Month: May 2010

Scraps of DC History- RLA

If I ever, ever, which looks like not at all on my current path, write a history of urban renewal from the neighborhood perspective in Washington, DC I will have to include the District of Columbia Redevelopment Agency (RLA). According to the US Government Organization Manual the RLA was:

Created by act of Aug 2, 1946 (60 Stat. 790), to provide for replanning, rebuilding, and rehabilitation of slum and blighted areas in the District of Columbia. The District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act of Dec 24, 1973 (87 Stat. 774), established the agency as an instrumentality of the District of Columbia government, effective July 1, 1974

A post war agency to deal with slums turned into something that helped with the destruction of SW. Which who knows, may have needed destroying in parts, but not to the extent it did with the SW Urban renewal in the 50s and 60s.

Warning- UHOP parade May 29th

That’s the date mentioned on the MVSNA listserv. For you new people this is what usually happens. The church has a parade. A big parade. A long parade that crosses Rhode Island, snarling traffic. I think last year they went up to Florida Avenue. Also last year, they worked with the city. As opposed to previous years where deacons and other church people blocked streets and directed traffic.

It is interesting and it brings in a lot of United House of Prayer folks.

Comment Spam

There aren’t a lot of comments here. Because I get a lot of comment spam that doesn’t make it to the blog. I just got this:

This is my first time I have visited {here|this site|your site}. I found a lot of interesting {stuff|information} in your blog. From the {tons|volume} of comments on your {articles|posts}, I guess I am not the only one! keep up the {good|great|impressive} work.

Gee, a comment form.

Noise

Apparently from the Shaw listserv and a conversation/discussion/ friendly debate I had with Truxton Circle Scott about the BBC liquor license, noise is a theme.

It seems that someone was having a party. A loud one somewhere around N and 6th Streets. It went a little late, late enough for someone to take the mike and tell their fellow party attendees to keep it down for the neighbors before blasting more music. Loud enough for people to call the cops. If the cops came or not, little matter. In my own experience the problem is cops come, the music may get turned down, cops leave, music/noise goes back up. Neighbors lash out in variety of ways, one is cultivating deep hatred that may manifest itself at the next community ‘we all need to work together’ thing.

Scott and I were talking about some of the concerns surrounding the Big Bear Café liquor license. Scott is completely for it, even though the hours on the application go way past their current to the witching hours. And we got to talking about volunteer agreements and how they are applied where he works and where his tenant/housemate works. He’s in a completely commercial area, they close fairly early 10-11PM though they can go to 2AM, housemate in a very mixed part of Dupont, where they shut down at 10-11PM and have to gently put glass bottles in receptacles because of noise. Both are restaurants.

Scotty (you know I love you) was being dismissive of my noise concerns, saying we live in a city, it’s noisy. I was trying to relate how with different noises, some bother me, others don’t. Sirens blaring on the next street, the now rare gunshots, sometimes the call to prayer from the mosque, cars passing, odd firecrackers a block off, and buses I can tolerate enough to sleep though. Of course the 5AM-ish call to prayer has a 25% chance of waking me up a good hour before my alarm goes off and pissing me off enough to write a terse letter to the imam. People carrying on a prolonged BS session in their yards (patios/ decks) along the alley will keep me up. Dumping your glass recyclables in the alley at 2AM will definitely wake me up. Base, I can feel through my bed and is simply intolerable. If it is a car, I let it pass. If it is a neighbor I debate whether I want to get dressed and ask them to turn it down or do I want to reach over to the phone and call the cops?

There was an illegal night club on P St. near North Cap. I passed by it once when someone with drums was practicing. My impression was that it was being used as band practice space and seemed buffered by the Slater and Langston schools to be no bother to the residents of the area. Imagine my surprise when a resident who lives way on the other end of P said he could hear the music inside his house. He made an effort to shut the place down.

Some parts of the city are louder than others and the type of noise is different depending where you go.

Days of Art

I haven’t been at the computer for a couple of days and I really enjoyed having a pretty computer free weekend. From about Thursday to Saturday was kinda art intensive for me.

