The revival of the Howard Theatre brought worry that our newly revived venue would follow the disappointing path of the Lincoln Theatre on U Street. After all, both theaters were built in the early 20th century, both are owned by the DC government, and both are located within a short walk of each other.

A glance at both theaters’ online schedules reveals that their fates have sharply diverged.  From now until the end of June, the Lincoln Theatre has 5  events scheduled while the Howard has 51.

This glaring disparity shows the importance of selecting the right management team.  The District chose the experienced Blue Note Entertainment Group to run the Howard while it chose the non-profit U Street Theatre Foundation to run the Lincoln.  The mayor’s office rightly revoked U Street Theatre Foundation’s contract for the Lincoln as the theatre was careening toward bankruptcy at the end of 2011.  The mayor has tasked the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities with finding a new operator for the Lincoln.

The greater U Street area is a regional arts venue.  The Howard Theatre, the 9:30 Club, U Street Music Hall, the Black Cat, Bohemian Caverns, Twins Jazz Club, and numerous performance-oriented bars provide an amount of live performance space most cities would envy.  But when we compare the success of these venues to the fiasco of the Lincoln Theatre, it becomes clear that something is terribly wrong in the District’s stewardship of this resource.  If all of these venues can thrive, so can the Lincoln.

We recently received a petition to oppose a liquor license moratorium for the U Street area.  We weren’t sure why the petition came up, but it seems there is yet another movement afoot to establish a liquor license moratorium (and thus a restaurant moratorium) on U Street.  The moratorium’s backer is a resident on 13th Street and she proposes the moratorium for all new liquor license applications within a 1,800-foot radius of Ben’s Next Door.

We wrote about this matter two years ago when Jim Graham floated the idea.  Nonetheless, it’s worth revisiting why this moratorium is a bad idea:

It makes no distinction between responsible businesses and rowdy businesses.

A moratorium fails to differentiate between businesses that are quiet and cause no trouble for their neighbors, e.g. the Saloon, and those that cause raucous noise late into the night.  ANCs and neighbors should protest irresponsible and disruptive businesses, but a moratorium is essentially a permanent, unconditional protest of all proposed restaurants and bars.  Many new establishments are started by experienced restaurateurs whose previous businesses exist in harmony with their neighbors.

It’s effectively a restaurant moratorium.

Restaurants make their money on alcohol and relatively little on food.  This is why Shaw’s Tavern, when dry, quickly shuttered.  Prohibiting the issuance of new liquor licenses will essentially deny new restaurants the ability to earn enough to pay rent.  A liquor license moratorium is a restaurant moratorium.

It will reduce customer service.

A moratorium will limit the supply of restaurants and bars even while demand rises.  This means restaurant prices will face upward pressure, seating may become scarcer, and service quality will likely fall.  The population of the census tract covering the eastern side of the U Street corridor grew by 86% from 2000 to 2010 and will continue to grow as more residential buildings come online.  If you think finding a table is hard now, a moratorium will make it worse.

It unfairly “picks winners”.

Placing a legislative cap on new business activity unfairly privileges incumbent businesses.  To intervene so severely in the market as to artificially limit consumer choice means that current license holders will enjoy an oligopoly.  This increased business, however, will not result from a restaurant’s merit, but will result from the fact that consumers will face limited choices.  A business owner’s “merit” will simply be that he had the good luck open shop just before the regulatory door slammed shut behind him.

It’s arbitrary.

There are currently 107 licenses within the proposed moratorium area.  There is no definitive proof that the 107 number is too high, too low, or just right.  Unfortunately, moratoria disregard nuance and set arbitrary numbers as permanent limits.

Furthermore, it’s arbitrary to propose that the moratorium be based on a perfect circle, that the circle have a 1,800-foot radius, and that the circle be centered on Ben’s Next Door.

It will not resolve the stated problem.

Matters of crime, noise, and trash, which the City Paper reports as the main motivators for the moratorium’s proponent, will not be resolved by a moratorium.  Restricting the issuance of alcohol licenses will not reduce crime, will not reduce noise, and will not reduce trash.  It will, however, result in longer wait times for table, higher prices, and lower service.

It’s difficult to administer.

Laws should be simple to understand and administer.  The proposed moratorium area is a circle and circles are harder to measure on land.  In fact, we discovered this problem recently when measuring the distance between a liquor store and Cleveland Elementary School.  Do you measure by the edge of the property line or by the edge or the building?  Certainly we have the technology today to determine this distance, but it takes time and skill to do it accurately.  The technical challenge is a hurdle for business owners and citizens alike to understand the impact of the law.  A listing of city blocks would be far easier to decipher and would cause less confusion than a circle.

