this week's bad map award

a new project is about to get underway where south dakota avenue and riggs road come together, just north of the fort totten metro station. uninspiringly, it's called fort totten square. it's a pretty flash-intensive website, so you have to do some clicking to get to this terrible map (click on "the area" at the top, then choose the middle square on the left to see it in context). here it is:



let me just point out some of the big issues here:

1) hey look! the red line ends at takoma and there are four stations just floating there in space north of there.

2) north capitol street apparently drifts off to the northwest and ends in a field somewhere near the old walter reed annex.

3) the green line is a MESS! the anacostia, congress heights, and southern avenue stations are WEST of the anacostia river, and the green line crosses the river at benning road.

4) all of the yellow line stations from the pentagon to eisenhower avenue are in the district. guess we've attacked nova and taken back the part of the district that was once ours... :)

5) all the other places where they just have major roads ending in the middle of nowhere is just bad cartography.

this map is a giant mess. here's a hint to the developers: hire a cartographer to make your map, not someone who just learned how to use flash and illustrator last week.

BIG TIME GEOGRAPHY NERDINESS: delaware avenue north of union station!

i was always under the impression that there was no delaware avenue north of union station. sure, before what's now the CSX tracks heading north out of union station towards silver spring were built, delaware avenue had existed in that right-of-way. but it's been gone for over 100 years, right?

right?

then how do you explain these photos i took tuesday evening? is the city redesignating the road between L and M streets as delaware avenue?

(note: the upper picture had the brightness and contrast adjusted in photoshop. it was getting pretty dark when i took these pictures.)

for the caffeine junkies...

here's pound coffee, on the 2nd street side of the ATF building. now, go get your get-up-and-go juice, you addicts!

mail for washington gateway?

i found these mailboxes on the edge of the property that's about to become the washington gateway development (and will be home to this summer's james bond film festival). the addresses on the boxes are for 100 florida ave NE and 101 new york ave NE. guess those are going to be the addresses for the new buildings there? they just kind of look funny right now with nothing but an empty field behind them.

marriott update

here are a couple pictures of the progress that's being made on the new marriott hotel next to the new york avenue metro station. the first one was taken from the south on the met branch trail. the second one was taken from the north side, across florida avenue. it's moving along pretty quickly!

artomatic 2008: cloud behind the silver lining?

now, i try not to be pessimistic about things, but i can't help seeing things from a glass half-empty point of view sometimes. it's been a point of pride and excitement around the neighborhood that artomatic is going to be coming to noma swampoodle next month. i'm all for it too. i'm a real DC partisan...better that it's going to be here than across the river in arlington, i say.

here's the problems though. there are two:

1) how much of an economic boost can it give to the neighborhood? not much, i say. given that there aren't a ton of restaurants for people to frequent before or after visiting the show, outside of pound coffee on 2nd street. unless you go to mcdonald's or wendy's, and i don't consider that edible.

2) the building it's located in, 1200 first street NE (pictured above and to the left). it's great that there's a TON of space for an arts show. a whole first class office building! wait a minute, you're saying class-A office space, not a warehouse? what's an entire class-A office building sitting vacant for?

that's my biggest question here. sure, we have the DOJ, ATF, and NPR moving into noma swampoodle, but they're all government agencies (or quasi-government, in the case of NPR). don't we need some more big private money to make the investment in the neighborhood for it to thrive? yeah, harris teeter is coming too, but this big-old office building has been done for a long time now (at least a year, i think) and no one has moved in. i would think that the owner of the building, at least, is concerned.

maybe i'm just blowing smoke here, but do you think we should see this office space filling up more quickly?

new electrical box flyers

yep, it's not the answer coalition putting up anti-war flyers, but it sure looks like their stuff (maybe there's just a deal on canary yellow at the print shop). i'm seeing these up on every electrical box between bloomingdale and downtown. some have already been torn half off. i say half off because the glue isn't going to let you tear the whole thing off. wheat paste or not, those suckers are there to stay short of some industrial intervention.

(and yeah, i know why they use yellow. i took classes on color theory in school.)

tree volcanoes

i took these pictures this afternoon on 1st street in front of mt. bethel baptist church. take a look at that first tree. was it just recently planted? it looks ready to fall over! but the big thing that caught my eye was the fact that all three of these trees have what they call "volcanoes" at casey trees. usually, they're mulch volcanoes, when an overzealous planter puts WAY too much mulch at the base of a newly planted tree, and they stack it up the tree's stem.

in this instance, it's not mulch, it's just soil. but, putting anything up the side of the tree like that will kill it. trees need to breathe at the point where the roots meet the trunk (i believe it's called the "root flange"). air transfer happens there, and if it's covered with dirt or mulch, that can't happen.

in addition, moisture can build up there and rot the trunk. that's a quick recipe for a dead tree.

did the city or the church plant these? i'd like to give advice, and would even help to replant, but i don't have a shovel, and i'm not about to disturb trees without getting permission first.

(postscript: i just noticed that i got that white panel truck in the second photo. i'll write a full post about it at a later date, but suffice it to say that there are people living in that truck. strikes me as a little odd.)

totally serious things happening on H street!

check these out:

meatpacking restaurant on H street
tommy wells' small bike plan
richard layman taking over the world....one district at a time
every ethnic group in town made H street what it is today....just not your ethnic group

and the best by far:

girlfriend no longer has excuse to not visit H street boyfriend

the best part from this:

"I saw Napa used sun-drieds," said Ginny referring to the sun-dried tomatoes sprinkled liberally throughout NAPA's menu. "And that was the deal-sealer for me. No white woman with a college degree can pass them up. I am going to come over at 7 p.m. maybe 7:30 this Saturday. Tell him to make sure no black guys are hanging on the corner this time."

i hope i never need an ambulance

not because i think that the EMS or fire department folks don't do a terrific job getting to places that need help. they do. it's just that, it seems like every single day (especially the last two mornings on my way into work), i see ambulances and fire trucks stuck in traffic. do people in this town have some kind of gene that makes you freeze when you see an emergency vehicle coming? i see fire trucks roaring down rhode island avenue, and instead of getting out of the way, cars just sit there. instead of moving out of the way, cars might move up a foot and think they've done all that's necessary to let the fire truck get to the emergency up the road.

please, people, when you see a fire truck or ambulance coming up behind you, pull into a driveway, alley, or side street. yeah, it might mean you'll be a minute or two later to your destination. but better you than a house burning down or someone dying because they didn't get to the hospital soon enough!