From the Publisher

Just want to say sorry I've been letting the homeless shelter thread take over the blog. For a while I was impressed at the number and quality of comments. Now it's really gotten a little out of hand, it feels compulsive and alarmist (and a little redundant) at this point.

Of course it's an important issue. I agree with the comment that basically said if you're against the shelter, by all means, organize against it. And use this blog as a tool. But please let's give the McLaughlin Group a rest for a bit.

I've been busy with a project in the last week or two, I admit I've been slacking on the blog. Send me stuff that's going on:

Whatever happened to that running group? Would anyone consider rallying their neighbors to use DC's adopt-a-block program? How could alleys be transformed into more attractive and functional public space? When is Temperance Hall's back patio going to open (is it open already?) Any groundbreaking date yet for Donatelli and Klein? Can DC actually arrest you for drinking on your front porch? Will the city ever come up with something to keep cars from crashing into the south side of Grant Circle (happens all the time apparently)? Ever been to Goins on Georgia Ave? Is Torta Bakery going to open or what? Where have you gone, Joe Martin? Why doesn't someone plan some kind of cool happy hour event upstairs at Sweet Mango? Anyone thinking about running for ANC??

Send photos from the 'hood if you want. If they're decent I'll run them.

Cheers, Bill.

Comments

[jenna]

Goins restaurant is quite good for breakfast.

[Angela]

Lots of thoughtful posts here, so I'm surprised that no one brought up parking issues. What can be done about cars with non-DC tags that seem to be parked overnight and every night on our DC streets? These folks need to either register their cars in DC or go back to sleeping in Maryland and Virginia. How do we make them comply?

[Susan]

I went to the Metro website and saw this:

Public comments welcome on bus route elimination and holiday service
http://www.wmata.com/about/met_news/story.cfm?ID=635

Metro proposes the elimination of:

Late night trips on:
• District of Columbia routes—80; 82; 94; D4; D6; E2; G8; H2,4; L2; M6; N6; V7,8
All weekday service on:
• District of Columbia routes—5B; H5,7; M2; W9
All weekend service on:
• District of Columbia routes—N8 and X6

Note that the crosstown routes H2, H4, and H5 will be affected. This rots - I think the problem isn't the lack of need for crosstown routes, it's the routes themselves. Who decided there is a dire need to connect Cleveland Park with Columbia Heights and the Washington Hospital Center? Plus, when a bus is only scheduled to come every 20 minutes or so and it's NEVER on schedule, no wonder ridership is really low. Buses need to come often and be reliable, or people will avoid them unless they have no other option.

Chris, I know the Woodley Park - Adams Morgan - U Street Shuttle. I used it all the time when I lived in Adams Morgan. I would love to have something similar connecting our neighborhood and Columbia Heights to Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle.

[Joe Martin]

Responding to a few points...

BUS ROUTES
The Metro is engaged in a process of weeding out bus routes that have low ridership. Conversely, the Metro may be open for new routes. Ask them. I know Dan Tangherlini, the new head of the Metro and former DDOT director, well enough to know that he has strong feelings about alternative modes of transportation, i.e. something other than cars. He's also a creative thinker.

For a start, post suggestions at this website:
http://www.wmata.com/riding/ridercomment.cfm

The Metro's general URL:
http://www.wmata.com

PORCH DRINKING
I know this issue well. A friend of mine became the infamous "Chardonnay Lady" about ten years ago when she was spotted on her Q Street NW (1600 block) stoop sipping a glass of wine. Officers handcuffed her and dragged her off to MPD-3D for booking. It was a very painful, humiliating experience. It got a lot of press then. I think her case helped to add that subsection to the law/regs, Tim.

Sometime last year at a PSA 404 meeting, one of the cops speaking said the cops are using common sense and discretion on this one. Let us know of abuses.

TRASH BARRELS
Be specific about where you want them and send an email to William Howland, the director of the Department of Public Works:
[email protected]

Please feel free to "cc" me and whoever your ANC commissioner. Speaking of...

TAKE MY COMMISSIONER, PLEASE, TAKE MY COMMISSIONER!

My homage to Henny Youngman...

Some are lazy bums. I can think of one who's destructive.

Elections are coming up this fall. Consider tossing us out. I set up a meeting for one commissioner's constituents at Emery Rec recently when he refused or forgot or whatever. When I told him before hand he should be setting up the meeting for HIS 50 consituents, his response to me: "Does that mean I have to go to the meeting?"

