Posts about Tenleytown

As part of a larger strategy for growth and consolidation of its school, American will replace a parking lot with six buildings of two to six stories, including 590 beds, a bookstore, admissions offices, classrooms, administrative spaces, as well as some retail. The benefits for AU have been argued over many times; I'll let AU speak for itself. But the benefits of the expansion to the neighborhood and the city are public business.

The new facilities will bring students out of neighborhoods. Currently, AU undergrads are spread out, with roughly 2,000 of 6,000 living off-campus. Some of those students do so by choice, but AU only has room to house 67% of its students. Many juniors and seniors have to look to the neighborhood for a place to live.

The East Campus would pull students from the neighborhood and the Tenley Campus. Better residential facilities would mean fewer students spread out in the neighborhood, fewer noise disruptions, and less of a demand for vehicular commuting.

That reduction in traffic is no small thing. The new facilities adjacent to the central campus mean fewer trips for students and faculty alike. AU is also reducing the total number of parking spaces on campus, and has promised to expand its existing transportation demand management program. Even so, AU's transportation study found that its users never contributed more than 12% of all traffic during rush hour.

The rest of the vehicles are commuters passing through the Ward Circle area. The three avenues in the area, Nebraska, New Mexico, and Massachusetts currently serve primarily as automobile routes. The new buildings offer the potential to reorient the circle for those who live and work in the area.

Rather than gnarling traffic, as opponents have insisted, the slight uptick in pedestrian activity caused by the new buildings will force drivers to pay better attention to their presence on this urban street. The potential for more stoplights and a redesigned circle opens the opportunity to reduce speeds and dangerous behavior, likewise making the area safer for residents of all ages.

Through commercial frontage and foot traffic, Nebraska Avenue would become a pleasant place for locals to enjoy. Leaving the interior of the campus for students, a commercial perimeter would become another node in the geography of Upper Northwest. It would never become as dense and vibrant as Bethesda, let alone Tenleytown, but as a tertiary urban center, it can merge into the neighborhood.

Finally, the scheme laid out in the university's plan continues to facilitate the economic activity of American and its affiliates, estimated at $415 million. Although academic institutions do not pay taxes for noncommercial properties, the Examiner reported last week that students and faculty bring money and talent to the area when they come to the region's universities. By building on its land efficiently, AU will be making an optimal contribution to the city and enlivening the streetscape through the benefits of density.

There are potential negatives, which AU needs to mitigate. However, in its effort to compromise on objections, AU has layered the new buildings in greenery and minimized certain urban features, compromising potential, while still not satisfying opponents' demands.

For example, a 40' buffer of greenery adjacent to Westover Place feathers the campus into the neighborhood, but it's not good on all four sides. Adding a similar barrier of impenetrable greenery along Nebraska Avenue will separate the campus and retail from the sidewalk. It requires creating a second, separated walkway that will reduce the very urban characteristic of unplanned interactions. It is no small leap to see this buffer as segregating the school from the city.

Worsening the Nebraska Avenue elevation, the most recent plans call for a roadway to be punched through building #1 to the interior campus. A roadway in that place would disrupt the crucial urban space at the sidewalk. Instead, the plans should return to the right-in, right-out entrance on Massachusetts Avenue presented in the March 18th Final Plan. This is similar to the one at Westover Place, the Berkshire, and other nearby driveways.

At the least, the university could build on their plans for the Mary Graydon Tunnel and design the proposed road as a woonerf, prioritizing pedestrians in a roadway that runs through what is the students' front yard.

Likewise, AU should not be advocating for a new actuated signal on Nebraska Avenue. Instead, it should build timed signals that guarantee AU students the opportunity to cross as frequently and in rhythm with the city's traffic.

A new stoplight, combined with the recommended changes to Ward Circle, would make the area safer than any phystical barrier by limiting the incentive to jaywalk. If a physical deterrent is necessary, planters between the street and the sidewalk should be sufficient, as at Bethesda Row.

Finally, the project should serve as a catalyst for alternative transportation in the area. Bike lanes on New Mexico Avenue would mean better safety and better quality of life for students and neighbors alike. On campus, the administration already promotes a progressive Transport Demand Management plan, with dedicated ZipCar spaces, Capitol Bikeshare, carpooling assistance, shuttles, and SmartBenefits. But without adequate facilities, the full benefits of cycling and bus transit will not be realized.