* * *

Instead of swinging a legal sledgehammer to stop all future restaurants, good and bad, we should judge each application on its own merit.  Restaurateurs who have proven records of being good neighbors should by all means receive licenses and less reputable restaurateurs should be denied.  We urge you to sign the petition to oppose the moratorium.

Channel 7 ran a short story on the fracas over the All Souls tavern license we reported earlier.

Unfortunately we weren’t able to make the Alcoholic Beverage Control (ABC) Board hearing on Wednesday, but we heard secondhand that it was quite a show.

A commenter from a previous post pointed us to an article sympathetic to the opposition.

The article notes that the ABC Board does not typically grant alcohol licenses within 400 feet of a school unless there is already another alcohol license within 400 feet of the school. In this case, All Souls would qualify since Boston Wine & Spirits (1905 9th Street) is within 400 feet of the school.

We looked up on Google Earth the distance between Boston Wine & Spirits and Cleveland Elementary School and marked a 400-foot yellow line in the map below. We were able to spot-check the relative accuracy of the program by measuring the right-of-way distances in Google Earth and comparing them to the numbers in the Baist Real Estate Atlas of the area. By a more generous measure, where we measure from the school building instead of the school’s property lot (outlined in red) to 9th Street in front of and thus beyond Boston Wine & Spirits, it appears that Boston Wine & Spirits is within the 400 feet.

Here is another interesting tidbit from the article:

The parent group who is behind the protest of the bar conducted a survey. According to the survey, 45% of Cleveland Elementary School teachers would be reluctant to attend evening activities at the school and 33% of parents would remove their children from the school should the bar open up across the street…

It seems the frequent, blatant, and public drug-dealing and urination a block away have not deterred these hardy souls from attending Cleveland, but the thought of a 5 pm happy hour across the street will.

The Howard Theatre’s renovation, in which the District government invested $12 million, got us thinking about the role of public finance in development projects.  The use of public money or, alternatively, the granting of tax abatements to private projects, elicits controversy.  Opponents argue that such investments are give-aways to well-connected businessmen.

In the case of the Howard Theatre, the District’s investment in the venue, which the District government technically owns, is a good investment that is economically justified.  The new venue and streetscape in front will improve the perception of the area and thus improve property values in LeDroit Park.  The former is an improvement to the quality of life while the latter is an improvement to the District’s tax base.

Though the theater is technically just outside LeDroit Park, the path from the Shaw Metro Station to LeDroit Park typically brings people in front of the theater.  When the District-owned theater was decaying and vacant, it served as an awful first impression of the area.  A barbed wire fence under the awning and marquee made visitors well aware that a strong wind gust could cause the awning to collapse.  The heaps of litter and scurrying of rats certainly didn’t help perceptions, either.

Work crews are reconstructing the entire street, including sidewalks and lamp posts, and when the renovated theater opens next month, much of the former blight will be removed.  Smooth, wheelchair-accessible sidewalks will replace broken concrete. Lamp posts will provide ample light.  A statue on the sidewalk and a statue atop the theatre will add to the sense of place for this important historic venue.

The theater itself, renovated and gleaming, will attract patrons several nights a week and the building will have to remain in good order.  Clean surfaces and façade adornments will replace trash, decay, and danger.  The block will be unrecognizable from before.

These improvements will undoubtedly improve how visitors and residents view the block and perhaps how they view LeDroit Park. The quality of life improvements are certain.  From a financial standpoint, the improvements will likely boost surrounding property values and thus property tax revenues for the District.  In doing so, the additional revenue may far exceed the $12 million of public money invested in the site.

Correction: An earlier version of this post understated the dollar amount of the city’s investment.

Two century-old DC fountains sit decaying and neglected in the woods of a national park in Maryland. The fountains had been missing from the 1940s until they were rediscovered in the woods of Fort Washington National Park in the 1970s.

The top portion of the McMillan fountain, pictured below, was returned to Crispus Attucks park in the Bloomingdale neighborhood in 1983. In 1992 it was moved back to the fenced-off grounds of the McMillan Reservoir just a few blocks away.

The fountain was installed in 1913 at the McMillan Reservoir as a memorial to Senator James McMillan (R – Michigan), who is more remembered locally for his his ambitious McMillan Plan to beautify Washington. The fountain was dismantled in 1941, when the reservoir was fenced off from the public.

