Posts about Mount Vernon Triangle

Red indicates typical parking lots that could presumably be used for other purposes, purple indicates parking lots that appear to be owned by the government or other institutions and are unlikely to be developed, and orange indicates the locations for CityCenter DC and the future downtown Walmart.

A few points jump out.

1. Downtown is almost completely devoid of surface parking lots, an accolade that very few other American cities claim.
   
2. Government and institutional uses are major offenders.
   
3. NoMA and the Mount Vernon Triangle (outlined in yellow on the map) still have a lot of development potential left.
   
4. 7th Street near the new convention center is begging for attention.

All I did to create this map was to simply color on top of aerial imagery, so it's possible some of the details are wrong, or that I missed a few lots. If you see something that should be corrected, let me know in the comments. Regardless, it's an interesting study.

Does anything else jump out to you?

Cross-posted at BeyondDC.

Therefore, ANC comissioners in this area, especially 6C on the western half, have had to become rapid experts in zoning. They have generally been very supportive of the projects and of the neighborhood's evolution. However, a number of commissioners, including some excellent ones, are not running again, creating opportunities for significant improvement or regression for these ANCs.

ANC 6C01 extends from the CityVista apartments almost to Union Station. Recent transplant from Southwest Marge Maceda is challenging incumbent Keith Silver. Silver likes to picket, and at a recent forum highlighted four picket protests as his main accomplishments. Sometimes, however, his picketing seems somewhat bizarre, such as when he protested an effort to set up an urban farm in a vacant lot near Walker-Jones Elementary and donate the food grown to the school and a nearby senior center. He also called the new buildings in the district "monstrosities."

Maceda, on the other hand, says she moved to the neighborhood so she could drive less, and looks forward to more sidewalk cafes in the area. She also had encouraging words about the Circulator, the streetcar, and bicycle lanes. We feel Maceda would best work with residents on positive visions as the neighborhood's large surface parking lots evolve into more.

In 6C02, along New Jersey Avenue north of K Street, we support Rob Amos in his challenge to incumbent Mark Dixon. Amos has already served the neighborhood on the board of the Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association and as a non-commissioner chair of the ANC 6C zoning committee. He believes in building a more livable and walkable neighborhood.

Dixon has been on the ANC a very long time, and in fact hadn't planned to run again but changed his mind at the last minute. He cares about the community but isn't good at connecting with the newer residents. He doesn't even use email, despite having an ANC email address, and complained at a recent MVSNA forum that he hadn't received any notice of the meeting only to be told it had been sent via email.

Sitting commissioner Anne Phelps is running unopposed in 6C04, which contains most of NoMa from K Street to Dave Thomas Circle and the residential areas to the east, but she deserves special mention as an exemplary commissioner.

Phelps advocated admirably for her neighborhood's needs in a zoning case concerning the Florida Market, across Florida Avenue from the ANC. Tommy Wells subsequently hired Phelps to coordinate advocacy for the H Street streetcar project, a role she has also adeptly filled.

6C05 encompasses Union Station and the residential blocks to the east. It will also contain the Burnham Place development atop the rail yards and a number of upcoming development projects along H Street's western half. Sitting commissioner Tony Richardson has not opposed Burnham Place despite living immediately adjacent to the project, and challengers Brian Cox and Jennifer Zatkowski all seem supportive of the general evolution of Union Station and H Street.

Richardson has experience, Cox brings a youthful energy and zeal for more outreach to members of the community, and Zatkowski has the valuable background of being a small business owner in the neighborhood and mother of smal children. We think any of them would be a fine choice for this district.

Ward 6's westernmost segment is 6C09, covering the blocks around Georgetown Law and Judiciary Square. The longtime commissioner there is not running again. Residents have expressed enthusiasm for Kevin Wilsey, the property manager of a Penn Quarter building and board member of the Downtown Neighborhood Association. During recent liquor license debates, Wilsey worked hard to bring both sides together to an amicable resolution.

His opponent, Leroy-Jacob Smith, had fewer specific neighborhood ideas at a recent forum beyond wanting to do more for the homeless. We support helping the homeless, but ANCs have little influence on citywide social policy.

