bloomingdale (for now)

the end (for now)

2009-11-05T22:40:00.001-05:00

i'm going to rip off the sign-off post from one of my favorite blogs, stop, blog, and roll. jaime, the founder and creative force behind the blog, was one of my primary motivators when it came time to start this neighborhood blog. when i moved here, she helped me set up bloomingdale (for now), and for that i'm forever grateful.

anyway, the short story is that i've moved out of bloomingdale. the third post on this blog explained that i called the blog bloomingdale (for now) because i believed my move to the neighborhood could be temporary. i said from the get-go that i would move if i couldn't find a house to buy in bloomingdale.

well, i looked, but there was nothing in my price range in the neighborhood. working for a non-profit doesn't allow one to afford the prices in this part of the city if you want a rowhouse (not condo). so, i looked far-and-wide for a place that fell into my price range. in the end, i bought a house in trinidad.

i've been in trinidad for two months now. i love it. this house is amazing, the neighbors are friendly (as friendly as bloomingdale, i dare say!), and i'm still a short bike ride downtown to work. it's been interesting learning the minute details of a whole new part of town.

the short of it is this: i lived in and loved bloomingdale for 3 years. i started this blog as my small way of serving the community. now that i no longer live in the neighborhood, it's time to hang things up here.

my heartfelt thanks go to everyone who supported this endeavor in one way or another - readers, commenters, lurkers, linkers, etc., and particularly sean and scott who have ran the bloomingdale blog in the time i've been here.

i'm going to leave everything up for posterity, and work on establishing something new in trinidad soon. i'll update this post when i have a new digital home ready to go.

thank you all. remember to be kind to each other, appreciate each day, and continue to work in any way you can to strengthen the community.

UPDATE: meeting tonight to discuss possible destruction of boxer girl mural

2009-10-19T10:11:00.004-04:00

UPDATE: here's the word from someone who attended last night's meeeting:

Nothing accomplished. Pretty poorly run meeting and it didn't ask for community input. DCCAH said they've changed their policy but there's no mechanism to reverse what's done. Someone had actually asked police to see if it caused an increase in crime. They said there has been a 55% decrease.

ORIGINAL POST:
(i received this information in an email from sean over the weekend)

tonight's bloomingdale civic association meeting will include discussion about the boxer girl mural. there seems to be a lot of pressure on the city to destroy the mural and the mayor's office is considering it.

if you are in support of this mural, or at least in support of the artist and property owner, please come to the meeting. in general it seems that dccah has taken a lot of heat this year, especially with public art. i imagine this is a pretty important discussion.

more info and images in these links:

bloomingdale (for now)
adventures of hoogrrl!
washington city paper: housing complex

you do not need to be a member of the civic association or a neighbor to attend.

monday night.
7:00 pm
160 u street nw
st. george's episcopal church

i'm very clearly in support of art that challenges, art that makes you think, and art that helps give us a sense of unique place. the conservative, almost reactionary, response from some quarters to this art installation worries me. i feel successful destruction of this art will lead to further attempts to quash creative growth in the city.

an open letter to Pat Mitchell of north capital main street

2009-10-13T16:30:00.000-04:00

editor's note: i've been meaning to post this for months, literally, but life intervened and kept me from doing so. my apologies to be dredging up something so old, but i still feel it's necessary to set the record straight...

on tuesday, july 21st, i posted a quick blurb about the planters in front of the dc mini market. in that post, i made an observation about the state of some of the planters in the sidewalk space there on first street, and i made a brief, not-well-elaborated recommendation for how i thought the space could be more welcoming for all the people who use it on a daily basis.

the blog post was picked up and mentioned in scott roberts' daily bloomingdale email, where it was noted that i had "squawk[ed]" about the planter. scott received the following feedback from neighborhood resident Rene Albacete:

To the person that complained about the planters in front of the mini-mart. Instead of complaining about it why don't you role up your sleeves and take it on as a community project and maintain the planters yourself? It's a small enough task for one person to handle or coordinate. I've personally taken on many such projects.

then, a couple days later, north capitol main street board president pat mitchell posted the following longer reply to scott's email listserv:

In answer to the Bloomingdale Squawker’s comments:

North Capitol Main Street, is working to revitalize the commercial corridors within the neighborhoods that surround its district. Currently, our Storefront Improvement Pilot Program requirements specify that the funding goes to actual façade improvement projects – glass, paint, security grates, signage and lighting. We have been working to convince and assist the business owners to take advantage of this free program. Many of the businesses have not been able to comply so far with the requirements of providing a “Clean Hands” and “Certificate of Good Standing” from the DCRA – a reasonable requirement if you’re going to receive grant funds, right? However, we have been successful, thus far, in signing up five businesses to receive the improvement grant. Our intent it so show significant physical improvements during this trial period with the goal of applying for larger, more substantial Storefront Improvement grants in the future.

TMI, you say? Well, maybe . . . but we take the Bloomingdale Squawker’s squawking as an opportunity to inform and invite you to, as long-time resident and community activist Rene Albacete so succinctly put it, “roll up your sleeves and get involved”. NCMS is a volunteer-driven organization that can only work for the good of the community if people are involved. Many small businesses need a lot of support and services in order to have them meet the expectations and better serve emerging neighborhoods like Bloomingdale, Eckington and Truxton Circle/Bates.

But here’s the good news: We have applied for and received a Clean Team Grant, specific funding to address clean, safe and beautification issues. Beginning next month you will begin to see Clean and Safe Ambassadors within your neighborhoods doing the work that is so difficult to get volunteers to commit to doing on a consistent basis, like picking up trash, sweeping the sidewalks, maintaining tree-boxes, watering plants, etc. We don’t know how long this program will be funded – we have a budget and funding for one year – but we certainly are going to take full advantage of it and encourage your support for the continuance of the program. The Clean team grant ensures that the business corridor remains clean and walk-able, and that all beautification projects such as tree boxes, flower pots and planters are maintained on a weekly basis. The service provider we have chosen for the Clean Team Program is Ready, Willing and Working, headed by Patty Brosmer of the Capitol Hill BID, a fantastic organization.

And to the Bloomingdale Squawker’s point of broken planters in front of the Mini Mart, as an example of good faith and how eager, Ready & Willing to Work the new Clean Team is, they have already removed the broken planters and mulched and pruned 5 yucca plants on the 1st Street NW corridor. (This is without pay – we’re waiting on the funds from DCRA to get them fully on board.)

We invite you to take a look and, more importantly, come out and support the businesses and your community this weekend for the First on 1st Art + Music Walk – Noon to 4:00 p.m.

For more details on the NCMS efforts, please contact Garry Clark @ 202-905-6039 or glark @ ncmsinc.org .

since my post was replied to in a public forum, i believe that another public forum, (like this blog) would be an appropriate place to reply to her comments.

first of all, allow me to address the name i've been given by Ms. Mitchell, i.e. "the Bloomingdale Squawker." i have posted to this blog, and other online media, using my screen name, "imgoph" (pronounced eye-em-gof, rhymes with "loaf") for years. my real name isn't something that i've used while writing this blog, and i believe that my selection of a nom de plume shouldn't be taken as an opportunity to call me names. it's a time-honored tradition in the united states, dating back to the writers of the federalist papers, for some writers to use a pen-name when publishing information or opinions that they would prefer are not easy to connect to one person. her repeated reference to me as "the Bloomingdale Squwaker" was clearly meant to be derogatory, and did the opposite of what she claimed to be trying to do, which is get members of the community excited to help her group make the north capitol street corridor the best it can be. shame on her for the unnecessary name calling.

now, to get to the heart of the matter, i believe that Rene Albacete and Pat Mitchell grossly misinterpreted the meaning and nature of my initial post on this topic, reading into it conclusions that i did not intend to be there. that is their right, but i intend to set the record straight now.

the point of my post was that the area on 1st street in front of the liquor store could be a vibrant "downtown" for the bloomingdale neighborhood, as i had taken to nicknaming the area. instead, one is often confronted with the local drunks who spend the day in this space panhandling, urinating on the sidewalk and on nearby homes, and harassing passers-by. these gentlemen are not hardened criminals, to the best of my knowledge, but they certainly lend an air of "don't bother investing here, the locals use it as an outdoor toilet" to the strip.

i lived on the corner of 1st and seaton for 3 years, and nearly every day i walked up and down that short stretch of "downtown bloomingdale," picking up garbage and other detritus that had accumulated in the gutters and on the adjacent sidewalks. i didn't ask for recognition—i was simply doing what i thought a good neighbor should do, and what i was capable of doing with my limited time and influence. since i have been able to use this blog as a platform to inform people about neighborhood goings-on, i thought it would be a good opportunity to start a conversation about how we can make that stretch better for the people who spend much of their time there. maybe if they saw that the area was being made better in a way that would both help them (by giving them a place to sit other than on the treeboxes) and everyone else (by helping businesses see that our neighborhood is worth investing in), it could be a win-win situation. i guess my comment didn't come across that way to Ms. Mitchell. for that, i apologize to her and also to my readership, because nothing demonstrates the failure of a writer more than the failure to communicate.

(with all that off my chest, i'll have more news about the direction of this blog very soon...)

george will appreciation society?

2009-10-08T18:58:00.003-04:00

check this out—it would appear that kathleen parker, a not-that-great (read: she never really says anything of particular value) opinion writer for the wapo's opinion page, pays homage to george will's verbal tic of using the word "well" as a stand-alone sentence.

Well, as George Will would say.

here's the link the to second page of the article, where the above quote is located.

'chuck brown way' not where everyone says it's going to be

2009-08-20T23:45:00.004-04:00

if you go to chuck brown's website, or read this article at the washington examiner's website, you can see that they all say the unveiling of the 'chuck brown way' sign will take place on saturday (his birthday) at 7th and t nw, but this picture clearly shows the sign is ready to go at the corner of 7th and s nw (apologies for the clarity, this is the best we could do with jaime's phone).

sure, it's just a block down the street, but that has to matter given the official resolution passed by the council, right?

UPDATE: blogroll updates

2009-08-16T12:58:00.005-04:00

UPDATE: after looking at things more closely, i realized there were many sites i left out of this update, so i'm including them here. in addition, i removed a few more sites after determining that they really haven't been active for quite a while. if they come back to life, i'll gladly add them back on the blogroll. i also alphabetized everything, with neighborhood blogs first, then other blogs alphabetized at the bottom.

added:

BeyondDC—not a neighborhood blog, but it covers a lot of topics that affect DC neighborhoods, so i've added this blog that i've long been following to the blogroll.
DC Address Coordinates—this blog, run by the DC GIS department, offers a fascinating look at how our building addresses are analyzed here in the city.
The Georgetown Metropolitan—this is an absolutely fantastic blog that gives daily news updates from georgetown, as well as interesting things like a series on architecture, discussion of neighborhood landmarks, and great photography.
Housing Complex—again, this is not specifically a neighborhood blog, but development in all of DC's neighborhoods gets very good coverage here.
Preserving DC Stables—a blog that advocates for the preservation of alley dwellings and businesses, which are (sadly) less common than they used to be in DC.
The WashCycle—the go-to blog for news about cycling in the DC area.

removed:

Columbia Heights News—this website hasn't been updated since last october.
Developments in SW DC—there were three blogs that i found almost simultaneously last year that covered DC's smallest quadrant. two of them seem to be thriving, but this one stopped updating in march. maybe 3 blogs was too much for southwest.
Eckington DC Living—another area that used to have three blogs, eckington, seems to have seen another one peter out. no posts since april.
Fifth and Oh—one of the many shaw blogs, fifth and oh hasn't posted since january (when it seemed a lot of shaw bloggers got very frustrated after the ANC elections led to continued gridlock on the commission.
The Goodspeed Update—i'm still following rob's blog personally, but he's moved to boston and doesn't really post about DC neighborhood issues directly anymore.
just.in.dc—i heart shaw—another shaw blog that became a home for twitter updates for a time, then stopped updating.
Treebox Vodka—still the greatest blog name of all time, treebox vodka hasn't updated since last september, and hasn't scheduled a cleanup since then.