Yikes! Throw the (nameless) bum out, please.

If you wanna run, it's work. You don't get paid a cent. But it can be very, very rewarding, and I'm serious. You can help do some very positive things in the area. I won't be commissioner-for-life. We need a full crew to step up to the plate.

[Tim]

The crosstown bus routes in this city stink! I have used them a lot in the past and they are so incredibly unreliable you might as well take your chances walking. I have written MetroBus about it, taken surveys, etc. They keep saying that they wish to revamp the routes all over the city, but so far...
Here's an idea for some enterprising individual - start a cab company that serves mainly Petworth, CH and Georgia Ave. Getting a cab to come to Petworth at night is an exercise in frustration.
And Taylor, it sure is ridiculous but well, a lot of laws regarding alcohol consumption are pretty arcane. Like no selling of spirits on Sunday...what is up with that? I grew up in a crap small town where you could buy beer but not wine or liquor...cause ya know beer tain't got no "al-key-hol" in it.

I will now shut up and sit down.

[Taylor]

Tim:

What if you are sitting on the railing of your porch drinking, but you are leaning out over your yard? ;)

The whole thing is rediculous.

The next week after the incident I sat out on my retaining wall drinking cream soda that looked like beer hoping the jump-out unit would return.

[AJS]

I agree with Susan regarding bus routes. None of the existing routes goes west of 13th Street, and many of them require a transfer at the GA Ave Metro Station.

The only option I have is to take the H8 to Columbia Heights and then transfer to either a 14th St or 16th St bus. Unfortunately, once DC USA opens in Col.Hts., that bus route will be a disaster.

Maybe a route that goes along Upshur/Arkansas to 16th St.? Otherwise, there aren't many good east-west paths.

[Tim]

Hey Taylor, I have an aquaintance that a similar thing happened to as well. DC Code says...

§ 25-1001 Public drinking: a) Except as provided in subsections (b) and (c), no person in the District shall drink any alcoholic beverage or possess in an open container any alcoholic beverage in or upon any of the following places.

(1) Any street, alley, park, or parking area.

And then further down the statue it says this:

(b) Subsection (a)(1) of this section shall not apply when drinking or possession of alcoholic beverages occurs in or on a structure which projects upon the parking, and which is an integral, structural part of a private residence, such as a front porch, terrace, bay window, or vault, and when done by, or with the permission of, the owner or resident.

The way I understand it is this: your front porch is OK but your front yard is not because, and you can look on your survey plat and see it, the city OWNS your front yard. They actually own the entire area up to your front door, including your porch. But they let you have that space as specified in (b) Subsection (a)(1) of DC Code § 25-1001 Public drinking. The guy I knew, quite a few years ago some tenents of his were arrested in the BAY WINDOW(!) that hung out over the front yard. It went to court, and they apparently won the trial and according to this fellow, its why the DC Code now has this subsection.
Dang, after all that, I feel a little like Perry Mason.

[Chris]

Two thoughts on trash and Green & Red Lines:

1. I live at a street corner where there's a trash can, and people can't seem to make their way even two feet to throw something out. At this point, I think I enjoy complaining about it because it makes me feel superior or something (smirk). In fact, I've made it a daily ritual to throw the garbage out from in front of my building. It must be an amusing sight too, because I do it immediately after dismounting my bicycle when I get home from work and clip-clop around with my road bike shoes still on. I'm sure more than one person thinks I'm bizarre, both for clip-clopping around in cycling gear, AND for picking up other people's garbage. Most interesting item: used diaper (though the six-pack of empty Coronas in a plastic bag which appears every week is sort of interesting too - I mean, if you go through the trouble of keeping the six-pack packaging AND the plastic bag it comes in, ya can't go a few feet further to throw it out?!). Most disturbing item: various drug paraphanalia.

2. In terms of the transferring from Green to Red line, I have one possible tip, which may or may not be helpful: There's a connecting mini-bus, a shuttle, that runs every 15 minutes from U Street-Cardozo to Woodley Park Metro. I'm not sure how much it costs, or if it takes transfers, but I'm pretty sure the cost is reduced from a regular Metrobus. It's supposed to encourage people to take Metro when going out in Adams-Morgan.

[Tim]

Word! I agree with Bill, if you are against the shelter, let the appropriate officials know. But if the shelter is built there...suck it up (or leave). It may be stating the obvious but we live in a diverse community with many people and they have wildly varied ideas about what that community should be. That's my two cents.

