If you don’t know already the District government has it in its head that the park at New York and 1st Street is not really used and temporary housing for Sursum Corda co-op residents. There will be a meeting tonight so residents can vocalize their opinions.
Under used they say. But that’s the beauty of green space, to be a pause, a comma, in the constant rush of city life. It is a place for animals to run around and not have their paws constantly hitting pavement. Unless they plan on putting a green roof on top of the “temporary” houses, this greenspace allows for another place where rainwater can seep into the earth.
According to the Post:
Planning officials said the city has addressed that[loss of park]. Though the neighborhood would lose the New York Avenue Playground, it would gain a new park, recreation center and swimming pool two blocks south at First and L streets NW. The city also would redesign a park at the Armstrong School at First and P streets NW and upgrade a park at New Jersey Avenue and O Street NW.
A rec center on the other side of the road of DEATH does not help. NY Ave is a road of death. A skull and crossbones on the grill of a monster SUV driven by a multitasking cell phone chattin Virginian road of death.
Call us NIMBYs all you want, but no, no thank you. We’ve got our own problems of drug dealers, shootings, prostitution, robberies, car theft and really that’s enough of a burden on its own. Slowly, slowly, slowly, the residents and officials of our area have been working to decrease the drug dealing and violence, my fear is that what has been gained will be loss with a relocation of Sursum Corda. We had our problems on this side of NY Ave, they had their problems on that side of NY Ave and sometime a trickle would cross the 6 lanes.
Also I’m just not buying the “temporary” argument.
As I write this I keep thinking of a short story I read in high school. I think the title is “Sorrow rides a swift horse.” The main theme of the story was whatever problems you are trying to escape will follow you and catch up to you. The problems of Sursum Corda’s violence and drug problems are well known, their financial problems and problems with HUD, maybe a little less so. Whatever problems they have will move with them.
I love how their ANC person called us “silly people” for objecting. It’s so silly to object to rewarding a bunch of people (with brand new houses) who have let their neighborhood fall apart in 25 years. Because taxpayers who spend 600,000 on thier houses have no right to object to expanding the nation’s deadliest housing project on top of our park space. Yikes.
Well I didn’t pay 1/2 a millon or even 1/4 of a mil for the house, more like 1/8 of a mil, does that make me silly? There are a fair number on my block who bought before prices got really stupid and we have the same concerns as the people who came later.
Actually, if I read it right it was Munlyn of the Northwest 1 Council, not the ANC, who I think would be Ms. Cleopatria Jones. Jones is hosting tonight’s meeting at 45 P Street, NW, 6:30-8:30 p.m. on the issue of the park. The vibe I’m getting from Berry (5C01) and Jones (5C02) is that this sort of building project on top of our park is unwanted. What I’m sensing is that bringing a large number of SurCor residents over here, even for a short while, may negatively impact or just complicate efforts on this side of NY Ave to combat our own drugs and violence problems.
I have been emailing with the city planner. The plan is NOT to put temporary housing, but to build permanent, mixed-use rowhouses there. He claims that this is not a park issue but a NIMBY issue – that “we” don’t want “low income” people in our neighborhood. I asked him who he though comprised 80% of the neighborhood.
It’s probably good I couldn’t make the meeting, because I would have strangled one of these people. The previous poster is dead-on…who do they think comprises a large percentage of this neighorhood already? Mixed income is fine…diversity, blah blah. But they are trying to finish the cleanup around the Mass Ave/NOMA corridor at our expense. We already bear such a huge burden, and they want to add to our problems. They can cry NIMBY if this was our first low-income project, but they know that’s BS because somewhere, someone has decided TC/Bloom/Eck is going to be a concentrated dumping ground to counter the arguments that all DC’s poor are being pushed into PG county. There has to be a better way to balance this.