check out www.dc.gov.
it looks like the site has been given a little bit of a facelift, with an animated feature on the front page touting the main news stories, along with cleaner-looking headers for the some of the other sections and a new banner across the top (just a stylized DC flag instead of the scenes of things around town).
it's an evolution, not a whole new page, but it looks nice.
living on seaton place has led to a lot of good-natured joking from some friends lately, as people from bloomingdale and beyond have heard about some of the troubles we've had with the thugs at the end of the block near north capitol. at the pig roast/concert/farmers' market/neighborhood party on sunday, my roommate and i got a chance to talk to john salatti of the ANC about the meeting that took place last week about what's being done to stop this uptick in crime.
(i would have linked to the anc 5c webpage here, but the site seems to be down.)
he told us about a future meeting involving the mayor and the chief of police, and told us about some of the things that the MPD is planning to put into place to help catch the drug dealers and other scofflaws up that way. it sounds like there is some serious effort being put into draining that swamp.
i have noticed a lot more police cruisers heading up and down the block the last few nights. i don't know if this is directly related to trying to tamp down street crime on seaton, but it sure seems like it is, and i say bravo! no one should have to worry about their safety while walking their dog or sitting on their stoop in this neighborhood.
here are some pictures (taken by my roommate) from the concert given by the haitian students today at the bloomingdale farmers market. click on each one for a larger image:
some bloomingdale neighbors lounging in the park before the concert begins.
people getting some bbq from the pit outside big bear.
here's the bbq pit.
and here's the operation that was set up to distribute the bbq. it was amazing, there were literally hundreds of sandwiches being handed out to anyone who came up and asked for one.
les petits chanteurs are getting ready to sing.
here's some of the crowd taking in the show.
another shot of the crowd watching the children sing.
and here are the children singing.
i don't have any pictures from the string ensemble that played afterwards. my friends and i hurried up at that point over to adams morgan to get a little bit of am day fun in as well. all in all, a great day for hanging out in the city!
i don't want to turn this blog into a better business bureau-type rant thing here. but i have to give another rant in a follow-up to the note about giant last week.
i went to merchant's tire in college park this morning to get an oil change because they sent me a coupon for a $12 oil change and tire rotation. i thought "good deal" and, since i needed an oil change, i thought i'd head up there. now, i don't drive my car much anymore, but it was overdue for new oil, so i figured it was worth it.
ugh.
go elsewhere if you can. don't be attracted by the low prices. the service there was terrible. they didn't even rotate my tires properly. they only did the driver's side tires. i let it go because i'm going to get a proper alignment and probably 2 new tires soon anyway, but i sure as heck am not going to get that done at merchant's.
all in all, there have to be a hundred other places inside the beltway that can change oil and rotate tires. i'll be checking them out in the future, as the indifference and laziness i saw at merchant's just isn't worth my time (or yours, i would wager).
i had to stop in the shaw giant on the way home tonight, and it was about 6:30. you know the drill....12 checkout aisles in the store, and six were open. it's ALWAYS busy in there for a couple hours at the end of the workday, and there are never enough cashiers. you'd think the management would have figured that out by now, but i doubt they ever will.
i'm really looking forward to the new giant being built into the old O street market, but unless some new management is brought in, i fear it'll just be an example of a sow's ear being sewn into a silk handbag.
anyone who is on the shaw listservs or follows the comments on a lot of the shaw blogs knows mr. ray. he always posts stuff like this or this, posts that get people talking. sometimes people are riled up by what he has to say, but what he says always keeps the conversation moving forward about what needs to be done in "le slum historique".
anyway, i saw someone picking up trash on the corner of 9th and Q a few minutes ago as i was heading home from work, and i stopped to thank him for doing so. he said he's been doing so for 21 years. now, if you click on that second link above, you'll see ray mentions that he's been here for 21 years. so, i think i just met mr. ray. he was busy and i was in a hurry though, so i didn't get his name.
if you're out there, ray, hi there! i'm the guy on the bike who lives in bloomingdale!
commenting a lot on the dcist boards today. i've been called a tedious pedant already, let's see if i can up the insult-o-meter to something a little more vitriolic, like bourgeois douchebag, or maybe we can go all the way to 11 with fascist gentrifier!
in order from home to work:
1) there is someone who lives on the 200 block of rhode island avenue who picks up the garbage regularly: it's usually the cleanest block in the neighborhood. either they're on vacation or the rain from the last couple days has kept them off the street, because there was a lot of trash on the sidewalk this morning.
