At Thursday’s ANC1B meeting, Chip Ellis, head of the Howard Theatre’s restoration, announced that the much-delayed renovations will start in the last week of August.  The theater, when it opens, will host R&B acts, jazz, and Sunday gospel brunches in a venue that Ellis describes as “cabaret style”.

Careful observers of the restoration sketch (above) will notice the statue at the top of the façade.  Originally the theater featured a statue of Apollo playing the lyre; the new statue, fabricated in metal and lit with LEDs will be themed “the Jazz Man”.  Mr. Ellis will return in a few months with design drawings.

When asked about parking, Mr. Ellis stated that the restoration project plans to partner with Howard University to offer parking in one of its lots a few blocks away on Georgia Avenue.  He also proposed the idea of building a garage on the southern portion of the parking lot of Howard University Hospital.

We appreciate Mr. Ellis’s efforts restoring the Howard Theatre, but we would not welcome a parking garage on Georgia Avenue.  A garage would contradict the Office of Planning’s DUKE Plan, which specifically calls for ground-floor retail and offices on that site.  A street-fronting garage would deprive Georgia Avenue of the streetlife that retail uses generate.

Furthermore, since parking is a necessary component of driving; providing more parking will induce more driving, something the area suffers from already.

Howard University Hospital is hosting a farmers market twice a week on the plaza at their Georgia Avenue entrance. The market will run Tuesdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. and Fridays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

We’re excited to have fresh produce for sale so close to home and we hope the prices compare (or beat) Safeway and Giant.

(If you’d like to zoom on the photo below, download it as a PDF)

We also found a Washington Senators fan site with a 1960 photo of the stadium in the midst of a game.

The record snow that accumulated this weekend brought us out to snowball fights and sledding in Meridian Hill Park.  With few stores open and few roads passable, Saturday was a true holiday in the old-fashioned sense.

Howard University Hospital’s groundskeeper was out in heartbeat clearing the hospital’s sidewalks while contractors cleared the hospital’s parking lot. Pretty impressive!

Neighbors dug their cars out of snow and the usually busy Florida Avenue carried more pedestrians then automobiles. The District government sent numerous plows along U Street and Florida Avenue, largely neglecting (understandably) the quiet streets of LeDroit Park.

You didn’t need a 4×4 to get around this weather. These two girls found that a daddy-powered sled was the most convenient form of transportation.

In Dupont Circle, hundreds of people gathered for a snowball fight. We caught the end of it:

Is a white Hummer camouflaged when it’s in the snow? These snowballers were able to spot and pelt it.

This Suburban sped away as soon as the light turned green.

For cars in LeDroit Park, Fourth and Fifth Streets are passable, but the east-west streets are better left to the four-wheel-drives.

More snow is expected Tuesday night and during the day on Wednesday. Were Pres. William McKinley still alive today, he would not only argue the merits of a gold standard with Rep. Ron Paul, but would also scoff at this relative “dusting”.  Though we’ve recorded 45 inches so far this winter, the winter of 1898-99, during McKinley’s administration, set the city’s record, dumping a total of 54.4 inches on the capital!

If you’re tired of the snow, be glad you don’t live in Québec City, which suffers 124 inches of snow each winter… on average!

The National Weather Service is predicting a snow storm to cover Washington from Friday morning through Saturday evening.  The storm is expected to leave 12 – 20 inches of snow.

So far we’ve been impressed with the dedication of Howard University Hospital’s groundskeepers, who are out there within an hour of the first flake to clear the sidewalks.

Here’s a novel idea we found online for a pedal-powered snow plow.  If someone is willing to build it, we’re willing to drive it down every sidewalk in LeDroit Park.

Toggle

There are a few noticeable changes:

1. Howard University Hospital built an annex behind the main hospital building.
2. The entire block bounded by Fourth Street, Fifth Street, V Street, and Oakdale Place is now a multi-level parking garage.
3. In 1988, the 500 block of U Street looked gap-toothed; new houses have since been built to fill out the entire north side of the street.
4. Street intersections have been replaced with concrete while the roadways remain asphalt.
5. The tree canopy is much more expansive now (or the 1988 photo was taken in the winter).
6. Houses have been built on the once-vacant land around the northeast corner of Fourth and U Streets.
7. The intersection of T Street, Sixth Street, and Florida Avenue has been reconfigured, making way for the pocket park home to the LeDroit Park entrance arch.
8. The Schoolhouse Lofts condo building has since been built at Second and V Streets.

Did we miss anything?