment, that maybe the coin really has vanished. "You can take people to a different world where you're doing things they know are not possible, but yet they stop and wonder," he said.
Taylor started performing as a child, learning many of his tricks by hanging out in Al's Magic Shop in the District. He performed while attending Northwood High School in Silver Spring, where he met Kang, and then while attending the University of Maryland.
After college, he decided he wanted to make a living by selling tricks, and Kang, who was working as a nurse, said she'd help him open Barry's Magic Shop. Since then, Taylor has become one of the region's best-known magicians, performing at parties and corporate functions. He once performed at a dinner attended by Sophia Loren, he said.
"The whole nature of the business is you're buying secrets," said Al Cohen, whose store closed two years ago. Cohen sometimes hangs out at Barry's with other magicians.
"Sure, if Barry's closes, everyone will keep on living," said George Woo, a magician who is one of Taylor's regulars. "What will be gone is the tradition of magicians learning from other magicians."
Although Montgomery officials said the last thing they want is to put Taylor out of business, they emphasized that the walkway is needed to improve movement between the shops on Georgia Avenue and the parking lot behind them.
"There's a real problem of accessibility of the Georgia Avenue shops to parking," said Joseph Davis, the director of the Wheaton redevelopment program. "In effect, you have to walk all the way around the block. So this will help address that issue. It makes the businesses much more successful."
Taylor has submitted a plan to open up the alley that runs along the side of his shop, saying that could serve as the walkway and allow him to keep his store. County officials have said they'll consider it, but Taylor has been told he needs to prepare to vacate the building by the end of the year.
"Right now we're looking to see if there is an alternative to demolishing the building," Davis said.
Meanwhile, Taylor waits. He sells his tricks and wows customers, who beg him to divulge his secrets.
The other day, Bob David of Rockville, who likes to perform for his grandchildren and other relatives, came in looking for a trick he could use on a family trip.
Here's just the one, Taylor says, pulling out a deck of cards that have a different name written on the back of each: The queen of clubs is "Alec," and the nine of diamonds is "Bud." Taylor asks David to think of a card and keep it to himself. Then Taylor says he'll tell David the name his card corresponds with.
"Phil," Taylor announces after a moment. "That's the name of your card."
He rifles through the deck, pulls out the card named Phil and, sure enough, it's the card David was thinking of: the seven of clubs.
Impressed, David plunks down his money, which entitles him to a trip behind the counter, where the other customers can't overhear Taylor explaining the secret, which won't be divulged here either. Magic deconstructed isn't magic. It's a trick -- a clever ruse that when performed correctly creates a stunning illusion.
"It's all in the presentation," a deflated Taylor tells David.
Explaining the mechanics isn't any fun.
"It ruins the wonder," he says.
And the wonder is everything.