ORIGINAL POST: i realized my blogroll was well past overdue for an update. there were a few blogs that have reached their end, and some new ones (some of them aren't really "new," but they're new to my RSS reader, so i wanted to make sure everyone was aware that there are more people out there talking about their DC neighborhoods).

removed:

ANC2C02 Forum—anc commissioner kevin chapple's site was taken offline after a complaint was filed that he was making a profit off of the site. it's too bad, it was an excellent resource. the negative energy side of shaw won this battle.
Off Seventh—after briefly coming back to life, it looks like brian has cashiered the blog for real.
Bloomingdale—this was one of my inspirations when i moved into the neighborhood. i wanted to be able to add to what sean was doing, without overlapping too much. i think we achieved that during the last few years. very sad to see his blog come to an end.

added:

Barry Farm (re)mixed—a blog covering the barry farm area, located between historic anacostia and st. e's west campus.
Bates Area Civic Association—covers news from the eastern part of shaw (truxton circle, bates, hanover).
Brookland Avenue—news and observations from brookland here in ward 5.
Convention Center Community Association Blog—news from the new and very active community association that covers the part of shaw near the convention center.
C Street NE Project—a narrowly-focused blog, discussing the efforts to make the stretch of c street near RFK into a neighborhood street instead of a pseudo-freeway.
Deanwood Denizen—only one post, so i don't know if this blog is really going to happen or not, but a voice from the far northeast part of river east would be very welcome in the neighborhood blogosphere.
in bloom—a new voice in bloomingdale. we lost sean, but we picked up elle! a very nice, clean design, i might add.
North Capitol Main Street—covering the commercial districts here in bloomingdale, eckington, and truxton circle.
Park View, D.C.—this blog covers one of the small neighborhoods that frequently gets swallowed up by columbia heights or petworth when people are talking about the areas along the green line north of the old city.
Rhode Island Avenue NE Insider—a blog that focuses on this long-neglected commercial corridor, from the rhode island avenue metro station to the district/maryland line.
Rosedale Citizens' Alliance—this blog covers the neighborhood south of benning road and east of capitol hill.
The Penn Brangler—the first blog covering the penn branch neighborhod of river east.
Ward 3 DC—this blog has a lot of territory to cover. it's kind of surprising that ward 3, with all it's civic activity, doesn't have more neighborhood blogs.

harry thomas will be at 1st and rhode island on tuesday

2009-08-16T07:53:00.003-04:00

photo by darrow montgomery

harry thomas is holding informal constituent meetings this summer, and will be here to talk to folks from bloomingdale this tuesday.

the program, called “councilmember on your corner” will take place from 5 pm to 7 pm at the corner of 1st and rhode island, nw.

five of these events are scheduled, and this is the only one in our part of the ward (others were/are in queens chapel, brookland, lamond riggs, and carver langston).

a quote from his office:

“While I have an open door policy and meet with all residents who come to my office, not everyone has the flexibility or time to make the trek downtown,” says Councilmember Thomas. “Councilmember on Your Corner provides residents with an opportunity to share their thoughts and concerns with me without having to leave their neighborhoods. Plus, I enjoy being out in the Ward,” notes Thomas.

crispus attucks park clean-up day—saturday 8/22/2009

2009-08-16T07:07:00.003-04:00

photo by scenic artisan

see this message from molly scott of the crispus attucks development corporation:

Happy Summer Bloomingdale!

Have you been to Crispus Attucks Park lately? Come see us grow! Neighbors have been working steadily throughout the Summer to keep it looking beautiful and we've had a lot of neighbors using the park- we even had a wedding there a few months ago!

Please help us keep it looking great- the Crispus Attucks Development Corporation is having an End-of-Summer Clean-up day on Saturday August 22nd from about 9 am till 2 pm. We don't want to keep people out in the Super-hot Summer sun, so come out early and maybe we can be done faster :)

We have a few projects to work on and maybe more to come:

- weeding
- mulching
- edging
- maybe re-laying some large flagstones in the Memory Garden

All are welcome, we'll have some snacks and drinks- come out and lend a hand!

Thanks!

-CADC

boycott neighborhood stores?

2009-08-15T08:26:00.003-04:00

this note was included on thursday's bloomingdale listserv message:

From Bloomingdale resident Joe Levesque:

The little corner grocery stores are the worst offenders. Both the Flagler Market on W ST NW and the blue Mini Market (former A&L) on 2107 First ST NW are two offenders. I spoke to the staff of both stores two weeks ago, and asked them to water the new trees. They agree to. Now all the trees in front of their stores are dead. I even watered them myself, carrying 10 gallons of water 300 feet. When I returned from vacation after 10 days, I noticed that the 3 trees had died from lack of water. These trees would still be alive if the store owners had spent just 3 minutes each week watering them.

We should not support any stores that don't support our community. They are doing us a disservice. We should boycott them.

NOTE: Windows Cafe and Big Bear Cafe have both done great jobs improving the appearance of the neighborhood. They deserve our support!!

We should all report to Scott what other street trees in public spaces have died.

i figured a few photos would be appropriate here to illustrate what mr. levesque is talking about:

here's the micro-market at 2107 1st street nw. (it's kind of funny how timor is painted a bright color, too, but it doesn't seem to be as jarring as this place. maybe it's because of the windows.) the tree in front has clearly died.

to be fair, the house two doors down at 2011 has a dead tree in front of their house as well, so it's not just the businesses in the neighborhood that are neglecting to water their trees.

here's the flagler market at the corner of flagler street and w street nw. the dead tree that mr. levesque referenced is at the left side of the photo (on w street).

here's a closer photograph of that oak tree. note that it had one of the mayor's green team's ooze tubes there for watering, though it clearly wasn't being utilized.

again, to balance things a little (but by no means to let these people off the hook) here's a dead tree in front of the 9:30 club on v street.

so, would you boycott a store because they're not watering the trees in the public space in front of their store?

it seems like many neighborhood residents who might consider such a boycott would do so because of the cumulative effect of many other things that these stores do. perhaps the lack of care for the trees could be the thing that pushes you over the edge and makes you consider such a boycott.

what do you think? the comment section awaits...

empty parking space? nah, i'll just park in the bike lane

2009-08-13T08:14:00.002-04:00

another day, another blocked bike lane. and this time, it's just ridiculous to the point of being nearly sublime.

there is a spot reserved for government vehicles in front of the mary mcleod bethune council house on vermont avenue south of logan circle. but this government worker decided that the posh space was just too good for him/her.

they decided to park in the bike lane instead, keeping any other government worker from being able to reach parking nirvana (and forcing cyclists to move out into traffic that frequently is exceeding the speed limit during the morning rush).

kudos to this worker bee for going above and beyond the call of duty.

bike lane, or parking lane?

2009-08-12T00:25:00.002-04:00

just an observation from tuesday morning—is there a bike lane on vermont avenue just south of logan circle? i'm not sure. i can never tell because there are ALWAYS cars double parked there...ALWAYS!!!

'dirt drawing' from yesterday's '1st on first' art walk

2009-08-02T11:29:00.003-04:00

these are probably being washed away by the rain this morning...

photos from today's 1st on first event

2009-08-01T15:05:00.003-04:00

pulling the weeds and cleaning up the sidewalk on first street and mulching the treeboxes was the order of the day to start the morning.

setting up the stage behind windows for the music.

hanging out alongside windows once the stage was set up.

lawn art at 1st and randolph (it says 'the brain').

more lawn art at 1st and s streets.

art in the window at yoga district.

more information about 'first on 1st'

2009-07-28T19:58:00.002-04:00

last wednesday, i told you about the art walk coming to first street on august 1st. here's some more information for those who have been asking:

Join North Capitol Main Street &

The Pink Line Project

NCMS partners with The Pink Line Project to bring you First on 1st Street in Bloomingdale, Art + Music Walk . . . featuring contemporary and cutting-edge yard sculpture (for puchase) from local artisans and International Music provided by Pep Rally for Peace.

Featured Activities

* Guided walking art tours
* International Music
* Art Hunt (participate in the Art Hunt and receive free beverages/discounts to local NCMS Bloomingdale businesses)
* Check out local businesses along the tour for free samples -- food, drinks.

First on 1st Art + Music Walk

Bring your blankets, lawn chairs, freezbies (do that still do that?) . . . camp out in the park, enjoy the music, take the tour, stop and shop . . .

ARTISTS
LisaMarie Thalhammer (the muralist behind Boxer Girl)
BK Adams
Margaret Boozer
Peter Wood
Chris Tousimis
DECOY
Patty Firestone
Amber Robles-Gordon
Ten Miles Square
Serinity Knight
Megan Blafas
Ann Bouie

PERFORMERS
Gospel Rap Vocalist Michael Trotter
R & B Hip-Hop Vocalist Senetra Bridgette
Ethiopian Sound Sensation of Tek X Millennium

Plus . . .
Kenneth Smith
3rd Generation Band
Melanie Roberts
Joy Dion
Fatso Hip-Hop
Tameka

For info: 202-905-6039

North Capitol Main Street, Inc. is funded through the DC Main Streets Program under the Department of Small and Local Business Development.

UPDATE—police activity on rhode island avenue in bloomingdale

2009-07-25T12:41:00.003-04:00

UPDATE: whatever the situation really was is unknown to me, and it would appear to be over with. false alarm? who knows. but the police have cleared out and traffic is back to normal.

ORIGINAL POST: lots of police activity on rhode island avenue between 2nd street nw and north capitol. eastbound rhode island avenue traffic is being rerouted onto seaton place and 2nd street.

rumor is that there is a suspicious package at north capitol and rhode island. updates to come when i get more concrete information.

flooding at scott circle

2009-07-23T22:40:00.003-04:00

this afternoon, this was the view looking south down 16th street towards the white house from a point just south of scott circle. you can see that the road was closed off. why?

here's why. a whole bunch of water!

now, ddot just redid the circle a few years ago. dug everything up, installed new drainage, etc. why isn't the water draining then? i have a sneaking suspicion that the drains aren't being kept clear of debris. it's called maintenance, people. it's a shame that dc isn't so good with that. we build new roads, new buildings, new infrastructure, then just walk away and let it fall into disrepair...

parking rules still don't apply to everyone

2009-07-23T10:00:00.003-04:00

i just finished a 3 and a half week stint serving on a jury in a civil case in the DC superior court system. spending every single day at the e. barrett prettyman courthouse gave me an appreciation for the mess that passes for parking around the courthouse complex. i saw a lot of examples of police cars like the one above, parked in a crosswalk, double-parked, or blocking an intersection.

this story has been discussed in the press recently, and it doesn't seem to have a solution, outside of digging out more parking underneath john marshall park, because i'm pretty sure that these police aren't going to be convinced to take public transportation to the courthouse.

WATER YOUR TREES!

2009-07-22T22:32:00.003-04:00

trees are dying all around the city. see this post from yesterday. the lack of rain we've had since late june is esepcially stressful to the young, newly planted trees lining our streets.

just because we had a very wet may and june doesn't mean that the ground has stayed wet around the roots of these young trees. street trees need 20 gallons of water a week, and they need it now. go outside tomorrow when you have 5 minutes and pour a bucket of water over the roots of the tree in front of your house. if you have an outdoor hose, run it out there and soak the roots for a few minutes. keep doing this for the rest of the summer!

these pictures show a tree at 14th and R streets nw, with an 'ooze tube' around the base. unfortunately, there's no water in this ooze tube. it serves absolutely no purpose if it's not filled with water.

you can see that this ooze tube says "the mayor's green summer job corps" on it, as well as a logo for ddot. it's great that the city is installing these ooze tubes on trees, but let's be real for a minute here—they need to fill them up upon initial installation and coach the people who live next to these trees (or the adjacent businesses) how to use them.

as it stands, these are just pretty brown plastic doughnuts that serve absolutely no purpose...

please, mayor fenty and the dc government, invest a little more effort into the trees you've spent so much money to plant along our streets. it's criminal to not take care of such a valuable investment!

bloomingdale art and music walk - august 1

2009-07-22T13:57:00.003-04:00

i promised a post about the 1st street art program that was being sponsored by the north capitol main stret group. here's the flyer:

The Pink Line Project, in conjunction with North Capitol Main Street invite you to:
First on 1st, Art + Music Walk
Saturday, August 1st, noon to 4 pm
Along First Street NW (between Florida and Rhode Island Avenues)

For More Information contact:
Garry Clark
Executive Director
gclark@ncmsinc.org
1703 North Capitol Street, NE
Washington, DC 20002
202-905-6039

watha t. daniel-shaw library construction update

2009-07-21T15:00:00.000-04:00

here's what the construction at the watha t. daniel-shaw library looks like right now. it's a hole in the ground, sure, but it's progress!

eventually, there's supposed to be a live construction camera here. nothing exists for this project yet, but you can look at other DCPL construction projects around the city.

ashtray, planter, garbage can—all of the above?

2009-07-21T12:00:00.000-04:00

the planters in front of the dc mini market are frequently used as garbage cans (i haven't seen plant life in some of them for ages). apparently this one got tipped over and shattered. it sure would be nice if north capitol main street, as part of their storefront improvement project, could help make the area in front of this store a more inviting place.

here's a recommendation—some benches or tables. if there are going to be people hanging out in front of the store all the time, might as well give them a place to sit...

a tale of two trees

2009-07-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

ok, this is really about more than two trees. it's really about two sets of trees, but i liked the dickensian title, so there you go.

first, look at these cherry trees in the median of rhode island avenue between 11th and 12th streets in logan:

click on the images and take a closer look. these trees are all mulched, have clearly been watered, and are thriving. now, look at these trees between 7th and 8th streets in shaw:

they're almost dead. no much, no water, the leaves have yellowed up and are falling off.

why did this happen? the trees are all on district land, and no property owner was obligated to take care of these trees. but, the people who live on the 1100 block of rhode island avenue clearly took the time to care for the trees that they see out their front windows. they care.

you just can't say the same for the poor trees on the 700 block. 7-11 clearly isn't interested in aesthetics. the people who live on this block haven't taken the initiative to adopt the trees either. they're likely doomed to die, unless they get some serious and sustained water immediately. isn't this something that the mayor's conservation corps could and should help rectify?

the (formerly) purple house at 1st and U

2009-07-21T08:00:00.000-04:00

the house on the southeast corner of 1st and u streets nw (featured to illustrate a city paper article about emergency and transitional housing in ward 5) used to look like this:

after a paint job, it's looking much nicer! (click on the photo and take note of the red trim around the doors and the new crosswalks on 1st street).