In 6A01, north of H Street, three candidates are vying for an open seat. We support Adam Healy, who described some excellent reasons to vote for him including strong support of the streetcar.

Fellow candidate Angelia Rice gave a very bland statement that didn't make much of a case for her candidacy, and Lawrence "Russ" Russell wants to make the district more auto-oriented, saying his top priority was making sure residents can park right by their property.

The Hill is Home writer Sharee Lawler has our endorsement (and Tommy Wells') over new resident and Fenty community liaison William Mohring for the open 6A05 seat, around D Street NE from 10th to 16th. Lawler is a member of the 6A Economic Development and Zoning committee currently working to encourage growth on H St NE, and is an advocate for the C Street NE project to calm and reduce traffic.

In 6A07, which covers the Rosedale neighborhood and the northeasternmost edge of Capitol Hill, incumbent Gladys Mack has displayed a less than stellar record on transportation issues. For example, she has opposed the conversion of 17th Street from a one-way thoroughfare into a two-way street because she feels it will double traffic. This is a dangerous street that is sore need of some traffic calming. We endorse challenger Necothia "Nicki" Bowens, president of the Rosedale Citizens' Alliance, which has been pushing for many positive changes in this neighborhood.

The market house, originally called the Northern Liberty Market, only came into existence because of some serious governmental rough-housing instigated by "Boss" Alexander Shepherd in 1872. In those days, there was an earlier incarnation of the Northern Liberty Market at Mount Vernon Square where the Carnegie Library is now located.

It had been established there in 1846 to serve the Northern Liberties neighborhood, an area beyond the populated downtown sector, roughly north of G Street and east of 12th Street, NW. The Mount Vernon Square location provided ready access to farmers bringing their goods into town along 7th Street, the city's leading commercial strip.

Boss Shepherd is well known for making dramatic improvements in the city's infrastructure. Utilities were laid in, streets graded and paved, when he was head of the Board of Public Works and later governor of the District of Columbia in the 1870s. Shepherd was determined to make Washington into a clean and modern city, and he concluded that the old, unsightly, and unsanitary marketplace at Mount Vernon Square was standing in the way of progress.

Notice was given to shopkeepers that the market was to be closed, but when few were inclined to move Shepherd orchestrated a sudden, nighttime attack to obliterate the market before anyone had a chance to object. Amateur historian Washington Topham witnessed the event as a boy:

On September 3, 1872, at about eight o'clock in the evening a large force of workmen in the employ of the Board of Public Works suddenly appeared...with picks and axes and rapidly tore down the buildings and sheds and cleared the square....

With my brother I was present that evening and mingled with the workmen during their work of destruction. So also was my cousin Millard Fillmore Bates with his terrier dog catching rats and mice, as hundreds of them ran back and forth in quest of new shelter. As the sheds were tumbling down in all directions, a portion of the roof of one fell upon my cousin killing him instantly....

The work of demolition was accomplished very rapidly and with a good deal of orderly precision. The scene that greeted the eyes of the people the following morning was one not to be forgotten....

—Records of the Columbia Historical Society (Vol. 24, 1922).

It wasn't until 1898 that all the claims from the incident, including those of the family of young Millard Fillmore Bates, were finally settled. Meanwhile, the merchants who had been rousted from Mount Vernon Square needed somewhere else to go. Some merchants moved down to Center Market.

Others went north to 7th and O Streets where Shepherd had wanted them to set up a temporary market; they were successful enough to stay and build a permanent O Street Market building in 1881. A larger group formed an association known as the Northern Liberty Market Company that sought a new location for a their displaced market.

The company eventually settled on the previously-mentioned Mount Vernon Triangle location, on 5th Street NW between K and L, two blocks east of the 7th Street business corridor. This spot was out in the sticks, literally. James Croggon, writing about its history in The Evening Star in 1908, noted that a marsh had covered this area in the early part of the 19th century and that an enterprising individual by the name of Samuel DeVaughn had run a leech farm there in the 1830s, leeches being in high demand for the medical profession.

