Posts about East Of The River

About 75% of total trips in the AM peak terminate at one of the 42 stations in or immediately adjacent to the District (within 500 feet). Only 2% of these riders, or 1.5% of all trips, get off at one of the 7 stations in or bordering the portion of the District east of the Anacostia River.

Of the more than 3500 riders who make up the numerator of this statistic, 40% get off at Anacostia and 20% at Minnesota Ave, affectionately known as the downtowns of their respective wards (8 and 7). The reason nearly 5 times as many people take the train to Farragut North as to all East of the River stations combined is obvious: Land use.

The Anacostia and Minnesota Ave station areas offer fairly similar non-residential uses, which include a limited number of destinations one would commute to on a weekday morning. Both have a few schools nearby, one relatively new District government office building, a smattering of small retail stores and restaurants, mostly carryout, and a number of light industrial sites.

Anacostia has a couple additional office or medical buildings, while Minnesota Ave boasts a grocery store. For those who do commute to work or school in these neighborhoods, parking is cheap or free, and buses often offer a superior option to rail for those who are traveling between East of the River neighborhoods.

But what about the chosen few who do take Metrorail to these 7 stations? In contrast to the system-wide statistics, 63% of trips ending east of the river originated in DC, 28% in Maryland, and 9% in Virginia. The share coming from the suburbs is certain to increase when the federal Department of Homeland Security campus at Saint Elizabeths is completed.

Interestingly, 9% of riders traveling East of the River boarded at the Columbia Heights or Georgia Avenue-Petworth stations. Without additional data, one can only hypothesize why so many people (relatively) are making this specific commute. One driver may be the schools. For example, Thurgood Marshall Academy, a high performing public charter high school across the street from the Anacostia metro station, draws students and teachers from all over the city.

Perhaps WMATA could release a subset of their data showing trips made with discounted student passes? That would make it possible to further explore this hypothesis.

Cross-posted at R.U. Seriousing Me?

Some of the earliest sites were for the Wood family of Anacostia, the Deans of Deanwood, and the Bells of the present-day Benning Road area. These family plots date back to the years immediately after the Civil War.

In the years leading up to the Civil War, subdivisions were planned and developed beyond the city's historic core, transforming what had once been bucolic and pastoral land. In the early summer of 1852, Washington's City Council passed an ordinance that prohibited any new burial grounds within the Boundary Street (today Florida Avenue) limits of L'Enfant's plan, according to Steven J. Richardson's article "The Burial Grounds of Black Washington: 1880—1919" in the Records of the Columbia Historical Society.

Existing cemeteries east of the river

Of the more than 250 public and private cemeteries documents show have interred Washingtonians for over 2 centuries, 22 remain, according to the DC Historic Preservation Office. More than a half dozen are found east of the river: Woodlawn Cemetery on Benning Road, a clustering of Jewish Cemeteries in Congress Heights, and the Saint Elizabeths Hospital Civil War Cemetery, on a hillside slope on the West campus that can be seen from I-295.

Seeing its first patient in 1855, during the Civil War, the United States Government Hospital for the Insane swelled with patients. "Many of the battlefield victims received at St. Elizabeths Hospital were dead on arrival, and others, too seriously wounded to be saved, died in the hospital," Sluby writes in Bury me deep: Burial places past and present in and nearby Washington, D.C. "These deaths necessitated the establishment of a hospital burying area for these causalities."

In more than 20 rows of head stones rest the remains of nearly 300 Civil War dead, both Confederate and Union, black and white soldiers alongside local civilians. According to a historic marker, "When the foliage of the local forest subsides in winter, the cemetery is visible from a considerable distance since the white headstones are placed in the form of a cross."

Old Jewish cemeteries

The presence of Jewish burials in southeast Washington dates back to the 1860s, when the first internments interments were made off Hamilton Road, now Alabama Avenue SE. More than 150 years later, the Washington Hebrew Congregation and Adas Israel Congregation maintain their cemeteries adjacent to the Congress Heights Metro station and Malcolm X Elementary School on the 1400 block of Alabama Avenue SE.

