I'm thinking an exclusive non-competitive bid that will be won by one of Fenty's frat brothers. Everyone involved will deny that any wrongdoing ocurred. Peter Nickles will emerge from his fire extinguisher alcove in Penn Quarter to endorse this verdict. The development will then be put on hold by litigation for another 17 years.

by monkeyrotica on Dec 11, 2009 10:30 am  

And that's when the CHUDs show up.

by monkeyrotica on Dec 11, 2009 10:31 am  

@monkeyrotica

Was Fenty in a fraternity during law school at Howard? Oberlin doesn't have fraternities (I went there, I know) and I didn't think law students could join frats.

That's not to say I'm not with you in sentiment.

by Forest on Dec 11, 2009 10:37 am  

There are TUNNELS under Dupont Circle?!

by chelsea on Dec 11, 2009 10:49 am  

@chelsea -

Yes, there are tunnels. Filled with rats. The bigger the tunnels, the bigger the rats. In this current development, I smell a lot of big rats.

by Anonymous Coward on Dec 11, 2009 11:14 am  

Fenty was in a fraternity: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/04/AR2009080402999.html

As for the tunnels, I am really not sure how to use them. Dupont has a lot of vacant storefronts above ground, why would we want to start putting things underground? Is there anyway to save it for a future street-car purpose?

by Nick J. on Dec 11, 2009 11:19 am  

Something is just not right here. We have waited a LONG time for something to do with the area under Dupont Circle. What's wrong with some additional time? The only thing that will grow bigger will be the suspcions and the rats!
By the way...who owns these tunnels...the City or the Feds?

by DC John on Dec 11, 2009 11:25 am  

DC John: At the meeting, someone asked who owns the tunnels and Goradia said that the District has clear ownership over them.

by David Alpert on Dec 11, 2009 11:27 am  

@monkeyrotica

So business as usual for the Fenty administration? Sounds about right.

When the CHUDs do show up can we direct them to the Wilson building? I think a CHUDs vs councilmembers showdown on pay per view could go a long way towards filling the budget gap.

by Jacob on Dec 11, 2009 11:41 am  

@Nick J. -- I Agree, I would much prefer to see this integrated with a future streetcar line up Conn. Ave., as it was originally intended. (although retail would be nice as well)

by John on Dec 11, 2009 11:42 am  

I recall when the original Dupont Underground "mall" project collapsed years ago, vendors complained about ventilation, vermin, and problems with heat. The whole setup had some major design problems that would have to be remedied in order to make the place liveable. And access was only via a single entrance on the west side of P Street. You had to know where to look to even get in. I'm sure expensive office space that would generate a lot of tax income is what the Council wants, but given the odd shape of the complex, I don't know who would want to locate in a dark, clammy, poorly ventilated hole in the ground.

I feel affordable housing for CHUDs and Morlocks is called for here.

by monkeyrotica on Dec 11, 2009 11:52 am  

Many (if not all) black fraternities and sororities allow people to become members as an adult, sometimes long after they finish college. Maybe Fenty "pledged" that way?

As for the tunnels, I find them creepy and scary. Wouldn't want to go below-ground like that for any length fo time. You're trapped there! What if something happens?! (I also don't like parking underground. Makes me nervous every time.)

by mccxxiii on Dec 11, 2009 12:11 pm  

Two words: gay bathhouses.

by monkeyrotica on Dec 11, 2009 12:40 pm  

Perhaps we could use the streetcar tunnels for.....streetcars...

by rg on Dec 11, 2009 1:36 pm  

Not bathhouses, monkey, that's yesterday's news. Strip bars are where it's at now. ;)

by Moose on Dec 11, 2009 2:32 pm  

I suggest eco-friendly strip clubs. With an absolute requirement for large racks. For bikes, of course.

by Fritz on Dec 11, 2009 2:52 pm  

http://ddot.dc.gov/ddot/cwp/view,a,1250,q,648154,ddotNav_GID,1746,ddotNav,%7C34060%7C.asp

It seems to me the "Brown" crosstown streetcar line proposed in phase 3 could be re-routed down Columbia Road, get on Conn. Ave, use the old trolley station fully. Perhaps a direct connection could be made with the Dupont Circle Metro station?

