David Nakamura

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher @JDLand @JoelAchenbach It took years for them to reopen a few miles away but now Roubin said he believes the city did the right thing in redeveloping the area. He, his father and his brother will be at the game tonight in right field, sitting basically where the plant once stood. 21/ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher @JDLand @JoelAchenbach Roubin was 24, just out of college and working at the plant in 2004 when baseball game calling. A year earlier, the family had rebuilt the plant with new hardware after Senate Asphalt, which was leasing, left and DC gov, down to single provider, pleaded with them to restart. 20/ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher @JDLand @JoelAchenbach The lede of my story today featured Joey Roubin, the third generation in his family to have worked at the old site in the family asphalt plant. He recalled being taken there as a kid in the 1980s and seeing the drug dealers and prostitutes in the area. 19/ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher @JDLand My colleague @JoelAchenbach spoke to Alton back in 2004 for a terrific Style piece on the neighborhood. Alton dreamed that his garden could survive the new ballpark. (It didn't.) https://t.co/ky4jUWMA4I https://t.co/nhvckKSX15 — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher When I spoke with Reid last week, he remembered Alton Majette, a neighborhood resident who tended to a community garden -- "the garden of love." My colleague @JDLand took this picture of the garden from that era. Her website https://t.co/GD4E698tZv is an invaluable resource. 17/ https://t.co/jgKjNp5Bfe — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher As a tenant, Reid was eligible for relocation assistance. He moved to Congress Heights and was hired by Clark Construction as a subcontractor during the stadium construction. Here's a picture he took of the composite metal deck he helped put down in Nationals Park. 16/ https://t.co/J6yJH1Z3vt — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher Calvin Reid rented office space on Half Street, across from Ghiglino's studio. He was a longtime D.C. resident and owner of Atlas Manufacturing, a steel fabrication company. Here's his granddaughter outside the shop. He built a fence around it to prevent breakins. https://t.co/TQj4ildp6B — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher The couple tried to relocate to Anne Arundel County, Md., but Patricia said it was a "nightmare" and they gave up. Two year ago, they moved to Valencia, Spain. They are renovating a 1870-era apartment building. A Web site is all that's left of the studio https://t.co/QDvCHVTaJQ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher Patricia remembers the city not responding to her calls to remove trash in vacant lots. They commuted from near Annapolis with four dogs in tow. On the day in Feb. 2006 the movers came, Patricia stood outside reading aloud from Machiavelli's "The Prince." 13/ https://t.co/qJKjmqTZEu — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher Patricia immigrated from Peru and Lopez from Spain, where he was a master stoneworker. Their projects from the Anacostia River warehouse site included renovating the lobby of the Washington Monument, the lions on the Taft Bridge and visitors' entrance at Smithsonian Castle. — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher Patricia Ghiglino, and her husband Reinaldo Lopez, were probably the ones who were most adamant they did not want to be uprooted. They rented/then bought a warehouse for a stonework restoration and sculpture studio around 1990, painting it yellow to cheer up the industrial area. https://t.co/AdxFwjlyKy — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher The District offered Wyban $1.2 million. He presented an independent appraisal for $2.2 million. They settled for $1.5 million. The house was torn down. Ken, who lives near Cleveland, still saves two bricks and told me he is sending one to the Richards' family. https://t.co/41Jr7XB8yR — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher Richards was born in 1822 and died in 1894. Here are photos of his shop in Washington and his sisters. His descendants told Ken the sisters might be sitting on the stoop of the house he now owned. 9/ https://t.co/DAqChpzBoj — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher When news broke of the city's plan to seize the land from 23 property owners, Ken got a call. It was from a man in Maryland who explained that his grandfather, Alfred Richards, had been a master bricklayer in Washington who built neighborhoods and had lived in that house. 8/ https://t.co/tPwcUx70CU — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher Ken Wyban was an Army officer at Fort McNair who spotted a pre-Civil War-era brick home while jogging one day. He bought it with the goal of retiring and transforming it into a bed-and-breakfast. Here's Ken in front of the house from 2005. https://t.co/IWNG8VasS4 — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher I had met many of the people who worked or lived in the ballpark footprint during that period. City officials mostly assumed they just wanted to cash out; but some really did not seem like they wanted to leave. Let's meet some of them I featured in today's story. 6/ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher BTW, the ballpark ended up costing closer to $700 million -- not the $440 in that poster in previous tweet -- in public money, some paid by taxes on ballpark concessions. Some of the cost overruns had to do with the city underestimating the costs of acquiring the land. — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@mffisher I had covered the stadium public financing debate, which had cleaved the city along lines of race and class, just as economic development was sweeping the District. Adrian Fenty opposed the project and beat the Council chair, who backed it, in 2006 mayoral race. 4/ https://t.co/XWeLtTmtfJ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

In a way, this was a coda to this fine deep dive by my colleague @mffisher last year before the All-Star Game on the tremendous success of the DC's redevelopment of near Southeast. It traces all the ways the ballpark surpassed expectations. 3/ https://t.co/kMVOQpPs3k — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

I saw some asking why the Post would publish a downbeat story on the day of the World Series. That wasn't the story. It was an effort to show there was, despite what some might say, a kind of neighborhood, with real humanity, before the Nats arrived. 2/ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@IanKullgren ha i covered the 2004 lead paint scandal in DC so that works too! — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

#thread I wanted to add some additional context to this story we published today that aimed to trace the origin story of Nationals Park by focusing on the people who worked and lived in the 21 acres that became the stadium footprint. 1/ — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

RT @DavidNakamura: NEW: I tracked down the ragtag band of property owners in Southeast Washington evicted by D.C. through eminent domain in… — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@sharongang @TonyWilliamsDC #hoarder — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@sharongang Hey I still have the plastic water bottle (unopened) from @TonyWilliamsDC ‘02 write-in campaign — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@HelenKennedy Ha I didn’t get it til now hilarious — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@alcacountry https://t.co/UT9kwRB7EL — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@HelenKennedy My wife didn’t like them so I brought them to work; I’m not a big KitKat fan in general — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

Latergram: coffee break this afternoon on WaPo’s roof deck with views for days. (Mug from my old beat on City Hall; peach mint KitKat from Tokyo.) https://t.co/SN2RLDCDCY — PolitiTweet.org

David Nakamura @DavidNakamura

@EmGusk OMG I know. Miss it sometimes.. okay, a LOT! — PolitiTweet.org