Petworth News

Social services

[from Cliff V.]

A group of us are working on a presentation for an upcoming zoning hearing. We are trying to compile a list of all the social services, group homes, free clinics, and subsidized housing in the Columbia Heights/Park View/Petworth area into a map. Such a list does not currently exist, so we need the help of all of our neighbors. We ask that they either post a comment or email myself or Terra Weirich the name, address and function of anything that this map is missing. All entries will be further validated by DCRA so we can be sure the map is complete and accurate.

The current draft of the map is here.

New Year's Eve at Domku

Domku Bar & Cafe will ring in the New Year with karaoke, live music, and a three-course menu with champagne toast for $45. Click here for full details.

Domku will be closed for winter break from January 1-3. Business resumes January 4 at 5pm.

Examiner article 12/26

Principal shows way to success
by Dena Levitz, The Examiner, 12/26/07

Shirley Hopkinson, though a DC public school principal, can’t be called anything but a teacher. To try to catch her in her office at Barnard Elementary School would be pointless, as the longtime educator spends her hours instructing her staff in an unusual, hands-on style.

read full article

Park View plan

The DC Mud real estate blog also has this recent post about a long-term revitalization effort coming to Park View.

Georgia (and Low Income Housing) on My Mind

A pair of District agencies are planning to redevelop a strip of Georgia Avenue just south of the Metro Station as part of a "New Communities Initiative."

Winter blues

[from the Editor]

As today is the last day of fall, Petworth News sheds its autumn tones for a more winter-ish palette.

Georgia Commons update

3910 Georgia Avenue, © Bill Crandall

Jair Lynch's Georgia Commons residential project - to be built at 3910 Georgia, next door to the Wendy's - is running late but is apparently still on track to break ground this summer.

Here's an update on the real estate blog DC Mud.

In Other News

[dispatches from other transitioning DC neighborhoods]

Condo fury
By Arthur Delaney, The Hill, 12/19/07

Neighbors on 15th Street SE must feel like they are being used as a doormat for gentrification. The area has gotten much nicer and safer than it used to be, but now a four-story condo is making for a new kind of blight.

read full article

New MPD services

[from Diane Groomes, Assistant Chief of Police]

I just want to announce (as was discussed at some ANC and PSA meetings) that the 801 Shepherd St front counter will serve the public with:

- taking police and incident reports
- distributing residential parking permits
- reservation of community meeting room

HOURS
Monday-Friday 8am-8pm
Sat-Sun 8am-1pm

All are welcome to visit our Patrol Services Bureau facility as well on the third floor.

Webster St shooting

[from the MPD-4D listserv]

4D units on scene of a shooting in the 400 blk of Webster St NW – victim being taken to hospital. Anyone with information please contact us at 727-9099.

This was posted on the police listserv at 12:20am on Tues 12/18. I will post updates here as I get them.

*12/20 update: No official word yet, but initial reports suggest a targeted incident, as opposed to a crime against a random pedestrian. According to the MPD listserv, police are still unable to interview the victim in the hospital due to his condition.

November home sales

Click here for a PDF of November home sales in Petworth.

Barnard ES

Barnard Elementary (at 4th and Decatur) was one of three schools whose staff got hefty bonuses from the city for student improvement. Here's a WTOP piece about it. Barnard apparently had terrible problems with their new facility when it was opened just a few years ago. Good to see things are looking up there. With Clark ES slated to be closed under Fenty's plan, Barnard will be among the schools receiving extra students.

Playroom at Pope Center

[from Mariama C.]

If it’s too cold for you and your child to hang out at a outdoor playground this winter, you can visit the indoor playground at the Pope John Paul II Cultural Center. I tried it for the first time last week and loved it. It's located at:

3900 Harewood Road, NE
Washington, DC 20017
202-635-5400

The center itself is magnificent and the kid area at the lower level of the building is just wonderful. Kids can play with blocks or other toys, draw, ring bells or just run around. They even have a bathroom with child-size sinks and toilet stools. Very cute! For hours of operation & more information check out the link:

http://www.jp2cc.org/

Photo feed 12/14

Georgia Ave. & Rock Creek Church Rd., NW
Originally uploaded by rockcreek

Latest addition to the Petworth photo pool on Flickr. Click on photo to see bigger.

Georgia Ave. & Rock Creek Church Rd., NW
Carmack family estate, corner of Georgia Avenue and Rock Creek Church Road, NW, 9/12/09 "Washington Times". Looking roughly NE across the intersection, with Georgia at left and Rock Creek Church at right (bordered by utility poles). Construction of 350 houses was scheduled to being on the tract shortly.

Arts fair

[from Kera C.]