Smart Growth refers to planning that is appropriate not only at the local level, but across multiple scales: architectural, local, metropolitan, and regional. AU's expansion plan, which would consolidate students, tame traffic, and create a new node of community, works at the larger three scales. Where it fails is in the way that it addresses the street and human scale, compromising enormous potential for solutions that will please no one and will require remediation in the future.

The Zoning commission should endorse AU's 2011 Campus Plan with alterations at the architectural scale.

The E6 carries an average of 373 riders per day, according to WMATA, and eliminating the route would save an estimated $385,000. To replace the Knollwood portion of the E6, Metro would extend the M4 along Western Avenue to Oregon Avenue. Most residents testified in support of the E6, and a small number spoke about changing or eliminating the N8. No one spoke in support of the N8 as is, and no one spoke on the proposed K1 or V8 changes.

Cheh, Bowser, and others testified that the E6 serves upper Connecticut Avenue and Friendship Heights, both important commercial and medical destinations for seniors. They argued that cutting the E6 would hurt local businesses and burden seniors trying to reach doctors' offices.

Knollwood employees also use the E6. One resident said the M4 begins too late in the morning for staff members to arrive on time. The M4 terminates at Tenleytown and residents connecting to Friendship Heights would have to transfer to the 30s, take the Red Line one stop, or walk down Wisconsin Avenue. Although they are close, the extra commute time and walk to Friendship Heights would unfairly burden seniors and disabled riders. Several residents said shifting ridership to the M4 would create significant overcrowding and slower service.

One Barnaby Woods resident said the neighborhood is wealthy and many residents have cars. If Metro were to eliminate the E6, he would simply drive instead. The E6 is the only transit connection for many Chevy Chase residents, and some said eliminating the service would effectively isolate this section of Upper Northwest.

Metro's budget gap is $66 million. Cutting the E6 would only save $385,000, a tiny portion of this gap. Certainly, if this argument were made for every cut, it could cumulatively fail to close the gap. But because this route provides direct transit access for seniors, it is not a wise choice. Cheh indicated at the end of her testimony that the Committee on Transportation and Public Works may have found additional funds to save the E6.

The committee report does identify sources of revenue to help fund the District's WMATA subsidy, and perhaps some of this money could continue to fund the E6. Metro is considering asking the three jurisdictions for more funding.

Some residents also spoke about the N8. The N8 runs eastbound on Yuma Street from 49th Sreet to Tenley Circle. Metro estimates an average daily ridership of only 300. Eliminating service on this route would save an estimated $516,000.

Yuma Street residents are concerned that the street is too steep and with low ridership, N8 drivers often speed down Yuma, making it dangerous for children and other pedestrians. One Yuma Street resident joked that more people had spoken to save the E6 route than ride the N8.

An American University student did speak in support of the N8, saying it helps students living in Glover Park travel to AU. She supported moving the N8 off Yuma to create a more direct connection to AU, but said the route should stay.

No one spoke on the K1 or V8 routes.

In addition to public testimony on the proposed service changes, Metro officials gave a short presentation on the FY12 budget and took questions from the audience. Residents asked about customer service and problems with the weekly bus pass.

Several residents said they have had negative encounters with bus drivers and station managers, including problems using the 7-day bus pass. WMATA CFO Carol Kissal said the agency had fixed the bus pass issue and apologized for poor bus driver service. Kissal said customers will be able to load their SmarTrip cards online this summer.

Few at the meeting spoke about extending weekend rail headways, though one man commented that stopping weekend rail service at midnight would be a mistake. A representative from Amalgamated Transit Union 689, which represents Metro employees, said the union opposes service cuts because it will hurt bus and rail operators.

The WMATA panel included General Manager and CEO Richard Sarles, WMATA board members Tom Downs and Mort Downey, and Barbara Richardson, Assistant General Manager of Customer Service, Communications and Marketing at Metro. The agency held two hearings each in the District, Maryland, and Virginia. The entire docket, including all proposed bus and rail service changes, is available here.