update on the beautiful house at 4th and florida

2009-07-20T23:57:00.003-04:00

dc metrocentric brings word that the amazing home on the northwest corner of 4th and florida nw is under contract (not sold yet, though). sure hope this building can be brought back to its the glory of its heyday. they didn't have a photograph of the fencing that has gone up around the building, but i captured it in a couple shots last friday. here they are:

tonight's bloomingdale civic association meeting—notes

2009-07-20T22:05:00.003-04:00

here are some rough-and-tumble notes from tonight's bloomindale civic association meeting (which was attended by nearly 50 people!):

there will be no august meeting, the next one is in september
cassandra costley handed out information about the selective service, where she works. her job entails finding jobs for conscientious objectors (like mennonites or quakers) if there was a draft.
massie ritsch, a neighborhood resident who lives on the 200 block of rhode island and is the deputy assistant secretary for external affairs & outreach at the department of education, gave a short talk about goals for the department in the coming years. he specifically mentioned that either the secretary (arne duncan) or an assistant secretary would hold a 'listening session' in the district in the fall to hear from DC parents about schools. he took a couple questions from the audience, which focused on charter schools.
aakash thakar of eya gave a quick presentation of where things stand with the mcmillan project. basically, they are still working to have something approved by the council at the end of the year, finalizing the deal that will allow them to go forward with the project. it was noted that clint jackson from the mayor's office was invited but did not show. i thought it was notable that this was the first time that i heard any of the principals from the development groups mentioning light rail or circulator buses as a transit option for the area.
in what was (i believe) the most interesting news of the evening, barbara wilson, who lives at 2203 1st street nw, gave an update on the status of neighbor's complaints regarding the 'boxer girl' mural at 73 w street nw. apparently, the money for a mural was initially meant to paint something at 1st and rhode island (here?), but due to challenges, that didn't happen. the owner of 73 w then gave permission to have her house painted instead. alice thompson, from the mayor's office of community relations & services, stated that the mayor's office had contacted the muralist and asked them to "change" the artwork. the muralist has not been back in touch with the mayor's office...
leah lemoine from the district department of the environment gave a quick presentation about the river smart homes program. dc residents can sign up for grants of up to $1200 towards rain barrels, landscaping, pervious paving, and other means to help keep water from running off your property. this is especially important in bloomingdale given the propensity for basement flooding in the neighborhood after moderate rainfall.
cassandra costley talked about feral cat colonies in the neighborhood. efforts continue to trap and release cats to keep them from reproducing. residents are reminded to contact the humane society, who will come to the neighborhood to do the work necessary to trap cats, give them the necessary medical attention, and safely return them to the neighborhood. she reminded us not to leave food out for cats for a long period of time, as it attracts rats. a thomas street resident let us all know that his 1.5 year old english bulldog died as a result of eating rat poison-laced peanut butter that a neighbor left in the alley to bait cats. everyone was reminded not to try this, as it's illegal (ed.-besides being pretty damn immoral)
vicki leonard from harry thomas' office spoke, mentioning some of the councilmember's recent activity.
john salatti wanted to let people who live around crispus attucks park know that he'd be sending letters to people regarding animal issues around the park. the department of health has been looking at the situation there, and homeowners who are not maintaining their property will receive tickets for creating situations conducive for harboring pests. john also asked everyone to remember to water street trees. in addition, he is working with the city to identify up to a dozen new parking spaces in the neighborhood, is happy to help people get speed humps on their blocks (everyone seems to like them), is looking to get a new backboard for the basketball courts at 2nd and w, and is having block meetings with individual blocks in his SMD. there will be a neighborhood safety walk this friday.
alice thompson announced that there has been a lot of clean-up activity in the neighborhood lately, and that photos of new crosswalk striping will be coming to this blog in short order.
gerry clark from north capitol main street announced the "1st on 1st" art program (this will get its own post soon) which will be taking place on august 1st from noon to 4 pm.
bertha holliday announced that planning is underway for the fall bloomingdale house tour. the theme will be "the victorian secrets," and will take place on october 24th. tickets will be $20 in advance, $25 on the day of the event, with between 15 and 20 houses participating.
the civic association's beautification committee is looking for more members.
the north capitol collaborative announced that, on august 12th, they would be taking 63 neighborhood families to cameron run park for a back-to-school event. they are headquartered at 113 q street nw.

reminder—7/20—bloomingdale civic association meeting

2009-07-19T12:00:00.003-04:00

Bloomingdale Civic Association, Inc.

You are cordially invited to the

July Monthly Meeting

Next monthly meeting: September 2009

Monday, July 20, 2009

7:00pm

St. Georges’ Episcopal Church

2^nd and U Streets, NW

Washington, DC 20001

AGENDA

Special Guest Speaker:

Massie Ritsch

Deputy Assistant Secretary for External Affairs & Outreach

U.S. Department of Education

[15 minutes]

I. McMillan Reservoir Development – Update – 10 minutes

II. DC Arts Commission Mural Presentation – Update – 10 minutes

III. Bloomingdale Flooding Update – Mitigation Strategies – Update – 10 minutes

IV. 2009 October House Tour – Update – 10 minutes

V. Feral Cats in Bloomingdale – Update – 10 minutes

VI. Reports from:

A. Office of Councilman Harry Thomas, Jr.

B. Executive Office of the Mayor

C. ANC Commissioner John T. Salatti

[15 minutes]

VII. Community Announcements – 5 minutes

Robert Vinson Brannum, President

mural in downtown bloomingdale?

2009-07-17T19:34:00.003-04:00

there has been an enormous amount of discussion about the 'boxer girl' mural on w street in the northern part of bloomingdale. a local tv station has even covered the story, and it's been all over the neighborhood listserv, with a large number of people expressing vehement opposition to the artwork, calling it 'graffiti', and deriding the fact that it was produced (partially) with public funding.

personally, i love the mural, and i think it adds a bit of color to a grand old rowhouse.

the reason i bring this up is the message that was posted to the bloomingdale listserv a couple days ago:

From: Lyons, Nancee (DPW)
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 9:28 AM
Subject: Request for Graffiti Mural Site Recommendations

Good morning, I’ve passed the following package onto your director as well. DPW would like to move forward quickly to begin selecting potential sites for graffiti murals. These walls are typically privately owned, highly visible and have been the target of graffiti in the past. I look forward to your assistance in identifying locations in your jurisdictions that would be a good fit for this valuable project, which has helped to reduce illegal tagging in neighborhoods across the District. I welcome your suggestions and guidance. Thank you!

Nancee Lyons

Public Affairs Specialist
DC Department of Public Works
2000 14th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 671- 2637, 671- 0642 (fax)
www.dpw.dc.gov

now, there are not too many places in bloomingdale outside of alleys that i've seen regularly tagged with graffiti, other than the roll-down doors on the commercial space in the old sylvan theater.

there is a great, big, open blank wall on the side of bloomingdale wine and spirits, though:

i think this would be a fantastic spot for a mural. it's just a big, dead wall otherwise.

what do you think? are there other places in blooomingdale that you think would be a great spot for a mural? share your thoughts in the comments!

baraki construction update

2009-07-17T16:56:00.002-04:00

you can see that they're well on the way to getting the outdoor-seating area leveled off, and finished with a short brick retaining wall that is highest on the 1st street (and lowest) end of the property.

URGENT—meeting july 9th to help make shaw a better place

2009-07-08T18:17:00.003-04:00

(for the record, i am clearly in favor of a park, not a parking lot, for this space)

there has been a TON of back-and-forth regarding the future of the parking lot behind the old bundy school in shaw (located on the 400 block of P street NW). it's clearly led to some frayed nerves for both proponents and opponents of a more public use for the space. either way, come out and make your voice heard at a community meeting tomorrow (thursday) evening, at 7 pm at the scott montgomery elementary school, located at 421 P street NW.

click on the flyer below, or check out the language from that flyer below the image:

Would you like Green Space or the Largest
Private Parking lot in Shaw at Bundy Park?

• The City’s plans for private parking for government officials
exceed the needs for the Bundy School building

• DC government building codes indicate that there should be
only one parking space for every 600 sq ft of floor space; the
Bundy School should need no more than 25 parking spaces

• The City has not offered a compromise on their parking plans

• Careful planning can accommodate the convenience of the
building employees and the needs of our community

• Help us get rid of a dark, desolate, dangerous eyesore locked
away from the community and a haven for crime

• Within the past month, two people have been shot within
yards of the Bundy Park

• The Friends of Bundy Park support a green space for neighbors
to replace the vacant lot at 400 P Street NW

• We support a place for the community to safely come together

• More eyes and feet on the street will deter crime

• Replacing a vacant lot with green space will bring a lively and
friendly activity to a deserted stretch of 400 P Street NW

Stop the Parking Lot!

Come to the Office of Property Management public meeting
7pm, Thursday, July 9, 2009
Scott Montgomery Elementary School, 421 P Street NW
www.FriendsOfBundy.net

new crosswalk striping coming to 1st street nw

2009-07-08T08:03:00.002-04:00

photo by Dan_DC

here's an email passed along from alice thompson of the mayor's office of community relations and services:

Great news community!! As promised from the Mayor's Walk-Thru in the Bloomingdale Community in December 2008; a safer First Street, from Michigan Avenue NW to New York Avenue NW has arrived as of today.

As we all know -- speed humps can not be installed on First Street. Thus, we have elected to install Car Box Lines and Pedestrian Friendly crosswalks.

DDOT has started lining from the south end of First Street NW.

The Car Box Lines will guide and assist our citizens with parking closer to the curb. It's major feature will give the allusion that the street is narrower. Thus, drivers will slow down because it appears -- they are too close to parked autos.

The extra, extra wide crosswalk stripes will also slow drivers down; thus making them more conscious of the pedestrian.

Please give a shout out to DDOT Gloria Bosse-Kouabo, for her diligence in pursuing this much needed safety feature for our community.

i'm personally excited to get (what sounds like) the zebra-stripe (or piano-keys, whatever you like to call it) crosswalks. automobile drivers seem to ignore standard crosswalks in this city, but they tend to notice if there's more white paint on the street letting them know without a doubt that there is a space where pedestrians have the right to cross the street.

some will argue that the zebra-stripe crosswalks instill a false sense of security in pedestrians, leading them to step out into the street without paying the utmost attention to oncoming traffic. i agree that this is a concern, but i also believe that we have more to gain than lose by seeing pedestrians gain at least a little more attention in the eyes of our city's traffic engineers.

well. george will is weird #8

2009-07-08T07:14:00.002-04:00

it's been months since the man has graced us with the world's best one word non-sentence sentence, but thankfully, it has returned! check out the beginning of the next to last paragraph here. i was beginning to think he had cured his tic. guess not!

baraki update—construction commences

2009-06-24T23:56:00.005-04:00

it was mentioned first on the eckington listserv, but i thought people would like to see some photos—visible construction at baraki (the bar that will be opening at the southeast corner of 1st and T streets nw in bloomingdale) hopefully soon!

they're tearing up the concrete along both first and T where the outdoor seating will be (to replace it with another surface? bricks? i'm not sure—there was no one there to ask this evening).

it's exciting to finally see some progress! maybe we'll finally have a place where eckingtonians can come over and discuss the finer points of how cool a neighborhood bloomingdale is over a pint. :)

historic district facade grants

2009-06-15T23:23:00.000-04:00

over at and now, anacostia, dg-rad shows some photos of houses whose exteriors have been made beautiful thanks to grants from the district's historic homeowner's grant program. there is a sliding scale for eligibility based on income.

houses in ledroit park can qualify for these grants as well. here are some before pictures for a pair of houses on the north side of the 200 block of rhode island avenue. i'll put up some after pictures soon.

new mural in bloomingdale

2009-05-31T21:42:00.001-04:00

interesting new mural on the side of the house at 73 W street nw (took these pictures minutes before the fire on tuesday in the post below)

fire on the unit block of rhode island avenue nw

2009-05-26T20:31:00.003-04:00

View Larger Map

sean had it here first. right after i got off the bus this evening, five fire trucks, a couple ambulances, police cruisers, and other fire department vehicles came down rhode island avenue from both the east and the west, converging on what i believe was 67 rhode island avenue, the house to the left of the cream-colored house in google street view above (i couldn't verify this completely as i couldn't get that close. i'll correct this post if i was incorrect).

below are a few pictures of emergency vehicles on 1st street, rhode island avenue, and in the alley. it smelled like an electrical fire. does anyone reading this have any more specific information?

met branch trail—is pepco backing out on its deal?

