Breakfast links: DePillis extravaganza

by Thaddeus Bell • June 9, 2012 11:04 am

Photo by thisisbossi on Flickr.

Lydia wins: Lydia DePillis has won a well-deserved award for her Housing Complex blog. It was named best blog among alt-weeklies by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia. Congratulations! (@wcp)

Kennedy Center shoots for the sun: The Kennedy Center is looking to install solar panels on its large, flat roof. At one megawatt, it would be the largest solar power generator in DC. (City Paper)

DC goes east and up: Construction has been moving east, and into multi-unit buildings, according to a series of maps from DC's Office of Planning. (City Paper)

Blight tax spurs RI Ave proposal: Douglas Development unveiled plans to build apartments in empty warehouses near Rhode Island Ave NE. DC's tax on vacant and blighted properties apparently motivated them to speed up the process. (City Paper)

Give up your seat, guys: Post reporter Dana Hedgpeth, 8 months pregnant, finds Metro riders reluctant to give up their seats. Her story is very similar to our reader Melissa's experience on the bus. (Post)

Take a van to work?: A Michigan company, vRide, is joining the DC area's transport mix. The company claims that its "vanpool" service will take 73,000 area cars off the roads in the next two years. (TBD On Foot)

Entitlement fuels scandals: Petula Dvorak says too many DC leaders feel a "sense of entitlement" to perks of office, which sets the stage for scandals like those recently. (Post) ... David used the same phrase earlier this week.

Philadelphia draws in suburban art museum: The Barnes Museum is moving to downtown Philadelphia after nearly a century in the suburbs. It's a major coup for Philadelphia, which is experiencing a major yet unheralded revitalization. (NAC)

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Quantity always beats quality.

by crin on Jun 9, 2012 11:46 am • link • report

The Barnes already has moved to its new home. The move is controversial on a variety of grounds (basically braking the original covenant of the Barnes Foundation, constructing a building that doesn't do much for the urbanism of Philly's museum area).

by Rich on Jun 9, 2012 4:43 pm • link • report

That same Petula Dvorak column attributed that phrase to Harry Thomas. Skimming other column and blog pieces on the Washington Post, I recall saying Maryland Live would have "Long lines, awful traffic" and that "D.C. speed cameras are no joke." I'm not bragging or anything though.

by selxic on Jun 9, 2012 6:17 pm • link • report

Moving the Barnes collection was indeed controversial - if anyone's interested, watch the documentary called "The Art of the Steal." For anyone whos never been, i highly recommend it and would say it's on par or even better than the Phillips collection.

by grumpy on Jun 9, 2012 7:08 pm • link • report

[This comment has been deleted for violating the comment policy.]

by Karl on Jun 10, 2012 9:52 am • link • report

You mean many of those morally and intellectually superior transit users who snark at drivers at every opportunity don't have the decency and class to offer a pregnant woman a seat?

Why am I not surprised?

by ceefer66 on Jun 10, 2012 6:47 pm • link • report

@ceefer66: Yeah, I'm sure most area drivers would gladly volunteer to drive her around. Transit users just aren't that classy, unfortunately.

by Gray on Jun 10, 2012 7:55 pm • link • report

The Barnes Collection is better served in Philadelphia because its exceptional works can now be seem by far more people, but its building isn't the best urbanism.

Part of the problem is the siting it inherited, which is the kind of monument-in-a-park deal that was popular during the City Beautiful movement, but it is also designed to be a kind of retreat from the city, to recreate the old site's calm. Unfortunately, this made TWBTA really turn the structure's back on the city.

by Neil Flanagan on Jun 10, 2012 11:26 pm • link • report

There are seats set aside on buses and train cars for the disabled and the elderly. If I'm in one of those seats, I always offer my seat to a disabled or elderly person when they board. Does being pregnant qualify as being disabled?

by Neutrino on Jun 11, 2012 5:29 am • link • report

@Neutrino, No, but getting up for a pregnant woman (or disabled or elderly person no matter what seat you're in) qualifies you as a decent human being. The obverse is true as well.

by Tim Krepp on Jun 11, 2012 7:10 am • link • report

Is the implication here that if you're NOT in one of the seats set aside for the elderly or disabled (including pregnant women), you DON'T give up your seat? If so, way to miss the forest for the trees.

by dcd on Jun 11, 2012 7:32 am • link • report

Neil,
The issue with the new Barnes Collection building isn't the urbanism, but rather the building. It looks like a 1970's warehouse. Why so many architects are still allergic to decoration is beyond me, but the new substitute seems to be the arbitrarily placed window pattern, on a flat wall of course. As for the urbanism, there are many a diagonally laid streets that make for nice urbanism, it's how the Architect chooses to interpret the site rather than the site itself that fails. Compare the Federal Triangle urbanism to the modernist "tower in the park" parti employed to see how to address diagonals urbanely.

by Thayer-D on Jun 11, 2012 7:39 am • link • report

Much of the oddness of the news Barnes bulding in Phila is a result of the requirement that the art be hung in the new building exactly as it was hung in the old suburban building - so not only are the gallery spaces arranged in the same layout, the windows in each gallery room are in the same location as in the old building as well. The exact arrangement of the art of the walls was a particular interest of Dr Barnes. However, since the architects weren't re-creating the entire building, they had leeway regarding the overall look of the building and how it relates to the city around it, which I undestand is much of what is being criticized here. I am anxious to see it for myself, later this summer.

by 17th St on Jun 11, 2012 10:31 am • link • report

Thayer, have you visited the building?

by Neil Flanagan on Jun 11, 2012 11:50 am • link • report

DePillis's articles are always interesting and informative but sometimes tainted with incorrect or sloppy word usage.

by The Civic Center on Jun 11, 2012 10:51 pm • link • report

I agree with Dvorak about D.C. leaders' feeling a sense of entitlement. For the Council, perhaps, a merit pay plan might be humbling.

by The Civic Center on Jun 11, 2012 10:57 pm • link • report