Top of the McMillan Fountain today (left) and in 1912 (right).

Though the top of the McMillan Fountain had been restored to the reservoir grounds, a Bloomingdale ANC commissioner told me the base of the fountain was in the woods in Fort Washington along with the remains of the fountain that stood at the center of the now-razed Truxton Circle.

I went to Fort Washington in search of these discarded works of art. I asked a park ranger where the fountain was and she drew me a map, saying that it stood in the park’s “dump” and partly behind a fence.

I went to the picnic area nearest the site and walked into the woods a short distance where I found a fence. Behind it stood piles of bricks and other discarded building materials.

Beside the site is a dugout that serves as the back court to Battery Emory, a concrete gun battery built in 1898 to protect the capital city from enemy ships.

As I passed through the unfenced dugout, I immediately spotted few granite blocks that served as the cornerstones of the base bowl. Though they are strewn about the ground, a 1912 photograph can help us identify what pieces went where.

A cornerstone sitting on the ground (left) formed part of the fountain’s bottom basin (right).

The elements of the fountain were stacked like totem pole. The bottom element features carved classical allegorical heads from whose mouths water gushed into the carved bowls below.

Fence material and tree debris cover the carved granite (left) that stood as the fountain base (right).

The next element of the stack is the fluted base to the top bowl.

Upside down on the ground (left) is the fluted base for the top bowl (right).

Several other large granite stones are stacked and marked with numbers, presumably to help in reassembly.

The site also contains the rusting remains of the fountain that stood at Truxton Circle, which formed the intersection of North Capitol Street, Florida Avenue, Lincoln Road, and Q Street. The circle was built around 1901 and the fountain installed there originally stood at the triangle park at Pennsylvania Avenue and M Street in Georgetown.

Truxton Circle stood at Florida Avenue, North Capitol Street, Q Street, and Lincoln Road from 1901 to 1940, when it was demolished to aid commuter traffic.

A newspaper at the time described it as one of the largest fountains in the city. The circle was removed in 1940 to ease the flow of commuter traffic. At that time, the fountain, which may date to as early as the 1880s, made its way to Fort Washington to rust in the woods.

The metal pedestal (left) held up the fountain bowl whose rim rusts in pieces on the ground (right). Notice the classical egg-and-dart pattern.

The fountain was also noted for the metal grates that stood near its base. Now these grates sit rusting in the woods.

If you want to see the fountain remains for yourself at Fort Washington National Park, go to picnic area C. Beyond the end of the parking lot is a restroom building and behind that is the fountain “graveyard.” A fence encloses part of the site, but you can enter through the large gap down the hillside.

Rather than tossing aside our city’s artistic patrimony, we should aim to restore these treasures to the neighborhoods from which they came. Public art is part of what differentiates cherished neighborhoods from unmemorable places.

These works remind us of the accomplishments and civic-mindedness of generations past and urge us to carry on the tradition of civic improvement for generations to come.

At Tuesday night’s meeting of the LeDroit Park Civic Association, the association voted 11-2 to support the Howard University Campus Plan.  Since several issues in the plan remain unresolved and unspecified, your author voted against supporting it.

Among many concerns are the several vacant properties that Howard University owns in the area.  Though Howard has made a commendable effort to refurbish and sell many of these properties in LeDroit Park over the past decade, we are worried that the university, after it moves students out of Slowe and Carver Halls might leave these two dormitories vacant for several years.

The university has been very adept at finding excuses for keeping several of its properties vacant in decades past.

For current vagueness in the plan, university officials say they haven’t determined a use yet or that they haven’t found the financing or that everything is the economy’s fault.

That may be true, but vacant buildings attract trouble.  They become safe-havens for criminals, vagrants, and rodents.  Some vacant properties become truly blighted with windows covered up with plywood or metal covers.  This blight drags down property values and lowers the quality of life.

For most private property owners, vacant properties (class 3) face a steep 5% annual property tax and blighted buildings (class 4) face a 10% annual property tax.  These punitive tax rates are meant to urge owners of vacant and blighted properties to return their properties to good order and productive use.

As a university, however, Howard pays no taxes on its land, so a punitive 5% or 10% tax on $0 is still $0 .  As such, the neighborhood needs a legal mechanism to ensure the university does not vacate Slowe and Carver Halls and then blame the economy as they board up the buildings for several years.

