Avenue
of Aspirations
16th Street and Washington DC
a
documentary project of CineCitizen Media
Who would think that a seven mile street could be a microcosm
of America: its diversity, its history, its spirituality, its love/hate
relationship with change, and its never-ending culture of ambition? This has
been the role of 16th Street, a thoroughfare into the heart of a nation's
capital.
Native Americans traveled this route centuries before it was a street. Farms
prospered in areas now considered the inner city. A U.S. President proposed making
it the meridian line through the city. A Senator’s wife named it the
“Avenue of Presidents.” Every religious denomination – from Baptists
to Buddhists to Ba’haii – have made it an “Avenue of Churches.”
Prosperous African-Americans turned the upper part of the street into the “Gold
Coast.” Immigrant strivers have turned the central part of the street into
Little Addis, Little Salvador, and Little Hanoi. And at least once every four years,
one naturalized striver calls the White House at the south part of the street home.
16th Street has been and continues to be an Avenue of Aspirations.
At the same time, it is an Avenue of Contradictions. While 16th Street has in many
ways become a connecting line between many races, religions, ethnic groups, and
economic classes all trying to prosper, it has also been a dividing line between many of
these same groups. In some respects, it is a place where people live side by side in
their separate worlds. Through Avenue of Aspirations, we will see that Washington DC
is more than just a federal capital. It is a living, breathing city whose history
and legacy can be seen beyond the Mall and the monuments.
We will explore these incongruities in a documentary video
trilogy, Avenue of Aspirations. The focus will be on how different
institutions along the street – parks, houses of worship, cultural centers, apartment
buildings, and neighborhood associations – have responded to and reflected the
changing communities outside their doors. How did the street develop outward from the
inner federal city to become part of the early suburbinization of the city? What was the
impact of desegregated housing and education on the face of the street? Why are
there so many different houses of worship along the street and how have they changed over
the years? How have changing immigration patterns had an effect on these
institutions? What will the future hold, as the neighborhoods on both sides of 16th
Street become ever more gentrified?
Part I will focus on Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park.
Part II will focus on houses of worship along the
street.
Part III will focus on how neighborhoods along the
street (Mount Pleasant, Columbia Heights, Crestwood, and Shepherd Park) have
reflected changes in race relations, immigration patterns, and gentrification.
Through these stories, we will see a side of Washington DC
that few people know – a living, breathing city whose history and legacy can be seen
beyond the Mall, the monuments, and the federal city. A street where the American
Dream carries so many connotations.