More recently, according to Washington Topham, it had been owned by George Savage and known as Savage Square, with a large family house on one corner of the lot. The Northern Liberty Market Company bought the western half of the square from George Savage's heirs for a reported $110,000 in 1874.

After a temporary wooden markethouse was put up, work began in earnest on the new Northern Liberty Market, designed and built by James H. McGill. Heavy stone foundation walls had to be extended 12 feet into the marshy soil; on top of them red-brick walls with granite trim were erected.

Over 200 tons of iron were used to create 14 giant roof trusses, each spanning 126 feet, that carried the tin-covered wooden roof over the building. Inside the floor was paved with flagstones and canted slightly so that it could be easily hosed down. Merchants could rent the building's 284 stalls for $5 or $10 a month each.

The market attracted commercial and residential development in adjoining blocks, but, according to Topham, it did not do spectacularly well; one might have predicted as much given its rather remote location. After a new owner came into control of the company in 1891, plans were soon afoot to make better use of the cavernous open space above the market stalls by adding a second floor to be rented out for public events. In this way the Northern Liberty Market came to be transformed augmented, really—to become the city's first convention center."Washington is no longer a convention city without a convention hall," the Washington Post proclaimed in May 1893, upon viewing the newly constructed space, which had a reported capacity of 6,000 seated or 10,000 standing. "The floor space of the hall is larger than that of the famous Madison Square Garden in New York, and it is unbroken by pillars. One of its first virtues is that it is as nearly fire-proof as a building can be. The body of the floor itself is of concrete, with only a layer of boards over it."

As recorded in the city's newspapers, the new Convention Hall became the venue for a wide variety of social events. The first big event was a concert by the Marine Band at Christmas time in 1893, a charity event aimed at benefiting the city's poor. A reported 8,000 people crammed into the hall for that. Other early events in the 1890s included an annual Pure Food Exhibit, several religious revivals, political debates, and a large labor rally.

In January 1896, the floor was covered over to create a temporary ice rink, which the Post claimed was the largest in the world. A thousand skaters showed up on opening night, plus twice that number just to be spectators. A year later a six-day bicycle race was held on a specially-designed track that was laid down where the ice had been a year earlier. While the competitors stopped to eat and sleep, they were not allowed to leave the hall until the six-day endurance test was over.

The Convention Hall hosted numerous exhibitions—the first auto show in Washington was held there in December 1900—as well as revival meetings, rallies, school graduations, concerts, and even a few dramatic productions. Then in 1925, at a cost of $200,000, the owners converted the large open space into bowling alleys. With some 50 alleys, the hall was reported to be one of the largest in the world. It also featured up-to-date amenities. "A decided innovation in the construction of the alleys is the shower baths and rest rooms [lounges] for the women bowlers; and the shower baths and smoking rooms for the men," reported the Post. For two decades the bowling center prospered here.

Meanwhile, the Northern Liberty Market underneath continued to provide an alternative marketplace for those unwilling or disinclined to patronize the much larger and more hectic Center Market down on Pennsylvania Avenue. However, Center Market's days were numbered, as it stood in the way of the McMillan Commission's vision of a monumental, imperial city. When Center Market finally closed in 1931, many of its retail merchants moved uptown to the Northern Liberty Market, which was rechristened "New Center Market."

Fifteen years later, contrary to the early assurances by the Post that the building was fireproof, the upper part of the Market was consumed in a spectacular blaze. The fire marshal theorized that the heavily shellacked wooden bowling lanes rapidly spread the fire, which also fed on the wood-lined roof. The nighttime apocalypse began around 2 a.m. on March 1, 1946, and within an hour the giant iron trusses holding up the roof had collapsed into a tangled heap on the second-story floor.

"A dozen drowned rats turned their pink toes toward the ruins of the huge blood-red brick pile that for 71 years had housed one of Washington's biggest food marts while the more than 400 people who were suddenly without businesses and jobs stood silently and helplessly by or cracked wry jokes about the great fire that had destroyed their livelihood," a reporter for the Washington Times-Herald wrote rather melodramatically.

