Alley Life in Washington: Family, Community, Religion, and Folklife in the City, 1850-1970

by James Borchert

Forgotten today, established Black communities once existed in the alleyways of Washington, D.C., even in neighborhoods as familiar as Capitol Hill and Foggy Bottom. James Borchert's study delves into the lives and folkways of the largely alley dwellers and how their communities changed from before the Civil War, to the late 1890s era when almost 20,000 people lived in alley houses, to the effects of reform and gentrification in the mid-twentieth century.

Genres: Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

Reviews

[Ni · Rating 3 out of 5]

While life in the Alley Dwellings was horrific, like all impoverished places, community, in a sense, did in fact exist. Not ideal community, obviously, but community which permitted survival.

The commission which eventually led to the 'Urban Renewal' (aka 'Negro Removal' in the black community) did note problems, which were valid, but did not make effective resources available for the vast majority of those who were in effect swept out of the city like so much garbage. The removal of the alley dwellings caused much suffering which went unheeded, essentially, as the victims, the poor themselves who had no other housing choices in the context of the overcrowding and unemployment partially caused by Segregation, but to live there.

ShiraDestinie
William-James-MEOW Date: 6.8.12,014 H.E.

[Ruth]

this cover looks remarkably like a book i started last year: The Shtetl after World War II. hmm.

[Frank Stein · Rating 1 out of 5]

A dissappointing attempt to attack the Moynihan report. Borchert tries to prove that the alleys were functional social systems instead of impoverished ghettos, even though all his evidence seems to point to the latter interpretation.