But what I REALLY want to know is...can we get more city trash cans on the streets? Dude, if one more person throws his/hers Ding Dong wrapper on my front patch of weeds...Aaargh, it drives me nuts! I hate the gun shots and the drug sells across the street but that damn Ding Dong wrapper makes me the maddest!

[Taylor]

Bill:

Where did you hear about being arrested for drinking on your front porch?

2 years ago my 70+yr old neighbor handed me a beer on a hot summer afternoon. She had just bought a 6 pack from the store and just handed it to me. We took literally 4 or 5 sips when all of a sudden 4 unmarked cars screached to a halt in front of my house.

10 cops jumped out of the cars and started screaming at us like we were holding guns or something. They gathered around and started telling me I was a bad influence on the children. They pulled me down off the retaining wall, handcuffed me and my neighbor, and threw us in the back of the paddywagon.

The whole incident was rediculous. We were in jail at 4D for 6 hours on a Thursday night.

It turned out that the unit that arrested us was part of a roving force known as the jump-out unit. They drive around the city and "jump-out" of their vehicles to arrest people for minor infractions.

I later learned that the law does not allow you to drink in your front yard because of a loophole in the law.

Couldn't they have simply told us we weren't allowed to do what we were doing?

[Susan]

Thanks for the info about the Donatelli & Klein project. I'm also curious to hear when they are going to break ground for the new playground at the corner of 8th & Taylor (right now it's a grass dome with a flagpole - sigh). The last I heard was that they were waiting for the end of freezing weather...all I can say is bring it on!

Another neighborhood issue I've been thinking a lot about lately is how inconvenient it is to get from Petworth to neighborhoods along the red line at night (when changing trains on metro is such a pain). The main bus lines going thru Petworth either travel the same path as the metro to U St. and Chinatown(70/71) or go to Takoma DC, Catholic University, or Mt. Pleasant. Why not have bus lines that go to Farragut North via Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan/U St. (West of the green line) or to Capitol Hill via Union Station (not to mention all the new development on H St. NE)? It seems to me that both those destinations would be in much higher demand than Brookland & Mt. Pleasant since many people work and go out in both places. The bus lines could also serve Columbia Heights - which is much more densely populated than Petworth and will soon have their own new draws for shopping/working.

I heard on NPR this morning that Metro is calling this the "Year of the Bus" - maybe it's time to rethink routes that were designed before the "new" Green Line stops opened and the resurgence of these neighborhoods and respond to changes happening in where people live and work. BTW, I'm not suggesting to change existing routes serving Petworth (I used both the 70/71 buses that are always full, and occasionally the 64) - just to consider new ones.

[Heather]

Look for a separate posting real soon about the Petworth Running Group. Now that the weather is getting warm I'm going to give this a second try!

- Heather

[Joe Martin]

Bill, thanks for your thoughtful posting.

As for Donatelli & Klein, I spoke to Larry Clark yesterday to get the latest, and I wanted to know his thoughts about the discussion of the planned homeless shelter. On that, he confirmed my own sense of things.

First, Larry said D&K has nailed down ten of the eleven legal issues they had to settle with Metro (WMATA). Added that the project is very much on track and feels like the groundbreaking announcement is in sight. Let's keep our fingers crossed. In any case, THE PROJECT IS HAPPENING.

I specifically asked him if he had been following the Petworth News discussion on the proposed homeless shelter and his thoughts about its impact on prospective development on Georgia Avenue.

His words (am paraphrasing): "If I were staring at a completed shelter right now and were making the decision to put a building on Georgia Avenue right now, I would not be the least bit deterred."

By the way, when I last saw Jair Lynch about two weeks, he said something to the effect that if he could snap his fingers and have his building up right now (at 3910 Georgia), he would.

Commissioner Shanel Anthony will be holding a meeting for the community THIS SATURDAY at the ROC about the proposed development slated for Georgia & Upshur, where the Shell gas station sits. I'll report back with the time for the meeting. My gut tells me it's set for noon. PLEASE COME. We need to hear from people who are interested in seeing Georgia Avenue changed from a spine of crime and liquor stores defined by bullet-resistent shields to welcoming, neighborhood-oriented shops and restaurants, new housing and business space (with ideally some reasonably-priced space for nonprofits here and there).

Thanks.

[Chris]

Does anybody here have any experience with the DC Adopt-A-Block program? I've seen the information about it on the DC government's website, but I'd like to hear any feedback from a practical standpoint. Thanks.