A publication of

TENLEYTOWN
"It’s a store. It’s a parcel of property. It’s
not some kind of magical place. There are no
magical places. There’s just dirt. It’s all
the same dirt." —Michael, If I Forget
In If I Forget, the Fischer family grapples with the future
of a building they own in Tenleytown, a neighborhood in
Washington, D.C. about five miles northwest of downtown.
The town was named for John Tennally, who owned a
tavern in the area in the 1790s. It remained a small, rural
community until the American Civil War, when its status as
the highest point in the District made it a natural choice for
the location of Fort Pennsylvania (later renamed Fort Reno)
and Union soldiers sent to protect the city.
After the Civil War, a neighborhood called Reno City
developed around the site of Fort Reno. Reno City was
a mixed-race, working-class neighborhood. 75% of the
population was black, and 25% was white. In 1890,
a streetcar line connecting the area with downtown
Washington began service, and middle-class white families
began moving to the areas around Tenleytown. In the
1920s, parts of Reno City were condemned and seized by
the government to make way for a new middle school, high
school, park, and water tower.
Midcentury, Tenleytown was part of a commercial and
residential area with a suburban vibe. Washington’s first
Sears and Roebuck department store opened there in
1941. That year, Washington, D.C.’s demographics were
about what they’d always been: roughly 70% white, 30%
black. But that changed in 1954, when public schools
were desegregated. White families moved to the suburbs in
response; by 1960, the city was 53% black. In 1970, 71%
of D.C. residents were black.
After the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., in
1968, riots erupted in Washington, D.C. and several other
cities, a result of years of frustration with systemic racism
that led to discrimination in employment, education, the
criminal justice system, housing, and access to services. The
riots destroyed 900 stores and decimated the city’s black
business districts.
While Tenleytown wasn’t damaged in the riots, the city as
a whole struggled to recover. The total population dropped
15% from 1970 to 1980, and it continued dropping
through 2000. Both white and black residents fled the area.
But by 2000-2001, when If I Forget takes place, money and
young residents are returning to the nation’s capitol, part
of a national shift in residential living patterns. Immigrants
and their children, like the Jimenez family, are also settling
in American cities and contributing to their revitalization.
Between 2000 and 2015, the city gained over 100,000
residents. Today, the population is 43% White, 49% Black,
10% Hispanic or Latino, 4% Asian, 0.6% Native American,
and 2.6% other. Tenleytown has had a spike in property
values: a building in Tenleytown today is worth 60% more
than it was in 2000.•
10 ROUNDABOUT THEATRE COMPANY