Whether the university keeps the buildings as student dorms or converts them to faculty housing is fine either way, but vacancy and blight threatens the progress the neighborhood has made over the past decade.

To prevent this, your author moved “To amend our support [for the campus plan] to prohibit vacancy of Slowe and Carver Halls for more than one year.”

The motion was property seconded and passed unanimously.

The civic association will submit this language to the Zoning Commission and urge the commission to attach it to the legally enforceable order that ratifies the campus plan.  This will ensure that these two large dormitories do not sit vacant for an unreasonable length of time over the next decade.

Howard University’s campus plan is an ambitious and mostly good plan, but it’s important that point out its shortcomings and to ensure the university does not get away with undue burdens on neighborhoods and the District.

Exemption from property taxes is a privilege, not a right, and residents are wise to ensure this exemption is not abused to the detriment of the public interest.

On Thursday, July 7, ANC 1B will discuss and likely adopt a resolution (appended below) opposing the proposed taxi medallion system recently proposed by several councilmembers.  The medallion bill, written by lobbyist John Ray at the behest of some of the city’s big taxi magnates, seeks to halve the number of taxis in the city.

The issue came up in the ANC because many independent taxi owners live in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood and view the bill as a means by big taxi companies to force them out of the business.

The ANC 1B Transportation Committee held its inaugural meeting to discuss the bill and how it would impact taxi service for drivers and for passengers, i.e. the public.

Commissioner Tony Norman (ANC 1B10 – Pleasant Plains) proposed the committee adopt his draft resolution opposing the bill.  Mr. Ray, the bill’s chief lobbyist, was invited to attend but did not.

The Transportation Committee did, however, agree that the industry needs reform, but that this particular medallion bill is fundamentally flawed to the degree that it will harm the public.  The committee agreed to add to the resolution a clause expressing the need for meaningful taxi reform.

Radio reporter Pete Tucker, who hosts a radio show on taxi issues, recorded much of the meeting and aired select quotations on the June 19 episode of his program.

(Mr. Tucker himself became news at the DC Taxicab Commission meeting the week after the Transportation Committee meeting.  The U.S. Park Police, at the behest of the commission’s Chairwoman Dena C. Reed, arrested Mr. Tucker and other journalists for recording at the commission’s June 22 hearing.)

* * *

Left for LeDroit sees the bill as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, conflating real taxi reform with a severe reduction in the number of taxis.  The bill places costly barriers to entry for independent cab drivers and will likely lead to one or two cab companies holding all of the medallions.

Real reform includes mandating and enforcing a minimum quality of service.  This means ensuring the cabs are clean and air conditioned and that they accept credit cards.  Furthermore, the city should consider GPS tracking to alert customers with smartphones as to the availability of nearby taxis.  Furthermore, a centralized dispatching system should aid consumers looking to schedule a trip.

Medallions, however, are a deliberate attempt to limit competition.  This is ultimately bad for the public.  After New York, Washington is the easiest American city in which to hail a cab and the ability to do so aids our quality of life and increases our diversity of practical transportation options.

* * *

Here is the resolution the committee adopted and which the ANC will discuss on July 7:

WHEREAS: The Council for District of Columbia is contemplating an overhaul of the taxicab system by proposing a medallion system for taxicabs in the District of Columbia; and

WHEREAS: There is a clear and present need for the Mayor of the District of Columbia and the Council for the District of Columbia to review and propose objective reforms in the present taxicab system, in terms of taxicabs being modernized, i.e. energy efficient, gps, air conditioning, credit cards and drivers knowledge of best routes; and

WHEREAS: The present number of taxicabs in the District of Columbia is over 9,000, the proposed medallion system would place an arbitrary cap on the number of taxicabs at 4,000, this restricts the supply and creates barriers to competition; and

WHEREAS: The District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer’s Office studied in 2010 how the taxicab medallion system worked in other major cities and the study concluded that the system would result in windfall profits for a small group of people; an overall decline in service with longer waits and higher fares, create a system more amenable to corruption in the District of Columbia; and

WHEREAS: The substantial reduction of taxicab in the District of Columbia will have a negative effect on residents, in terms of the quality and quantity service, particularly in underserved low income areas, whom will have longer waits and face more service refusals; and

WHEREAS: The substantial reduction of taxicab in the District of Columbia will also have a negative effect on businesses: particularly small businesses, hotels, bars, night clubs and restaurants, as it related to customers quality and quantity of service, in terms of longer waits for an available taxicab; and

