About Events with Riverside Healthy Living Center
In 2004 Parks and People purchased the historic Barnett’s Café at Division and Foote Ave NE, across from the Heritage section of Marvin Gaye Park, and renamed it the Riverside Healthy Living Center in honor of its proximity to the Watts Branch tributary of the Anacostia River. Barnett’s Café was once a robust presence in the neighborhood offering good food, a neighborhood gathering place, and music.The historic site of Marvin Gaye’s professional singing debut in the old Crystal Room nightclub, Riverside features a 2,000-square-foot assembly space, a brand new 1500-square-foot commercial kitchen and cafe, a bike repair station, and an indoor seedling nursery. A community-wide public arts project called Art on the Block decorates the walls and curbs surrounding our center with mosaics to honor the history and heroes of this stream valley.