2009-05-16T13:16:00.002-04:00

it's been a long time since i last wrote about the metropolitan branch trail, but the folks at eckington (way better than spotsylvania) have been staying on top of things, and they found a potential doozy this week.

the plans for the trail have included connections to many eckington streets, with the southernmost one happening at the right-hand side in the above image, in the bend of harry thomas way, across what is (or has been) pepco property.

the local communities, eleanor holmes norton, ddot, waba, and everyone else who has been fighting for the construction of the trail have spent years cajoling, pleading, and urging pepco to allow a connection to be built across their right-of-way. according to this post, it looks like pepco has reneged on the deal to allow bikers to cross this short stretch of ground.

now, i should stress looks like. we're not sure yet, and eckington (wbts) has promised to update us as they look into it. if the trail connection has been cut, though, i think it'll be time to use the gears of persuasion and get our elected officials to twist pepco's arms (again) to make this happen...

more old houses lost

2009-05-15T21:05:00.002-04:00

i've written about my distaste for tearing down houses before, and i really hate to see us losing traditional row houses. the area in the triangle between new york avenue, florida avenue, and north capitol street (on the east side of north capitol) used to be full of them, but one by one, they get torn down, and the city loses some of its history.

sure, these houses probably weren't worthy of capital losses, but they still could have been fixed up.

there has been a lot of discussion about demolition on the eckington listserv, where some neighborhood residents were thrilled about the recent demolition of an old house. i was opposed to the demolition. i understand the this specific house was probably beyond saving (though it wouldn't have to have been that way if the city had just enforced the law and made the owner take care of the house before it reached this state). but it sets a terrible precedent, especially in the mind. i fear that people just think vacant=tear it down when it comes to a lot of our old buildings.

anyway, here are some pictures of row houses on the unit blocks of florida avenue and p street NE being town down. i spoke with one of the men on the destruction crew (can't call it construction, can you?) and asked if they were recycling the bricks. he said no, they would simply use them as fill for the hole in the ground that would remain. i told him that people would be willing to pay for nice old bricks like that to be recycled, and he seemed interested, but it was too late for much of that.

i asked what was coming to this space, and he said an apartment building.

when i asked if it would be as ugly as the place next door, he told me he hadn't seen any plans...

pictures from the northeast corner of 1st and seaton

2009-05-13T11:05:00.006-04:00

courtesy of lana labermeier, proprietor of big bear cafe here in bloomingdale, we have some photos of the interior of the commercial space at 1821 first street nw (the northeast corner of 1st street and seaton place in downtown bloomingdale—the link will take you to the listing on redfin.com).

there has been a lot of speculation regarding what could happen with this space. i've heard various stories of local residents or groups of residents wanting to put in a pizza place (which seems to be the standard bloomingdale rumor!), a deli, a bar (another go-to rumor until we finally get a bar), or even a taqueria. of course, someone's going to have to buy the place first, and do some substantial rehabbing before anything happens there.

now, in addition to the interior photographs, i promised exterior shots yesterday, and here they are, courtesy of my roommate nolan:

here's hoping something moves in that can utilize that great, wide space that's screaming for cafe seating on seaton place!

activity at 1821 1st street nw

2009-05-12T09:41:00.003-04:00

courtesy of my roommate, it looks like something is happening at 1821 1st street nw. they're hauling stuff out of there. he has pictures, i'll update this post with them later today.

another new bus line

2009-05-11T19:15:00.004-04:00

last month, we discovered a new bus line running on rhode island avenue.

looks like that wasn't the only one...

safeway upgrades skipping over the edgewood store?

2009-05-01T00:22:00.004-04:00

from the eckington listserv on thursday, the story is that the edgewood store, located in the rhode island avenue center at 514 rhode island avenue, NE, is being skipped over for updates that other stores, like the one on 17th street in dupont and the social safeway in georgetown have received or are slated to receive in the near future. here's the message:

Good Afternoon Everyone,

Safeway Rhode Island Avenue NE, Store # 0271, Div.# 35 needs our support in a major way. Out of the 17 Safeway's in the District of Columbia, somehow we have been passed up once again for renovation. As the community came together with CM Harry Thomas, Jr & Mayor Fenty this month which was beautiful! We need the same for our community grocery store. Safeway Corp. requires written feedback via comment cards, letters and/or on-line responses. Safeway comment cards are available at the customer service desk & Safeway.com. Please lets come together for another great cause, OURSELVES!

Robert Boyer

Please forward all written feedback to:

Eastern Division President
Safeway, Inc.
C/O Customer Service Center
2750 S. Priest Drive
Tempe, AZ 85282-9969

i'm not sure how true this is (i haven't taken the time to write and find out from safeway corporate), but it's true that the store could use a bit of an update. it's not a bad safeway (i have gone there for groceries many times), but it just can't stack up to the new one in the mount vernon triangle these days.

go ahead and let safeway know that all parts of the city deserve great stores, not just the northwest part of the city.

interesting new blog

2009-05-01T00:05:00.003-04:00

here's a very focused new blog. the DC GIS department has created a blog focusing specifically on its master address repository, which is the database of addresses in the district. it's pretty wonky, but if you're a geographer (like yours truly), you're sure to see intersting stuff here in the coming months.

check it out here!

sidewalk closure guidelines

2009-04-22T00:43:00.002-04:00

i've created a couple posts recently regarding the start of the construction of the new watha t. daniel library at the corner of 7th and rhode island avenues in shaw.

my interest in this location, which clearly falls outside of bloomingdale, is two-fold. the first is simply because i pass it every morning and evening while commuting to work. the second is because this is the closest library to much of bloomingdale for the present.

i emailed archie williams, from the DCPL office and councilmember jack evans to express concerns about continued pedestrian access to the G8 bus stop at this location during construction. the initial layout of the construction barricades have been adjusted to make things MUCH better for both pedestrians and cyclists on this stretch.

in addition, i learned all you'd ever want to know about the actual guidelines that ddot has in place to ensure that pedestrian access to the sidewalk is maintained during a construction project.

here are those guidelines, courtesy of the councilmember. enjoy!

greater deanwood heritage trail unveiling

2009-04-07T07:00:00.000-04:00

councilmembers brown and alexander, as well as kia chatmon, chair of the greater deanwood heritage trail working group, get ready to unveil the sign at the first stop on the trail.

i know this is from way outside of what could possibly be considered greater bloomingdale, but i went to the unveiling of the greater deanwood heritage trail on saturday.

ward 7 is the ward that i know the least about here in DC. i got to spend a couple hours in deanwood learning a little bit about the history of part of the ward, and i intend to go back soon to learn more. i ran into some friends who have family history in the neighborhood, and it was great to be able to put a personal face on a part of the city that clearly has a fascinating history and an exciting present. for example, just learning about who nannie helen burroughs was and what she means to that neighborhood, the city, women, african americans, and our collective history makes me feel like i'm 10 times more in-the-know now.

get out and learn more about DC! so many people like me who live here in the northwest quadrant of the city ignore a lot of the other three quadrants of the city, but with all the heritage trails that exist (9 now, 8 more on the way), there's no reason not to get to know more about the city we call home.

the unveiling events took place in front of the riverside center, which used to be barnett's crystal room, a neighborhood hotspot for years.

update on watha t. daniel sidewalks

2009-04-06T18:51:00.003-04:00

commenter dano pointed out in last week's post about the construction fencing around the site of the once and future watha t. daniel library that it was most likely a temporary layout, and that more pedestrian-friendly setup would be in place soon.

yesterday, these jersey barrier-esque plastic thingamabobs were placed on rhode island avenue. it would appear that the right hand lane will become a defacto sidewalk for the duration of the construction, but that's yet to be determined...

back of 440 rhode island avenue

2009-04-03T09:27:00.000-04:00

for the curious, here's the alley-side view of the apartment building going up at 440 rhode island avenue nw.

north capitol main streets open house

2009-04-02T23:32:00.002-04:00

here are a few pictures i took last week at the "grand opening" open house that was held at north capitol main street headquarters (1703 north capitol street ne) community members mingle and enjoy refreshments before the speeches begin.

from left to right: garry clark, NCMS executive director; harry thomas, jr., ward 5 councilmember; pat mitchell, NCMS board president. (i apologize, but i've forgotten the name of the woman on the right!)

after the ribbon cutting, harry thomas spoke to the people in attendance about all the great things that north capitol main streets would be achieving in the future.

watha t. daniel construction update

2009-04-02T23:12:00.004-04:00

this picture was taken last week. a construction trailer had arrived at the library site, presaging what is sure to be real construction soon.

today, a second layer of fencing went up around the site. this fencing currently extends out into the street, taking away a lane on rhode island avenue and 8th street.

the fencing is requiring pedestrians to walk in the middle of the street, and it blocks a stop for the g8. this stop is used every morning by kids going to school. i expect to see the sidewalk reopened immediately, as this is downright dangerous for pedestrians (besides being blatantly illegal, if i understand the laws that were passed in recent years to protect pedestrians from this sort of thing).

i'm going to contact jack evans' office tomorrow and ask them to please do what is necessary to make sure that our sidewalks aren't taken away for the duration of this construction project. at the very least, a lane of traffic should be given over to pedestrians if the sidewalk is going to be taken away.

updated drawings for 1531 9th street nw

2009-04-02T22:37:00.004-04:00

here's the image that was displayed over at renew shaw today, representing what shiloh baptist church had proposed to build on the vacant lot they own at 1531 9th street nw. the pictures below show the changes that were made to the building facade and presented to ANC 2C at their monthly meeting on the evening of april 1st.

the changes were made at the request of the historic preservation office, who believed that the first proposal was too "historicist" (in other words, the architect was trying too hard to make it look like the building next door at 1533).

i have to say, i prefer the first proposal. i think that aping the building next door, if the details are very carefully done, would make for a beautiful building.

late april fools!

2009-04-02T22:35:00.000-04:00

i meant to get this up yesterday, but i guess i missed out on the april fools fun. in the spirit of the holiday, pretend it's still the first of april!

kelsey gardens is gone and has been replaced with a fantastic new building that fits into the city's urban fabric and includes ground-floor retail that the whole neighborhood loves!

shiloh has fixed up their vacant properties and turned them into contributing structures in the neighborhood!

carter woodson park has been fixed up and there's a great statue of him adorning the eastern edge of the park along ninth street!

APRIL FOOLS!

adios to national newspapers in the golden triangle?

2009-04-02T22:17:00.003-04:00

i saw these notices in the newspaper boxes next to the southern entrance to the dupont circle metro station earlier today.

so, have the new york post, christian science monitor, and the chicago tribune, among others, agreed by default to remove themselves from distribution in the golden triangle BID? at least the dupont current and the city paper are still available!

new bus line!

2009-04-02T21:56:00.001-04:00

it's the G8!

is that supposed to be read (G8 factorial)?

truxton circle mentioned in washington post

2009-03-29T08:35:00.002-04:00

john kelly, who writes the answer man column in the post on sundays, discussed meridian hill park on march 22nd, and ended up mentioning truxton circle in passing.

a reader wrote back in response and asked for a little more detail on truxton circle today, and kelly responded with a little more background about both the circle and the neighborhood. check it out.

road closures around rhode island avenue ne?

2009-03-27T13:16:00.002-04:00

View Larger Map

thanks to an email from debbie smith to the eckington listserv, i was made aware of information from the march 10th informational meeting of the THINK rhode island avenue great streets initiative.

you've probably heard about the district's great streets initiative, so i won't belabor the point by going too deeply into it here (you can click through and read more if you wish), but this is part of the city's plans to bring our commercial corridors back to live with new retail, housing, and transportation choices.

the rhode island avenue plan is in its infancy, so i just wanted to point out one interesting fact that caught my eye. part of the reimagining of parts of the street could lead to the closing of short block of surrounding streets. you can click on the link below the above map to open it up in a larger window.

this street closure doesn't strike me as a bad thing. some of these streets (like brentwood road) serve as little more than shortcuts that allow drivers to cut a few hundred feet off their trip through the area. they break some of these blocks up into small pieces of land hat are almost too small to build on.

some might argue that this could lead to the loss of green space along the corridor, as many of these small parcels are open land right now. there would be truth to this, but these parcels aren't serving as parks right now either...some are just weed-strewn empty lots, while others (like the northwest corner of 14th and rhode island) could be very nice parks if properly cared for.

one of the 10 best local blogs! (UPDATED april 7th)

2009-03-22T23:45:00.003-04:00

i just have to toot my own horn! this month's washingtonian magazine includes their list of the 10 best local blogs in the DC area. six of those blogs are located here in the district, and bloomingdale (for now) managed to snag one of those spots! i'm truly humbled and proud as hell to to be recognized by washingtonian for what's been a labor of love these past two-and-a-half years!

unfortunately, this article isn't available on the web (at least, not that i can find), but you can see the full list on page 48 of the april 2009 issue of washingtonian magazine.

UPDATE: this link will take you to the article, with the segment on local blogs on the fourth page.

marriott progess

2009-03-22T23:37:00.002-04:00

the last time i posted anything about the marriott down by the new york avenue metro station, the building was still just a concrete frame. as you can see, it's nearly done. workers were setting the curb in front of the entrance on 2nd street ne this weekend.

national marathon in the neighborhood

2009-03-22T23:25:00.003-04:00

here are a couple of photos that i took while watching the national marathon runners on north capitol street saturday morning. i saw mayor fenty, but the picture i took didn't come out well. guess i'll have to try again next year!

