Defaced No Parking/Street Cleaning sign on New Hampshire Avenue

This is one of the oddest things I’ve seen recently. It appears a resident near the intersection of New Hampshire Avenue and Monroe Street, NW, is against street cleaning. As you can see to the right and below, the No Parking Street Sweeping signs have had their cleaning times and days information painted out.

The sign to the right, located just north of Monroe on New Hampshire, has since become a location for vandals to add stickers to as well. I have to wonder what the purpose is behind defacing these signs. If the street sweeping information has been blocked out, does it actually prevent a parked car from getting a ticket? I’d like to think not … but if not, then this actually increases the probability that an unfamiliar driver will get a ticket since they can’t read the sign.

Below is one of the signs from Monroe Street, between New Hampshire and 10th Street.

Vandalized Street Cleaning sign on Monroe Street, looking toward 10th Street

The study breaks the proposed system down by corridors and gives an overview of each, listing both benefits and challenges. With regards to Georgia Avenue, it lists the following notable indicators:

• Median household income rises along Georgia Avenue from about $35,000 at the corridor’s southern end to about $70,000 at the north, placing it in the upper-middle range of streetcar corridors
• At the southern end of the corridor, with many public housing residents and university students, more than 50% of households earn less than $35,000, and nearly 60% lack a car.
• The corridor is expected to add a large number of households by 2030.

Following are the benefits and challenges related to Georgia Avenue as outlined in the study:

Benefits: The streetcar can transform auto-oriented portions of Georgia Avenue NW into more transit-oriented areas with higher-value development and improved access options. Streetcar service would expand the walkable area now concentrated at the Georgia Avenue-Petworth Metro station. Similarly, it would make the northern part of the Howard campus, an important employer, more accessible to the Shaw-Howard University Metro station. The streetcar would also amplify Georgia Avenue’s appeal as an office location for creative-economy industries. As households and jobs increase along the corridor in response to the streetcar, thousands of square feet of new neighborhood-oriented retail could be created. These changes would make Georgia Avenue’s neighborhoods more self-sufficient in terms of jobs and services.

Many commercial parcels hold strong potential for infill redevelopment, like the former Curtis Chevrolet
dealership at Peabody Street NW. Such sites could reinforce neighborhood commercial nodes and
attract employers to locations along Georgia Avenue in Brightwood, Manor Park, 16th Street Heights, and
Petworth. The corridor’s marquee opportunity, however, is the Walter Reed campus, where planning has begun to introduce major redevelopment that combines commercial, government, and housing uses over a decade.

Extending the streetcar line north on Georgia Avenue to Silver Spring, instead of ending it at Takoma as now
planned, would open opportunities in this part of the District. The District’s northern neighborhoods would
gain much better transit access to regional job centers and housing. This could, in turn, significantly raise land value and neighborhood connections along Georgia Avenue. Shifting the route would not markedly affect Takoma, because it already has Metro service. Section 4b contains a more detailed explanation of this alternative routing.

Challenges: The biggest design challenge involves integrating the streetcar into the right of way along
Georgia Avenue, a thoroughfare that currently experiences high volumes of bus, motor vehicle, and
pedestrian traffic. Areas now dominated by auto-oriented development will need pedestrian and streetscape improvements.

Two people were killed and two police officers were injured early Sunday when a minivan fleeing a crime scene lost control, D.C. police said.

At about 3 a.m., police got several reports of gunshots being fired from a vehicle in the 700 block of Otis Place in the near Petworth (sic) neighborhood in Northwest Washington, said Commander James Crane. A man flagged down the officers saying that someone shot at him and drove away in  a burgundy minivan with Virginia plates.

Responding officers saw a minivan that matched the description speeding down the 300 block of Upshur Street NW. The officers pursued the vehicle as the minivan blew through several stop signs, Crane said.

The minivan sped to the crest of the hill in the 400 block of Taylor Street NE and lost control, Crane said. The minvan tumbled over several times before crashing into a tree and landing on the hood of a police car coming from the other direction.

The police officers in the struck vehicle saw the minivan flip end over end and were able to stop and pull over to the side before the minivan crashed onto their car, Crane said.

The occupants of the minivan were tossed from the vehicle, Crane said. Two adult males were pronounced dead on the scene. A 17-year-old was taken to a hospital in critical condition.

The officers were taken to the hospital with non-life-threatenting injuries, police said.

Police found evidence linking the van to the original shooting at Otis Place in Petworth (sic).

The identities of the deceased were not availabe. One was a 19-year-old and the other has not been identified, Crane said.

Police failed to get a name of the man who flagged down police and would like to speak with him again to help with the investigation, Crane said. Anyone with information can call police at (202) 727-9099.

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/capital-land/2012/01/two-dead-two-officers-injured-police-pursuit/2147671#ixzz1ksb15ecj

Station Area Map with numbers indicating where additional features could be located

One issue I’ve been working on for a very long time is getting the illuminated Station Area Maps at the Georgia Avenue-Petworth Station updated to include information I consider to be clear omissions. I began this process in October 2010 and thought I’d made some progress when WMATA committed to include Park View on future maps with updated maps scheduled for installation by March 2011. Well, clearly that did not happen. So, I’ve dug in again and have reopened the conversation with Metro.