The buses are particularly slow through Georgetown, where the avenue narrows to one lane in each direction. There are 7 stops on the mile-long route on Wisconsin Avenue from R Street to 28th Street. The bus also stops 7 seven times downtown between 24th Street on Pennsylvania Avenue and Madison Place on H Street NW.

On many of these sections, there is a bus stop at every block for multiple blocks. The 30s stop at Dumbarton, P, Q, and R Streets in Georgetown and at both ends of Lafayette Park and 18th and 17th Streets downtown. More stops means slower trips, particularly during rush hour when crowded buses increase the probability of a passenger requesting each stop.

Metro removed some bus stops earlier this year to improve on-time performance, which lags below the 80% target level (page 25 of the PDF). However, some residents oppose these consolidations and Metro relented on many of them.

It's certainly understandable that communities would want to preserve all of their bus stops. Frequency of stops makes riding the bus more convenient and riders don't have to walk as far to reach the nearest one.

But more bus stops generally mean slower buses, which ultimately makes the bus less convenient. In certain places, removing a bus stop has little impact on the convenience of the bus. For example, do the 30s really need to stop at Jackson Place and Madison Place on either side of Lafayette Park? The park isn't that big and this stretch of H Street is often cluttered with rush hour traffic and other buses.

Alternatively, WMATA could turn local buses into express buses when demand is high. A manager at either end of a line could designate a bus "express" during peak times when the route is particularly slow and the bus could easily flash between "32 Friendship Heights" and "Express," for example, to alert riders. If WMATA published an express schedule, riders could know whether to take the express bus or wait for the local one.

WMATA does currently run an express bus on part of this route, the 37 line. This bus connects Friendship Heights with Archives, but does so via Massachusetts Avenue and Dupont Circle. While this route speeds up the connection for riders going downtown, it does not service Glover Park, Georgetown and Foggy Bottom, which are often slower parts of the route.

Turning a local 32 into an express 32, for example, would mean the bus continues to run the entirety of the Friendship Heights to Southern Avenue route. But this express service would service fewer stops with a high number of boardings. This way, riders in Glover Park and Georgetown could connect to the Blue and Orange lines at Foggy Bottom much faster.

This real-time change could be implemented soon without the need to create an entirely new express route like the S9 or X9 buses. Bus stop consolidation could take more time, but is ultimately necessary to reduce travel times.

Here's a video about bike boulevards from New York:

The bicycle boulevards would go on certain streets which travel through residential areas but stretch long distances. This not only gives cyclists a safe and comfortable through route but also discourages motor vehicles from using the streets for long trips, instead pushing them to use the major arterial routes and making the resident streets quieter and safer.

Several other roads would get "sharrows," which also promote sharing space between bikes and cars but don't give priority to bicycles.

For a number of intersections, DDOT is proposing curb extensions, or bulb-outs. Some, where there is a high volume of pedestrians, would be paved, adding space for pedestrians to wait and also shortening the crossing distance.

In other places, they would be "green curb extensions," where most of the added space is filled with plantings and designed to capture and hold stormwater that runs off from the surrounding street.

Curb extensions would go along River Road at 45th/Fessenden (paved) and 44th (green), on Davenport at Reno Road and Connecticut Avenue (both green) and 36th (paved), and at a lot of corners in Tenleytown.

At some places where three roads come together, small side roads serve as slip lanes encouraging fast turns and speeding. The study recommends closing a small section adjacent to main streets at 36th Street between Connecticut Avenue and Fessenden Street, and Brandywine Street between 42nd and River Road.

The former road space would either become a basic grass area or get additional stormwater facilities, like rain gardens, to capture and store rainwater and runoff.

From Albemarle to Brandywine Streets just east of the Tenleytown Metro station, between the Whole Foods and Wilson High School, is a pair of parallel roads, 40th Street and Fort Drive. They are only a median's width apart and serve essentially as two directions of one street with a median in between. The report calls the intersection between these and Albemarle Street "awkward, confusing, and obstruct[ing] some views."

It suggests reversing the direction, so cars travel clockwise instead of counterclockwise, and replacing parallel parking adjacent to the median with angled parking, almost doubling the amount of parking. A break in the median for U-turns, currently adjacent to Albemarle, would be moved to the center of the block, lining up with the Whole Foods while also adding crosswalks there.