440 rhode island avenue nw update

2009-03-22T23:14:00.003-04:00

last time i showed you photos from 440 rhode island avenue, the above-ground framing was just beginning. well, the building has topped out, and is moving along at a very fast clip. here are some pictures taken today. take note of the textured block on the sides, with a couple strips of color included. it looks like the building is going to mimic a set of four traditional rowhouses along the street. i really like the way it looks so far!

new trees in bloomingdale—here's hoping this isn't all of it

2009-03-22T23:11:00.000-04:00

in the last two weeks, new trees have been planted in empty treeboxes around bloomingdale. while this is a great sight to see, i'm concerned that the city is done with out neighborhood and has moved on to other locations without finishing the job.

look at the above picture, taken on 1st street just north of seaton place. to the left, you can see a new tree planted and mulched, ready to go. to the right, you can see a treebox with one of the decorative treebox guards that was installed last summer. there's an orange spot painted on the curb in front of this treebox, signifying a space where ddot intends to plant a tree. the question is why wasn't this tree planted at the same time as the one to the left? did they run out of trees? did someone change their mind and put the tree further down the street? it seems silly to install a treebox guard and then plant a new tree on the outside of it.

i plan to email someone at the urban forestry administration to express my concerns. hopefully i'll be able to do a follow-up post later this week.

below is a view of these two spaces looking south towards seaton place.

below is another newly planted tree on the 100 block of seaton place. there is an empty treebox behind this one, but it doesn't have the orange dot that signifies a tree will be planted there. does this mean this treebox will remain empty? there's no obvious reason why that would be so.

picutred below is another empty treebox (on seaton place). it has the orange dot painted on the curb, but nothing is in the treebox so far.

you can see the space where that missing tree should go in the photograph below. it's between the tree in the foreground and the small twig of a tree in the background, near the streetlight.

speaking of twigs, some of these new trees are TINY! usually, the trees i've seen planted by the city are at least 1.5 to 2 inches in diameter, and about 8 to 10 feet tall, but there are two trees on seaton place near 2nd street that are about 4 feet tall with almost no branches and are about .5 inch in diameter.

i'm concerned that these trees are too small to ever survive having branches ripped off by kids, being hit by car doors, and generally surviving in a harsh urban environment. time will tell, but i believe ddot planted trees that are too small here. one of them is pictured below.

i'm excited to see that we're getting the new trees we were promised here in bloomingdale, but i can't help but feel less-than-satisfied by what i've seen so far. here's hoping i'm jumping the gun by passing judgment on this spring's plantings!

outdoor seating available at windows café

2009-03-22T22:27:00.000-04:00

last july, i wrote about the application for outdoor seating at windows café at 1st and rhode island. the seating is finally outside as of the middle of this past week, under green umbrellas on the 1st street side of the store. now that the weather is warming up, you can enjoy your coffee and paper outside. here's hoping for even more outdoor seating and socializing this year in bloomingdale!

update on the road that doesn't exist

2009-03-17T01:05:00.002-04:00

a couple weeks ago, i posted about hoover road, a short street in the woodridge neighborhood that appeared to not be in the district's emergency dispatcher database.

a couple comments on that post led to a few emails between myself and district employees that were able to verify that the road does in fact exist in the city's GIS database. here's the direct quote i got from a city employee:

The CAD map contains the 3400 block of Hoover Rd NE. The DCGIS map has this block listed as the 3300 block. I extended the range of the CAD map to cover the 3300 block as well as the 3400 block. With that said, we can dispatch to a location without the street number. I couldn’t speculate as to what occurred in the linked blog.

so, it looks to me like things have been at least synched up here, so the correct block is listed in both places. the fact that the dispatcher couldn't find the street most likely means that dispatcher simply didn't know what she was doing.

update on streetscape around the howard theater

2009-03-09T20:49:00.003-04:00

about 15 months ago, there was a meeting regarding the streetscape redesign around the howard theater. there was a vocal contingent at the meeting unhappy with the sculptor chosen to create the centerpiece of duke ellington plaza at the corner of florida avenue and t street (across from the ledroit park gate).

tonight (march 9th) there was a follow-up meeting at the dc housing finance agency (815 florida avenue nw). the streetscape design has been updated, and ddot engineers showed community memebers some of the details of the current plan.

to summarize, the streetscape, which includes sidewalks, light fixtures, other "furniture" (such as bike racks, garbage cans, and parking meters), and wheelchair cuts at intersections will be replaced on seventh street from n street north to florida avenue. seventh street will be milled and repaved along this stretch.

t street, between 7th and florida avenue, will be completely rebuilt to a depth of 20 inches. the utilities (including a water main) will be replaced. the street (including it's accompanying sidewalks) and ellington plaza will be paved with concrete paving blocks (essentially bricks). benches, planting boxes, a sculpture, and a large signature tree will grace the plaza.

wiltberger street, from s street to t street, will be reconstructed by lowering the street a few inches. this will finally allow separation between the street surface and the narrow sidewalks lining wiltberger. in addition, proper drainage will finally be included on wiltberger street, hopefully leading to an end to flooding that plagues the houses on this block.

alleys on the west and south sides of the howard theater, as well as one behind the dunbar theater building that connects t street to florida avenue, will also be repaved with new red brick pavement.

check out the photos below. clicking on each one will allow you to get a better feel for what the design of the area will look like. of special note is the color of the paving blocks.

the sidewalks along 7th street will include stripes of blue block that run perpendicular to the street at systematic random intervals, to give the street a sense of "rhythm". random block with differing shades of gray will add interest to the area along and around t street in front of the howard theater.

here's a close-up of the design along t street. take special note of the dark line of block running through this block of t street. instead of striping a bike lane, the bike lane will be delineated by the use of darker block. in my opinion, this looks very cool.

the slides shown to the audience at the presentation should be available at this link within a few days.

curb cuts in other neighborhoods

2009-03-04T14:30:00.000-05:00

anc5c will be considering a final vote on a curb cut on the unit block of seaton place nw here in bloomingdale at their next meeting, scheduled for march 17th.

anc2e just got turning down a curb cut request for a home in georgetown. while the situation is not the same as here in bloomingdale, i thought it was worth noting that the same subject is being debated around the city. there are some salient points made by the blogger at georgetown metropolitan.

update on government agency hypocrisy

2009-03-04T13:30:00.000-05:00

last week, i posted about the district department of the environment moving into the old gage-eckington elementary school in ledroit park. i thought it was interesting (and maybe a touch hypocritical) that the department of the environment was having trouble with the site because there wasn't enough parking.

well, fast forward to a message on yesterday's ledroit park listserv by anc 1b01 commissioner myla moss:

Greetings,

Yesterday LDPCA President Jeff Herron, Councilmember Jim Graham and I met with Mayor Fenty and Deputy Mayor Neil Albert regarding the reuse of the Gage-Eckington Building. The Office of Property Management (OPM) conducted an assessment and determined that to move the DC Department of Environment into the current Gage building would cost $18 million to properly retrofit the site. In addition, current parking space would not accommodate the needs of DCDE. The Mayor determined the retrofit costs to be excessive and a waste of funding for a short term project. OPM is identifying a new location for DCDE. Additionally, OPM has a negotiated contract with Common Good City Farm (CGCF) which allows CGCF to continue its plan to grow and provide fresh produce.

The Mayor noted that the administration rushed to judgment in identifying and agreeing to a short-term plan. Moreover, he conceded that the means by which the community learned of the decision to revisit the agreed upon plan could have been handled in a better way. Current thinking about a short term use of the site would be to demolish/raise the current structure and replace it with green space, playground, and dog park. This proposal would also be short term ultimately the Administration is considering mixed use primarily residential for the long term. A housing proposal was identified by the Administration during early discussions with the community. The Mayor believes the entire process to build a long-term housing project will take about 3-5 years.

According to Deputy Mayor Neil Albert the Gage site is not currently listed for an RFP. Both the Mayor and Mr. Albert stated that CGCF will continue to operate while a playground, green space is being is built. We asked how much funding will be allotted for the park, we asked if the Administration would consider another short term plan. the Mayor stated funding would be identified and appropriated. There was no reply regarding identification of a short term tenant. The Senior Wellness Center will be built at the original planned site on Georgia Ave. & Newton, NW.

It was noted by Councilman Graham that safety issues are a major concern with a open park given the high criminal activity on V and W Streets. The other issues for the park would be commitment by the City to keep it clean and properly maintained.

The only commitment at this time is the operations of CGCF all other items are open for discussion. At the request of the Mayor we will meet next week for further deliberations.

Regards,

Myla Moss
Commissioner
ANC1B01

well, it looks like the parking conundrum for the district's department of the environment will be moving on to somewhere else in town. perhaps they could move to a more metro-accessible site, removing the need for a lot of parking?

congress guts our gun laws? how about we mess with utah?

2009-03-04T10:00:00.000-05:00

i just wanted to pass this along, because i thought it was sneaky-brilliant.

from cary silverman (who ran against jack evans in last year's ward 2 race), a way to exact revenge if a certain senator from nevada insists on continuing to meddle in local affairs:

D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton shows some chutzpah and introduces an amendment to the House version of the bill to repeal all of Utah's strict alcoholic beverage laws to show how ridiculous it is for Congress to meddle in local affairs.

i love it!

petition to get nextbus up and running

2009-03-03T23:40:00.003-05:00

(short version of this post: sign the petition insisting that nextbus is implemented on the wmata bus lines!)

if you're not familiar with nextbus, let me give you some quick background. nextbus is a service employed by many transit systems in the united states that allows bus riders to know exactly when a bus is going to arrive at a location. now, you might be thinking, "that's what schedules are for," but anyone who rides the buses in DC knows that they very often do not stick to the posted schedules.

this is the beauty of nextbus, or at least it will be. when fully implemented, the service will allow anyone with a computer or a smart phone to pull up a bus line (like the g8), select a stop (like 1st and rhode island nw), and find out when the next bus will show up (5 minutes? 20 minutes? never??!?) instead of standing out on the corner forever (in the cold, or rain) waiting for a bus that never seems to be coming, you'll be able to time when you leave the house so you can show up at the stop just before the bus gets there, saving you time and headache.

wmata even started using the service on an experimental basis on the 90s buses back in 2007. they abruptly pulled the plug on the experiment when someone decided that the service wasn't accurate enough. it's too bad, because the service was actually accurate enough to be worth using. it was far better than relying on the schedules that were never followed.

some folks realized that the service was still available, though. you just had to go through a back-door on the nextbus website to find it. unfortunately, after some publicity on new columbia heights and dcist, wmata and nextbus shut down the back door.

before the day was out, another back door was discovered. this time, it was publicized earlier today by greater greater washington. within hours, that back door was plugged as well.

it's clear that wmata and nextbus do not want the public to have access to this service until they believe it's ready to be released. the problem is that the timeframe that wmata initially proposed has not been followed. we, the bus riders of the washington, dc area have been waiting a long time for this service, and it seems like it's never coming.

so, today, new columbia heights has started a petition asking wmata and nextbus to get nextbus up and running as soon as possible. you can sign the petition here, and i strongly encourage you to do so!

wmata and nextbus need to know that there is a real clamoring for this service, and they need to realize that its implementation will only lead to increased revenue for them (since the bottom line is clearly the most important thing here, right?!?), as it will make catching a bus an easier task, leading more people sitting on the fence to realize that it's easy and cheap to catch the bus to get around town.

so click on that link and sign the petition! what are you waiting for!?

mcmillan filtration site photo tour

2009-03-02T10:15:00.000-05:00

since we haven't talked about the mcmillan site much lately, i just thought i'd keep it fresh in people's minds with a post that includes a few photos from a friend who was lucky enough to take one of the guided tours of the site a few years ago. i hope they'll be having another one of these sometime this year, and i actually get a chance to go!

here are the photos from jessica hanff on flickr.

a road that doesn't exist

2009-03-01T21:53:00.003-05:00

many times on various DC blogs and listservs i have read about people having difficulties dealing with emergency dispatchers.

when calling about an emergency on ridge street NW (a one-block street between 4th and 5th streets and M and N streets), residents have complained that dispatchers are convinced that they're talking about either riggs road (a major artery in northeast DC near the fort totten metro station) or riggs street (a short street that runs from 13th to 19th streets NW, with gaps). clearly, dispatchers are either hearing things incorrectly or are not as familiar with DC geography as we might hope they would be.

that said, what happens if your road doesn't exist? now, i don't mean you're making the road up, of course. i mean, what if the district, for whatever reason, didn't have your road in their database. for all intents and purposes, you might as well be floating somewhere in space (or at least over the river in virginia). well, that exact scenario played out last november in the district's woodridge neighborhood. here's a note that was posted to the brookland listserv:

Hello, neighbors -

I just had a frustrating experience with 911. I'm on Monroe Street, next to the narrow Hoover Road that connects Monroe to Rhode Island. I witnessed a man punching a woman as they argued their way down Hoover, and immediately called 911, only to have the dispatcher tell me that Hoover Road did not exist. Well, there's a street sign and stretch of pavement that tells me it does, in fact, exist. She was extremely professional and as helpful as she could be, explaining that she couldn't dispatch to a location that isn't on their system. We managed to get directions worked out, and an officer dispatched, but by the time I got off the phone with the operator, the couple had moved out of my line of sight, I guess on to Rhode Island Avenue. No word on if the police ever made it to them, although I'm going to hope for the best.

This particular instance, as disturbing as it was, did shed light on the fact that this Hoover Road is invisible to emergency services. Does anybody have any idea of how to get it on their map? We get all sorts of activity on it, ranging from public intoxication to possible drug deals to prostitution activity. Don't even get me started on drive-through trash dumping. It would be nice to actually have it show up when the need to call 911 arises. Any ideas? ANC folks?

Regards,
Kyle (on Monroe)

here's the road that kyle's talking about (from google maps' street view):

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

hoover road is a short 2 blocks long, with rhode island avenue at its south and monroe street at its north end. it's basically an alley that has a name. unfortunately, that "alley" doesn't appear to have made it into the database that dispatchers use to send police, fire, and medical personnel to the scene of an emergency.

there was never any follow-up on the listserv to kyle's post. does 911 now have hoover road in their database? i don't know, but i'd like to find out, and i'd like to hope that they're doing a thorough review of their data to make sure it's flawless. in potential life-or-death situations, we can ask for nothing less.

hypocrisy in a government agency?

2009-02-25T07:15:00.004-05:00

now, i made the title of this post a little controversial on purpose, because i thought that "parking at gage-eckington site" wouldn't elicit enough eyeballs.

seriously, though, for those who weren't aware, when gage-eckington elementary was closed down last year, the city proposed moving the district department of the environment into the closed building. in addition, there would be a senior center, and the 7th street garden group (now named common good city farm) would be using the space as well.

now, i'm sure that the DDOE needs space to park a few trucks or other vehicles that are necessary to carry equipment to certain places or projects, but you would think that if there was any division of the district's government that would be using mass transit instead of individual cars, it would be the DDOE, right? less pollution and all that.

well, in a letter posted to the bloomingdale listserv this weekend (sorry i'm late on this), deputy mayor neil albert had something to say about that to a local resident. here's an exerpt (emphasis mine):

EMAIL FROM Deputy Mayor Neil Albert
From: Albert, Neil (EOM) [mailto:Neil.Albert@dc.gov]
Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2009 9:00 AM

Dear Jeff,

Thanks for your letter and email. I wanted to provide an update to you on a few matters related to the future of the Gage-Eckington School Site.

