old tena market

some landscaping progress at the old tena market at the southwest corner of 2nd and rhode island. still no idea if it'll be a market again, or if something new will be added to the neighborhood.

police guarding our corner

here's a shot of the police out on the NE corner of 1st and seaton, keeping an eye on things at night last week. at least that vacant store serves a good purpose sometimes--it makes a great potential launching pad.

painting on 7th street

here's some painting work i saw being done on the west side of 7th street between Q and rhode island while i was checking out the new bike lanes today (see below). i don't know what these buildings are planning to be used for. anyone in shaw have some ideas?

new bike lanes!

i never saw this announced anywhere, but they put bike lanes in on 7th street NW from N street up to florida ave. hate to nitpick, but it would be nice if they grinded out the old lane stripes and added the little bike painting to the lane to make it a little clearer what's going on there.

progress on vacant buildings

there has been a lot of talk recently in nearby neighborhoods about vacant properties and getting them taxed at the proper rate, hopefully pushing the owners to sell or fix up their building and get them occupied. i personally believe in the broken windows theory and that the sooner we can get places fixed up and occupied, the increased activity on the street will help deter crime and any of the other negative issues we have to deal with in the city.

with that in mind, here's an email i got from a friend here in bloomingdale this week:

Good afternoon,

This is in response to your inquiry about the property located at 59 R Street NW; this property is registered with the Office of Vacant Property. I have sent the owner of record a Notice of Violation to clean and secure the property, at which time he/she has 10 days to complete. If this not done DCRA will perform the abatement and bill and fine the owner of record. I will also forward this property to the Office of Tax & Revenue to start the tax reclassification process. DCRA does appreciate any and all information about vacant nuisance properties in the District of Columbia, so that we can bring them all up to code as quickly as possible.

Allen W. Smith

progress.

wtf?

i'm all for a clean sidewalk, but it's 11:17 p.m. and someone is out front of bloomingdale liquors with a damned leafblower blowing off the sidewalk. AT 11:17 P.M.!!!!! and now he's doing the whole block! please, tell me that NCMS didn't hire someone to do this...

who wants 1st street rumors?

ooh, ooh, i do, i do!

so, here's the best i can give for now. the latest rumor that i've heard (from a pretty reliable source) is that the purple space on 1st street next to the DC mini mart is being looked at by a gym of some sort.

then, in the big dog, the northwest corner of 1st and seaton, the latest rumor is that a coffee shop could go in. now, don't get me wrong, coffee shops seem to be good things, but with big bear and windows serving up coffee on either end of "bloomingdale's downtown", do we have the market for a third? of course, there ARE four places selling beer within a few feet of the corner of 1st and rhode island, so you never know...

how do you contact an owner about a vacant property?

ok, here's a question for everyone out there paying attention. there is a house that i've lived across the street from for over a year now (1823 1st St. NW) and i'm 99% sure that no one lives there. no one ever goes in or out of the place, birds fly in and out of holes in the facade, and it's far and away the most popular hang out place day in and out for the local drunks or people who just seem to have nothing better to do. (for example, for the last hour an elderly man has been on the stoop drinking, holding an extensive conversation with himself, and generally doing a good impression of someone who should be institutionalized in a city that has a good system to care for the mentally handicapped).

now, i was curious who really owns this place that i've seen used as a public restroom and a good place to hide and shoot up some drugs, so i went to the DC citizen atlas and went to the "real property" link in the upper right. i punched in the address, and found that an L. G. McKinnie owns the property, and that person's mailing address is 3044 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. so, i looked up that house, and found that it's owned by El S. Zulu. so now i'm confused. are those two people related somehow? and which one should i try to get in touch with to let them know my concerns that their house is not the safest or nicest place on the block.

and here's the kicker: after looking at the detailed information on the 1st Street property HERE, it appears that L. G. McKinnie is claiming the homestead exemption on an empty property. that can't be legal, can it?

UPDATE: looks like that link to the detailed tax information is a URL that times out, so it doesn't work anymore. going to this page will allow you to search for the records.

interesting new feature on DC property maps

head over to the DC Citizen Atlas Real Property webpage, and you'll see a new feature (at least, it'll be new if you haven't looked things up on the page before). when you type in an address, and get to the map page that looks like the image to the right, you'll see that this guide now lets you differentiate between private, federal, DC, and tax exempt properties at a glance. this color-coding system is new, as the webpage used to just include the same color dot for all properties.

now you can see if that abandoned house on your block is owned by the district, or by some organization that doesn't have to pay taxes, so they might not care if it just sits there as a blight on your neighborhood.

shaw library update

at least the signs are back up. the most important thing though, the library is STILL NOT OPEN.