"How would you feel if one day you were drinking coffee in your house, and then you hear on TV that they are going to take your property away and give you what they think it is worth?" asks Patricia Ghiglino.
Ghiglino and her husband, Reinaldo Lopez, are several property owners in Southeast D.C. - in an unnamed neighborhood near the Anacostia riverfront - whose land is the stadium site for Washington's forthcoming baseball team, the Nationals.
She has received no correspondence from the city throughout her ordeal. Not a letter, not a phone call, not a peep. Fighting the ballpark - in addition to her full plate of running the Washington Sculpture Center and teaching classes - has taken a toll on her health. She doesn't sleep at night. She's developed a cough. She's stressed.
Buying the old ice cream factory on 1338 Half St. seemed like a good idea at the time. It was 1990 and Ghiglino and Lopez's old business, Professional Restoration, needed a place close to the monuments. They required a space where they could bring in large pieces and house equipment and materials. Eventually, the business that was founded with $1,000 would blossom into a $3 million company that would restore the interior of the Washington Monument and the Smithsonian Gallery.
But restoring monuments wasn't their dream. Their dream was to teach sculpture. And sculpture, specifically what Ghiglino refers to as "old-school sculpture techniques," is a dying craft. Master carver Vincent Palumbo, who designed the Washington National Cathedral, is dead. Constantine Seferlis, who worked on the U.S. Capitol, has Parkinson's disease. As a result, young sculptors are improvising their carving techniques. Lopez, who designed the 16-ton lions that sit at William Howard Taft Bridge, is one of the last master carvers.
Lopez and Ghiglino wanted to maintain history with old techniques. Half Street was the perfect place. It was close to the Metro and the industrial area wouldn't be disrupted by the noise from the various machines, presses and kilns.
So in 2003, the two officially founded the Washington Sculpture Center. The nonprofit organization focuses on sculpture and carving, but classes on blacksmithing, bronzing, modeling, molding, mosaics and stained glass are also available.
To make the sculpture center fully functional, the couple invested their life savings in the building. It took $250,000 to turn the decrepit warehouse into a studio with operational electricity and plumbing systems. The $100,000 electrical upgrade was completed just two weeks before Mayor Anthony A. Williams announced the baseball deal.
Lopez and Ghiglino can expect to walk away with $600,000 from the city for their land. The price, formulated from real estate taxes, will not factor in the upgrades, cost of moving heavy and expensive equipment, or years of hard work. Nor will it factor in the buying offers they've been hounded with over the years, some upward of $2.5 million.
"Eminent domain can be applied for roads, bridges, schools or fire stations," said Ghiglino, who is originally from Peru. "They have been abusing the [eminent domain] law. I just can't believe it. [It] sounds like something from a third-world country."
A neighborhood consisting of a ballpark was not what they had planned. Lopez and Ghiglino had been meeting with the Anacostia Redevelopment Initiative to bring art to the riverwalks and parks that are in the works. They imagined a rotating art space, where they could show the work of their prot?g?s. In those four years of meeting, never once was a ballpark mentioned. They wanted to create an official arts district in Southeast, but their proposals to the mayor have been ignored.
Across the street is Volvo, a massive auto shop. Farther down Half Street are five residences. Vanessa Ruffin-Colbert lives in the home she was born in.
"People work hard here and just focus on survival," Ruffin-Colbert said. "They're not interested in fighting [the ballpark], and they're not interested in money and acquisitions. It's not unusual for neighbors to look into someone else's trash, pull out a chair, and take it into their home."
The residents of Half Street band together. Each morning finds residents out raking leaves, picking up trash or tending to a faulty sewage system. The roads are unpaved, and there are no sidewalks.
However, they won't be around to enjoy the new sewage system after the years of frustration from flooding drains. By the time the new system is installed, the business owners and residents of Half Street will be displaced by the stadium.
Curtis Dalpra, communications manager for the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basic, explains that Anacostia uses a combined sewage system, meaning sanitary water and storm water travel through the same pipes.
"The major impact [of the ballpark] would be in eliminating storm water run-off," Dalpra said.
The residents of Southeast D.C. are representative of a work ethic that is absent from areas littered with shopping malls and Starbucks: They are working to survive.
"When I was a kid," Ruffin-Colbert explained, "we made leftovers into delicacies. The parts of the hog that were normally thrown away, we kept. If that's what you've got to work with..."
Her neighbors, Lopez and Ghiglino were figuratively turning their leftovers into delicacies, transforming a dilapidated warehouse into a studio capable of creating timeless, grandiose statues.
Ruffin-Colbert said this city's mistreatment of the south side is nothing new. Just look at the Southwest, she said.
"All the high-rises in the Southwest used to be berry farms," she said. "People who grew up in the Southwest talk about their farm homes. There's not a shred of evidence to what existed before."
Chris Bender, a spokesman for Williams, said he is confident that the ballpark is the best thing for the people of Southeast D.C.
"Market rate housing allows for affordable housing," he said, referring to the inevitable hi-rises and lofts that are soon to follow. "A $300,000 condo pays for a $150,000 house. When an area gets nicer, people are more likely to move there. The property taxes are circular, and funnel back into the economy." Bender said examples of this funnel are the 4,500 units of affordable housing in Wards 7 and 8, and the 17,000 units just east of Anacostia.
But Ruffin-Colbert is unconvinced by the city's logic.
"This was one of the last areas available for artisans to carry out their craft," she said. "Once this disappears, I can't think of another place with that viability. They've consumed every space"
