McPherson Square: suicide, Homeless, seagulls, and Georgia Browns

About two weeks ago, a Metro bus driver apparently committed suicide by falling on the tracks at the McPherson square station. That station is an orange and blue line station. This incident really made me think about how selfish that type of suicide is: all those innocent people were forced to watch, the Metro was delayed for hours, the train was damaged, and the driver of the train and the passengers now have to live with that suicide for the rest of their lives.

But the incident also got me thinking about McPherson square. Why did the bus driver choose that particular station? Was it an orange or a blue line train?

McPherson Square is right on 15th and K Streets in Northwest DC. It is a small "park." On a sunny day, you'll find loads of seagulls. Why so far from the water you ask? Well, sitting on every single bench you'll see a homeless person. These homeless are primarily African-American men. Homeless people crowd around McPherson Square for a couple of reasons. First, several soup kitchens and other agencies bring food to them in the square daily. Second, like I said earlier, the park is right on K Street. K Street, home to many prominent lawyers, lobbyists, and politicians, is probably the second most famous street in Washington outside Pennsylvania Avenue. Heck, K Street even had a short-lived HBO series named after it! I think the homeless flourish around this area on a steady stream of leftover power lunches, spare change, and bummed cigarettes.

Although most of the people eating at McPherson square do so in Styrofoam containers from food banks, strangely enough, one of the only gourmet Southern soul-food restaurants in the country, Georgia Brown's, is right across 15th street- spitting distance of McPherson square. As some of Washington's most affluent leave their jobs at 6:00 on K Street and head to Georgia Brown's, they cannot help but see close to 50 homeless and countless seagulls in this park on a sunny day.

McPherson square was named after James Birdseye McPherson- a Union-man in the Civil War. As if McPherson's middle name "Birdseye" wasn't prophetic enough for our lovely park in downtown DC- this noble Major General was killed in the Battle of Atlanta, umm, GEORGIA!

I guess this leads me back to the suicide. I later found out it was a blue line train. What's the connection you ask? Union uniforms were in fact blue, but maybe the bus driver, noticed how this city is polarized- just like this country was split in two during the Civil War. McPherson Square, as a microcosm of Washington, is slowly killing itself by sustaining the richest, most powerful people in the world while at the same time, allowing the rest of us to live on the scraps.