The house at 1922 Third Street (Third and U Streets) is one of the LeDroit Park’s gems and is about to receive some much needed attention.  At Thursday’s ANC1B meeting, Community Three Development will submit this concept to renovate the main house, to renovate the carriage house, and to build a new townhouse at the southern edge of the property.

The developer recently finished the swanky M Street Flats located in Mount Vernon Triangle area. The group also completed The Nine on the 1300 block of Ninth Street, backing up to the historic Naylor Court.  If these forerunners are any indication, 1922 Third Street may receive a high-end renovation.

The developer’s design, in his words,

creates an addition to the existing main building that is smaller in scale and secondary to the main building, allowing the main structure to continue to read as the dominant form on the site. This addition terminates in a “carriage house court,” designed to celebrate the existing carriage house, while maintaining the historic structure’s existing view corridor from U Street. A new unsubdivided townhouse lot and structure is created to terminate the row of townhouses directly to the south of the site. The result of these interventions preserves and enhances the character and urban form associated with the main structure and corresponding carriage house.

Though Community Three will need the approval of the city’s Historic Preservation Review Board for the overall project, they are not seek zoning variances.

The proposal calls for 14,000 gross square feet of space and features 14 residential units and four garage spaces— a mixture that the developer claims zoning ordinances permit.

Here are some drawings and diagrams from the concept.  Note that the developer proposes to add a new rowhouse on the south side of the property (middle-left of the first drawing)

1922 Third Street concept, east face on Third Street

In the next drawing, the concept preserves the historic carriage house (on the right) and connects it with the main house with a new structure (middle) with a hipped roof that mimics the former and dormers that mimic the latter.

1922 Third Street concept, north face on U Street

With the new connecting building and rowhouse the project will increase the building footprint on the lot.

1922 Third Street concept, footprint

What do you think of the concept?  Leave your questions and comments below and we will try to ask the developer any unanswered questions at Thursday’s ANC1B meeting.

Broadcast Center One as viewed from the CVS at 7th & T Streets

Snowpocalypse 2: Electric Boogaloo and other matters kept us too busy to follow up on the February meeting of ANC1B, so here is the belated report of the highlights.

The owner of 1916 Ninth Street requested a variance to allow him to use the house as an art gallery.  His description of the renovation included achieving LEED Platinum certification for the old rowhouse.

The owner of 321 T Street sought and received ANC support for his conceptual design of his proposed renovations to the rowhouse on T Street here in LeDroit Park.  The owner had presented the plan at the previous LeDroit Park Civic Association meeting and didn’t receive any opposition.

Finally, a lawyer representing Media Center One (a.k.a. Broadcast Center One) (pictured above) requested and received approval for a two-year extension for the planned unit development (PUD) application for the project.  The developer’s representative blamed the financial markets (of course), sympathized with the community’s “development fatigue” and said that the project was moving forward thanks to the successful leasing of office space to the United Negro College Fund in addition to Radio One.

The reconfigured project will remain largely the same, except 50,000 square feet of apartment space will become office space.  That means the project will include 133 apartments instead of 180 and will include 160,000 square feet of offices instead of 110,000 square feet.

Groundbreaking is now set for June or July 2010.

On the liquor front, Ulah Bistro received the ANC’s assent to host DJs and jazz bands Sunday through Thursday nights 9 pm to 1:30 am and Friday and Saturday nights 9 pm to 2:30 am.  Ulah is one of the few licensees in the U Street area without a voluntary agreement.

The proprietors for Bella (900 Florida Avenue NW) did not show up and the ANC protested their request for a license.

Finally, the proprietor of Masa 14 (1825 Fourteenth Street) presented the most contentious proposal of the night, requesting that their liquor license extend to their proposed roof deck (see the drawings) permitting them to sell alcohol Sunday through Thursday 8 am to 2 am and Friday and Saturday 8 am to 3 am.  Some neighbors voiced concern that the roof deck would create too much noise and doubted that a place described as restaurant would need to serve alcohol so late into the night.  The ANC voted to protest the application until the owner and the ANC could come to a voluntary agreement. [Clarification: the ANC typically protests all new liquor licenses as a tactical move to goad applicants to reach what is called a “voluntary agreement” (VA) with the ANC. These voluntary agreements are less permissive than the District’s standing liquor laws.]

The next meeting is set for Thursday, March 4, 2010, at 7 pm on the second floor of the Reeves Building at Fourteenth and U Streets.

Due to the overwhelming amount of snow that has worn down the city’s plows, the District has contracted with a Massachusetts company to help dig us out.  This morning we spotted part of the Bay State crew and its heavy construction equipment clearing Fifth and U Streets here in LeDroit Park.  The ferocious looking machines are scraping the streets down to the pavement and amassing snow mountains that will take weeks to melt.

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!

