Posts about Pennsylvania Avenue

The two most prominent security woonerven in DC are on the east side of the US Capitol and on Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House. In these areas, activity takes place mainly on foot or on a bike.

Although security vehicles operate in those areas, they're parked most of the time, so pedestrians and cyclists essentially have the run these spaces. These two locations are obviously popular with residents and visitors alike. Both are now important hubs in DC's expanding bicycle network and as important activity centers for all manner of activity: tourism, lunch breaks, leisurely strolls, running, you name it.

Following the tragedy at Oklahoma City in 1995, federal planners redesigned facilities to minimize risks to important buildings from motor vehicles. All across the city, barriers went up, starting with jersey barriers, giant planters, and police roadblocks.

Over time, these evolved into permanent hardened perimeters with bollards, sally ports, guard gates, and delta barriers. As much as possible, these elements were planned with an eye toward improving aesthetics, or at least in comparison to original concrete jersey barriers.

While the two security woonerven at the White House and the Capitol are great assets to the city, other cordoned-off areas are not.

The security professionals who planned these facilities gave little consideration to bicycle and pedestrian access. The spaces are attractive for walkers and bikers by default, because of their lack of traffic. However, it often isn't easy to travel into or through the perimeter of these areas.

Another security woonerf is in the works for E Street, south of the White House. As many commenters noted during the design competition, though, cyclists appeared to be an afterthought in most of the submitted proposals.

Often, small tweaks could really improve access into these potentially great spaces. Even Lafayette Square has access issues on the north side at the Madison Place sally-port.

The State Department closed C Street NW and segments of other roads next to their Foggy Bottom headquarters, but they have not replaced the jersey barriers and planters with bollards and other elements more hospitable to bicycle and pedestrian traffic. The House and Senate office buildings have several cordoned streets around them that only admit authorized cars, but the access points are difficult to get through by bike.

Although Union Station has closed off driving access through Columbus Circle for security, the space was subsequently devoted to passenger pick-up and drop-off, making this potential security woonerf very difficult for pedestrians and cyclists. Thankfully, work already underway on the Circle will improve upon current conditions.

Beyond these spaces, there are a number of closed campuses in DC which would greatly benefit from adopting some of the more successful security woonerven designs. Specifically, I'd love to see security woonerven at the Old Soldier's Home, the future Walter Reed development (both the DC and State Department portions), and the Washington Hospital Center.

Areas around the Pentagon, and Joint Base Bolling also have potential if security priorities are better balanced with pedestrian and bike permeability. Universities like Catholic, Georgetown, and Howard you can get through, but it's not obvious or direct. Even at the Arboretum and the Navy Yard, where trails and woonerven already exist, extended hours would vastly improve these spaces.

Regardless of why and how we established these areas, federal and local planners need to recognize their success, and understand their best elements. Then they can adopt those elements into sites that have potential, but aren't quite security woonerven yet.

Are there other places we could have a great security woonerf? Also, can you think of a better term? Whatever you you call them, if streets have to close for security, we would all benefit from making more of them living streets.

Dangerous ped/bike conflict areas. Click to enlarge.

The best solution would be to make the sidewalks one each side of the bridge actually safe for pedestrians and cyclists. Unfortunately, that's almost impossible without actually reconfiguring the interchange to make it less like a cloverleaf.

The current curb ramps are very narrow and line up with sharp turns on the adjoining sidewalks, which is not ADA compliant. Cyclists can't easily navigate them. Fixing these would also help.

Meanwhile, there's a viable, and only slightly longer, third option: a bike and pedestrian work-around through Anacostia Park.

An alternate route. Click to enlarge.

While this option seems like the safest route on a map, it is not without its share of challenges. DDOT and NPS could make this safer and more inviting, and perhaps make it a more popular option.

1. Improve wayfinding at the entrance to the path

All photos by GeraldFittipaldi on Flickr.

There is a bike route sign at the start of the path. The sign is not visible if you are traveling eastbound on the bridge, as depicted in the photo above.

DDOT recently added wayfinding signs in Anacostia Park. However, if you aren't familiar with the area, it appears the path will only take you into the park. DDOT and NPS should consider adding a map at the entrance that shows how to access Pennsylvania Avenue SE via the park.

2. Repair the path

Having biked down this path, it is not a comfortable ride. The cracks and bumps on top of the steep slope can be intimidating for novice bicyclists. It's also dangerous for pedestrians with baby strollers.

In response, bicyclists have developed their own solution, and most going to the park prefer their carved path over the official one. This worn desire path has been here for years.