2) there is no left turn from inbound rhode island onto new jersey during morning rush, but i still see people do it every day. and without fail, they have maryland plates and are talking on a cellphone. how about posting an officer there one morning, MPD, and writing some tickets? it would be a great revenue booster for the city. ;)
3) there was a crew taking those stupid answer war-protest posters off of electrical boxes at 6th and rhode island this morning. lawsuit or not, the city is cleaning up after those children. way to go DPW!
4) i think the police were out on horseback between logan and thomas circles last night. how can i tell? there's horse manure all over the street. maybe it was a group of cowboys, i could be wrong...
i just walked around the neighborhood a little this morning, picking up some trash as i walked along and paying close attention to the vibe you get when walking on each block. it's evident that bloomingdale sure isn't homogeneous.
here's the bloomingdale farmer's market. it's on first street, which, far and away, as the main street of bloomingdale, presents a good face. almost all of the old houses from florida avenue north to the mcmillan reservoir are still there, and they've by and large been taken good care of. there are few vacant houses, and those that are vacant seem to be getting fixed up:
the house on the left (with the ugly faux stone facade is being gutted right now, and the boarded up one next door has been like that for as long as i've been in the neighborhood, with no apparent movement forward, though a sign is out front that looks like someone was trying to do something with it recently.
when you get up to the block of 1st between seaton and rhode island, you hit 'downtown bloomingdale'. while it's admittedly a long way away from being the nice neighborhood business district that it could be, changes have been noted lately.
here's the vacant space next to dc mini mart. other posts have noted the progress here, but no one seems to know quite what is going to go into this space. does anyone out there have some concrete news?
i've also taken a close-up shot of the detailing in the eaves. it's really a great job, waiting to call attention to whomever ends up leasing that space.
even the space on the corner of 1st and seaton has been cleaned up today. new mulch, no weeds, and it looks like it's ready for the rumored seafood restaurant to move right in.
now, over on 2nd street, some things are the same, but there's a lot that's different. first of all, there is some bright new paint on a vacant commercial space:
no idea if this is going to reopen as a corner store, or if it'll become something else. as you can see here, this building has changed quite a bit, but i'm surprised that they did nothing to fix the roof. it's obviously sagging and looks like it's not very sound.
there is residential reconstruction going on on 2nd street, just like 1st street, but this example at the corner of 2nd and randolph has not moved forward in a long time, and is a magnet for empty liquor bottles, trash, and high weeds:
up and down 2nd street between florida and rhode island, there are houses that are not in as good of shape as those on 1st street. some have garbage piled in the front yard, others have awnings falling off the porch. it just appears that the homeowners on 2nd street overall don't have the same pride in appearance that those on 1st street do. i don't think there's any real reason, it's just an example of how things in this city can be widely variable over short distances....
i'll post something more substantial soon, but i just had to give a quick note to say that i'm back. i was out of town on vacation and business since july 25th. some thoughts:
pikas are amazingly fun.
grand teton is a beautiful park. i need to hike in the backcountry more.
yellowstone is smelly in parts, but quite dramatic all over.
san diego is an interesting town...i need to spend more time there to get a good appreciation for it. balboa park looks amazing, it's a shame i could only spend a few minutes there.
it's good to be settling back in for a while. san diego was the first trip for my new job, hopefully one of many more to come. that picture above are my friends brody and hilary, who got married in idaho at the beginning of this long trip of mine.