...

3. Currently, we are in a holding pattern as it pertains to the re-location of DDOE to the site. While working through the re-location logistics for the site, it was determined that we were running into some issues related to the availability of parking on-site and functionality of space for the agency. Additionally, we are studying the costs involved with re-configuring the space for agency use to determine how best to proceed. No final decision has been made, but we anticipate that we will have a better idea in approximately four weeks at which time we will share updated information with you.

...

Best,

Neil

now, i'm not knocking deputy mayor albert here, but i just wanted to point out that parking was one of the important criteria for the DDOE's relocation here. maybe that's unavoidable, i don't know. it just seems that, from 30,000 feet, this is one agency that should be using as little parking as possible.

please correct me if i'm wrong.

update on 2nd street ne street trees

2009-02-18T09:21:00.002-05:00

thanks to commenter RobA, we learn that the trees that i wrote about here have won something of a repreive. eleanor holmes norton convinced the architect of the capitol to do all that they can to avoid killing the trees while placing security bollards along that street.

bravo, i say! though i question whether the trees will actually survive, it's wonderful to see that it's still possible for some people to sit down, reason, and reach a compromise, instead of blindly following regulations like "we need to have x number of bollards spaced x number of feet apart, everything else be damned!"

here's a quote from the congresswoman:

I admit that I wanted to hug these graceful trees. If the trees do not survive the bollards, there will be time enough to take them down. These trees may die in time, but so do people, and we don't kill them without exhausting all possibilities for life.

soldiers' home redevelopment not happening (for now)

2009-02-17T06:43:00.004-05:00

the washington post has word today that the redevelopment of part of the land on the grounds of the armed forces retirement home has been put on hold due to the weakening economy. this was of special interest to a lot of people in bloomingdale because of the belief that it would lead to an enormous increase of traffic on 1st street nw, when combined with the redevelopment of the mcmillan sand filtration site.

certainly this will lead to discussion that any traffic analysis of the combined projects will need to be reassessed. it'll be interesting to see whether that leads to a delay on the mcmillan project.

nicknames for the area?

2009-02-16T19:15:00.002-05:00

with this comment on dcist, a joke was born about how to abbreviate our neighborhood's name so it could conform with the hipster shorthand for other neighborhoods in dc ("admo" for adams morgan or "cohi" for columbia heights, for examples). i really think that "blomi" does a great job of poking fun at this form of linguistic construction.

anyway, in scott roberts' bloomingdale listserv post on saturday, i saw the lastest nickname for bloomingdale—a resident of the neighborhood from the 100 block thomas street nw said, "We are in South East of North West Washington..."

so, as far as northwest DC goes, we are in the southeast part of it. guess the connotation is meant to go along with the thought that "southeast" is often shorthand for the "rough" or even "dangerous" part of DC.

while bloomingdale's crime profile is certainly not as rosy as the palisades or normanstone terrace, i think we live in a pretty un-rough part of the district. i don't mean to call this person from thomas street out, i just thought it would an interesting thought to share.

new restaurant coming to 12th street in brookland

2009-02-10T11:39:00.002-05:00

first saw this reported in the north capitol heartbeat newsletter, but it's a print-only publication (with a circulation of 5,033—pretty exacting, eh?)

kellys' ellis island restaurant, at 12th and quincy in downtown brookland, is being replced by a new location of san antonio bar & grill, a tex-mex restaurant with locations in alexandria and crystal city.

the restaurant was supposed to be open the first week of february, according to the newsletter. since that was last week, can anyone from brookland report if that's the case, or if they're still working on the switch-over?

what's up with the apartment building at 143 rhode island avenue nw?

2009-02-09T16:00:00.000-05:00

this beautiful apartment building at 143 rhode island ave nw is partially boarded up and appears to be unoccupied. am i incorrect—are there people actually living here?

looking at the district's tax records, the building is owned by "BARRY HOMES LTD PARTNRSH GR WASHINGTON MUTUAL HOUSING", whose business address is listed as 1419 v street nw. that property is owned by "SAINT PAUL'S CATHOLIC CHURCH", though we know the church at that location as st. augustine's catholic church. turns out, if you read the parish's history, the parishes of saint paul and saint augustine merged in the 1960s, and in the 1970s the saint paul moniker was removed in favor of saint augustine. apparently, that hasn't happened on the level of the tax records.

regardless, this is a gorgeous building, located on the triangle formed by the corner of rhode island avenue and t street. it's a shame the building isn't cared for as well as it should be.

follow-up on the construction at 440 rhode island ave nw

2009-02-09T12:45:00.000-05:00

i promised a couple more images of the ongoing construction of an apartment building at 440 rhode island avenue nw. first, here are the permits, stating that it will be a 4-story building with 19 units (not sure of district law, but does the basement count as one of those floors?)

below is a picture of the progress (taken on sunday afternoon) taken from the northwestern corner of 5th and rhode island.

finally, here's a shot of the back of the building, taken in the alley. unfortunately, with the sun setting, i couldn't get a decent photo of the area from the other side. it would have been a better shot, but the glare from the sun precluded that from happening. it would appear that there will be a some space in the back for a dumpster and a few parking spaces.

a post for PoP

2009-02-09T10:45:00.000-05:00

the prince of petworth likes to post photos of sculptures he finds in yards and pocket parks around the city, so i thought, in the belief that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, i would have a post of my own in that mold.

above is a sculpture from the front yard of the house at 132 rhode island ave. nw, which is apparently home to the noa gallery. if you do a google search for the term "noa gallery", you turn up a place in groton, massachusetts, but searching for "noa gallery dc" will give you the location here in bloomingdale. does anyone know anything specific about this gallery? i never see it written up in things like the dcist arts agenda.

below is a photo of the plaque next to the front door.

broken windows theory—it's time for DC to REALLY understand the implications

2009-02-08T18:15:00.004-05:00

check out this article from today's edition of the boston globe. police in the massachusetts city of lowell conducted an experiment on the efficacy of the broken windows theory, which postulates that signs of urban decay, from things as simple as leaving piles of trash on the street, all the way up to boarded up buildings along a commercial strip, lead to negative outcomes (especially crime) happening in the affected neighborhoods.

the leadership of new york city police department became early believers in the theory, and many people attribute the drop in crime in that city during the 1990s to adherence to a "zero tolerance" policy that led police to cite offenders for minor crimes. the belief was that cracking down on these minor crimes (like littering and vandalism) would lead to a decrease in major crimes. many believe the policy worked; others believe that it was the end of the crack epidemic that led to the downturn in crime.

now, though, it appears that researchers from harvard and suffolk universities have seen enough data to give credence to the thought that paying attention to the little things can make a community safer in the long run. check out this quote from the article.

"In traditional policing, you went from call to call, and that was it - you're chasing your tail," said Lowell patrol officer Karen Witts on a recent drive past a boarded up house that was once a bullet-pocked trouble spot. Now, she says, there appears to be a solid basis for a policing strategy that preemptively addresses the conditions that promote crime.

the article also notes this, which is one heck of a conclusion:

Cleaning up the physical environment was very effective; misdemeanor arrests less so, and boosting social services had no apparent impact.

i'd really recommend you go read the whole thing, and i'd really hope that our police here in the district are paying attention. i don't want to disparage social services, and i certainly don't want to see police not crack down on misdemeanors, but i really hope this encourages people who are ridiculed for insisting on better trash cleanup, painting over graffiti, and trying to get vacant buildings occupied to keep pushing for what they believe will help their communities.

(hat tip to rob goodspeed for sharing this article)

saturday's mcmillan meeting

2009-02-08T15:43:00.003-05:00

a smaller crowd was in attendance at the february 7th mcmillan development meeting than was in attendance at the december meeting. that doesn't mean there were few people there, though. the room was full, and the discussion spirited.

the representatives from the city government and the development groups (pictured above: clint jackson from the DMPED office, aakash thakkar from EYA, deborah crain from the office of planning, and jair lynch) started the presentation by asking everyone to remain civil so this meeting could be productive. i believe they'd seen a lot of the fliers that were being passed around, as well as discussion by opponents about how they were going to do what they could to derail the project as currently envisioned.

after basic presentation and a few questions from the audience, councilman thomas arrived (he had another meeting he was attending earlier) and gave an impassioned speech about moving forward on this project.

this was, bar none, the best speech i've seen the councilman give. he elegantly laid out a few key points:

this has been an open process and we need to keep moving forward to keep things from stalling.
we can't afford for the surrounding neighborhoods to go another 25 years staring at an empty field surrounded by a rusty fence.
those who are spreading falsehoods about the project (multi-story tenement housing a la cabrini-green or the robert taylor homes) need to stop.

once councilman thomas' speech was done, the meeting quickly moved to a question-and-answer session between the attendees and the presenters. the meeting remained mostly civil until the end, when representatives of empower dc, who had been at the previous meeting and were also confrontational then, began to shout down clint jackson for not answering a question to their liking. after some brief posturing by both, the meeting ended, and we left trinity university.

one of the important announcements to come out of the meeting was the imminent creation of a website where information about the project will be available directly from the development team. that website is available here. i was assured that, once fully up and running, everyone will be able to leave comments about the development there and communicate with the team as well.

in my opinion, this will be a great boon to the project. i think a lot of people are concerned about some of the falsehoods they've been hearing, and once more of the information is readily available, people in the surrounding neighborhoods will have some of those fears assuaged. that's not to say that everyone is going to be happy with this project—there are still many who would rather see nothing built there at all—but i believe, from all i saw at this meeting, that we are moving closer to seeing a consensus agreement on the broad strokes of this plan.

reminder—mcmillan community meeting tomorrow (feb. 7th)

2009-02-06T16:05:00.000-05:00

here are the important details:

February 7, 2009
10:00am to 12:00pm
Trinity University Social Hall
125 Michigan Avenue NE

if you have questions before the meeting, call vicky chambers (in councilman thomas' office) at (202) 727-8204 or john basile (from eya) (301) 634-8600

obama motorcade through shaw?

2009-02-05T09:09:00.002-05:00

the MPD police cars/trucks/suvs are often deployed to the corners along 16th street to shut the road off so presidential (and other) motorcades can speed up the street (and keep the rest of us citizens from being able to go where we need to reasonably).

just before 9 this morning, while biking in, i noticed police deployed along rhode island avenue up to the area around seaton elementary and shaw/patterson middle school. does that mean they might be getting a presidential visit this morning? goess we'll have to wait and see.

bye-bye dead tree

2009-02-03T16:48:00.002-05:00

the tree blocking part of your view of downtown bloomingdale's public restroom has been cut down. it was dead for at least a year, and was looking pretty weak before that. hope the city puts something appropriate there soon, a tree that will grow up to be a decent shade tree, not something small and decorative.

progress at 440 rhode island avenue nw

2009-02-03T16:40:00.003-05:00

i've written about this lot here, here, and here. check out the progress on the new apartment building going up there. i'll have better shots by this weekend, but thought people might be interested in seeing actual building progress in this down economy. i like the fancier-than-normal cinder block going up on the side of the building.

this photo was taken looking towards the corner of new jersey and rhode island.

here's that decorative block.

feds—as usual—are doing something stupid

2009-02-02T22:57:00.003-05:00

(i know this is from well outside of our neighborhood, but i just had to make a comment.)

i was just reading this month's hill rag, and i saw in the ANC reports section (see page 49) that the architect of the capitol has let the local citizens know that elm trees, well on their way to maturity, are to be cut down. and for what reason—everyone say it with me now—security.

yeah, apparently "federal mandate" has said that our soon-to-be state-tree, the security bollard, must be planted all along second street NE in 4 foot increments. the trees that are already there gotta go! can't have mature trees in this town, we gotta have security.

now, i'm no dummy. i realize that, even with a new sheriff in town, the bureaucrats who run things are not going to change the way they do business. we gotta secure the living crap outta things, common sense be damned. honestly, the maturing trees that are there would do a pretty good job of impersonating bollards if what you're looking for is keeping cars, trucks, etc., from driving into the side of a building. if you must have a denser field of bollards, add them to the spaces between the trees already there.

now, i know that someone with a degree in bollardology is going to tell me that just won't cut it. baloney. sure, a truck moving at 70 mph would probably be able to drive through such a barrier, but how in the hell could anything build up the speed necessary to do such a thing in a narrow space like second street?

look, AOC, get creative. find a way to make this work without pulling out the trees. we can see you've already done this once down the block. check out the image below:

View Larger Map

if you look at the street level image, you can see there are a few twiggy saplings on the east side of second street alongside the supreme court building. but, in the satellite imagery (taken from 2002), you can see that there were much larger trees there—ripped out in the name of security, the religion that we've been told to worship at the altar of during the last seven years.

you have a chance to not just follow the book to the letter, AOC. get creative. we can have our security cake and eat it too. don't take down maturing elms out of fear.

neighbors-only meeting for the mcmillan project

2009-02-01T19:12:00.001-05:00

i'm passing along the information from scott roberts' bloomingdale listserv:

Neighbors-Only Meeting on McMillan Megasite

Mehdi Mansouri, Tony Norman and Don McKinnon would like to invite any interested neighbors to an informal meeting on Tuesday, February 3rd at the home of Don McKinnon:

2429 First Street, NW (corner of First and Channing)

This meeting is for neighbors only. The purpose of the meeting is to get organized for the developer's two-hour meeting on Saturday the 7th.

