Surviving Trials of Time and Fire
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The Prosky Perspective

"The award?" said Robert Prosky, momentarily perplexed. "Don't forget you're talking to an actor . . . Tonys, Academy Awards -- the Eastern Market award?" Then the cloud lifts. "I think it's great. It's a great neighborhood," said the longtime resident.

"Washington has become second only to New York as a theater town," he said. "Many actors live on the Hill now, if they can afford the houses. $19,000 was all right, but the millions? "Prosky and his wife, Ida, paid $19,000 for their first house in 1961. "It was just 13 feet wide, and it was right next to the 5th Precinct," he said with a chuckle. "Which was good in those days. We had the safest house on the Hill."

It was also close enough to walk to work, should the car break down. In those days, he was at Arena Stage, where he worked for more than 20 years. "We had just had our first child and the theater had just gotten a grant, so we could afford to buy," he said.

He could now afford to buy most anywhere, with a career that has included a stint as Sgt. Stan Jablonski on "Hill Street Blues," movies and theater, both locally and on Broadway. But here he stays.

Living on the Hill "helps me as an actor," he said. "What we do is try to re-create another human being out of our human experience. And if our experience is what goes on in Los Angeles, it's pretty flawed clay," he said.

The Proskys, who live on Ninth Street SE, two blocks from Eastern Market, raised three sons here. Andy and John, both actors, now live in New York and Los Angeles. Stefan, a professor at the Art Institute of Washington and his artist wife, Tati Kaupp (literally the girl next door), remain on the Hill.

The boys went to Capitol Hill Day School, which the Proskys helped found. Like so many other families that arrived years ago, sweat equity infused both their home and their lives.

"Those who've been here a long time were pioneers," he said. "We lived through the riots and ups and downs in the real estate market, and we've stayed. Now it's paradise, an inner-city paradise."

More Affluent, Diverse

Adele Alexander was headed for the market the morning the award was announced. "There was such a buzz. Everyone was so excited; the mayor was here this morning!" she said.

"Those folks who said it was one of the best neighborhoods in the country, they're right," she said. "It is."

Eastern Market, she said, "is a kind of spiritual core to the community. Virtually everyone you know goes to the market on the weekend. It's like an old French town."

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