Just wanted to make readers aware of some pretty interesting things appearing in Thursday’s Hatchet. Our final issue of the semester will appear a week from Thursday. Keeping up with the pledge we made earlier, we have some great content in the Metro section.
First, be sure to check out the second installment in our D.C. Neighborhoods series. We’re trying to highlight some parts of town that students don’t usually visit as well some metro issues that don’t necessarily affect Foggy Bottom. Last issue Metro Editor Katie Rooney wrote about residents of Southeast’s Navy Yard who are being forced from their homes to make way for the baseball stadium. Senior Staff Writer Catherine Villnave writes this week about gentrification in Mount Pleasant. An excerpt:
Residents said they’ve been given the impression that they need to either pay the new price or clear out for tenants who will, adding that based on average income levels in the area, most cannot pay the increased rent.
“These guys make $10, $8 an hour,” 35-year Mount Pleasant resident Walter Martinez said as he pointed to the Latino men conversing around him. “They can’t pay it.”
Other residents agreed, arguing that those who can’t fork over the cash are being forced out and others are very eager to pay in their place.
“New people are coming in – white people,” said Danny Flores, a 25-year resident of Mount Pleasant. “You know … it’s (about the) money.”
In this issue, Metro Senior Staff Writer Kaitlyn Jahlring also writes an interesting piece comparing town-gown relations between GW and Foggy Bottom with other university communities in the city. GW is definitely unique…
Our friends at the pueblo blog should be pleased to see The Hatchet’s newest article about students pressing GW to divest from Sudan. A month after Hatchet editors and STAND Darfur members asked the University if it is invested in companies that do business with Darfur, it still does not know. In conversations with The Hatchet, President Trachtenberg has said he would be wary of the effectiveness of a divestment campaign anyway, saying that similar campaigns during South Africa’s apartheid may not have accomplished much.
And finally, this week’s Hatchet contains the most bizarre crime log I’ve seen in my time with the paper:
Unlawful Entry
11/24 – Munson Hall – 10:41 p.m. – case closed
University Police received a call about two suspicious people in the dormitory. When officers arrived on the scene they found a black male and female with a baby inside one of the dorm rooms. When officers first tried to enter the room the two inside quickly shut the door. They later told police that they were looking for a tissue and exited the building on their own, refusing to stop and talk to officers. UPD officers pursued the two as far as the Foggy Bottom Metro station, and after being questioned they said that they had no explanation for why they were in the building. Nothing was reported missing.
Subjects barred from campus