Tucked behind Adas Israel and Washingtin Hebrew are two additional Jewish graveyards on 15th Place SE, bordering the Henson Ridge development. Ohey Sholom Talmud Torah Cemetery purchased its land in 1895, according to the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Washington. Its neighbor cemetery, Elesavetgrad, which sold plots to fraternal organizations, is named for a town in Russia.

In recent months, the caretaker's house at the Washington Hebrew Memorial Park has been refurbished and a new visitor's center has been built. The cemeteries are open on Jewish holidays and to the public by appointment.

Woodlawn Cemetery

Off the 4600 block of Benning Road NE rests Blanche K. Bruce, the first black American to serve a full-term in the United States Senate, pioneering lawyer at Howard Law School and United States Congressman from Virginia, John Mercer Langston, a chronicler of black authors and history for nearly a half-century at the library of Congress, Daniel A. P. Murray, and leading physicians, educators, and pastors of 19th and early 20th century Washington.

According to an independent study by the DC Department of Environmental Services, there were 35,895 internments interments at Woodlawn from 1895 through June 17, 1971. Woodlawn received its last burial in 2000. In recent years the Woodlawn Perpetual Care Association, led by Tyrone General, has advocated that the city transform the 22.5-acre cemetery into a living history park to "honor our ancestors."

Lost cemeteries

More than one third of the cemeteries in the 1909 Boyd's City Directory of Washington, DC are east of the Anacostia River. Recorded, but no longer surviving, are the Macedonia Cemetery in Hillsdale, Good Hope Cemetery on Hamilton Road, Jones Chapel Cemetery on Benning Road, and Payne's Cemetery on Benning Road, on ground where the Fletcher Johnson Education Complex stands today.

Along with Woodlawn, Payne's Cemetery buried predominantly black Washingtonians. Reports of the Health Commissioner to the District's Board of Commissioners in the 1880s indicate the first activity at Payne's Cemetery. Official records confirm that from 1880 to 1930 there were 10,951 internments at Payne's Cemetery. Of that number, only 29 were white. In the 1960s the remains of the buried at Payne's were transferred to the National Harmony Memorial Park in Prince George's County.

The Historic Preservation Office has just released a brochure, Gone But Not Forgotten: Cemeteries in the Nation's Capital, that explores the history of burials in Washington, from Native Americans through the Colonial era and early development of the new Federal City, and into the Romantic age of highly-designed garden cemeteries. The brochure is available at the Washingtoniana Division of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library or online.

Views from the campuses of Cardozo High School in Northwest and McKinley Technology High School in Northeast cannot compare to those from Saint Elizabeths' West Campus. The panorama of the sunset from atop Cedar Hill, with the Capitol and the Washington Monument in the foreground, is surreal.

Despite the current stigma of many east of the river neighborhoods, Anacostia, Barry Farm, Buena Vista (Spanish for "good view"), Bellevue (French for "beautiful view") Fairlawn, Fort Stanton, and Hillsdale have a romantic naturalism that has been recognized in literature and paintings since the early 19th century.

Last week, Congressman Issa (R-CA) and Congresswoman Norton (D-DC) announced a study to re-examine the 1910 law which limits the height of buildings in Washington. There are strong, well-reasoned arguments to both maintain and revise the law. In that study, the National Capital Planning Commission is very concerned about preserving views of the monumental core from across the city.

In March 1873, 12 years before the Washington Monument was finally finished, Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science waxed poetic about the sight lines:

"A stranger visiting the national capital should begin by leaving it. He should cross the Anacostia River at the Navy-yard, climb the heights behind the village of Uniontown, be careful to find exactly the right path, and seat himself on the parapet of old Fort Stanton.

His feeling of fatigue will be overcome by one of astonishment that the scene should contain so much that is beautiful in nature, so much that is exceedingly novel if not very good in art, and so much that has the deepest historical interest. From the blue hills of Prince George's county in Maryland winds the Anacostia, whose waters at his feet float all but the very largest vessels of our navy, while but six miles above they float nothing larger than a Bladensburg goose. To the left flows the Potomac, a mile wide. Between the rivers lies Washington.

