Developments

The strip connecting Howard University and the Petworth Metro is in the midst of a spasm of activity these days: The new E.L.Haynes school is springing up with great speed (and architectural weirdness...more on that later) and the condo/retail block above New Hampshire Ave is finally showing progress. Of course there's the change of ownership at Temperance Hall, and who knows what else is brewing.

Now, it looks like somebody's secured financing to build some apartments and new retail on the corner of Georgia Avenue and Kenyon Street.


Which is fine, of course. Perhaps even great. But once again, I find myself staring up at the architect's rendering of the finished project, scratching my head in disbelief. It's hard to imagine seeing THAT, in three dimensions, on that corner.

Georgia & Kenyon isn't a BAD block, but it ain't world-class, either. It's just a decent working-class slab of DC. Sure it could use improvement, but it's real.

But the building in the rendering: Is that real? Will it be real? Here? It should be interesting, and it looks like the cranes are here to stay for a while.

the Tower of Babylon

14th Street at Irving: The DCUSA urban shopping-mall project, mid-construction. The cornerstone of the project is DC's first Target store, and its bizarre turret has been taking shape for a while.

It actually looks like an expensive branding gimmick: a way to get the Target logo visible from satellite photos, so users of Google Earth can spot the stores easily. Of course, with the store being called "Target", and featuring a giant target icon visible from high altitudes, are we not inviting a bomb attack?

............or is that the paranoia talking again? Isn't Russia digging their ICBMs outta the moth-balls? C'mon, cold war v2.0!

Take dish block and shove it.

14th Street and Florida Avenue, NW Washington DC: The Comcast satellite dish cluster (which has been a curious and bizarre eyesore for years) was ritually demolished today, in a press event announcing the development of the View 14 condo project. Alas, I didn't make it in time to shoot the event, and only one mangled dish remained when I got there.

A dirty shame: I've wanted to photograph that dish cluster for a while, & never got around to it. It was a truly strange sight in the neighborhood: about half a dozen huge satellite dishes crowded together and penned behind a cube of chainlink and barbed wire, like some NASA project run amok.

So here we have a good lesson on procrastination: Shoot the weird stuff now, or it will be torn down. It was almost a letdown to find it was all Comcast gear, and not some demented sci-fi nightmare. Heavy sigh.

Girder your loins, Columbia Heights...

SO HERE'S THE SCENE, as of 9march07: The DCUSA building site, corner of 14th and Irving Streets, Washington DC. Already, the only identifiable facades on this block are the Tivoli Theater and the old Riggs bank building.

High within the site, workers are securing last of the I-beams which will establish the building's final shape against the street. Now we can begin to see what this will look like. With its promise of Starbucks, Target, Best Buy, Staples, Bed Bath and Beyond (and others), DCUSA has become the icon of DC's latest wave of gentrification.

Those of us who live here and enjoy the unique flavor of this historic DC neighborhood are eyeing the project with caution. Presumably the new retail business will benefit the Ward One economy, but will it rob Columbia Heights of its soul? Will the employment opportunities stay local, or will the chain stores ship in a fresh workforce from the suburbs?

Either way, it's clear that 14th and Irving will become a fishbowl to study a particularly extreme example of forced urban development. Certainly, these businesses are a strange fit for the neighborhood.

For me, it'll be interesting to see what DCUSA is like long after the shiny new patina has worn off and it settles into an older skin... because I expect it'll have a nasty sting when it's unveiled, like an invading virus. But then, the 'Heights survived the riots of '68, and it'll survive this. I hope.

The flight of Fictional Target Demographic Woman

The Kenyon Square construction site dominates the corner of 14th and Irving Streets, and the Columbia Heights Metro station hides beneath it all in a coffin of plywood and steel. The housing market crash has already transformed many new condo plans into rental properties, and many more (like this one) have yet to be finished.

But diggit: Fictional Target Demographic Woman watches the street from her lofty perch above the street corner... she SHALL NOT be denied... she WILL have her condo, dammit.

Petworth Rising...

Monday was the groundbreaking ceremony for Park Place, the new mixed-use development adjacent the Petworth Metro. Present were councilmembers Adrian Fenty (Ward 4, DC Mayor wannabe) and Jim Graham (Ward 1), as well as several ANC reps and a smiling handful of brass from builder Donatelli Development.

It was a brave feat for all involved, as it was damned hot by 11:00, and there were several speeches to get through.

The Park Place project represents a quantum leap for the Petworth/Columbia Heights stretch of Georgia Avenue, which has been a bit, uh, creepy for a long, long time. The concern, of course, is how far the quantum leap will go.

I certainly don't envy folks like Graham, who must balance economic growth with protecting deeply-rooted neighborhood character. I returned to this neighborhood after some 14 years BECAUSE of that character--it stayed with me through moves to New York, Arizona, and Maine. With all of its warts and bruises, Columbia Heights was still my ideal example of what a great urban neighborhood should be.

Having said that, there's still room for improvement.

I'm sure many of us residents of Ward One would like to feel safer on Georgia Avenue walkabouts, but Donatelli's renderings of the finished block seem TOO NICE. The more I look at these images, the less I can reconcile it with the real corner of Georgia & New Hampshire Ave... Will it ever truly look like that? Who are those faceless drones walking down that immaculate sidewalk?

Now really, I'm pleased that they're finally working on that lot, and that small retail spaces will be included, and I'm pleased that the project may inspire a continued rebirth of the Georgia Avenue strip. But for the love of all that's holy, be careful with this urban renewal thing. It destroyed Tucson's downtown in a few short years, and it could happen here as well.

Sorry Donatelli, those archictect's renderings freak me right the hell out.

Evidently they freaked out some other folks as well, who came to the groundbreaking with signs that could've used a little typesetting help (inset photo). I'm certainly more in favor of the development than these two, but their message is important, and should be considered anytime a councilmember breaks ground in this great neighborhood with one of those gleaming ceremonial shovels.

DC Space, 2005

I am a nostalgic beast, by nature: a personality-flaw that doubtless tests my wife's infinite patience. Nevertheless, upon arriving back home after some 14 years away, I had a shopping-list of Sacred Places to visit...to re-visit.

Somewhere amongst the top five places on the list was the site of DC Space: For me, it was a homey, comfortable spot for live music and artistic strangeness: too small to hold crowds for more popular bands, it seemed comfortable with the freaks of the underground. From the annual Noise Fest shows to the I AM EYE indie film gatherings, DC Space was a seeping well of creative ooze.

My first public performance was there, as part of Positive Force's radical poetry event: my bit involved spontaneous word association shouted over backing tapes of crying babies, howling wolves, smashing glass, etc... Later, as part of the noise-music trio Pythagoras, we played there with Lida Husik (pre-ShimmyDisk) and freaked out more than a few "medicated" members of the crowd. Tomas Squip (of Beefeater & Fidelity Jones fame) had photographed my (then) wife and I in the studio upstairs for the "State of the Union" compilation on Dischord Records... all great memories, all feeding into that Nostalgia Lobe for future milking.

Fast-forward to 2005. I had to see the remains, after all that time. I knew DC Space had closed long ago, but I didn't quite expect to see the ultimate symbol of the American Corporate Virus, sitting there, gloating at me... Starbucks?!?!? Sure, I've had my share of Venti Cafe Americanos, but my god, this is adding quite the insult to a nostalgic injury.

Perhaps there's a lesson here. There's always a lesson, isn't there?