We are very interested in folks that are familiar with: property deeds, Federal and DC environmental laws and regulations, Federal and DC transportation laws and regulations, and basics of urban design.

We are also very interested in anyone familiar with the Zoning Commission, and especially anyone who knows anyone on the Zoning Commission. We are also interested in recruiting some folks to knock on doors for an hour or two.

Most importantly, we want to be able to have a productive discussion without the supervision of the Bethesda-based development team.

Again, neighbors only. Hope you can make it. We will have light refreshments. BYOB.

Space is limited. Please rsvp as soon as possible.

Please rsvp to Don McKinnon at don @ dcmatters.com

bloomingdale featured on yesterday's daily show!

2009-01-29T09:34:00.003-05:00

check this out! world missions for christ, a church at the corner of 1st and randolph nw in bloomingdale, was featured in a segment on the daily show last night about which church the obama family should choose for worship. the clip is featured below.

View Larger Map

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Obama's New Church

Daily Show Full Episodes
Daily Show Tickets

february 7—the next mcmillan meeting

2009-01-28T20:56:00.002-05:00

there were a couple comments on previous posts about the mcmillan sand filtration project asking if the meeting that was supposed to happen on january 24th had happened.

that meeting did not, in fact, occur when we were told it would. but, it will be taking place on february 7th. the flyer announcing the meeting can be seen above. here are the important details:

February 7, 2009
10:00am to 12:00pm
Trinity University Social Hall
125 Michigan Avenue NE

if you have questions before the meeting, call vicky chambers (in councilman thomas' office) at (202) 727-8204 or john basile (from eya) (301) 634-8600

one of the best 404 pages ever

2009-01-26T15:30:00.001-05:00

i noticed this the other morning when surfing the washington post's website. when you enter a URL that can't be found on their site, you get the message at the bottom of the image above, which is akin to a 404 messsage. a hearty well done to the folks at this is reality!

poor urban design coming to first street?

2009-01-25T19:23:00.003-05:00

it was first noted by scott roberts on both the bloomingdale and eckington listservs on saturday:

Your moderator notes that there is a curb cut request on the agenda of this Tuesday's, 1/27/2009, ANC 5C meeting. Prior ANC 5C commissions handed out requested curb cuts like cotton candy. Will the 2009 ANC 5C commission do the same?

1817 1st street, a house that had been vacant and crumbling since before i moved into the neighborhood, was sold recently. i was very excited to see that this old house might finally be getting some attention. more eyes on the street, more neighbors to say hello to, one less eyesore, and another beautiful house to add to the many that line 1st street northwest down the spine of our neighborhood.

the house, which had at times been listed near $600,000, finally sold for $310,000 to a mr. thomas d. crowley, as noted in the real estate transaction notice listed below:

Address: 1817 1ST ST NW
SSL: 3106 0089
Neighborhood: ECKINGTON
Homestead Status: ** Not receiving the Homestead Deduction
Owner Name: THOMAS D CROWLEY
Mailing Address: 1817 1ST ST NW; WASHINGTON DC20001-1069
Sale Price: $310,000
Sale Date: 11/13/2008

1817 is the second house south of the intersection of 1st and seaton, and can be seen in the picture above. here's a straight-on picture of the house (i apologize for the shadows, the picture was taken close to sunset):

there have been many posts at greater greater washington regarding curb cuts. to summarize, curb cuts are generally a negative thing here in the city. they lead to automobile vs. pedestrian conflicts, they take away public parking spaces, and, in the case of this one, a tree (located in front of 1815 1st street in the picture above) would likely be required to be cut down.

i am not certain why a curb cut is being requested for this house, but the only logical reason would be to put a garage in in the first floor of this home (the house does not have alley access in the rear). the only way that could be accomplished would be to tear the stoop out and radically redo the house's façade. while the property owner has the right to do what they wish with their house, i strongly feel that this outcome, if true, would be a negative for the neighborhood.

there are no residential curb cuts on 1st street NW between the mcmillan reservoir and florida avenue—the entire length of our neighborhood. this would set a terrible precedent if it were approved.

anc5c will be meeting this tuesday, january 27th, at 7:00 p.m. at the first new hope baptist church, which is located at the corner of 3rd and seaton NE, in the eckington neighborhood, to hear the petition for this curb cut. if i understand correctly, ddot will then rule on whether or not to grant this petition.

i will be attending this meeting, hoping to hear the details regarding this curb cut request. i hope to have the opportunity to convince the commissioners to turn the request down, and keep the neighborhood from being irreparably damaged. if you feel as strongly about this as i do, i urge you to attend this meeting. perhaps the owner can be convinced that this is not the right choice for a vibrant urban neighborhood.

"no good deed goes unpunished"

2009-01-24T14:16:00.003-05:00

that's what david smith, the person behind the fifth and oh blog had to say on the shaw neighborhood listserv with respect to a complaint that had been filed against anc2c02 commissioner kevin chapple.

it turns out that, in the last year, a complaint was filed against mr. chapple over the publication of his neighborhood newsletter "anc2c02 & you". the newsletter was published under the aucpices of a for-profit organization called "anc-2c02 LLC". money to produce and print the newsletter came from advertising dollars that local businesses and politicos gave to have themselves publicized in a forum that was meant help disseminate news for everyone in the neighborhood. from an admittedly brief reading of the findings that were published yesterday on the shaw listserv, it looks like commissioner chapple even put up his own money to help publish the newsletter.

the newsletter was a breath of fresh air for the shaw community, so used to being kept in the dark about the goings-on of their elected officials. the shaw ANC had, for years, refused to adopt many of the trappings of a modern, open, inclusive government that other ANCs around the city had, such as office space that would allow public interaction, a website to allow dissemination of information (like agendas), and wide publication of phone numbers that would allow constituents to get in touch with their elected representatives. commissioner chapple was showing the rest of the ANC what was possible if information was set free.

unfortunately, to co-opt a common phrase, "freedom isn't free". the cost of getting this information out to the public, while not enormous, was apparently substantial enough that it wasn't something that could be completely handled with out-of-pocket funds. having a newsletter or website for the entire ANC is something that probably could have been funded by the ANC itself, but the previous regime would never have allowed that to happen. thus, commissioner chapple did what was necessary to get a framework of what could be with regards to communication up and running. unfortunately, he ran afoul of current law and some of his political enemies in the neighborhood.

the complaint against his newsletter, initially filed by a constituent, was joined by the gentleman whom commissioner chapple defeated in two consecutive elections, leroy thorpe, less than a week after he had lost to mr. chapple in that second election. a comment on the shaw listserv noted that this appeared to be "sour grapes" on the part of mr. thorpe. one can't help but agree, noting the opportunistic timing of the addition of his name to the complaint.

in the end, the city's office of campaign finance found that a $2,000 fine should be levied against mr. chapple, but given the circumstances, the office ruled that

such fine shall be suspended because although respondent created the offending ANC 2C02 LLC to generate a profit in any legal manner, the overriding sole purpose of this venture was to promote the civic, cultural, and social interests of residents of the District of Columbia and especially the residents within the Shaw community; and, the intent was to use any proceeds, and none were realized, above paying expenses for the publication of the ANC 2C02 community magazine for projects to benefit the Shaw community

so, as a result of all of this, if you try to access commissioner chapple's newsletter, what you find is the screen shot that i've captured in the image above. hopefully, commissioner chapple, wiser in the way things work and aware of the minutia of district law, will be able to continue to publish his newsletter and informative website, thus letting all who are interested in the betterment of the shaw community find out what's happening in the neighborhood, and what we all can do to make shaw and the surrounding neighborhoods even better places.

demolition by neglect

2009-01-11T12:00:00.004-05:00

in september 2007, i documented the beginning of a pop-up at 100 seaton place nw. in the course of a week or so, the turret at the top of this house was removed, and the walls were extended to add enough space to the top of the house to create another floor. once the turret was replaced and shingled, i expected to see brick work on the walls that would complete the job.

instead, 16 months have passed, and the tyvek wrap continues to blow off the building, exposing the wood underneath to the elements. enormous amounts of water from the rains of the last year must have managed to seep down into the walls of this old rowhouse. i'm sure there must be structural damage, and i worry that the tenants inside might be without a place to stay if the house is continued to be neglected in this way. seems to be yet another unfortunate example of disinvestment in our neighborhood. does anyone know if the city can require building owners to complete projects like this in occupied buildings?

downtown bloomingdale tagged extensively

2009-01-11T09:23:00.000-05:00

following are a few pictures of the tagging that has happened recently in downtown bloomingdale, along 1st, seaton, and rhode island. these pictures were taken on saturday morning, so i wasn't able to get photos of tagging on the roll-down screens that cover bloomingdale liquors windows as well. whomever "che", "nuk", and "kgb" (oh no, the russians are coming!) are, they seem to think that the spaces on privately owned homes and stores are their personal canvases.

the shame is that the places that have been tagged are, for the most part, vacant and crumbling. it appears that some owners don't seem to be in any kind of rush to clean up these eyesores that keep our community from reaching its full potential. while there have been fantastic signs of growth in bloomingdale (yoga district and the future baraki, to name two), there are still pockets of disinvestment in our "downtown" waiting to be cared for.

1st street is about to be torn up

2009-01-10T23:09:00.002-05:00

i noticed the standard no parking signs were put up on every pole on 1st street nw between seaton place and rhode island avenue today. from the picture to the right, you can see that parking will not be permitted during daylight hours for the next week. the reason? WASA is going to be tearing up first street for pipe replacement. i thought it had been announced that they would be terminating that program before they had finished replacing all the lead pipes in the city. though, this sign does say "sewer lateral replacement", so we could be talking about a different program here.

mcmillan meeting notes

2008-12-16T22:25:00.000-05:00

(i want to apologize for not getting this post up sooner, but sometimes you have to spend time taking care of people who need help, and putting the blog off until later...)

here are some brief notes from the mcmillan meeting that happened saturday at trinity university.

donuts and coffee for everyone who came out at 10 a.m. to trinity's library. the meeting started about 25 minutes late.

i'm not a good judge of crowd sizes, but i'd wager that 50 people showed up for this meeting. much smaller turnout that the first meeting in april.

after introductions from councilman thomas and aakash thakkar, eya's vp of development, emily eig gave us a brief history of the site. she showed old photographs of the construction of the sand filtration cells and the fountain that used to be located northwest of the corner of first and channing streets, along with some of the original plans as layed out by frederick law olmstead, jr.

tony norman, a longtime bloomingdale resident, gave more history of the site, and discussed how families remember the site from more recent years. he admonished those present to make sure that we care for our history, because, as he put it, "if we (the district of columbia) don't respect our history, how will the rest of the country respect us?

finally, after the history, aakash thakkar took to the mic again to describe the development to those at the meeting. he was joined by bob youngetob of eya, jair lynch, and barrie daneker of anc 5c07 in fielding questions, as well as others whose names i did not write down. the powerpoint that was shown was pretty similar to the one i have. if you'd like a copy of what i have, please leave a note in the comments and i'll email it to you.

anyway, some of the big details are that there are estimated to be $50-$60 million in infrastructure costs in the site—both to make it available to build on, and to save some of the historical elements of the site. the plans include approximately 1.8-2.3 million square feet of residential to support the retail on site. the developers are operating under the assumption that the city will not provide financing in the form of bonds, so they will have to find the up-front money on their own.

i included the image above to show some of the ideas of retail for the site. the retail element will be the first phase built at the site, with office and residential following. a grocery store will anchor the corner at north capitol and michigan. the developers are currently in discussion with grocers for this corner, but they can't reveal whom at this early point in the process. the image on the screen, though, lists many grocers including harris teeter, trader joe's (please, please, let this be the one), elwood thompson's, whole foods, giant, my organic market, safeway, shoppers food warehouse, fresh market, and yes organic market. since the developers said the site will support a smaller grocery store (in the 35-40,000 square foot range), my guess would be a trader joe's would be perfect for this spot. yes, giant, and safeway would be cannibalizing stores they have nearby, bloomingdale just isn't a whole foods neighborhood (sorry, but true), and i don't know if the space is big enough for a shoppers.

anyway, to step back from the grocery speculation, the developers stated that there would be room for up to 20 smaller stores, including 7-8 neighborhood serving restaurants. we were told to think of the city vista project at 5th and k nw, as well as barracks row, as examples of the feel this project would have, retail-wise.

comments from those in attendance were varied, and i don't wish to recount them in-depth here. suffice it to say that residents of park place, the condominium community to the northeast of the project don't feel that they've been adequately represented in the process of designing this project. members of the brookland community who are opposed to any development anywhere made themselves heard, often to the detriment of bloomingdale neighbors who had the floor. some residents who would rather see the site remain green space made themselves heard, but i believe that they are fighting an uphill battle here.

the next community meeting regarding the project will be held on saturday, january 24th, so mark it down on your calendars now!

i'd be interested to hear from others who were at the meeting, who might disagree with the way i've summarized things, and who feel there are things i glossed over that were important and should be discussed here. please continue the discussion in the comments, i hope we can get a good dialogue started here!

mcmillan site meeting this saturday

2008-12-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

click on the image to the right to view the flyer for this weekend's meeting regarding the proposed development at the mcmillan sand filtration site. i received a paper copy of this flyer in the mail on wednesday, in addition to a PDF via email a few days earlier. here are the important details:

date: saturday, december 13th
time: 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon
location: social hall, trinity university (125 michigan ave. NE)

concept plans for the site will be presented. a presentation has already been given to "select" members of the community, and i've received a copy of that presentation, so i felt some of it should be shared with the wider community so you can get a feel for what you'll see at the meeting this saturday.