42nd Street and Warren Street meet in a large, gently curving triangular intersection which also encourages speeding. The plan suggests a pair of small neighborhood traffic circles, essentially small islands in the middle of the intersection which drivers have to travel around more slowly instead of zooming through the large intersection.

These items are far from all the suggestions for improving safety and mobility in Upper Northwest. Part 2 will look at Ward and Chevy Chase Circles, other ideas that didn't make it into the report, and when all of this might actually become a reality.

On-campus housing is better than off-campus housing for many reasons. It puts students closer to everything that happens on campus, from speakers to classes, and almost always means a better relationship between students and landlords.

But on-campus housing can't be built with paper-thin walls and stack students up like sardines. Meeting the housing needs of students means building exactly the kind of living that the east campus offers.

New dorms

The plan details a new dorm on South Side to hold about 200 students, an addition to Nebraska to hold around 125, and a series of dorms on East Campus meant for just under 800 residents. The increase in housing is meant to guarantee housing for both freshman and sophomores (currently, AU can only guarantee 85% of sophomores housing) and to reduce the number of triples, or the practice of cramming three freshmen in rooms meant for two residents.

Currently a large parking lot, Nebraska Lot lies east of AU, separated from the campus proper by Nebraska Avenue, a fairly busy road. The plan calls for that space to be replaced by six buildings, four of which would be dorms (the other being used for the alumni center, the new campus center, and office space). Underneath the new campus would be an underground parking garage.

To ensure that students could only cross Nebraska at the signaled crosswalk, the entire campus would be fenced, with the only entrance/exit by foot being a gap in that fence near New Mexico Avenue (at its intersection with Nebraska). Two roads also enter the campus, but both lead to the underground garage.

Residents are concerned that this campus will be relatively close to their homes. The back of the furthest buildings rest 40 to 80 feet or more from the backs of the adjoined houses at Westover Place, and residents there are worried about how these new buildings will affect their lives.

With no real buffer between the homes and the lot currently, the height of the buildings (54 feet for the dorms and slightly lower for the others) have the potential to dominate their sights out of their back windows.

Residents also complain that noise from the dorms will disturb them. Many at recent ANC meetings have complained of potential and raucous partying (an unneeded anxiety, given campus policies) and the potential for vandalism, which is also unlikely.

Pedestrians at Nebraska Avenue

Neighbors also complained that the increase in number of pedestrians crossing Nebraska would both disrupt the flow of traffic on that road and be dangerous for both students and drivers. Both claims require study, but cannot be determined at this time with the certitude residents put forward).

Regardless, the issue of East Campus remains the flash point of this campus plan, and the University doesn't seem to be willing to budge. While this draft (the third of this campus plan) showed a reduction of 800 housed students from the previous one, the number of students being housed on East Campus has been held more-or-less constant throughout the whole process.

The University insists that an East Campus remains the best place to house that volume of additional students, and that it will not negatively affect traffic flow. However, it could have done a far better job of explaining these claims at meetings with local stakeholders.

Retail and urban design

Retail would be part of the proposed east campus. Having more that students can reach by walking is good for the students, the environment, and the city's revenues.

Students should hope, though, that the University avoids the mistakes from past construction on the campus. It's hard for a business to survive on students and employees alone. Witness the failure of the McDonald's hidden away in a tunnel in the middle of campus, and the pizzeria before it.

Bringing the buildings with retail closer to the street could expand the buffer offered to our neighbors in Westover, help the businesses attract outside customers, and provide a visual cue to passing drivers to slow down.

The plan also shows the Washington College of Law moving to the Tenley campus, and calls for the construction of an Alumni Center, a new Campus Visiting Center, and several other new buildings.

Another facet of the plan is growing the number of enrolled students from 10,297 to 13,600. However, grad and law students dominate this increase in population; the number of undergraduates will be modestly raised from 6,300 to 6,400.

Several other issues have been raised by the community as well. Some say that the increased traffic from graduate students and new university employees will make the horrid traffic problems around Ward Circle even worse. Others raise the concern that dangerous chemicals from Army Corps of Engineers operations during World War I still remain around the Nebraska lot, and could prove hazardous to students living in dorms there. However, it's unclear what evidence there is to support this claim.