The 3rd Annual Upshur Street Arts Fair takes place this Saturday, December 15th, from 11am to 5pm. The event is hosted by and takes place in Domku Bar & Cafe and Shakka King Fine Menswear, both in the 800 block of Upshur Street NW. Drop by for breakfast and browse handmade crafts and works of art, all produced by local artists. This year's artists include:

Jacqueline & Jason Arendse - Nature-inspired jewelry, line drawings
Melanie Marshall - stitched Christmas stockings
Omo Misha - jewelry
Kevin Hayden - hand-printed T-shirts, paintings
Liaa Walter  - hand-printed T-shirts, knitted clothing
Katy Chang - clothing, accessories
Ayu - handbags
Lisa Lemair & Christopher Proto - accessories, clothing, jewelry
Jared Davis - paintings
Bill Crandall - photography
Nathaniel Kraft - home decor made from old vinyl records
Nayomi Kevitiyagala - handbags
Mike Pappas - ceramics
Carol Herwig - ceramics
Lola Rotimi - jewelry
Patrice Harrison - candles
Kenneth Derr - paintings
Ebere -men's accessories
Shakka King - menswear

Join us for this new Petworth tradition in the making while also supporting local artists and finding one of a kind handcrafted gifts for friends and family.
Upshur St Arts Fair

RIP Temperance Hall

Temperance Hall has been sold (so young...) to the owners of Columbia Heights' Wonderland Ballroom. What will this mean? Apparently a name change for starters. Read the latest here on the Prince of Petworth blog. Another PoP post is here, and DCist also has a short writeup.

New children's librarian

[from Kali B.]

The new children's librarian, Miss Julie, at the Petworth Library is fabulous. She does a great story hour on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 10:30am. She has a lot of energy and enthusiasm.

ABC library

[from Bill M.]

ABC Public Charter School at 209 Upshur St NW, in Petworth, is seeking library shelving and new to gently used books that would be appropriate for children of middle school age (6-8th grade). Please contact Arie Baker, the school's director of operations and development, at 202-882-6301 or by email.

ANC 4C agenda

[from Joseph Martin]

An addition to tonight's agenda [see post below]: MPD-4D's new Acting Commander Linda Gilmore Brown.

Thanks for Shoveling

[from Bill C.]

The Neighbors Project is an interesting and well-meaning nonprofit trying to shape urban life for the better, and encourage constructive candor about gentrification nationwide. Kudos to them. But I don't know if I've ever seen a more patronizing, cheesy, ill-conceived idea than these postcards. Click on the second one to make the text a bit more readable:

So I take it they suggest dropping them in the mailslot of neighbors who do shovel their snow, as a way to both encourage them and to somehow shame the shovel-delinquent. As the post puts it, 'Imagine how embarrassed your non-shoveling neighbors will be when they find out they haven't gotten a card. Alors!'

Guess that's supposed to be tongue-in-cheek, but talk about a way to get your house egged. And rightly so. Or am I being unfair?

ANC 4C December meeting

[from Joseph Martin, ANC 4C Chair]

Advisory Neighborhood Commission 4C will hold its regularly scheduled monthly meeting on Tuesday, December 11, 2007. The meeting takes place in the community room of the Patrol Services Bureau (formerly ROC North) starting at 6:30 pm, 801 Shepherd Street NW.

Agenda includes:
- Routine administrative (6:30-7:00 pm)
- Resolution pertaining to Washington Gas
- MPD Assistant Chief Diane Groomes (pending)
- Community comment period
- Motion to support a speed bump on the 1400 blk of Taylor St
- Verizon representative
- Metropolitan police report
Meeting ends approximately 8:30-45pm

NOTE: The agenda is subject to change. Individuals with official business before the ANC or people with specific concerns pertaining to the ANC are advised to contact the ANC 4C office at 202-723-6670 or email us at PO Box 60847, Washington, DC 20039-0847.

Future meetings will include a representative of Washington Central Parks, a residents activist group, providing their critique of the development plans of the Armed Forces Retirement Home. The District Department of Transportation has expressed an interest in providing an update to the "Great Streets," Georgia Avenue renovation plans.

Photo feed

[from the Editor]

Taylor St alley, © Bill Crandall

I just added a link to the RSS feed for the Petworth Flickr group, see sidebar under Blogs+Sites. Also check out the fancy flash badge link at right. Since I just got a new little pocket camera, I'm going to try to shoot and post pics from around the 'hood there (here's one from today). Ok, well, at least once in a while...

Currently there are nine members in the Flickr group. I think it would be great if more people would sign up and post their own photos as a kind of ongoing collective portrait of the community.

To anyone tech-savvy out there - is there a way to have the feed automatically push new pics to this blog?

Soldiers Home plan

[from Sandy H.]

click to enlarge image

Here's more detail on the AFRH's final draft of their Master Plan. NCPC staff has been quite involved in the revision process, so I would expect that this is very close to what will be approved. AFRH has posted the plan on its website but it must be approved by the National Capital Planning Commission before it is officially "final".

The final AFRH draft Master Plan calls for up to 6,144,995 gross sq. ft. of new development and 8587 new parking places. For a sense of scale, the only thing I can find that I understand is that the new Giant on 14th St. is 55,000 sq. ft. 

The largest development will be east of the AFRH golf course, and south of the overpass across N. Capitol to the Home. This is roughly 75 acres. It will have over 4.3 million sq. ft. of development with 6415 parking places. Building heights up to 120 ft are allowed, heights of 75-100 feet predominate. Because floor heights differ, I can't say exactly what this means in floors, but I believe a 40 ft row house is 3 stories high. Office, residential, hotel, retail and education uses are allowed. Most of the 20 to 25 acres of park the Mr. Cox described at the ANC meeting will be in this area.