A vast amphitheatre, its green or gray walls cloven only by the two rivers, appears to surround the city. 'Amphitheatre' is the word, for within the great circle, proportioned to it in size and magnificence, dwarfing all other objects, stands the veritable arena where our public gladiators and wild beasts hold their combats. This of course is the Capitol, whose white dome rises like a blossoming lily from the dark expanse below.

In form and feeling the symbols of federal Washington yield aesthetic and therapeutic influence on the east side of town. Across the other side of the deep divide of the river is where the political influence is felt and permeates daily life. East of the river you can feel the literal sense of geographic disengagement and detachment from official Washington. There's a sense of pride in this disconnection. Life still moves slowly here. The historic development of the community personifies this truth.

In 1855 the United States Government Hospital for the Insane, later renamed Saint Elizabeths, saw its first patient. The palatial landscape situated high on a bluff overlooked the Washington Navy Yard and the first efforts to erect the modern cast iron Capitol Dome, that now defines the city skyline. For the first inmates and staff, alike, the scene was as palliative then as it is today.

Ascending Howard Road SE, in the Hillsdale neighborhood, the Washington Monument, illuminated at night, is the sentry keeping a vigilant eye over the "southside". Over on Morris Road SE is Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church, known to the go-go community as the Panorama Room. The name is purposeful, from here the entire city unfolds before your eyes, revealing itself. In the award-winning independent movie, "Slam," actor Saul Williams ponders his existence and future as a low-level drug dealer from this sweeping indigenous veranda.

Down in historic Anacostia, the Statue of Freedom, crowning the Capitol Dome, has watched over folks of this inner-city suburban village with village folk watching right back for nearly 150 years. Whether on foot, peddle, bus, or car, formerly on horseback, carriage, and streetcar, glimpses of the Capitol often flash in and out of the periphery between buildings, alleys, and fences.

As feasibility studies and further analysis of the city's height limit moves forward, we hope the character of these vistas are protected and not ignored in favor of political calculus and economic expediency.

An innovation of the early 19th century, the band saw could cut both wood and metal. Its original design is little altered today, albeit with current materials. More than one hundred variations of the modern band saw sell today at Home Depot from companies such as DeWalt, Steel City, and Rockwell.

The former Wilson Courts, 523-525 Mellon Street SE, a 4-story multi-family apartment complex with a faint art deco touch outside the building's two respective front entrances, was sold in September 2008 to Affordable Housing Opportunities Inc. for just under $1.5 million, according to tax records. (The value of the building's inventory of antiques is unavailable.)

A year later a firestorm broke out within Advisory Neighborhood Commission 8C when a local non-profit introduced plans to develop transitional housing units. Many old-time residents joined neophyte arrivals in opposing the plans, arguing the neighborhood was over-burdened with similar facilities and a further concentration of social service agencies would do more harm than good.

Now, a couple years later all seems to be forgotten as the building has remained uninhabited. Per the permit posted by the DC Office of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs since February, after demolition of interior walls, there are plans to convert the building's existing 20 units to 43.

However, before redevelopment happens an untold number of relics from late 19th and early 20th centuries remain in the basement, according to the demolition crew's foreman.

Together with the 6-man crew, William and I speculate what the band saw might be worth—not just for scrap parts, but to collectors of antiquarian tools. The foreman thinks it could bring a couple hundred dollars. Weschler's, the long-time downtown auction house, could probably help with an estimate, I suggest.

An engraving around the arc of the base will surely provide clues of its provenance for an appraiser specializing in 19th century tools. (Comparable antique band saws on Ebay list for $250 to $500, often selling for more.)

Through preservation groups and local media work, I have toured the campuses of Saint Elizabeths a handful of times over the past 3 years. What little I have seen of the abandoned halls, rooms, basketball courts, and book cases show most of the remnants of the past are gone, cleared out over the years by former employees and recent contractors.