Parking

Finally, residents complain that the reduction in surface parking on campus will adversely affect the current problem of students parking in neighborhoods and walking to campus. Students do this often to avoid the high costs of parking on campus, which in themselves are meant to encourage students to carpool or walk.

The American University campus plan has attracted a lot of attention—most of it angry and resentful. At the special meeting ANC 3D recently held on the campus plan, most of the normal complaints about students and universities were trotted out: students are all raging drunkards, the school is a neighborhood bully, further development will destroy property values, and did you hear about that time that one kid did that one ridiculous thing?

We agree more with some of the things we've heard our neighbors say than others. What we didn't hear was a lot about what the new plan means for students and what they need.

Student needs matter

What American University students want from our plan is simple: building for our needs. We aren't the only stakeholders in the process: professors and departments need be wooed and supported, and neighbors have legitimate concerns.

But at the end of the day, we are the university's customers, products, and inhabitants. We come to the school at what are often some of the most vulnerable, confusing, and thrilling times of our lives, and we rely on the campus, the community, and the neighborhood to help us make something of ourselves.

The campus plan is a part of that, and it's important that we make our voices heard in its crafting and implementation. Even if each of us is only here for a few years, together there are thousands of us here for decades. We want both the next few years and those future decades to be good ones.

Cross-posted from two posts at DC Students Speak.

Built just after the end of World War II, Tenleytown's Western Union building and tower became part of an elaborate Cold War telecommunications network that blurred the lines between the public and private sectors. Along with the Western Union building and tower, Tenleytown's urban antenna farm also played a critical role in federal continuity of government plans in the event of a nuclear attack.

There have been communications towers in North America since the turn of the 19th century when optical telegraphy was introduced from France to American port cities. These early facilities were modest twenty to thirty-foot structures from which flags and other signaling devices were used in line-of-sight systems to communicate in code.

In 1844, Samuel Morse built the first successful electrical telegraph line laying the groundwork for a network of 30-foot poles that would mark the margins of roads and railroads throughout the nation before the end of the century. By the time Guglielmo Marconi successfully demonstrated his wireless communications system in 1899, the horizons of most U.S. cities were marred by a visual cacophony of electricity, telephone and telegraph wires and poles.

Marconi's wireless unbound communications from an infrastructure strung together by cables and wires. For the first two decades of the twentieth century, amateurs, the government, and inventing entrepreneurs raced to build wireless stations with increasingly higher antennas to reach and receive more distant points. Radio, which combined the technological achievements of telephony and wireless telegraphy, rapidly spread across the nation in the 1920s bringing with it taller towers in greater numbers.

With the proliferation of towers and antennas came complaints that towers adversely affect scenic and cultural resources while also reducing property values and interfering with existing radio and later television reception.

One early complaint documented in the media came in 1944 when NBC's Blue Network proposed building a 250-foot tower in suburban Fairfax County, just across the Potomac River from Washington. Residents mounted a vigorous opposition effort because they believed the tower would "reduce the value of their property and desecrate the historical landmark Langley," wrote the Washington Post in June 1944.

Four years later, another proposed Arlington tower—this time a 400-foot television tower—spurred residents into action with concerns that the structure would "spoil the beauty of a distinctively residential area.

In March 1945 the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) authorized the Western Union Telegraph Company to place into service an experimental microwave relay system between New York, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The system to beam telegrams between stations used radio frequencies that had previously only been used by military radar systems.

The experimental system that used unattended stations placed at regular intervals to facility a line-of-sight radio relay allowed Western Union to refine the radio beam telegraphy process by improving its equipment to maintain constant signal strength. The equipment used in Western Union's experiments was made by the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) under license to Western Union. The company's goal was to develop a system that increased the capacity for sending telegraphs, to eliminate much of the company's wireline reliance (i.e., make poles and wires obsolete) and to position it for providing transmission services for emerging television technology.

Western Union designed its system by incorporating two facility types: terminals and relay stations. In March 1945 the FCC authorized the Western Union to place into service an experimental microwave relay system between New York, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. This network linking New York and Philadelphia included terminals in Philadelphia and at the company's New York City headquarters. Relays were planned at Bordentown, Ten Mile Run, and Woodbridge, New Jersey. The New York-Washington-Pittsburgh network incorporated the New York headquarters, a rooftop location in downtown Pittsburgh, and a new tower building for the Washington, D.C., terminal. Each terminal was connected by nodes in the network: unattended relay stations with towers and equipment buildings.