3. Make the area under the DC-295 bridges inviting

Once bicyclists and pedestrians enter the park, they must go under 3 bridge spans for 295. The sidewalks are in need of repair, and that could be a good first step. Another important element for cyclists would be replacing the in-line grates that can catch wheels and cause a cyclist to crash.

The bigger concern is the lack of adequate lighting along Nicholson Street SE and underneath the bridges. These photos were taken during the day. At night it is even darker. Brighter lighting and murals can enliven the area and make this route safer and more attractive.

The current interchange is really not designed to be safe for pedestrians and cyclists, and in the long run needs to be replaced with one that is more befitting its location in an urban area. Perhaps when the 11th Street Bridge is complete, some of the traffic from this area will relocate, but that alone won't solve the pedestrian and bicycle safety problem on the Sousa Bridge.

In the meantime, there are safety improvements that do not require expensive engineering solutions. DDOT and NPS can work together to make these low-cost aesthetic improvements throughout Anacostia Park to ultimately provide a safer route for pedestrians and bicyclists.

All photos are by Gerald Fittipaldi, P.E., a civil engineer from New Jersey, who met with me to discuss challenges to biking east of the Anacostia River. For additional photos, visit his DC - East of the Anacostia River album on Flickr.

A smaller plow could come back later to clear the snow from the lanes, but depending on the size of a snowstorm, this would likely not happen until 24 to 48 hours later, meaning the lanes could remain impassable for up to 2 days while the regular roadway is clear.

The other option DDOT is considering is to remove the pylons for the winter. This would allow the plows to clear the lanes. On the other hand, it could mean drivers again getting confused and driving in the lanes, and cyclists feeling less safe at corners.

It doesn't snow very often, so if they do remove the pylons, the lanes would be a little bit worse every day in the winter, but keeping them means they'd be a lot worse for a few days. What's better: keeping them always passable to cyclists, or keeping them in their optimal condition at the cost of losing them temporarily when it snows?

The bicycle team would like your input. What do you prefer?

The curb lane in front of the Wilson Building, DC's city hall/state capitol at 1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, offers dedicated parking for members of the DC Council. Tommy Wells (who typically doesn't drive anyway) arranged to use "his space" for a Park(ing) Day park, and David Catania joined in to make 2 park(ing) spaces.

The space will be open from 8 am to 6 pm. With the help of Washington Parks and People, Wells will convert these spaces into a park where you can relax (and lobby any councilmembers who pass by). From 12:30 to 1, representatives from the DC Department of Health will organize "light physical activity demonstrations" which people can do in business clothes, and provide information on exercise, nutrition, and more.

In Dupont Circle, Casey Trees is hosting a Park(ing) Day space at New Hampshire Avenue and Q Street, NW from 8 am to 5 pm. And in Montgomery County, the planning department and Congress for the New Urbanism are joining forces to create a space on Ellsworth Drive, between Cedar and Fenton, in Silver Spring, from 10 am to 2 pm.

If you know of any other Park(ing) Day events in the region, note them in the comments and I'll add them to the post.

WMATA has asked DDOT to grant buses an exception to the left turn restriction. DDOT will have to weigh the value of moving buses efficiently versus the potential danger to cyclists. Bus exceptions to left turn rules do exist elsewhere.

But is this the most efficient routing for the bus? Last week, we printed a letter from reader Tom Leonard wondering why the P1 bus detours away from its most direct route to service this same area of Pennsylvania Avenue. The P1 takes Pennsylvania in the opposite direction, eastbound between 10th and 7th, and uses Constitution instead westbound.

WMATA bus planner David Erion explained that that detour provides a common transfer point between various P routes. But is that worth the extra detour? Each diversion benefits some riders and inconveniences others.

The 13B loops counterclockwise around the FTC, Archives, and DOJ. Meanwhile, the 13A, which runs the loop around the Mall and Potomac in the other direction, instead goes north on 12th, east on Pennsylvania, and south on 10th, looping around the Old Post Office and the IRS. 13A riders who want to go to Archives, for example, access it from the Constitution Avenue side instead of the Pennsylvania Avenue side.

What about putting the 13A and 13B on the same route in the Federal Triangle area? Riders going to restaurants and theaters on 7th Street would have to walk one extra block if they're using the 13B, but would then have stops in the same places for the 13A and 13B. And DDOT wouldn't have to grant an exception.

Hamre also noted that the south side of Pennsylvania is very crowded with buses today, including the 13B as well as the 30s, 63/64, D1 and more. The more buses stop on a block face, the more often they delay each other. For this reason, the bus planners try to spread buses out between different streets in busy areas like downtown DC.