This line could then continue down Conn. Ave to 17th Street, hit Farragut Sq, and continue down 17th street to serve the western side of The Mall, and continue across the river to connect with the Pentagon Metro Station.

The National Park Service may really really like the idea - as it helps make that half of the mall more accessible, or they may recoil...who knows :).

by stevek_fairfax on Dec 12, 2009 10:27 am  

Obviously any potential restored streetcar use of these tunnels is at least a decade away, but they are really well suited to use for transportation, and that's probably about all they're suited for. I see use as a bike station as the ideal interim use.

How possible would it be to build a tunnel connection to the Metro station?

by Lucre on Dec 12, 2009 11:13 am  

What should be done with the abandoned Dupont Circle streetcar tunnel.

Here is my idea. Use it to increase the distribution of surface entrances to the Dupont Circle metrorail station.

Build tunnels that connect the east side streetcar tunnel to the west side tunnel adjacent to the existing Dupont Circle metrorail station surface entrances. Modify the existing metrorail station entrances to access that tunnel. It would also include the elevators.

Plan of configuration

by san on Dec 12, 2009 1:50 pm  

whether for future streetcar use or immediate retail use it would be nice if stimulus funds could be used to tie the tunnels to metro stations.

by Tom Coumaris on Dec 12, 2009 4:34 pm  

The Washington Post Sunday Paper in the early 1980's (actually the Potomac Magazine) had a great article and a cross section diagram of what lies beneath the circle.
The next time the post does an article on the underground, they should dig up the article and especially re-post the great art on the cross section.

by David Taylor on Dec 13, 2009 6:01 am  

I remember how it was before they got around to the first iteration of the Underground.

For probably 30 years the entrance stairs had been closed off at the bottom, leaving the stairs themselves open as a sort of open-air all-weather urinal. At the western "P" Street NW entrance the parks department had an above-ground public restroom which was of course pretty much a cruising scene, until all of the crackheads started congregating there and then people started dealing "hinckley" from there and everything went very rapidly straight to hell, even moreso than it had already been gone to hell.

Finally they ran off the crackheads mostly by building a set of fences around the whole circle and then arresting dozens of folks at a time. Still, the damage was done.

Some 30 years of urine had permeated the very stone beneath the very concrete of the tunnels, and no matter how hard anyone tried, even brand new and shiny, the Underground reeked of piss. Let's just say that it was not conducive to the dining-out trade.

Aside from that, the sketchy crew of crackheads, junkies, bums, and even people like me (CHUD, Morlock, or suburbanite? Inquiring minds want to know) would find themselves back in town and go wandering into the Underground, quite frequently to the shared dismay of patrons, shopkeepers, and everyone else involved.

All in all, fancy dining (or even pretzels and chili-dogs), scary street creatures, legal sextrataries and rich philanderers, and the inescabable odor of a century-old outhouse mishap, they don't coexist well enough for anyone to make a buck.

If they wanted to make it into a giant public toilet that charges fifty cents a dump, they'd probably make money hand over fist from tourists and locals alike, and the ineradacable smell wouldn't surprise anyone.

by Thomas Hardman on Dec 13, 2009 2:25 pm  

Whatever is done with the space, I hope that this time it'll be made accessible to people with disabilities. When the space was open briefly some years ago, the only way that people in wheelchairs could get down was to ride a chair lift that was operable ONLY with a key that wasn't available to the public. In other words, there was no practical means of getting down there.

by Jen on Dec 13, 2009 4:32 pm  

I believe the Dupont streetcar tunnel should be saved for transportation purposes and used as the western terminus for a cross-town streetcar line (with at least some dedicated right-of-way, that would go from Dupont Circle, to Adams Morgan, to Columbia Heights, to Georgia Avenue, Washington Hospital Center/McMillan development site, and then to Rhode Island Avenue metro stop. Direct connections can be made to Dupont Circle (red line), Columbia Heights (green line), and Rhode Island Ave (red line).

by otavio on Dec 14, 2009 11:56 pm  

okay, so now that the city is actually putting the streetcars back in - they want to do something with the streetcar tunnels under dupont that makes them inaccessible to streetcars. So basically, we preserved the streetcar tunnels all this time in case we might run streetcars down them again sometime in the future ... fast forward to the future, we are now putting streetcars in around the city again, but the city is racing to make sure the streetcar tunnels under dupont will used for anything other than running said streetcars... is that about right???

