This would make a marvellous building for a charter school. Many parents could walk their children.

by Ward 1 Guy on Jun 10, 2009 4:23 pm  

It will appear? Apparated by Malvolio the Magnificent? That must have saved on construction costs.

by цarьchitect on Jun 10, 2009 5:15 pm  

It is pretty shameful to think how we'd let our capital city get so bad that an embassy would have to move from one neighborhood to another. You have to wonder how it could have gotten so bad. Here we were sending people to the moon ... but we couldn't control the trouble makers ... ? Hopefully, this never occurs again.

by Lance on Jun 11, 2009 12:32 am  

One reason crime got so bad was that government was in the pocket of Detroit and the Highway builders. They have been subsidizing the growth of urban sprawl for decades while abandoning inner cities and pushing pro-car/anti pedestrian zoning on it. Kind of like industrial agriculture in the early days when after working one field for a while, you move on to greener pastures instead of being forced to be smart and sustainable because of a scarcity of land. $$$

by Thayer-D on Jun 11, 2009 7:20 am  

Thayer-D,

I think you're looking at things out of order of how they actually happened. First there was the flight to the suburbs, and then there was the building of highways to get people out there and then to get more of them out there and to get them further and further ... away from the problem. Take a look at the Arlington videos posted on this very sight. People were moving out there long before the major roads (and Metro) were built to get them out there. The building of the roads (and Metro) were a response to a demonstrated need. The people had voted with their feet and their dollars. Some folks on here have said I am "pro-car" and not "pro-transit". That is not true. What I am is "pro-let the people decide what they want and not have it pushed on them". I.e., don't purposely create disincentives for people to act the way they want to act. If they chose personal transportation options over mass transportation options, as they have been doing for the past 100 years or so, then so be it.

by Lance on Jun 11, 2009 7:39 am  

Of course, Lance, this course was set over 40 years ago around the time of the riots. Assuming the place was adequate for Italy's needs now, I'm not sure the decision would be the same.

by ah on Jun 11, 2009 8:06 am  

Please don't get offended, but your response is a bit disjointed. First of all the "flight" to the suburbs refers to the 1960's and 70's when the race riots started, but people have being moving to the suburbs since the beginning (as you later note). Brooklyn Heights was a suburb of NYC by the 1820's even though the best neighborhoods where still in Manhatten. You can be pro whatever you'd like, but there where specific government actions that led "people to vote with their feet".

If you think that whatever is in your environment is a product of free will then you have a lot of reading to do. There where so many reasons the government promoted "getting the people (I guess you mean white people) out to the suburbs", but promoting that exodus is one of the things that created what you call "the problems".

I might suggest the movie Roger Rabbit. The animation is great, but the sub-plot tells the tail of how industry colluded with government to destroy the trolley lines of Los Angeles. It wasn't people who thought it was a great idea to be stuck in traffic for a carton of milk.

by Thayer-D on Jun 11, 2009 8:42 am  

There were plenty of government sponsored programs that helped create and extend suburbia, from the FHA and the GI Bill to of course the Interstate Highway Act. The point however is to couch the action and reaction appropriately. The facts speak for themselves in terms of where the subsidies went, and are going.

The hope of course, is that the current administration will provide a better balance of those subsidies so users are paying something closer to the actual (total) cost of their choices.

by Andrew on Jun 11, 2009 9:12 am  

Not so sure about a building like this for a charter school. I imagine it would cost a fortune to keep up.

It's funny, but the building looks quite barren in the first pic. Its amazing what a big difference trees make. It almost reminds me of a (very nice) mcmansion.

by Daniel on Jun 11, 2009 9:56 am  

"The hope of course, is that the current administration will provide a better balance of those subsidies so users are paying something closer to the actual (total) cost of their choices."

Well said. Currently, mass transit is being subsidized by other forms of transit. If people were actually demanding mass transit and willing to pay for it (i.e., voting with their dollars), those subsidies would not be needed. Taking motorist generated tax dollars and redistributing them to mass transit in the form of subsidies is not responsive to needs. It is stealing from Peter to pay Paul.

by Lance on Jun 11, 2009 9:59 am  

Let's take that a step further then. Let's include the maintenance subsidy for the roads and include the environmental impact of cars, trucks and buses, both emissions as well as the physical impact on the land the roads are on, let's include the actual land cost or parking as well.

by Andrew on Jun 11, 2009 10:06 am  

It's funny, but the building looks quite barren in the first pic. Its amazing what a big difference trees make.

The big tree hasn't leafed out yet, either. But it appears to still be there . . .

by ah on Jun 11, 2009 10:07 am  

What!?!?!

Hmm... The Metro gets about 80% of operating costs from the farebox. (This number is decreased across all WMATA services due to the fact that buses only get about 25% and the sinkhole that is MetroAccess) and highways get 16% and you're claiming that it's stealing from Peter to pay Paul?!?!

Let's see... the Highway Trust Fund is going broke... again. And you're claiming that it's because of mass transit? You try to get at the $1 billion a year in New Starts money to build a train or even a supposed BRT. Then you try to get money to build a highway. The rail money takes years, often decades (see Silver and Purple Lines) yet takes about a year or two for the highways (see ICC). Also, the ICC is getting a higher federal subsidy than the Silver Line (though closer to the Purple Line) and you're crying about robbing Peter to pay Paul?!?!

Those "motorist generated tax dollar" (do you mean the gas tax?) pay for about 16% of a highway, according to the Texas DOT.