Thursday I attended the Tactile Dinner at the Big Bear Café with the Help. We were seated separately, but he enjoyed himself and his tablemate. Having had experienced the Fringe Festival version and this, maybe not having any expectations helps. This second go around had me missing some things from the first, but couldn’t be done with the space. Instead of a projection, as in the Fringe production, F.T. Marinetti, walked amongst us. We enjoyed ourselves; though the Help was a little sad he was not picked to perform an embarrassing task (arm flapping or hula hoop motions). Yes, audience participation was a part of it; the dinner is experienced with the eyes and the tongue, not so much the nose this time around. I was sitting next to the Washington Post reporter so, read her article for more on that.

Friday I decided to walk home and I wanted to duck away from the main strip of 7th Street and wandered into a pop up art project at 625 E St NW, and was really struck by the work of artist Margaret Bowland.

Dear Washington Post- Stop killing yourself

Last night I got a phone call from someone trying to get me to subscribe to your new “Capital Business” publication, most likely because I am a regular weekly & weekend subscriber. I told the woman on the other end no and explained why and mentioned that I have pondered canceling my regular subscription all together.

The “Capital Business” publication lacks what I liked about your old business section, before you gutted it. I want to look at a list of stocks. I want to see what are their dividends if any, and their P/E ratios. I can’t get that in your daily minuscule section of business in the A section of the paper, and it doesn’t appear in “Capital Business” either. I don’t buy what I don’t want.

This call happened while ‘the Help’ was over for dinner. He’s got a few friends in the newspaper/ broadcasting paid-journalism field. He told me of a conversation he’s had with these friends, and how they mentioned your editorial staff is paying more attention to the online side than to the print side, which might explain the typos and other errors. And there was something about your copywriters, can’t remember what, but there is something wrong there. Those friends were frightened about the path your paper seems to be taking. “Frightened” was the word they used and they have been inside. The quality of the paper has gone downhill really fast in the 15 years I’ve been reading it. It may have started with the buy-outs.

As I’ve said, I pondered canceling my weekday subscription. Want to know what’s keeping me, so far? Comics, metro, and food. In that order. Sometimes the theater listings. If the Washington Times ever vamped up and expanded their comics you’d be in trouble. I also value the Post as fish wrap. It’s handing for wetness in the basement, wrapping packages, soaking up bacon grease or other fried foods, paint projects, washing windows, weed-block, and a variety of projects around the house. For that I could use any newspaper, except the City Paper for the food things, that paper seems unclean.

Maybe your business model or some consultant has told you that the Internets is where it’s at. Ok. I hope that’s bringing in money and justifying your $490 a share price. Maybe you don’t need paper subscribers, with our need for deliverymen who knock over our pots and break our plants.

A coupla house & garden things

I’m a little late mentioning this but have you heard of the partial house collapse on Morgan St? A street that is both in Mt. Vernon Square and the TC.

As a reminder, these houses aren’t as strong as you think they are, unless someone in the 100 or so years they’ve been standing did more than slap band-aids on them. A neighbor is gutting his house and the stories he’s told about what dangerous defects they found once they’ve peeled away the plaster is frigging frightening. Walls with nothing but sandy mortar keeping them up. Walls that were leaning and bowing and not really locked in place that possibly could have taken the neighboring house with it. Well that’s just our block. I’m sure your house was built by guys who wanted the place to stand for a hundred years. Oh wait, your hundred years is up.

Well now that I’ve depressed and unnecessarily scared some of you (really, unless you’re renovating don’t worry. If you are renovating factor structural fix-ups into the costs), here’s something nice. I was in the 5th St Hardware store to get some zip ties. Spent $75 in gardening stuff and forgot the zip ties. Anyway I saw a non-motorized lawn mower for sale. If I still had a tiny lawn I would really consider one of these. It is one of those really old fashioned push reel mowers and since the only power it uses is people power, it is green. I have heard it is greener not to have a lawn at all. But I didn’t ditch my tiny lawn to be green. It was ditched it because I wanted to grow food and I can’t eat grass.

Not so nice. They are almost out of tomato plants. There were 1 or 2 left. I bought 2. Hit the farmers markets. Thursday in Penn Quarter, there is a vendor who sells patio tomato plants, great for small spaces. Patio tomatoes don’t vine all over the place. They are kinda bushy.

Ok this post is rambling.