On the other hand, this makes the bus map extremely confusing and hard to remember beyond simply the one bus someone takes each day. It also means that riders who could choose between two different routes can't wait on a single street and take whichever bus shows up first.

It would make a certain sense to have major "bus streets," perhaps with dedicated lanes, that group as many buses as possible onto the same streets. But if the WMATA bus planners are right, at the very least DC would need a number of these downtown because there simply isn't enough room on a few streets for all the buses.

The bus planning also does try to get buses as close to as many riders as possible. It's always a tricky tradeoff between simpler and faster routes and minimizing the walking riders have to do. I'd move the balance a bit toward simplicity, but any change would surely hurt some riders, including many for whom walking an extra block or two isn't as easy as it is for some of us.

The building was on a stretch of E Street (between 13th and 14th Streets NW) that was once considered to be part of Pennsylvania Avenue and that was known since the mid-19th century as "Rum Row" for its drinking and gambling dens.

According to journalist George Rothwell Brown, the bottom floor was occupied by John Lawrence Kidwell's drugstore, and it had marble floors and interior woodwork of beautiful carved mahogany. Kidwell was known as the "Quinine King" for having supplied various pharmaceuticals to the Union Army during the Civil War.

Upstairs was the celebrated gambling house of George Parker, where the "best known faro bank in town" operated. "A Chinese restaurant now serves chop suey in the rooms which in the hectic past were dedicated to the Goddess of Fortune and which echoed to the whir of the roulette wheel and the click of dice," wrote Brown in The Washington Post in 1923. By 1887, a tobacconist by the name of Daniel Loughran had moved into the ground floor. He and his sons ran their business there until 1929.

Over the next ten years, an assortment of other commercial enterprises came and went, including offices of The New York World and the National Press Club and what Brown called "various drinking clubs." Then in 1939 Max Bassin opened his restaurant there.

Born in New York, Bassin had moved to D.C. as a child and attended Cardozo (Business) High School. He worked at the Treasury Department from 1933 until he decided to quit and start Bassin's Restaurant. He went in on it with his wife, Sarah, and her brother, Harry Zitelman. Bassin's was a rather ordinary lunchroom-style restaurant for many years, concentrating on selling corned-beef sandwiches for 25 cents and hot dogs for a dime. Then in 1949, Bassin decided to quit the business and devote his attention to real estate. He left the restaurant in the hands of his sister and Harry Zitelman.

Zitelman, who was the son of Russian immigrants and had grown up in Baltimore, capitalized on Bassin's prime location near the National and Warner theaters, various newspaper offices, the Willard Hotel, and the District Building. As time went on, Zitelman built Bassin's up until it was a well-known Washington institution. He expanded into the building on the corner, making Bassin's a sprawling complex that was frequented by both tourists and natives alike. And like all top-drawer restaurateurs, Harry Zitelman was a consummate showman. He didn't just work hard to promote Bassin's; he made sure everybody knew he was doing it.

As reported in The Washington Post, Harry Zitelman and Jean Moran of L'Espionage at 2900 M Street NW sought permission in early 1959 from the District's Board of Commissioners to set up sidewalk cafés. The request was not well-received. One concern was a 1934 law that banned consumption of alcoholic beverages on District sidewalks—although it was not clear that serving any kind of food or beverages would be legal.

Opinions about the proposal touched on many other issues as well. The Post talked to Leonard Carmichael, secretary of the Smithsonian, who said he had "enjoyed looking at sidewalk cafes in Spain and Rome, but I'm not sure I would enjoy them in Washington." Why not? He apparently didn't say. Prominent socialite Gwendolyn Cafritz held that "Washington is just perfect the way it is. I don't think the tempo of Washington is suited to sidewalk cafes. Nobody would have time to sit in them."

These were just the opening salvos in the two-year struggle to bring sidewalk dining to Washington. While Moran seems to have dropped out of the fight, Zitelman kept pushing.

In late 1960, a ruling came down denying Zitelman's request on the grounds that alcoholic beverages couldn't be served on the sidewalk. Zitelman responded by asking for a permit to open his sidewalk eatery without the alcohol. At a March 1961 hearing before the Board of Commissioners, Zitelman presented a stylish, Parisian-looking sketch of how his proposed sidewalk café might look. But not all hearts and minds were won.