Yesterday we featured a flashback of an intersection near the 9:30 Club.  Well, now we’re at Florida Avenue, Ninth Street, and U Street in 1958.  Again, the photo is from DDOT’s historical archive.

The “Washington globe” streetlights, still manufactured today haven’t changed much from their 1958 predecessors, but the street signs have changed in style from a black-on-white serifed typeface to a white-on-green sans-serif typeface. 

The DC Housing Finance Agency has replaced the building hosting Uptown Billiards.  The building at the opposite corner, soon to be the Brixton Pub, appears to have been occupied in 1958.  The emergency call box has been reoriented and fixed up somewhat and the traffic lights now extend over the roadway slightly.  The crosswalks in 1958 were barely marked on the pavement.

What a difference twenty-one years make. Below are two satellite photos of LeDroit Park— one taken in 1988 and the other taken in 2009.  Toggle back and forth between the two to see how the neighborhood’s footprint has changed.

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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?

The record snowfall ended around 1 am on Sunday morning, leaving one to two feet of accumulated snow across the region. We spent much of the day out around town. With many stores closed and little to do, we found fellow Washingtonians friendly and relaxed.

At Meridian Hill Park, about 40 people showed up to sled down snow-packed steps.

Most were just spectators, though.

Christmas is here,
bringing good cheer,
to young and old,
meek and the bold,

Just a few blocks away at Fourteenth and U Streets, futureMAGINING, the folks responsible for the pillow fight a few months back, hosted a whimsical snowball fight, which wasn’t without its own tempest.

And the Postal Service held to its motto.

Metro halted all bus service and at 1 pm train service was limited to underground stations. The District government claims to have plowed every street at least once, but we encountered many streets (especially the narrow ones) that don’t appear to have been touched. Main roads, such as Fourteenth Street, received their needed treatment.

We took the Green Line downtown and found the streets, including Pennsylvania Avenue, deserted.

Some took the opportunity to play football on the Mall.

The Senate was still in session, though it’s a surprise that any Senators could find their way to the Capitol.

We spotted birds huddling for heat on top of a warm Metro vent next to Seventh Street on the Mall:

We helped build a snow Java the Hut.

The Smithsonians were closed, as were the National Gallery of Art and the Sculpture Garden.

Farragut Square was deserted.

‘Twas the week before Christmas, when all through the White House
Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse

God rest ye merry gentlemen.

Careful observers occasionally spot the old street signs adorning a few of the light poles in LeDroit Park.  When the neighborhood was originally planned, most of the streets were named after trees.  LeDroit Park’s street system didn’t fit with the L’Enfant Plan in either name or alignment—much to the dismay of the District commissioners—and the street names were eventually changed to fit the naming and numbering system.

A perusal of old maps reveals that the street names changed over time, not all at once.  Elm Street is the only street that has retained its name.  Since your author lives on Elm Street he has learned to respond to puzzled faces that know that Elm doesn’t fit the street naming system: “It’s kinda like U-and-1/3 Street”.

Anna J. Cooper Circle didn’t have a name at all until 1983, when it was restored to its circular form after a decades-long bisection by Third Street.

Just outside of LeDroit Park, the city renamed a few streets as well: 7th Street Road became Georgia Avenue and Boundary Street, the boundary of the L’Enfant Plan, became Florida Avenue.

Here is a table matching the current street names with their previous names.

Signs bearing the old street names have reappeared in the neighborhood, and according to the Afro-American, were put up in 1976:  “The LeDroit Park Historic District Project was instrumental in getting the D.C. Department of Transportation to put up the old original street names for this Historic District Area under the present street name signs”.¹

Unfortunately, some of the signs are showing their 33 years of weather, as this sign at Third and U Streets shows.

Eventually these signs will have to be replaced, but rather than placing the old names onto modern signs using a modern typeface, we suggest something that evokes the history without being mistaken for the current street name:

White text on a brown background is the standard for street and highway signs pointing to areas of recreation or cultural interest.  Seattle started using the color scheme to mark its historic Olmsted boulevards and New York has long used the combination for street signs in its historic districts.  The adoption of this style of sign would alert visitors and residents to the neighborhood’s historic identity while the different color and typeface would prevent confusion with the actual street names (U St NW in this case).  Typographers would be pleased by the use of Big Caslon Medium, a serif typeface based on the centuries-old Caslon typeface.

1. Hall, Ruth C. “Historic Project”. Washington Afro-American. 1 May 1976.

In our casual search of LeDroit Park’s history, we occasionally come across interesting tidbits in the most unexpected places.

A 1908 issue of The World To-Day, a self-described “monthly record of human progress”, featured an article on the breadth of professions and positions held by blacks in Washington at the time.  The article featured a photo of the U Street, looking east from 5th Street.  We have provided the original photo as well as a photo taken in the same perspective last week.

Ever since air conditioning, window shutters have never been as popular as they used to be.