The book then goes on to chronicle the magnificent turn-around of first the Parklands, then the neighborhood as a whole. Despite the blight and crime, a number of residents were determined to work together to make it a better place. Even before redevelopment occurred, community leader Brenda Jones founded the Parklands Community Center to provide youth with a safe space to learn and play.

Then in 1991 William C Smith & Co. acquired the Parklands apartment complex and renovated it to include "smaller scale clusters of 'villages' within the wider area. The renamed 'Villages of Parklands, which formally opened in 1994, made room for the humanizing lawns and walkways that contribute not only to social interaction and recreation but, just as important, to safety."

It became clear amid the rejuvenation of the neighborhood that children needed a place to grow and learn. William C Smith & Co teamed up with the nonprofit Building Bridges Across the River (BBAR) to create a community center for Ward 8. Through generous contributions from local philanthropic organizations and the District of Columbia government, and the hard work of BBAR, the Town Hall Education, Arts, and Recreation Campus (THEARC) was born.

THEARC sits on a site formerly used by the Department of the Interior, which was returned to the District after sitting vacant for years. Today, it houses the Washington Middle School for Girls, Boys and Girls Club, a Children's National Medical Center clinic, the Washington Ballet, Corcoran College of Art & Design, and the Levine School of Music.

By 2007, a grocery store opened in the neighborhood, the first in two decades. The Giant at the Shops at Park Village was made possible through the city's use of land that had previously been Camp Simms Military Base, investment leveraged by the New Markets Tax Credit, the advocacy of the East of the River Community Development Corporation, and William C Smith & Co. Today, a neighborhood once ridden with crime and blight now has a grocery store, a sit down restaurant, a world class community center, and truly mixed income housing; from subsidized housing, to rental, to single family homes.

This large-scale redevelopment was made possible because of the commitment of the private, nonprofit, and government sectors. It was the ability to leverage investment in a multitude of ways that made redevelopment of the Parklands inclusive for all levels of income. The redevelopment of St. Elizabeths and Walter Reed should look to emulate this model.

For more stories of community redevelopment in Washington, including Columbia Heights, Edgewood Terrace, and H St, check out Becoming What We Can Be: Stories of Community Development in Washington, DC by Tony Proscio.

"I tell you what we talked about, didn't we Victor [Hoskins, Deputy Mayor of Planning and Economic Development]?" Gray said, venturing off-message. "We talked about putting those suckers; picking 'em up and moving them somewhere else. And then we looked at it and thought they might fall down by the time we pick them and move them," Gray said through a laugh.

To both lifelong residents and recent arrivals the slow death of the Big K homes is neither trite nor a laughing matter.

Last week DHCD's Property Acquisition and Disposition Division finally released a call for solicitations "offering to sell four adjacent properties referred to collectively as the Big K Site." The four properties are the three homes at 2228, 2234, 2238 Martin Luther King, Jr. Avenue and the former Big K Liquor store at the corner of MLK and Morris Road, 2252 MLK, built in 1906 by grocer James Conway.

Over the past two years staff turnover within DHCD and a general malaise have allowed the properties, acquired with a Community Development Block Grant, to become further forlorn. The most basic stabilization work on the lots—beyond cutting the grass and trimming vegetation—took DHCD more than a full year.

This past January DHCD received approval from the Historic Preservation Review Board to demolish 2228 MLK, but the ever-defiant house still stands. According to people on the street and some amateur reconnaissance, the home and the one next-door at 2234 MLK are still accessible to squatters. Time is ticking as the eventual demolition of 2228 "will occur prior to closing" according to the RFP.

"The city's lack of vision on how to preserve the buildings and create a first class development is very troublesome. The city's carelessness in quickly stabilizing the properties is downright disturbing," says a resident of Historic Anacostia, actively involved in the area's preservation efforts.

"When the homes are not there, I think people in the community will feel a real sense of loss. Yes, it's been a tragedy watching their slow death but there was a hope the city could save the houses and they showed no interest or effort."

At the Ward 8 summit, Gray vacillated, saying, "I think they have a historic (emphasis added) designation" one moment and then, "But if they do we have to figure another way to get them off of that site so it can be developed."