Bassin's in 1967 (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey)

As reported in the Post on March 17, 1961, an assortment of D.C. government witnesses outlined a litany of perils that would befall the hapless citizenry if sidewalk cafés were allowed in the District. These hazards included the following:

• Pedestrian traffic would be disrupted. People would be forced to walk in the streets and probably get run over.
• Food would be exposed to dust, dirt, and "windblown foreign matter," creating a health hazard.
• Hungry birds, insects, and rodents—especially squirrels—would discomfit patrons, and the city's rodent control problem would be "multiplied many times."
• Chairs and tables would interfere with the laying of hoses during a fire.
• Street litter would be exacerbated.
• Street-spraying trucks might splash water over the curbs and on to customers.
• It would be harder to do utility work, which might require tearing up the sidewalks.
• The cafes would be a "potential source of disorder" because café patrons might brush against sidewalk pedestrians, possibly leading to fisticuffs, etc.
• Passersby might steal pocketbooks or other valuables from café patrons.
• And finally, according to Deputy Police Chief Howard V. Covell, "this type of operation would provide a favorable setting for ladies of easy virtue as they ply their trade up and down the street."

After all that, according to the Post, Chief Commissioner Walter N. Tobriner observed that he "couldn't understand how, with all the calamitous eventualities foreseen by city officialdom Europeans have been able to operate sidewalk cafes all these years." Concluding that "anything which would enhance the innocent enjoyment of Washington... should be allowed," Tobriner then ordered that regulations be drawn up that would allow sidewalk cafés while affording adequate safety.

Indeed, it became clear that city officials had overstepped in their opposition to the idea. The Post ran an editorial favoring it; Art Buchwald wrote a column making fun of the city's objections.

By the time a public hearing was held in June, most everybody was behind the idea, with rare exceptions, such as H.B. Niece, executive vice president of the Organized Bible Class Association. As the Post reported, Niece thought the cafés would encourage public drunkenness and panhandling and amounted to "a Castro grab of public property." His objections were overruled, as it were.

Postcard from the collection of David White

The Sidewalk At Bassin's opened with much fanfare in August 1961 and was an instant success. Zitelman found his overall business up 15 percent. Still, there were complaints that the café should serve "something beside malts," so Zitelman worked to get the alcoholic beverage ban lifted, which he achieved the following year. In 1962, Washington's second sidewalk café opened at Chez Francois on Connecticut Avenue NW. By 1963, some 20 different restaurants had joined in, and the sidewalk café had become an established part of D.C. culture.

The sidewalk café wasn't Zitelman's only innovation at the Bassin's complex. He also opened one of the city's first discotheques, called the Top O' the Walk Twist Room, in the former Atlas Club upstairs from the dining room in 1962. According to the Post, Zitelman got the idea after seeing Chubby Checker dancing the twist in New York.

The Post's arts commentator, John Pagones, visited in April 1962 and was very enthusiastic. "The Fred Astaire dancers give twist lessons every night but it seems like bringing politics into Washington. Those people can really twist. The supply seems bottomless."

Ranging about Bassin's, Pagones noted that in addition to the dining room and cafeteria, there was also a lounge where "Jerry White knocks the daylight out of a piano with his honky-tonk songs," as well as a "noisy, chummy rathskellar" in the basement called L'Escapade Room. These were Bassin's salad days, so to speak, and unfortunately there would not be many more of them.

Bassin's is seen here in 1979, after it had been gutted by fire. The large building to the right is the Munsey Building. All these buildings (except for the National Theater, just visible on the far right) were torn down to make way for the J.W. Marriott hotel. (Source: Historic American Buildings Survey).

Bassin's was picketed in the mid-1960s for its hiring practices. It was accused of keeping most African-American employees in the kitchen and using mostly whites for the "out front" positions, such as waiters and waitresses. Bassin's agreed to hire more equitably, but business began to decline anyway after the April 1968 riots.

In 1976, the restaurant was sold to a wealthy South Vietnamese family that had decided to move to Washington and get into an American type of business. Then, after only two years, the restaurant was gutted in a suspicious pre-dawn fire in October 1978.

The police arson squad told the Post that they were 75 percent sure that the fire was started by igniting a flammable fluid. However, by that time the building was already slated to be torn down to make way for a massive new hotel/office complex. Within a year, with the blessing of the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation, the burned-out structure was razed. The J.W. Marriott Hotel now stands on the site.

Still, a few shards have survived of this venerable little building that witnessed so much of everyday Washington life. On 8th Street NW, just down from the other little commercial building we recently profiled, a few of the metal window hoods and sills from Bassin's are hung ghost-like over large vents at a Pepco substation. If they look a bit pathetic hung up that way, what's worse is that there's no sign telling where they came from.

Elements of the Bassin's building now on 8th Street NW.

Cross-posted at Streets Of Washington.

The charming little building, erected in 1886, has a bit of eclectic architectural flair--some interesting Romanesque Revival touches, such as are more often seen on larger structures. It's likely that little of this building's history is known, despite its prominent location on a busy corner opposite the Raleigh Hotel and across from the Old Post Office building, where the source photograph for this view was taken.

