It's STEAK, River East! Run for your lives! (Photo from Wikipedia)
It bothers me that the opening of something so ordinary and Middle American as a simple steakhouse in River East could generate so much resentment and gentrification paranoia among our neighbors, considering that River East has been deprived of this kind of mid-upscale retail for so long.
We are already hearing, "That ain't for us!", "What THEY think they doing putting that here?" and "**** that white ****! I'm going to Clinton!" It's in line at the bank. It's on the subway. It's everywhere.
Before *RAY's THE STEAKS opened in the colorfully chaotic and rapidly developing Benning Road-Minnesota Avenue area of East River Park, we were grumbling about not having the kind of sit-down restaurants in River East that other parts of D.C. enjoy. When DENNY's opened, just up the street, we were all atwitter with how refreshing it would be to take our familes to a nice resteaurant, after church ..or grab the occasional late meal, near home. Now, we hear grumbling about what an imposition on our Southeast status quo this new steakhouse is, ..and how the folks at RAY's better act like 'they know where they are'.
What are we, Thunderdome here? Should the bad steak-people serve us with a net and a trident? What is this weird surge of paranoia we keep hearing over a steakhouse, ..and isn't it getting a little old?
Well, some people aren't paying it any mind at all.
My seventy-year old mother, who has lived in River East for over forty years, and (her brother) my seventy-plus year old uncle, a first-time homeowner here, ate lunch at RAY's, yesterday, ..and they LOVED it. They grew up between D.C.'s Marshall Heights, off East Capitol Street, and Newport News, Virginia, and they remember segregated picture shows, steakhouses and 'Whites Only' signs, very well. Enduring indignities that make gentrification look like a Sunday church picnic, and all right here in Washington, D.C., I assure you they knew well 'where' they were, dining at Ray's.
They know because they remember what it took to get them there.
Despite all the tribalist paranoia, Mama and Uncle Stanley are ready for RAY's and ready for those big, black angus steaks hanging off the plate, whether it came here for them or not. They've paid for those steaks and the right to sit down and eat them in their own neighborhood, many times over. If they are ready, after surviving all they have survived, we will never be more ready for the changes coming to River East, than we are, right now.
For crying out loud...can you imagine the paranoia you will see, when other new retailers want to (and they are coming) give Bennisota a try? If we can't handle a simple steakhouse in Southeast what are we going to do, when a CARIBOU COFFEE opens next to the Minnesota Avenue Metrorail Station? Or a TARGET? Or--saints preserve us--BARNES & NOBLE? What about AU BON PAIN or--man the lifeboats--LORD & TAYLOR?
You're going to hear one collective "Oh, hell no!" from Benning Road all the way to Westover Drive, mami. Count on that.
This isn't attack dogs and 'Whites Only' signs and crosses burning on your front lawn. It's JUST a steakhouse, my friends. I wouldn't go so far as to call it a bold experiment in anything, because I believe we have been ready for this for a very long time. I believe, whether it's an outgrowth of coming gentrification or not (and maybe it is), we must accept it and believe we are ready for whatever follows it, ..simply because we are still here. Ready or not, River East, we have a steakhouse.
And we all eat...don't we?
Mel Dyer
*RAY's is located at 3905 Dix Street NE, Washington, D.C. (20019).
Comments
Post a Comment