While conducting the tests on the New York and Philadelphia system, Western Union applied to the FCC to construct a fully functional radio relay triangle between New York, Washington, DC, and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. On 7 November 1945, the FCC granted Western Union a "Radio Station Construction Permit" to build its facility at:

41st Street, near Wisconsin Avenue … to communicate with experimental stations of the permittee as necessary for development of commercial point to point radio communications between New York City, New York, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, (via intermediate relay stations).

Western Union was able to place rooftop antenna installations on existing buildings for its New York, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh terminals. In Washington, however, the company required a new facility in the District's highest-elevation neighborhood, Tenleytown. The site had been recognized since the 1920s as a prime location for broadcasting. Earlier efforts to construct a radio tower in the vicinity of the parcel Western Union sought failed when local residents in 1940 successfully blocked the approval by the District of Columbia's Board of Zoning Adjustment of a proposed 200-foot tower requested by radio station WINX.

Western Union bought the property at 4623 41^st Street NW in September 1945. The next month, the Washington Evening Star reported that the company was planning to build a 90-foot tower "for wireless transmission of messages along a chain of towers." Western Union hired Washington, D.C., architect Leon Chatelain Jr. (1902-1979) to design the new Tenley transmission tower at the site which was at 397 feet above sea level.

The Washington terminal is a communications tower and attached equipment. The facility was constructed on a rectangular block on the east side of 41^st Street N.W. immediately north of 41^st Street's intersection with Wisconsin Avenue.

The tower is an octagonal masonry structure that rises 90 feet above the ground level. It measures measuring 9′-3″ on each side and is attached to the square equipment wing which measures 38 x 40 feet. The tower was built on a concrete foundation (below-grade footer) and is constructed of brick walls and its exterior is clad by dressed limestone facing. There are five internal floors within the tower and an 11-foot-high aluminum turret housing microwave antennas caps the flat roof. The first floor consists of an office space and maintenance work spaces; access to the upper portions of the tower is via a metal staircase in the eastern side of the tower core. Entry to the tower is through a vestibule and door leading from the rear wing.

The tower has rectangular metal-frame windows in the north and south facades at the first, second, and third story levels. The "Tower Floor" (upper) level has eight (one for each side) removable rectangular fiberglass and aluminum panels that conceal the enclosed microwave antennas. The tower walls rise to a low parapet around the flat roof and narrow walkway between the parapet and the aluminum turret.

The tower's decoration is minimal, its style informed by the moderne. Slight curves and tapering along the parapet create an entasis effect. The only ornamentation is the "Western Union" corporate name in 13-foot-high bronze letters on the tower's west façade.

The attached wing, located on the tower's east side (rear), was built as a two-story reinforced concrete building to house a battery room, engine room, and other parts of the facility's physical plant on the first floor and communications equipment on the second story. The facility's main entrance is through a door on the north side of the tower into the wing's west façade. The rectangular metal door is set in a rectangular projecting bay with fluting and the building's address—"4623"—in bronze numerals set above the door. The wing's west façade is symmetrical: the tower rises in the center and is flanked on the on the north by the building entrance and the south by a rectangular metal-frame window.

The tower and wing were modified several times during the facility's history. Briefly, in 1948, a 43-foot experimental metal antenna was mounted on the turret. In 1962, Western Union constructed a one-story reinforced concrete addition to the wing on which it built a four-legged lattice tower to mount additional microwave antennas. The added tower rises 155 feet above the addition and two microwave reflector horn antennas cap it, along with an observation platform. The 1962 tower was attached to the one-story addition roof by concrete pedestals.

Chatelain began drafting renderings of the new tower as early as October 1945 and his firm was busy drafting plans for the facility by December of that year. In June 1946, Western Union received a building permit from the District of Columbia to "erect one 2-story limestone & brick building & 90 ft. tower." Construction began in July 1946 when Western Union's contractor, Jeffress-Dyer, Inc., demolished a one-story stuccoed frame house at the site; the tower was completed on 24 March 1947.