Many cringed in response, including agency staff who know there have been no feasibility studies looking at moving the homes to another location, making the undertaking highly unlikely.

Recommendations from a community advisory group are guiding the development standards and goals. Historic preservation, mixed-use development, vocational training, architecture compatible with the existing neighborhood, and adequate financing to prevent a start-and-stop are the priority of community residents, according to DHCD.

Implicit in the RFP is that the city "makes no representations regarding the character of soil or subsurface or the existence, location or condition of any utilities." Planned uses for the space will "contain neighborhood-serving retail and small business space, including a small business incubator" with "no housing" according to the community's suggestions. Total assessed value of the properties is $939,000, with more than 33,000 square feet to develop.

Meanwhile at 2226 MLK, at the corner with Maple View Place, is Astro Motors, a used car dealership that's been in Anacostia for parts of four decades. According to tax records the proposed 2013 value of the lot is $271,050. Without the certainty of the corner lot in the Big K site's development portfolio, potential investors might be hesitant go all in.

"They're waiting for that domino effect," says Rev. Johnson, a past Board member of local development corporations and a lifelong Anacostian, laughing only because he knows it's better to laugh it off than cry it out. "They want the one house to fall over and then knock over the other two. But as you can see those houses aren't going down like that, they've held on for quite some time."

Last week, the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) released a Solicitation for Offers for the development of the Big K Site in Historic Anacostia. A Solicitation for Offers (SFO) is essentially the same as a Request for Proposals (RFP), an equally bureaucratic but slightly more familiar term.

The first Agency Goal listed in the solicitation is, "Consistency with the recommendations of the Big K Community Advisory Group." The Community Advisory Group was guided by two relatively conservative DHCD-commissioned market studies (housing & commercial). For the most part, the recommendations are straightforward and predictable:

• Desire mixed-use project;
• Project that will support/benefit the community;
• Prefer commercial use over housing;
• Full-service restaurant was top choice for retail; and
• Interest in having cultural use / community garden on-site.

In this case, the desired mix of uses appears to exclude residential. The SFO states specifically that the Advisory Group recommends no housing at all. However, the solicitation also gives weight to the Comprehensive Plan, which values this type of metro-accessible site, located on a commercial corridor, as an opportunity for higher density mixed-use development that does include housing.

More importantly, adding households within walking distance of this site will increase the demand for retail goods and services, raising the feasibility of the project's commercial component.

Physically, the site has some constraints, though none are insurmountable. DHCD only owns 4 of the 5 properties on the block. The one that it does not control is currently operated as a used car lot. Prospective developers could sweeten their offers by gaining control of the car lot and proposing to pair it with the adjacent lot (2228 MLK) included in the solicitation that contains a historic single family home approved to be razed (Solution 1, below).

The Big K liquor store on the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Ave and Morris Rd (2252 MLK) lies outside of the Historic District, but considering the historic nature of the overall site and the community's desire for preservation, it may be wise for a developer to save as much of the building as possible. With that said, there is still plenty of room for the structure to grow up and out (Solution 2), and even laterally behind the adjacent homes (Solution 3).

The two remaining detached, single family homes (2234 and 2238 MLK) are located smack in the middle of their respective lots and must be preserved. But why not move them up to the lot line (Solution 4)? If the additional density gained justifies the cost, this may be an option worth exploring.

Ultimately, what gets built at the Big K will depend on the creativity of the development teams that respond to the solicitation, particularly in their ability to lure commercial tenants and make effective use of the plentiful incentives available at this site. While DHCD does not explicitly offer a subsidy beyond, presumably, selling the property for less than the appraised value, the project may be able to take advantage of Historic Tax Credits, New Markets Tax Credits, and/or Tax Increment Financing. Plus, if a high quality proposal is received and championed by residents of Anacostia, the Mayor and Council may be able to find a way to make it work financially via grants or tax abatement.

Here's to hoping the Big K gets some visionary responses, and why wouldn't it? Developers, architects, and preservationists should be drooling over the opportunity to be able to say that their project triggered the revitalization of Historic Anacostia.