WHEREAS: The present proposals would result in loss of opportunity for would be entrepreneurs, most of whom would be low-income and/or minorities; and

WHEREAS: Over 900 hundred independent taxicab drivers (so far) have signed a petition to oppose the arbitrary regulations proposed to reform the taxicab industry;

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, That ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 1B requests that the Mayor of the District of Columbia and the Council for the District of Columbia reject the taxicab medallion system and adopt the findings of the District of Columbia Chief Financial Officer.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 1B requests that the Mayor of the District of Columbia and the Council for the District of Columbia review and propose objective reforms in the present taxicab system, in terms of taxicabs being modernized, i.e. energy efficient, gps, air conditioning, credit cards and drivers knowledge of best route.

We created this simple graphic to illustrate the disparity and unfairness we DC residents face. We are required to pay Federal taxes but are prohibited from electing anyone to the Senate or House of Representatives. Furthermore, our unique status gives a Congress we cannot elect the legal right to meddle in our local affairs to score points with various lobbying groups.

The American federal system separates the scope of local affairs from nation affairs. Americans duly elect one government for local affairs (the city, county, and state) and another government for national affairs (the House, Senate, and president). The 50 states collect taxes, pass budgets, collect garbage, pave roads, provide health services, and educate children without needing Congressional approval for every action.

DC residents elect a council and mayor, but Congress and the president may overturn any act of the elected DC government in a way they cannot for any state. Furthermore, DC residents have been able to vote in presidential elections since the 1964 election, but are denied the right to vote for any Senators, and are granted one non-voting (i.e. politically impotent) delegate to the House of Representatives.

On Christmas Eve in 1973, Congress passed a statute granting DC residents the “privilege” of a limited form of self-government.  The problem with this situation is that Congress can redefine or repeal this statute on a whim without any consent from the 601,723 people it actually governs.

Congress, however, cannot redefine or repeal statehood.

Statehood is the only way to guarantee DC residents our irrevocable and inalienable right to self-determination.  The time has come to admit the District of Columbia and its 600,000 residents as the 51st state.

The DC Office of Zoning recently released a slick interactive zoning map of the District. Not only can you view a neighborhood’s zone boundaries, but you can also view campus plans, historic districts, and overlay zones, too.

Click to view the interactive zoning map.

The map also plots each individual property in the District and notes the square number (block number), and the lot number. When you click on a lot, a dialog opens displaying the owner’s name, a photo of the property as well as any zoning rulings that apply to the property.

The site uses Google Maps as a base platform, but overlays other city data on top. Displaying zoning, property ownership, and zoning ruling data in an easy interface helps demystify these otherwise obscure areas of public policy.

Construction is still moving along at the park on the site of the former Gage-Eckington School. In addition to the dog park, playground equipment, picnic tables, and field, there are two more amenities on their way to the site: bike sharing and car sharing. DDOT’s assistance in integrating both car sharing spaces and its own Capital Bikeshare (CaBi) system is a good example of collaboration between different city agencies.

ZipCar is a subscription service that places cars throughout several cities worldwide and rents the cars to members by the hour. The rental fee includes the cost of gas and insurance and each car has a reserved “home” parking space to which it must be returned at the end of the reservation. These spaces are in public streets, public alleys and in private parking lots and garages.

We occasionally rent ZipCars when we need to haul heavy items or need to travel to transit-inaccessible destinations. This arrangement is far cheaper than owning a car and relieves us of the normal hassles of car ownership, e.g. parking, maintenance, washing, fuel costs, and insurance costs.

CaBi is another subscription service and is a joint venture between DDOT and Arlington County. CaBi bikes are parked at numerous racks throughout DC and Arlington and more are on the way. A member inserts his key into the bike dock and the bike unlocks. The member has 30 minutes to ride the bike for free before returning it to any dock in DC or Arlington.  CaBi is perfect for short one-way trips and we routinely use the CaBi station at Seventh and T Streets to commute to work downtown.  It’s also useful for occasional trips to Whole Foods or Dupont Circle, which are just minutes away by bike.

Both bike sharing and car sharing benefit residents who don’t even use the services. The existence of these services reduces the pressure to own a car and thus reduces the parking demand placed on our streets. For those who would live car-less regardless of these services, it provides us with two more mobility options located close to home.  Bike sharing and car sharing are welcome additions to the park site.

Photo: “Pick a Bike” by M. V. Jantzen