In fact, though the bowling alleys were gone and the architectural splendor of the building forever lost, the market proved salvageable. The second-story floor, said to be a two-foot thick slab of reinforced concrete, had protected the market space underneath from the fire (if not from water damage). In fact, merchants were able to retrieve still-frozen chickens and refrigerated meats virtually unspoiled from intact cold storage containers, although items left out in the open were mostly destroyed. Almost immediately there was talk of leveling off the building at the second-story floor, throwing a flat roof over the whole thing, and reopening for business, and that is exactly what happened.

By mid-April, the market was reopened, although no one could ever figure out a way to make good use of the great reinforced concrete expanse of the second floor, now serving as a rooftop. One idea was to put a heliport there, and, presumably to demonstrate its feasibility, a helicopter reportedly landed there in 1949. But, of course, that didn't solve the problem that no one really needed a heliport in Mount Vernon Triangle. The roof remained disused.

In 1955, after giving the structure a fresh coat of pink paint, new owners rechristened the market once again, this time as "Center Market City," and advertised it as the "million-dollar market with an international flavor." But business was beginning to fall off nonetheless, despite the draw of the hard-to-find exotic imports. People were abandoning old-fashioned markets such as this as quickly as they were turning their backs on downtowns in general.

By 1962, only 54 of the 110 market stalls were occupied, according to the Washington Daily News. "The supermarkets have been giving us hell," said long-time fruit-and-vegetable seller Nicholas Zuras, as reported in The Evening Star. Finally, in March 1963 the market shut down for good. Among those forced away was Bertie Davis, 82, the last of the "herb ladies" who had made a living selling unique herbal remedies such as black snakeroot, rabbit tobacco, and Indian turnips on the sidewalk outside the market, as she and others had done at Center Market on Pennsylvania Avenue decades earlier. "Leavin' this old place behind is gonna hurt my heart," she told the Star, "But when you gotta go, you gotta go."

The building's last gasp was its stint beginning in 1965 as the National Historical Wax Museum, a private enterprise featuring a variety of historical scenes with wax figures that would appear laughably amateurish to us now. The Wax Museum stayed here until 1974, when it moved to southwest Washington. The empty building was then finally demolished in 1985.

Cross-posted at Streets Of Washington.

The discussion thus turned to how DMPED will avoid creating the same exact problem with the next property that they might attempt to turn into a parking lot. One resident asked that since individual property owners in the District were required to post physical, visible signs on their property about zoning requests and buildout proposals, why doesn't DMPED also post signs on their properties such as alerts about RFPs?

Jackson replied, "Signs? Signs? We don't do signs. That isn't what we do." But the next words out of his mouth were, "We need to talk about communication. How can we communicate with the community?"

The DMPED representatives did give residents the direct emails of the officials involved with the 5th and I project, but since it's now too late to do anything since the contract is already signed, they instructed residents to email the Mayor's correspondence unit instead. They also said that DMPED officials are unable to answer all email inquiries sent directly to them.

My emails to Deputy Mayor Santos's published email address had all gone unanswered after weeks, so apparently DMPED is not in the business of responding to taxpayer inquiries via email, unless you go through specific channels. They also mentioned that Jose Soussa checks the dcbiz@dc.gov email address regularly and could ensure a response.

Councilmember Jack Evans (Ward 2) did not stay for the DMPED presentation, but when I asked him about the 5th and I debacle, he said, "The last thing this part of the city needs is another parking lot. They aren't doing anybody any good." I thought that was a very strong and positive statement across the board.

The DMPED reps said that they had no expertise in temporary urbanism. They also said that at other such sites in the city, neighbors who liked the temporary uses sometimes opposed the development projects that had been originally planned. That might indeed happen, but isn't a good enough reason to create parking lots just because neighbors won't oppose their redevelopment years later.

5th and I experience is irksome, the larger issue is DMPED's process for interim property management when the economy hits the skids. They seem to go to parking lots by default, and those plans were only stopped by well-organized residents and eagle-eyed Councilmembers. That's simply not a fair way for DMPED to operate. DMPED needs a different process that automatically seeks community input before signing any contracts for interim uses of city property.