Opening day for the Dupont Circle underpass

In 1950 the District opened a vehicular underpass allowing Connecticut Avenue to dive under Dupont Circle.  The underpass, which still exists today, is flanked by two abandoned (and hidden) streetcar tunnels that sit behind each rusticated retaining wall.  In March 2007, DDOT finished refurbishing the automobile underpass, but the city missed an excellent opportunity to restore the gashed avenue above.

Between Dupont Circle and Q Street, the underpass is “daylighted”— exposed to the sky— needlessly monopolizing space from the block’s active street scene.

Our solution for street reclamation is simple: cap the underpass for that one block.

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Connecticut Avenue, for that one block, would become much like P Street or Nineteenth Street (on the north side) as they approach the circle.  Each provides a travel lane and a parking lane in each direction— far different from the cramped and highway-like atmosphere on Connecticut Avenue.

The businesses along the block would benefit from sidewalks that will double in width as well as from easier access from the roadway, parking spaces and sidewalk on the opposite side of the avenue.  The increased sidewalk space will relieve the pedestrian congestion on the sidewalks (particularly on the east side) and provide space for outdoor seating and for stores’ promotional placards.  Pairs of facing street benches perpendicular to the avenue will provide more seating for shop patrons and passersby.

Furthermore, the ample, seamless space would provide another truck-accessible venue for weekend farmers’ markets or art sales and other events that a stodgy National Park Service may not permit in the circle itself.

Plans are already in motion to build over I-395 and the National Capital Planning Commission dreams of covering the E Street Expressway in Foggy Bottom east of the Kennedy Center.  Compared to those proposals, this one is simpler, easier, and cheaper and would benefit more residents.

Update: We considered the idea of a medial park, but worried that it would suffer from desolation due to its separation from the active sidewalks. Though certainly better than the status quo, we suspect fewer people would want to sit in what is essentially a grassy street median. That said, it would certainly be cheaper to build— and money is no small matter in this case!

The advantage of our proposal above is that it enhances existing spaces (the sidewalks) whose heavy use warrants improvement.

Ghetto Picasso's calling card.

…And CRASH!!! Sharesten, alone in The Christinsanity Chair, tilts over. The band plays on. Jo joins her. And the two balance The Christinsanity Chair. Friends fo’evah.

Wednesday morning we discovered that LeDroit Park had been “art bombed” with several found-art sculptures. The Brooklyn-based artist Ghetto Picasso adorned several sidewalks with his whimsical works. Each sculpture was tagged with a playing card with a few lines of prose and the artist’s web address.  The artist describes himself thusly:

Theorizing the green movement as a last minute prayer before the Apocalypse, Ghetto Picasso symbolically interprets mankind’s edification efforts with the use of junk, salvage and reclaimed materials.

As detailed in his blog, Ghetto Picasso currently has an installation at Tryst in Adams Morgan.

Found at the LeDroit Park gate.

Found in the front garden at T and Sixth Streets NW

Attached to a fence at T and Wiltberger Streets NW

What was that chop chop chop you heard last night? Was it a medevac helicopter landing at Howard University Hospital? Was the president swinging by on Marine One for a nighttime tour of the Gage-Eckington mud pit?

Neither. Last night the MPD, equipped with air support, arrested two people at the illegal casino running out of a house on Fourth Street between Elm Street and Oakdale Place. As early as this summer we heard complaints about the illegal games going on inside. In fact this Las Vegas-upon-Fourth was so popular that its patrons clogged the parking spaces on the surrounding streets. It was only a matter of time before the house (and neighborhood in general) became a target of a violent casino heist.

Neighbors had complained of patrons loitering outside each afternoon waiting for the house to open and for the games to begin. The gambling hosts, for all the nuisances they caused, observed a self-imposed blue law, closing shop on Sunday.

But just as a roulette wheel eventually comes to a stop, the casino’s business had dwindled over the past month. Last night the MPD swooped in to stop it for good. Looks like the two arrested had rolled snake eyes.

At the Civic Association meeting last night, a representative from the mayor’s office presented news on the park contract.

Jacqui Glover notified the assembled residents that the budget for the park has been reduced from $1.7 million to $1.5 million. The city would adjust the design accordingly by eliminating the water feature, removing a picnic shelter, and by reducing the number of benches and light fixtures. Other than that, the design is supposed to remain the same.

The design modifications will be finalized by the beginning of April, after which the mayor’s office will solicit bids, and— this is new!— submit the winning contract to the City Council for review as required by law.

Though Ms. Glover is confident that the park will open in September, some in the audience were skeptical.  Nonetheless, our fingers are crossed.

Read our previous posts on the park as the contracting saga unfolded.

We’ve written before about DDOT’s plan to build a streetcar system throughout the District.  The city already owns three streetcars and is storing them temporarily in Greenbelt.

The city recently installed rails and mini-platforms (see below) along the western end of Benning Road in Northeast Washington.  Here are some photos we took this weekend of our shiny new infrastructure.

Above: Median platform at 19th Street NE.

Below: The tracks are embedded in a linear concrete pad that runs along the inner lanes of Benning Road.

The rails will continue along H Street NE toward Union Station.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the unemployment rate for December and the news for the District is not good. Unemployment ticked up to 12.1%, far above Maryland’s 7.5% and Virginia’s 6.9%.

Though the District added 6,100 jobs from December 2008 to December 2009, the unemployment rate jumped from 8.9% to 12.1% in the same period.

The Post speculates:

But because the labor force in the District has a large proportion of undereducated people, experts said, the majority of those high-paying jobs usually go to more qualified residents of suburban Maryland and Northern Virginia. Less-educated residents typically work in construction, which lost 200 jobs last month; in leisure and hospitality, which lost 400 jobs last month; and in retail and transportation, which lost 500 jobs last month.

Cynthia Ward, vice president of market and account services at the recruiting and career management firm Lee Hecht Harrison, said candidates who grew up in the District often are unable to compete with their suburban counterparts because of the troubled city school system.

“I graduated from the D.C. public schools, where I had been an A and B student. When I went to college, I discovered I was way behind [other students], especially in writing, and I had to work hard” to catch up, said Ward, who is on a task force seeking ways to better prepare District residents for higher-skills jobs.

Perhaps now our city will finally begin to see what everyone else has known all along: that the poor performance of our public school system is not just a civil rights disgrace, but an economic impediment, too.

It’s that time again.  The LeDroit Park Civic Association will meet on Tuesday, January 26, at 7:00 pm in the basement of the Florida Avenue Baptist Church.  (Enter through the back at U and Bohrer Streets)

This month’s agenda:

• Gage Eckington Park Update
• The GADGET Center (GEORGIA AVENUE DEVELOPMENT GROWTH ENTERPRISE TRANSFORMATION)
• Howard University Campus Plan
• 321 T street and reconstruction plans.

As always, all are welcome to attend.

We arrived home yesterday evening to a nice surprise.  It looks as though DPW, which suspends regular street sweeping in the winter, had decided that LeDroit Park needed a clean-up.

Not only were the curbs cleared, but the area around the entrance gate was cleared of the debris that collects in the shrubs.

Just in time for tonight’s atmospheric slushy of snow, sleet, ice, and rain.

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.

DDOT’s historical photo archive contains this photo taken at Florida Avenue, Ninth Street, and V Street in 1958.

Here is the same view today.

Today one of the gas stations is gone, but several high-rises dot the skyline.