this image shows a proposed site plan. note that first street is at the top, channing is at the left, michigan at the right, and north capitol at the bottom.

open space in the proposed site plan is highlighted here.

this artwork shows the southernmost park area, as view from north capitol street.

this artwork shows some of the retail frontage at the corner of the northernmost row of filtration towers and a proposed road that would be halfway between north capitol and first street (half street NW?)

finally, here's a ground-level view from the southwest corner of the retail stretch and what i'm calling half street NW.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

for the most part, i like what i'm seeing so far. i don't know if i would lay out the rowhouses on the southern third of the site the way the plan shows currently, and i hope there's more differentiation at the northern half of the site to break up facades and make things visually interesting, but since this is a first draft, let's all go to the meeting on saturday and discuss things!

fixing the intersection of florida and r

2008-12-11T08:57:00.003-05:00

i want to draw attention to this post over at sean's bloomingdale blog.

the intersection of florida avenue and r street, nw, on the southern edge of bloomingdale, is dangerous. period. for pedestrians, cyclists, and even drivers of automobiles on r street, you often take your life in your hands when trying to cross florida.

traffic on florida avenue is not required to stop, and the lights one block in either direction are timed in such a way that there is nearly always cross traffic on florida at this point. if you are driving westbound on r street, your best bet is to pull into the middle of the intersection when westbound florida avenue traffic clears and hope that traffic on eastbound florida will stop and let you proceed. that's an iffy proposition.

those trying to cross by bicycle or foot might as well prepare for a lifesize version of frogger.

apparently, the city is aware of the shortcomings at this intersection, and are looking into doing something about it. what that is isn't clear, but you can email mike goodno of ddot and let him know you share concerns about safety at florida and r.

his email address is mike.goodno@dc.gov. how about sending him a friendly email letting him know you'd be happy to throw your support behind making this dangerous intersection a safer place for all of us.

the case for bringing back truxton circle

2008-12-11T01:08:00.000-05:00

just before thanksgiving, there was some discussion on the bloomingdale listserv regarding the past, present, and future of truxton circle. for those who don't know, truxton circle was a traffic circle on north capitol street, located just north of the current intersection with florida avenue.

as you can see in the graphic to the right, q street and lincoln road fed directly into the circle, while florida avenue ran just to the south. a photo of the circle (with the fountain that resided at its center) can be seen in this graphic, provided by bloomingdale resident tim sloan. he has written a very eloquent defense of why we should bring the circle back, as part of a reconstruction of north capitol street, that would bring the road back to a more human level, away from the car-centric near-freeway that it is today. his letter, in its entirety, is below.

(note: the 2005 ddot study referred to below can be found here.)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

THE CASE FOR A NEW TRUXTON CIRCLE

TimSloanDC@gmail.com 11.17.08

I have researched the 2005 DC DDOT study to rebuild Truxton Circle. In my opinion, it was flawed. It was conducted in a way where the only conclusion could be to NOT recommend building a new circle.

My case starts with the 11th Street bridge project in SE over the Anacostia River. That project begins construction next spring. When completed in 2015, the new 8 lane highway speed bridge will take thousands of cars off of New York Avenue. These cars will bypass NY Avenue and the 395 tunnel in NW for the faster, direct connection to the SE/SW freeway along 295.

Currently, DC DDOT is doing a feasibility study to close the entrance to 395 at New York Avenue NW. This closure cannot happen until the bridges over the river are open in my opinion. The hope is to return NY Avenue into a “grand boulevard” with green median strip.

All these traffic flow changes will affect North Capitol, as well, making the 2005 Truxton Circle study data obsolete.

Traffic heading south on North Capitol Street at R Street in the morning rush is about 2500 vehicles an hour. By the time you get to H Street, that number has dropped to 1250 vehicles an hour. Where are the 1250 cars going that turned off North Capitol? I suspect they are headed to the 395 tunnel entrance on NY Avenue, NW.

The other flaw in the Truxton Circle study is they focused on building a traffic circle that ONLY allowed 2 lanes of North/South traffic to enter the circle. North Capitol has three travel lanes in each direction crossing Florida Avenue currently. So, of course, the wait queues would be enormous due to merging traffic entering a two lane circle.

Chevy Chase Circle in NW has 3 traffic lanes entering and exiting the circle along Connecticut Avenue. It has no problems and higher traffic numbers than those of North Capitol Street.

DC DDOT still has the mind set that New York Avenue, Florida Avenue and North Capitol streets’ sole mission in our neighborhood is to feed the 395 highway beast. This is why cars on North Capitol wiz by at over 50 mph in our neighborhoods. They have no interest in stopping, shopping or slowing down. They are just cutting through, many on the way to Virginia via the 395 tunnel.

The right-of-way for North Capitol Street at Rhode Island Avenue is 110 feet wide, including the very narrow sidewalks. Some are only 4 feet wide. By comparison, the grand section of Pennsylvania between the White House and the US Capitol averages a 100 foot wide roadway width and 20 to 40 foot wide sidewalks on each side. On Pennsylvania Avenue, the 100 foot wide road way provides 4 travel lanes in each direction with a 16 foot wide median.

What do we get for our 110 foot wide road way? Two high speed lanes in each direction with a median barely wide enough to stand on and all buried 25 feet below grade (street level). At grade, we have 1 local lane in each direction, 1 parking lane and narrow sidewalks. Pedestrian deaths and high speed accidents are common on this section of roadway.

The highway designers of the 50’s and 60’s tunneled North Capitol to serve the unfinished 395 freeway, making a bad transportation plan even worse. We lost a walkable and connected neighborhood.

North Capitol Street will never be a thriving retail district and majestic northern gateway” to the “old city” until there are significant transportation changes in this area:

Complete the 11th Street bridges in SE connecting 395 to 295. (completion 2015)
Closing the 395 tunnel entrance at New York Avenue NW (entry to the Tunnel will be from Massachusetts Avenue NW).
Building a modern three lane Truxton Circle at North Capitol and Florida Avenue.
Return the intersection of North Capitol and New York Avenue to a grade intersection.
Eliminate the long below grade section of North Capitol Street (W Street to Randolph Street), thus returning Rhode Island Avenue to a grade intersection with North Capitol Street and in the process creating a grand vista L’Enfant would be proud of.

"We must invest in our neighborhood commercial corridors so that they can thrive and flourish." - Councilmember Thomas while talking about the burying of utilities on 12th street NE.

Now imagine cars traveling 25 mph along a tree lined North Capitol with pedestrian friendly intersections and wide medians with trees. Walk along wide brick sidewalks once the underpasses are removed and the street correctly proportioned. Only then can you begin to imagine cafes, shops, restaurants and new housing along North Capitol Street.

The success of a thriving North Capitol Street business district will depend on new infrastructure and transportation projects, not street light flower baskets and banners. Now, let’s get to work.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

here's a comparison of the circle before it's removal, and the same view up newly widened north capitol street immediately after reconstruction.

this graphic, from the 2005 ddot study, shows the proposed circle being centered on the intersection of north capitol and florida avenue. this would require the condemning of property to the southwest and northeast of the intersection. i believe that placing the circle in its proper former location would be more intelligent, and less damaging to the existing neighborhood.

bloomingdales?

2008-12-06T14:54:00.002-05:00

god bless alice thompson, the outreach person for the mayor's office here in ward 5. she sent this email out yesterday:

GOOD AFTERNOON ALL,

BLOOMINGDALES:

MONDAY MORNING WE WILL DO A FOLLOW –UP / CLEAN –UP / NOTICE OF VIOLATIONS IN BLOOMINGDALES IN PREPARATION FOR MAYOR FENTY’S WALK THROUGH THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11TH COMMENCING @ 3:00PM.

ADDITIONALLY, WE WILL CONTINUE WITH OUR GRAFFITI REMOVAL. YESTERDAY WE REMOVED GRAFFITI FROM PUBLIC SPACE. TODAY WE REMOVED GRAFFITI FROM OVER 7 PROPERTIES – AT LEAST 5 MORE TO GO, I RECEIVED SEVERAL REQUEST FROM CITIZENS THIS MORNING. THE GRAFFITI TEAM DID A WONDERFUL JOB.

SEVERAL ADDRESSES HAVE TRASH AND DEBRIS, BUILDING MATERIALS, ETC. – WE MUST WRITE TICKETS

IVY CITY:

WE WILL HEAD OVER TO IVY CITY FOR A FOLLOW-UP IN PREPARATION FOR MAYOR FENTY’S WALKTHROUGH – TUESDSAY, DECEMBER 11TH COMMENCING @ 4:00PM. IVY CITY NEEDS FENWICK STREET CLEANED, VACANT LOT NEXT TO THE TRINITY BAPTIST CHURCH –1814 CENTRAL PLACE. AND THE REAR ALLEY OOF A VACANT PROPERTY ON 1800 CORCORAN ST, NE.

GRAFFITI NEEDS TO BE REMOVED FROM AN APARTMENT BLDG. ON 1800 CORCORAN (BUTLER HAS THE WAIVER) AND A WALL IN REAR OF A VACANT BLDG ON 1800 CORCORAN. ALSO, PRIVATE HOME 1861 CORCORAN. I HAVE THE WAIVER.

SEE ALL MONDAY, HAVE A WONDERFUL WEEKEND. WILL PROVIDE INFORMATION ABOUT THE XMAS LUNCH CLINTON AND I WILL BE THROWING FOR YOU GUYS BY MONDAY. DATE IS THUR. DEC 18TH AT 5MPD HEADQUARTERS.

MANY THANKS,

ALICE

Alice A. Thompson
Outreach and Services Specialist W-5
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s
Office of Community Relations and Services
1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Suite 211
Washington, D.C. 20004
Tel. (202) 727-5746
Fax (202) 727-5931
Alice.Thompson@dc.gov

this is the second email i've seen from her office referring to our neighborhood as "bloomingdales". is this in reference to north bloomingdale + south bloomingdale? are there two "bloomingdales"?

and why all caps? no need to shout! :)

george will grammar tic #7

2008-12-05T17:09:00.002-05:00

continuing my irrational obsession with one man's need to make one-word sentences consisting of four letters eerily similar to his last name, i present you with this. end of the third paragraph...

even more blogroll fun!

2008-12-03T11:00:00.001-05:00

i have a couple more blogs to add to the blogroll (i've been on a real "read as much about the city as i can" kick lately):

added:

borderstan—the name may be debated, but the content isn't. a consistently updated blog covering the area between logan and dupont circles.
off seventh—one of the best shaw blogs has been back for a while, and it's time it was back on the blogroll.
river east idealist—another east of the river blog (one that actually would like to rebrand "east of the river" as "river east"). good to see more activity from an underblogged part of the city.

(sorry i didn't add your blog to the list, hillrat, but i felt yours was less dc news, and more a personal blog. you can argue this one with me as you'd like!)

there are many, many other DC blogs on my radar, and i post these updates mostly to give these blogs a shout out, not to just announce what's on the blogroll. i'll talk about more of them very soon.

am i an old curmudgeon?

2008-12-03T08:00:00.002-05:00

yesterday evening, i had a pizza in the oven, and was sitting in my room reading the dupont current (total nerd alert, here), when i heard some crashing of glass out in front of the house. i leapt to the window, looking outside to see a group of kids who couldn't be more than 9 years old tipping over my garbage and recycling cans.

i had seen these kids hanging out in front of the dc mini mart (our wonderful friendly neighborhood liquor store at 1828 1st street nw) about 45 minutes earlier when i was taking the garbage out to the curb. my first reaction was anger, and i wanted to just run downstairs and pummel the brats.

in the amount of time it took me to throw on a coat and my shoes, i managed to think about things rationally (a little bit, anyways) and i decided to pursue a different course of action. when i got downstairs, i walked right over to the liquor store, where i found the four young boys standing by the front door.

one of them asked me if i wanted to go into the store. i quickly said, "no," and proceeded to ask them why they tipped my garbage over. before they could deny doing so (which one of the boys started to try to do), i told them that i just watched them do it from my window. i told them, "i know you just want to have a little fun, but you can't do what you just did. i want you to come over here and help me pick things up."

one of the boys started to claim that he had simply bumped into one of the cans while walking by. i quickly stopped him and told him i had watched them "bump" into all four, and pull them to the ground. there was no accident here, and they knew that i knew it. i started walking over to the cans, and motioned for the boys to follow me. two of them walked over to the cans with me and helped pick things up. the other two did not.

i thanked the boys who helped me pick things up, and they walked back to the liquor store while i walked back inside. one asked me if i really lived here, and i pointed to the apartment upstairs and said, "yep, right up there."

now, looking back at this event, there are a couple of things i would have done differently. i wish i would have asked their names, and gave them mine. i think i missed out on a chance to really connect with at least one of these boys, and i didn't take advantage of that. i wish i would have been a little more calm when i first went to confront them, because i realize now that i was still too worked up emotionally when i first approached them. i wish i wouldn't have let the other two boys just stand there and do nothing. they were part of the problem, and they needed to be part of the solution.

i asked if i'm a curmudgeon in the title of this post because i wonder 'am i just keeping kids from having a little fun'? sure, what they did was pretty harmless, but at the same time, i want to know what kind of parents let elementary school aged boys run around alone, and hang out at a liquor store, at 8:30 on a school night? these boys are at an age where they're going to be very susceptible to getting involved with stuff that's a lot worse than tipping over garbage cans. the lack of good parenting here really makes me much angrier than any spilled recyclables ever could...