The Tenley site designed by Leon Chatelain Jr. was modified several times during its use by Western Union. In 1948, Chatelain's engineers designed a temporary 42-foot guyed antenna to be mounted on the tower's original turret. The building permit was issued in June 1948, however it is unclear if the extension was ever added. In 1963, Chatelain again prepared designs for Western Union to add a third story to the tower's equipment wing and a four-legged 165-foot lattice tower with microwave horn reflector antennas. The 1963 lattice tower and horns remain on the building.

Chatelain's tower is the only architect-designed facility in the first generation Western Union system. Chatelain's modernist tower is an outstanding example of radio transmission architecture and was built in accordance with prevailing industry standards: "Because a radio transmitter is a very modern phenomenon, it seems appropriate that the transmitter building should usually follow a style belonging within that broad range roughly known as 'contemporary'."

Western Union continued to operate the facility until its sale in 1990 to Micronet, Inc. In 1997, Boston, Massachusetts-based American Tower Systems (now, American Tower Corporation) acquired Micronet and all of its assets—including the Tenley site and another Western Union facility in the radio relay triangle in Severn, Maryland. The Tenley site currently is used as communications facility, mainly for personal wireless services.

The 1940 kerfuffle over the proposed WINX tower was replayed at the turn of the 21^st century when American Tower Corporation began building a 756-foot broadcast tower. Half a decade of litigation ensued because American Tower Corporation had failed to comply with various laws prior to starting construction. Tenleytown, like other communities throughout the nation where telecommunications companies had begun construction on large towers before fulfilling regulatory requirements, had a partly-built lattice tower looming over homes and businesses until the lattice tower was dismantled in 2006.

Coming in Part II: The Fort Reno Presidential Emergency Facility

Sources:
The material in this post was drawn from the National Register of Historic Places inventory form I completed for the Tenley site and from the 2005 Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) report I wrote that documents the Jennerstown Relay site in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania. The results of my Western Union Telegraph Company microwave sites research was published "Towers for Telegrams: The Western Union Telegraph Company and the Emergence of Microwave Telecommunications Infrastructure," IA, The Journal of the Society for Industrial Archeology 32, no. 2 (2006): 5-22. Also used in this post is material from the article on the history of telecommunications towers that I wrote for the Scenic America Website.

They helped elect Mary Cheh as the ward councilmember, who deserves unhesitating reelection. They have also won many ANC seats in neighborhoods across the ward, and we hope their numbers grow this year.

We support Tom Quinn, one of the leaders of the Ward 3 Vision smart growth organization, who is running in an open seat in 3E04. That district covers the eastern side of Wisconsin Avenue from Brandywine Street to the Maryland line. His opponent, Sally Greenberg, was the chosen successor to previous anti-smart growth commissioner Lucy Eldridge.

Jonathan McHugh is challenging the problematic incumbent Beverly Sklover in AU Park's 3E01. Sklover has opposed many smart-growth projects on the grounds of insufficient transit and then opposed transit to those same areas.

Also for their smart growth support, we prefer Mike Siegel in the open seat for 3F01 around UDC, and Fenty Ward 3 coordinator Petar Dimtchev against incumbent Ann Haas in Foxhall Village's 3D09. Update: Adam Tope, the other candidate in 3F01, has responded with more details of his views. We encourage voters to read that and make up their own minds.

Staunch smart growthers Jonathan Bender in 3E03 on the west side of Wisconsin Avenue in Tenleytown and Friendship Heights, and Sam Serebin in 3E05 northeast of AU, are both running unopposed.

At American University, two students are trying to gain representation on ANC 3D, which often takes positions on the school's plans without representation from its students. Current 3D chair Tom Smith successfully challenged both students off the ballot (huge PDF) in his own district of 3D02 and the adjacent 3D07.

Smith originally ran on a smart growth platform but quickly flipped his support to align with antis on most issues. We encourage residents to write in AU student Tyler Sadonis for 3D02, which includes the northern half of AU and the blocks to the northwest, and to write in Deon Jones in 3D07, the southern half of AU and blocks just to the south up to Nebraska Avenue.

Anne-Marie Bairstow is a terrific chair of Woodley and Cleveland Park's ANC 3C. She is a member of the DC Pedestrian Advisory Council, a strong ally of pedestrian safety, healthy business, and smart growth, and a regular reader of GGW. She is a terrific example of what a good ANC commissioner should be and we heartily endorse her reelection in her Woodley Park 3C03 district.