A hat store operated by James Y. Davis' Sons was our building's first occupant on the ground floor. The Davis hat firm had been in operation at other locations since 1830, making it one of the oldest in the city. On the second floor a jeweler by the name of Joseph Drukker set up shop. Drukker's upstairs business must not have done too well. In January 1903, he declared bankruptcy, his debt of $6,095.72 apparently being insurmountable with assets of only approximately $3,700.

As reported by Benjamin Forgey in The Washington Post in August 1997, the building had many other tenants through the years, including the United Cigar Stores, an Arthur Murray Dance Studio, the Raleigh Gift Shop, and Samuel Saidman Men's Furnishings.

As we all know, downtown hit a particularly bleak stretch in the 1960s and 1970s. By then, Washington Wine and Liquors was on the ground floor and the upper floor was vacant. The Avenue at that time was lined with a scattered and largely unsightly potpourri of randomly-surviving buildings of differing scales and quality, punctuated by equally random parking lots.

1201 Pennsylvania Avenue NW shortly before being disassembled in 1979.
Source: Archives of the D.C. Preservation League.

President Kennedy famously had wanted "America's Main Street" to be more dignified and stately. After various commissions and studies weighed in, Congress set up the Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corporation in 1972, and it submitted its plan for redeveloping the Avenue two years later.

The plan seemed to reflect mixed feelings about historic preservation; some old buildings were saved, others not. The corporation had been charged with the "preservation and rehabilitation of of important structures that contribute to the Avenue's ceremonial, physical, and historic character," as asserted in its 1979 annual report. Accordingly, the corporation encouraged restoration of the Central National Bank building at 7th Street, the Fireman's Insurance Company at 7th and Indiana Avenue, and the Jenifer Building at 7th and E.

It also promoted restoration of the great Willard Hotel at 14th Street. But other historically significant buildings got little love from the PADC. The Munsey Building, for example, where the J.W. Marriott Hotel is now located, was sacrificed, perhaps because officials were afraid of saddling developers with the expense of preserving it.

Likewise, Kann's Department Store, which was actually a collection of 15 structures built between 1885 and 1900 that had been grouped under a single modernist facade in the 1960s, also met an ignominious end. The company went out of business in 1975, and the PADC acquired its building with the intent of demolishing it so that a new "superblock" multi-use housing complex could be constructed.

Preservationists succeeded in delaying demolition of the old structure for a time as they struggled to find ways to save it, including through a developer's proposal to incorporate the facades of the old buildings into a new housing complex. As the struggle went on, however, the abandoned building caught fire dramatically in April 1979, destroying much of its interior. The PADC took this as a final excuse to raze the remains of the structure, saving nothing.

The Kann's fire, April 1979. Source: Archives of the D.C. Preservation League.

In contrast, the little storefront on the corner of 12th and Pennsylvania met no such dramatic end and was not completely annihilated. Instead it was marked for semi-preservation, as it were. It was carefully taken down in June 1979, and pieces of its facade were numbered and put into storage. The PADC didn't really have any idea what it would do with these pieces, but they would be available for reuse somewhere else.

Construction then began at 12th and Pennsylvania on the $30 million Heurich Building, designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, which was completed in 1981 and now fills much of the block. The deep setback of the new building means that the old storefront's spot is actually now part of the sidewalk.

Construction at 12th and Pennsylvania, 1979.
Source: Archives of the D.C. Preservation League.

12th and Pennsylvania NW as seen today from the Old Post Office Tower.

Meanwhile, the pieces of the store's facade languished in storage for more than a decade. Then, in one of its last acts before being dissolved by Congress in 1996, the PADC worked with Pepco to use  the stored facade elements, along with those of several other buildings torn down in the PADC's realm, to mask the blank wall of the electrical substation on 8th Street.

In his review of this pastiche of building parts, Benjamin Forgey observes that "as a serious strategy for historic preservation the wall is negligible--a mere curiosity," but also notes the irony of their appearance here "flattened like a butterfly in a book" when they were supposed to have been reused as elements of new buildings. This obviously was a wholly unrealistic expectation, as PADC officials apparently were left scrambling to find some use for the best of these saved materials before the corporation went out of business. The row of ghost-like building shards is certainly a better outcome than if all this material had been completely lost. On the other hand, it is also a perennial reminder of how hard it is to find ways to integrate our historic heritage with our aspirations for the future.

1201 Pennsylvania Avenue's current home on 8th Street NW.

Cross-posted at Streets of Washington.