Sound to me like someone in Dupont is trying to make sure the streetcars never come back to those tunnels.

by lee.watkins on Dec 15, 2009 8:48 am  

Let's face it folks, no bar or restaurant will ever survive underground. Period. Even a retail establishment has a very low success rate at making it if it's underground unless it's a gym. The Dupont ANC is notorious for making it extremely difficult for any business to operate in their neighborhood. DC folks love to take the bus to New York and shop and come home talking about how much "energy" they feel while walking the street of the city, yet they return home to DC and complain about our lack of energy. The energy they feel comes from people and people come out to dine and drink in the city they love. We need to encourage and support these types of establishments since they are pretty much the only ones that can survive in this new economy. When they survive, the streets are lively which will encourage the retailers to come. We recently lost CB2's interest in 14th Street because of the lack of pedestians. Come on folks....WAKE UP....stop making it difficult. As for the tunnels...keep em for streetcars or better yet, let the strip clubs open down there. Nobody wants them in their back yard so let them open underground. DC is a major metropolitan city. Every major metropolitan city has it's seedy elements. Let's keep them in DC. They pose no problems, generate city revenue, and let's face it....we all want to see some dick every now and then. Why push them into unsafe, abandonded neighborhoods. Let's be a real city.

by Scott on Dec 15, 2009 12:21 pm  

I agree with someone upstream who said the space should be used to add to Metro's Dupont Circle station. Underground shops are totally possible. Many cities in Canada and in many cold U.S. States have complete underground shopping malls. It's doable--just requires that it be done right!

I think a smaller version of a Union Station style mall w/extensions to Dupont Circle metro exits, adding a much needed P St. exit for that portion of the neighborhood to connect with 22nd St. and other areas BeDuCi (beyond dupond circle), would be great and add a lot to the neighborhood.

by Stefan on Dec 15, 2009 2:18 pm  

Where exactly did the streetcars exit the curved tunnel portion and emerge above ground? From the above diagram and others I've seen, it would appear that the current Connecticut Avenue tunnel that carries vehicular traffic beneath the circle coexisted with the streetcars, so where are the portals between the station and the roadway?

by Ron on Dec 15, 2009 2:57 pm  

The streetcar had a different set of portels which were sealed up; I have a scan of a photo of the northern portal within the following article:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2007/08/classic-classism-kathryn-schneider.html

by Douglas A. Willinger on Dec 15, 2009 7:01 pm  

I placed photos of both ends here:

http://cos-mobile.blogspot.com/2009/12/dupont-circle-tunnel-portals.html

by Douglas A. Willinger on Dec 15, 2009 7:19 pm  

Very interesting. Those stretches of Connecticut north and south of the circle certainly had very different layouts back then.

by Ron on Dec 16, 2009 9:34 am  

Yeah, Ron - you can think of it this way - the Dupont Portals basically occupied the space along Connecticut that's now taken up by the center median. On the North side, the streetcars started descending into the tunnel between R and S Streets, and on the South side (heading North) they descended just north of N.

The one major obstacle for re-use of the tunnels for streetcar purposes is that we don't have a planned line along Connecticut - because most of that service from the original streetcars was replicated by the Metro.

The 42, of course, is a popular bus route and might make a good streetcar line again, but it's probably not a priority. You'd also have to determine exactly where it would go once you get south of the Circle...

by Alex B. on Dec 16, 2009 9:48 am  

ANOTHER RUSHED RFP?? This is so infuriating. They have probably already received the "winning" well-connected proposal. Can we do anything about this? It seems one of the most common tools for giving sweetheart deals to cronies and getting them to pass under the radar ("well, we only got 3 proposals and two of them look like they were thrown together in a couple weeks over the holidays...")

by tim on Dec 23, 2009 6:55 am