Your ability to spin any fact to support your 20th century Highway Lobby views are amazing to me. I mean that positively. I'm literally amazed.

by Cavan on Jun 11, 2009 10:13 am  

Again, Lance, you have it backwards.

It's clear you enjoy being a contrarian but that dosen't entitle you to change or ignore facts (except that's what contrarians relish doing). The tax subsidies that go into supporting the car culture far outweigh mass transit subsidies ad Andrew noted. I don't think you or whoever else prefers cars to mass transit should be unfairly taxed because of your preference, but this paranoia about being forced into mass transit isn't founded in reality. It's about making the best choices from a well intentioned, realistic, and sustainable perspective instead trying to control people. Chill out and enjoy Rockville Pike!

by Thayer-D on Jun 11, 2009 10:47 am  

Agreed, absolutely, about the corrupting influence of highway funding. We - either as private citizens, and certainly not large corporations - do not pay the full price for any of the infrastructure that we use.

But are you really laying the blame for the decline of American cities on the highway lobby? Seriously? Forget Roger Rabbit. I have a tv miniseries for you. The Wire. Try Season 2. That's the season about the plight of the post-industrial city. No animated bunnies, but no facile apologism either. If you really buy the Roger Rabbit mythology, then you'll have to accept that streetcars supported the growth of a polycentric city. But that would be too simplistic an idea - they did, sorta-kinda, until the car came along and accelerated the trend.

We know now what havoc inner-city highway projects can wreak, especially in their ultimate 1960s form. Sadly, the history's more complex. The trend of urban road improvements starts with Progressive Era planners, who had an entirely legitimate concern with expediting vehicular traffic. If your downtown and manufacturing districts are choked with trucks, then business can't happen in the center. There are two solutions: (A) improve the roads so that the trucks can move, or (B) relocate industry to the outside of the city, where plants can gain easy access to rail lines and highways.

The trouble started when manufacturers choose option (C): leave the cities and build new plants in the rural South. It's an economic trend with relevance to DC, with the loss of the vast Naval Gun Factory, not to mention the smaller industrial concerns. But to blame the flight of industry, alone, would be just as facile an answer as blaming the highway lobby, alone.

by David Ramos on Jun 11, 2009 6:33 pm  

This was advertised as a condo project a couple years ago.

by Rich on Jun 11, 2009 11:05 pm  

David,

I said "There where so many reasons the government promoted getting the people out to the suburbs", not just the highway lobby. And a polycentric city isn't necessarily the product of cars or trolleys, it's a matter of size, however one got there. Ancient Rome? It would be pedantic to list all the reasons, most of which are commonly known by people on this blog, but thanks for trying. To assume the choices one makes are not related to the choices one is given is to misunderstand the issues. I might recommend the TV sitcom: "Good Times" starring Esther Rolle, John Amos and Jimmie Walker.

by Thayer-D on Jun 12, 2009 7:24 am  

I really wouldn't describe Ancient Rome as polycentric, what with the walls and all, but I'm glad that we can agree that transit will support a variety of urban forms.

It would be pedantic to list all the reasons, most of which are commonly known by people on this blog, but thanks for trying.

What's with the sarcasm? I brought up another contributing factor to the decline of urban centers because there seems to be a habit here of blaming everything, primarily, on transportation decisions. Most people here may, as you say, understand the complexity of the issues, but the actual words often devolve into screeds about highway funding and mid-century planning strategies, without much attention to other equally significant causes.

by David Ramos on Jun 12, 2009 9:06 am  

"To assume the choices one makes are not related to the choices one is given is to misunderstand the issues."

Funny, I never saw myself limited to the choices I'd been given. That would seem ... well ... very limiting.

by Lance on Jun 12, 2009 9:31 am  

i always thought that the "flight" to the suburbs started post- ww2 when the economy (only band-aid recovered from the depression by the heavy demand for war manufacturing) started to prop itself up by residential construction (hrm...sounds oddly familiar). they needed someone to buy these idyllic little homes in the new suburbs (emphasis on NEW, much of arlington and alexandria and the close-in maryland suburbs were already there pre-war).

so some super shady real estate agents participated in unscrupulous actions (buying one home on a block, selling it at a loss to a poor family, a black family, an immigrant family, a [fill in the blank] family), then went around instilling fear in the hearts of the rest of the block residents for their personal safety and home values and JUST SO HAPPENED to have the solution--their listings for these great new homes in this great new development. whenever any neighborhood goes up for sale en masse, home values drop, fulfilling the prophesy, and setting an example for the next neighborhood to be frightened into the new suburbs. lots of empty houses=high concentrations of disenfranchised urban poor=crime=more flight to the burbs etc.

i wish i could find it again, but i saw documents (scanned, online, through u.penn) from real estate agents/home developers that basically outlined this very plan.

it also helps to remember that the people moving weren't necessairly doing so for malicious/biased reasons, it was a novelty then, the idea of living in suburbs with a large backyard, more privacy, less noise etc. an attractive option for families (and still is in many ways).

this time, we propped up the economy with home building but ran out of places to draw people from, while at the same time people were "rediscovering" all-but-abandoned urban neighborhoods, with an existing, visually interesting and inexpensive housing stock. oops.

by cate on Jun 16, 2009 3:59 pm  

Looks like some new developers have picked this project up. I was told Potomac Construction Group along with Valor Development have purchased this place.

I have seen Potomac Construction Group signs on 16th street and on Swann St i Dupont. Not to familiar with Valor Development

by Rick on May 12, 2010 6:15 pm