At the corner of Irving and Park Place NW, the plan allows up to 880,000 sq. ft. of residential, commercial and office development with up to 880 parking spaces. Building height would be 45 ft. along Park Place NW and up to 85 ft on Irving (3-6 stories?).

At the corner of Rock Creek Church Rd. and Park Place NW there would be a relatively small park and up to 550,000 sq ft. of development (roughly 550 units) and 550 parking places. This would be single and multi-family row-house type development. The plan's map shows a park covering an area from about 1/2 block south of Quebec St. NW north to Rock Creek Church Rd. NW, and angling NE to Illinois.

Finally, the plan allows for 790,000 additional sq. ft. of development and (depending on where in the plan you read) 700 to 1038 new parking places on the remaining 160 acres of the campus that will continue in use as a military retirement home.

Soldiers Home update 12/4

[from Sandy H.]

The final hearing on the Armed Forces Retirement Home Master Plan before the National Capital Planning Commission is Dec. 6 [Ed. note - this has changed, see comments]. Once NCPC approves this Master Plan it will govern development on the Home's property. These plans can be revisited, but usually that's done only once every 10 to 15 years. So this hearing is effectively the last chance in the planning process to do anything on this issue. After that it would require the Home reopening the matter by doing a new plan, someone suing the Home over the proposed development, or NPS or the city coming forward to purchase land from the Home. 

All that said, I frankly do not see that there is much that community members' words will do at this point. It's important that the community understand that the Home's final Master Plan does not include the park plan that many of us have been pushing for and that is in the District, but not the Federal, land use plan. That means we will not be getting that long strip of park connecting down to the McMillan Reservoir. 

They'll also want to know that the development proposed, while smaller in scale and better designed than the original proposal, is still very large - I don't have time to look it up, but I'm recalling over something like 6.2 million square feet of 3 to 8 story buildings, 8000 new parking places, with 550 units (550 parking places) in townhomes north of Quebec and west of the golf course. According to urban planning staff we've spoken to the original "plan" was not really designed/planned. It was basically the largest possible boxes placed throughout the area around the golf course. Even the NCPC said it was ridiculously massive. So to say the development is smaller in area than the original plan seems to me to be a little bit of a false comparison.

There's also a final EIS on the AFRH website.

October home sales

Click here for a PDF of October home sales in Petworth.

New MPD Commander

[from Bill C.]

New on the Prince of Petworth blog:

PoP Exclusive: An Interview With Acting Ward 4 MPD Commander, Linda Brown

For those (like me) who missed it, here is an earlier PoP post about the departure of former Commander Hilton Burton, who has been "temporarily reassigned" pending an investigation into allegations of misconduct.

Murals DC

[from Gillian Cook]

DPW and DC Commission on the Arts seek spaces for murals

The Murals DC program will replace illegal graffiti with murals inspired, designed and painted by neighborhood young people. These young artists will develop murals in consultation with professional muralists and with the approval of the business / home owner. The Department of Public Works (DPW) and the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities is seeking assistance to identify spaces that may be eligible for a mural. Criteria for the pilot year of the program include: spaces that are privately owned, where the owner has expressed interest in program; spaces that have chronic graffiti problems; spaces that are highly visible from street.

Please contact Hallie Clemm at DPW to request a form to submit your recommended sites.

CH center

Progress on Public Realm Framework

The Columbia Heights Public Realm Plan is getting closer to implementation. After YEARS of planning and community meetings (since 2003), the city is almost ready to start work on the central area of Columbia Heights.

Click here for full text on the Columbia Heights News site.

Clark ES

[from Carol Herwig]

Eugene Clark Elementary School, at 4501 Kansas Avenue, is among the schools slated for closing in the summer of 2008. Reasons: declining enrollment, lack of community involvement. There will be a meeting to address the implications at Clark between 6 and 8pm on Tuesday Dec. 4, with Principal Brearn Wright and Councilwoman Muriel Bowser. It's our chance to learn and speak out. I believe that any neighborhood that hopes to thrive must have a strong school.

Other reasons for concern:

1. If Clark closes, it will mean all Petworth kids between Spring Road and Sherman Circle will have to walk north to Barnard (the best option) or cross Georgia Avenue and 13th Street to get to West or Powell.

2. One of the reasons given for closing schools is to provide funds for arts programs, including a link with the Fillmore Arts Center. But the proposed plan brings no new arts programs to Ward 4. Instead, it would eliminate the arts programs Principal Brearn Wright has established in the past year for Clark students at Fillmore and with the Teatro de la Luna.

3. It took several years to get a good, committed principal at Clark. We finally did, but he's been given just a year to turn around a school that had been neglected for years. The improvements are visible - the grounds have been spruced up and are maintained, the playground has become a center of good activity well into the night, the building has received some essential interior upgrades and beautification.

Expecting the academics and enrollment to turn around in a year is unfair and unrealistic.