about Trinidad?
I'm (on behalf of a contractor working for the city) actively soliciting info (and ASAP because he's got a presentation to make on Friday). He's specifically looking for people that have lived here a long time and can give him a little sense of the place's history. He's trying to put together a flag for the community, and he's run into the problem that Trinidad (not uncommon in some historically working/lower-class communities) is not well documented. Right now he's got an early 80's cite from the Post mentioning something about athletes (in conjunction with the construction on Joe Cole), but not much else (aside from a history of community activism). Let's help the guy, and ourselves, out a bit. Special request here, please email me a little info and phone numbers (no time for dilly-dallying here) for interested individuals. My email address is inked[at]hotmail.com. You can also call 202-631-8254 (leave a voicemail). Just let me know soon. This is part of the DDOT beautification project in the neighborhood.
17 comments:
Who can forget Raphuel Edmunds (sp?), Alonzo Morning, and the Crack Land Gang shoot-outs that dominated Trinidad throughout the 1980's. It was considered by far one of the worst areas of the city.
Yeah, but I'm thinking DDOT probably doesn't to put a syringe or a bullet on the banner.
I suspect the people with the most first hand knowledge of the neighborhood would be those most likely aren't online.
On Florida Avenue, there are some old timers who have lived here for forty years or even longer. I've met some elderly folks who have lived in the neighborhood since they were 7 or 8.
I'm planning to ask a few I know to speak with the guy putting it together. I just thought it couldn't hurt to ask. I'm also interested in not just firsthand knowledge, but if someone has heard/read of anything particularly noteworthy.
wikipedia says that the land once belonged to a person from trinidad, who was going to relocate here but died on the way over.
I'm at work right now so can't go up the street and ask in person, but the Motens and the Blacks have both lived in Trinidad for a long time. They live on the upper part of the 1400 block of Orren on the odd numbers side. Maybe a friendly visit could lead to some stories. I also get a feeling that a number of black WWII vets settled here...I think Mr. Moten is an example.
And for general n'hood history info I have this from the Historical Society. If this can help and the contractor can't make it over there I'll go tomorrow since I want to do it anyway for Trinidad-dc.org.:
Dear Sir,
We have a small newspaper clipping file on the Trinidad neighborhood and also some material on general NE Washington that may be helpful in your research, in addition to the photographs you saw in you search of our catalog.
You would be welcome to come in to the library to view these materials.
The Historical Society of Washington DC's Kiplinger Research Library is open to the public Tues., Wed., Thurs., 10am-5pm.
Ruel J. Eskelsen
Reference Library Assistant
Kiplinger Research Library
Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
801 K Street NW at Mount Vernon Square
Washington, D.C. 20001
(202) 383-1850
The guy working with DDOT has been doing research at the Historical Society. That's true about the guy dying before he could come here. I actually wrote that, and the original info came from this research project. I had always assumed that the neighborhood's name had originted with the Corcoran estate, so I was surprised to learn that the name predated Corcoran's ownership of the land.
Wow, so even their info is kind of thin? I think a great flag then would show a number, five to seven, of African American men and women standing proudly side by side in their work dress. One of my neighbors drives a trash truck for the city, one works I think for the Park Service, one for the Post Office. Honest, hard working people keeping the city moving. And maybe one in military uniform to represent the veterans who settled in Trinidad and those who still are serving. For colors maybe the orange-brown of the clay, the green of the trees.
If it's a neighborhood of hard-working people, why not show that.
i tink again that this makes one more example of wasting money of the people!
trinidad already has a flag!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Flag_of_Trinidad_and_Tobago.svg
I am not sure about the story about the person from Trinidad, maybe it's true. Priscilla McNeil is the leading expert in "land patent" and property ownership in DC, from the period before the area became DC, into it. She, or Matthew Gilmore, would likely be able to figure out if this claim is true.
Note that the second installment of the H Street history linked in the Ward 6 set of links in my blog has a bit of discussion about Trinidad.
I wouldn't say the wikipedia entry is accurate in calling the area a suburb of Bladensburg.
Bladensburg was the leading town in Prince George's County. Most of DC was part of PG before, while the Georgetown part was part of Frederick County (MoCo is calved off from FC).
Once DC was created, Bladensburg wasn't that much of a big deal.
Although people still did the duel thing there. The Port silted up in the 1790s, so the town lost its mercantile and commerce edge that it possessed being a shipping port for tobacco.
It's not quite a flag, so much as a banner that will hang from a pole above the ground. I suspect we won't see a flag that contains only images of people of one race (recall that Trinidad was not always majority black).
That's fine. I don't really know the history of the neighborhood that well. The race of the people's not so important but I think the general concept would be great for a banner as well. If the banner's more slender then maybe fewer people. I also think people standing side by side is suggestive of other good qualities of Trinidad like how neighbors know each other and stick together (at least on my street).
Hopefullly the banner will be graphically simple and clear. This city has some ugly useless banners. Remember the last H street banners with the alphabet soup? Who cares about the golden triangle? A good banner is the capitol hill banner. Nice graphic of the capitol, clear simple text, and good choice of colors.
Trinidad pride
The researcher may have already done some of this but here are some more ideas:
* Check the census records. They'll provide all kinds of demographic information about the folks who lived in the neighborhood. The records up to 1930 are available on-line: www.censusfinder.com/washington_dc.htm. In more recent years you'll only be able to view aggregate data.
* The Historical Society has some interesting pictures of Trinidad from the early part of the 20th century.
* The Historical Society also has a book that has information on DC churches. It provides a snapshot of church histories and parishioners.
* The Washingtoniana Section at the MLK Library is invaluable for this sort of thing. The librarians there are extremely helpful and friendly.
I will mention these. I did (a while back) make a visit to the Washingtonia room, and there isn't much explicitly about Trinidad. It's under documented in comparison to other neighborhoods. Maybe a more thorough look might reveal more.
It's not terribly surprising that there's a dearth of information on Trinidad. What that means is that a determined researcher would have to do a lot of the work himself or herself. (That's easy for me to say!) You might want to consider what type of primary sources are available, such as deeds and other property records, and then begin to build a history around them.
One way to do this would be to pick a house or block to research. Look at the insurance maps of the neighborhood to find out which houses were built first. Then track down the property records on the houses. They should let you know the builder and owner. Take that name and look through the Census records (pre-1920), which will tell you name, age, gender, race, and profession of the residents. (After 1920, to protect the privacy of the living, you can only get demographic information about census tracts, which is still helpful.) Cross reference this with the reverse look up directories, which list houses by address rather than by last name. They list the address and job of each resident. You can actually start to develop a picture of an area because you know demographic information about the people who live there and their profession. You can also identify if there are rental houses or owner occupied housing.
Start asking yourself questions…
Is there a lot of turnover or are the residents really stable?
Do they work close to home? (The Bureau of Engraving and Printing employed a lot of neighborhood folks.)
How might they get to and from work? (Check out the trolley maps.)
Where did the kids go to school? (Sadly, it was all segregated until fairly recently.)
Where did people shop?
Might they have attended a nearby church or temple? If so, which one? Churches were often separated by ethnicity, so there were German churches, Irish churches, and quite a few temples.
Also, consider what you’re finding out about the neighborhood in a larger historic context. Did the neighborhood change during the great migration? During the depression? During wartime?
Doing research like this is really an amazing and wonderful experience. It’s a winding road that shows new views of familiar territory.
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