While my initial observation was that Park View was inappropriately omitted from the map as Petworth, Columbia Heights, and Mt. Pleasant were all included, upon inspecting the map more closely I discovered that there were several opportunities to make the map better. Below are six significant improvements I noticed.

1. Include Park View to show the location of the neighborhood;
2. Show the location of the MPD 4D Substation at 750 Park Rd., NW;
3. Include the Bruce-Monroe Park at Irving and Georgia Ave.;
4. Show the location of the Cesar Chavez Public Charter School (770 Kenyon Street);
5. Show the location of the Lincoln’s Cottage National Historic Site; and
6. Include Armed Forces Retirement Home on the map to identify its location.

In each of these cases, the type of information suggested is in keeping with the categories of information WMATA currently includes on their maps. I’ll be sure to post follow ups as my conversations with Metro advance.

General Scott statue on the AFRH grounds

Here’s an update – and some exciting news – from the Friends of the Soldiers’ Home group.  At their last meeting on January 12, 2012, they developed a ‘road map’ for how the Armed Forces Retirement Home (AFRH) and surrounding communities would collaborate in 2012. This resulted in five concrete events and a number of potential event ideas and goals.

The five major events that will be held at the home in 2012 are:

• A weekend day in May in which the community will be invited to enjoy the grounds with the residents, through a golf scramble, fishing in the ponds, kids’ biking and other outdoor fun!
• June 6, D-Day (details of this event yet to be determined)
• July 4, the community and residents will watch the Washington Monument fireworks together from the best spot in town, the top of the Hill on the Home grounds!
• Oct. 7, at the Home’s annual antique car show, the community will participate
• A date in December, the community for the second consecutive year will co-sponsor the holiday tree lighting

In addition to these events, the Friends group committed to continue volunteering to assist residents during AFRH Bingo nights. Starting in February, the community will supply a minimum of 10 volunteers for a Bingo night once each month. Dates and times still to come.

Other event ideas that were discussed but not yet planned included those listed below:

• having the community help inaugurate a ’50s style food center with a sock hop
• community/residents gathering together on the Home lawn to enjoy a live concert together
• having a film festival/movie marathon
• the community having a role, and a booth, at the annual bike race held at the Home
• having a community outdoor volunteer day where we remove brush and/or do beautification
• hosting a trivia night at one of the local bars/restaurants

Lastly, the Lincoln’s Cottage – located on the AFRH grounds — has also expressed an interest in working with the community in their events. Opportunities to collaborate with Lincoln’s Cottage include:

• activities surrounding Emancipation Day, April 15-16
• Memorial Day weekend events, possibly including walking tours of historic National Cemetery across the street from the Home grounds
• activities in September marking the 150th anniversary of the Presidential Guard, created inLincoln’s time, now known as the Secret Service

To learn more, get involved, or join the Friends of the Soldiers’ Home group, email John Hughes.

If you are interested in additional volunteering opportunities at the AFRH, you can email Carolyn Weber or contact her by phone at 202-541-7627.

This is an important project and I encourage anyone and everyone who is interested in education, the Park View community, and/or historic preservation to attend this meeting. You can review the January 17, 2012 concept plan for the modernization prior to the meeting or wait until the presentation for details.

Appropriately, the meeting will be held in the auditorium — which was built to support community programs and events.

I was recently asked why residents who do not have children at the school would need to care about this project. I’ll list three reasons below and trust readers will come up with a few of their own after they read the concept plan.

• There is a need to coordinate the projects at the school and neighboring rec center to maximize the usefulness of public space in the neighborhood. Currently, the school plans dedicate more school greenspace to playground use rather than use the rec center property.
• The school project hopes to improve parking and trash collection at the rear of the property. This area is adjacent to a public alley and residences on 6th Street, NW. These residents need to be involved in any decisions that impact the alley.
• The school’s auditorium was originally built to serve the greater community as public space for plays, concerts and meetings. There are many in the community that would like to see the auditorium support such activities again. Getting involved now will ensure that any renovations to the school will provide the infrastructure needed to support an active, public use of the auditorium.

This is a unique opportunity to participate in improving the community.  I hope to see you there.
(Cross section of the Park View School — east to west through the auditorium — from the original 1915 plans)

In little more than a week, demolition of the former pawn shop and U-Like carry out on the southwest corner of Lamont and Georgia Avenue, NW, has progressed to an advanced state (see above).

All that remains of U-Like and Famous Pawnbroker

In examining the site yesterday, there was little left that anyone familiar with the properties would recognize. One thing that I did notice that had alluded me before was how much land was fenced off for the project.

If you are familiar with the 700 block of Lamont Street you will know that there is a large lot behind U-Like with an alley separating the two properties. Both the empty lot and alley are currently within the construction fence leading me to wonder if they are also part of the project or merely needed for construction staging. I’ve provided an outline of what appears to be the perimeter fencing below.

(According to the DC Zoning Map, the area outlined in red will become the Heights. The additional area outlined in purple is also fenced in for construction.)