February Meeting Date: Thursday, February 22 Time: 7:30pm Place: Marthlu and Hal's, 905 M Street, NW

A relaxed meeting, centered on discussion of where we see the neighborhood going: Residential, commercial, and traffic.

Q	Where would we like to see in the next several years.
Q	Police. Crime. The fun stuff.
Q	New Business (if time).

 

WaPo Article

The WaPo had a hit piece on the Washington Convention Center's effect on the neighborhood Monday morning. Basically, it says that "the seven-block stretch between Massachusetts and Rhode Island avenues remains largely defined by desolate sidewalks, ramshackle lots and three dozen vacant buildings". A companion piece in the Business Section tries to look at the convention center in a business sense: "...the surrounding neighborhood is yet to be transformed by the promised new development" [of the Convention Center]. In it Dana Hedgpeth says that the CC was overpromised in terms of its effect, which is certainly true, if not tautologically true of any civic project.

It must have been the late 70's, when the editor lived in Foggy Bottom, was active in community affairs, and a WaPo columnist named Bob Levy wrote a column explaining what was going on in Foggy Bottom. The issue at hand involved Rosenthal's Grocery at the northwest corner of K and Twenty-fifth, and a serious upzoning of that land (it was the equivalent of a one-story grocery store which hadn't been improved (or perhaps cleaned) in 20 years). But nice people, older and hanging on. The editor's wife liked them. This was one of those times when people who have liked each other for many years stop speaking for many years. The community was about half and half on it. The editor, he lay low. A bit north of his interest, anyway. So Bob Levy writes his column. He got precisely half of the story. The editor forgets which. It was as if Maxwell's Demon succeeded and one half of the story had all the action and the other was a vacuum. Levy wrote the article to say, not some interesting things are happening in Foggy Bottom, but to explain the totality of a dispute in Foggy Bottom. The editor never read Bob Levy again, and learned that fancy newspapers really can present a half story as a full story.

Anyone who has lived here for more than a few years and has not seen major transformation is blind. Is the transformation complete? Certainly not. But five years ago the 1200 block of Ninth Street was closer to being a fire hazard than the restaurant, pet grooming business, book store, and (almost, but not quite) yuppie condo. It was unwalkable at night by sensible people. To say that the various condos, from the Whitman (930 M), to the Quincy (and others) at Tenth and M, 1111 Eleventh would not have been built but for the CC is a strong assertion. To say that the Convention Center was not mentioned in presentations to bankers in seeking financing would be a silly assertion. Also for Jamal's redevelopment on the northeast corner Ninth and N. The Space at 903 N, BeBar, and Vegetate. The Warehouse Theater, the on-going residential renovation on the east side of the Convention Center. To say that the Old Dominion Brewery would have started with the neighborhood crime problem of several years ago makes no business sense. Residential renovation and concomitant crime reduction always precede business development, often by several years. (Having a Mike Smith and crew speeds it up!)

The neighborhood has undergone serious change over the time the Convention Center has been here, sometimes simultaneous with and sometimes because of its presence. Still is. To imply that the last few years have been static is not to understand what we were like five yesars ago. And to cite Shiloh Baptist as anything but a hindrance to development boggles the imagination. But now development is proceeding fast enough that it is a hindrance in the rear view mirror.

The reporter, Paul Schwartzman, called several people in the neighborhood a few weeks ago. The editor spent about half an hour on the phone with him, and knows of others with similar experience. What we said apparently didn't fit the template selected for the Monday stories. If you spent time on the phone with Schwartzman or Hedgepath, email the editor with your comments. He will put them in next month's newsletter. Names, please. And be civilized. Just like the neighborhood.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

That Mess in the 900 Block of M

Coming home from shopping at about 3pm, Saturday, several utility types were pulling up manhole covers in the street where Blagden Alley meets M. They'd check something, and put them back down. They finally settled on a manhole cover about 100 feet down the alley south of M, between the Whitman and 930 M. Turns out that water/whatever (it was a sewage line) had backed up into the lower level of the Whitmen (910 M). Cars, not people in there.

A temporary sewage line, with pump, was hooked up to bypass the blockage. Overnight they tried to "blow out" the problem. Sunday morning it hadn't worked. The problem was that the sewer line had "collapsed". Tough to "blow out".

One of the workmen commented that they (WASA) had told the city back when to put in 10 inch mains along that side of the street. The city put in 4 inch. One is meant for high density development, and the other for low density, as in townhouses. Since that side of the street was vacant for 20 years prior to the Whitman, some planning type must have thought it would be residential. Right. It was zoned "SP" (old designation, meaning could support multistory institutional, or similar, not just high-density residential) so using the smaller size leads a cynic to assume that that year there were budget questions and someone just kicked the problem down the road. Said punter is probably retired by now.

So at some point, WASA will put in a 10 incher, and pull the temporary line and silence the pump. And they claim the (24 hour) pumps they are using are much quieter than what they used to use.