She faces an opponent, Matthew Kozik, who quotes Greater Greater Washington on all points of his transportation platform. Were Kozik running against almost any other commissioner we would eagerly cheer his candidacy, and hope he will continue to get involved in the neighborhood. Perhaps he will get redistricted into a different SMD for 2012, at which point we could get both Kozik and Bairstow on the ANC.

Jackie Blumenthal, the incumbent in Glover Park's 3B02, has supported streetcar and bike lane resolutions in a neighborhood that needs better transportation, and deserves reelection. We are also excited about having occasional contributor Ben Thielen serve on that ANC; he is running unopposed in an open seat on the adjacent 3B01, centered around Tunlaw Road.

Gray is also very excited for the potential of "downtown Ward 7," the corner of Minnesota Avenue and Benning Road, to become a walkable hub for the surrounding neighborhoods (complete with streetcars!) His approach and that of Mayor Fenty may differ a bit only in implementation: Gray's approach is to plan then act, while Fenty's Office of the Deputy Mayor seems far more focused in simply closing real estate deals.

Sometimes getting the deal done moves the ball forward more than a plan, but when buildings last for 50 years or more, moving hastily can lock in bad design for a generation. In Ward 7, the Donatelli development at the northwest corner of Minnesota and Benning has shaped up to be a real disappointment even in ways that have little to do with the economy. DMPED chose Donatelli's plan despite community consensus around another bid. DMPED also plunked a parking lot down at 5th and I and totally blew it with the Tenley Library.

On development, Gray's approach will be to create a good plan and hear out all the opponents before moving ahead, while Fenty's approach has been to move ahead without any plans or much listening. Here, both approaches have merit, and I'd give a small edge to Gray's. Perhaps some bold planning and community engagement could have resulted in improvements along the Wisconsin Avenue corridor, where recent development has more often produced a boring low-scale bank rather than anything transformative.

But as one Smart Growth proponent recently pointed out, we are fortunate. We have two candidates who have made a clear commitment to many parts of a Smart Growth vision. They'd implement it with different styles and might focus on different elements, but four years from now, there will be more housing opportunities near commercial corridors and Metro stations regardless of who is Mayor.

Fenty and Gray share a lot of other policy ideas as well. Education reform? Fenty's for it. Gray's for it.

Next: But what about streetcars?

The site has tremendous potential to make Upper Northwest more walkable and more sustainable. Moving the law school closer to the Tenleytown-AU metro station will reduce the net amount of traffic along Nebraska and Massachusetts Avenues. To get to the current law school building, students and faculty can either drive to the generous parking garage, or take the AU shuttle from Tenleytown.

That access to the Tenleytown metro is especially important to these law students, because most live outside the neighborhood and merely commute in for the school day. Likewise, the Immaculata campus sits right on several bus lines—and a potential streetcar line—that will receive efficiency improvements through TIGER Grants.

As a side benefit, the new school would put more foot traffic along the southern block of Tenleytown's retail area. The current shuttle buses isolates students from neighbors; the three-block walk down Wisconsin would put them face-to face on the main strip. The steady stream of students and faculty would patronize stores and restaurants and justify streetscape improvements that will make Tenleytown nicer for everyone.

On Nebraska Avenue, a well-designed campus would significantly improve the urban architecture of one of DC's monumental boulevards. Against the other streets, a good architect would be able to make the building disappear into the trees that line the perimeter of the campus. Because the university has no plans or even a design architect yet, the possibilities for integrating the school into the neighborhood are vast. The campus plan is the right opportunity to ask for them.

For all of the potential benefits, the College of Law could still hurt the neighborhood. American could ask for an introverted suburban campus and receive an eyesore and a traffic nightmare. The negotiation between the ANC and the university administration will allow for specific terms of approval to be stated. Design guidelines, operations requirements, and community benefits can be spelled out ahead of time to ensure that both sides gain from the construction and trust is not broken.

American University's plan is good at first glance. Whether it is good for the next fifty years will depend on how well residents and the university work together to make a lasting improvement to the city.

Cross posted on цarьchitect.