This Month
4 Make No Little
Plans
6 On Pennsylvania
Avenue
8 Capitol East
Manifesto
10 Ellen Wilson Update
12 Digging up the Dirt
14 A Smarter Hill
16 Raingardens
18 Here Comes the
Sun
D e p a rt m e n t s
Vo i c e M a i l . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Spencer Says . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 0
Business Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 2
Business Serv i c e s. . . . . . .2 7
D o w n L o a d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 9
Capital Kids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 8
Kids’ Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . .4 2
H o ro s c o p e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 3
Community Calendar . . .4 3
C l a s s i f i e d s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 5
Vol. 2 No. 11 Febru a ry 16 2001
o f
T h e
H i l l
Capitol Hill:
Digging up our
p a s t, s u sta i n i n g
for the f u t u re
A n t i q u e&
Con t e m p o r a ry
A n t i q u e&
Con t e m p o r a ry
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S a t u rday 10am-2pm
709 12th Stre e t , SE
on Capitol Hill
F ree off-street parking
Convenient to Eastern
Market Metro
202.547.3030
w w w. a n t i q u e l e a s i n g. c o m
709 12th Stre e t , S E
Wa s h i n g t o n , D C
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
S a t u rday 10am-2pm
709 12th Stre e t , SE
on Capitol Hill
F ree off-street parking
Convenient to Eastern
Market Metro
202.547.3030
w w w. a n t i q u e l e a s i n g. c o m
Get Your Home Ready
for the Spring Sunshine
Come Visit
our Huge
S h o w ro o m !
Over 20,000 square feet
of furn i t u re, carpets,
paintings, lamps and
a c c e s s o r i e s
Your Neighborhood Furniture Source for Leasing or Buying
“Spouses Who Sell Houses”
Tom & Alice Fa i s o n
A S S O C I A T E B R O K E R S , G R I
REMAX Capital Re a l to r s
For a comp l e te listing of homes
SOLD and FOR SALE
call 202.255.5554
or email
FA I S O N @ Re a l to r. c o m
Annual Post-Inventory
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Deep Discounts
S o f a s, L a m p s, Pa i n t i n g s,
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M a rch 17-26, 2 0 0 1
I am always available to
speak with, or meet with, any -
one that is interested in helping
us provide the best possible education
for our children.
RICHARD BROWN
Business Manager, Van Ness School
202-698-3818
To the Editor:
We were very surprised that the article,
Ladies Who (Serve) Lunch, and
Dinner, in your January 19th issue
failed to include a very important lady
who has served breakfast and lunch on
the Hill for over 25 years. Cynde
Foster is the bubbly owner of Jimmy T’s
at 501 E. Capitol St., SE. Cynde began
working with her father, Jimmy Tiches,
as a young girl and took over the
restaurant 15 years ago. A very interesting
note is that the interior of the
restaurant hasn’t changed in 30 years.
That’s why Jimmy T’s has been in various
movies over the past few years.
If you try it, you’ll love it! We do!
BALDWIN AND MADELINE TOM
Neil Rhodes, whose tale of woe is
detailed in this month’s Download
Section under “Little Shop of Hor rors,”
is asking for some neighborly help. If
you feel moved, after reading the arti -
cle and the following letter, he’d appr e -
ciate your picking up a pen on his
behalf:
Dear Neighbor:
In May of 2000 I purchased the historic
property at 503 11th Street, SE.
It is my intention to completely restore
this building prior to opening a business
restoring and selling antique toys
and furniture. I live in the neighborhood,
and am cur rently a sponsor of
the Capitol Hill Restoration Society and
a volunteer for the Friends of the Old
Naval Hospital.
Before I can
begin the restoration
of my build -
ing, I must abate
the severe water
damage that is
being caused by a
non-permitted and woefully substandar d
enclosure that is attached to the northfacing
exterior wall of my building. That
enclosure is in the exterior space
between my building and the In ’N Out
Convenience Store on the corner of
11th Street, SE and E Street, SE.
To that end, I am seeking support in
my efforts to have the District of
Columbia Government take appropriate
actions to remedy the situation. It continues
to be a long and arduous
process.
[Mr. Rhodes attached various violation
notices from the DCRA that the
owners of the In ‘N Out have ignored.]
If you agree with me that the owners
of the In ‘N Out convenience store
should not be allowed to avoid this condemnation,
please write to: Mr. Huber t
Johnson, DC Board for the
Condemnation of Unsanitary Buildings,
PO Box 37200, Washington, DC
20013-7200. Reference 1017 E St., SE
rear shed. Lot 814, Square 973. Board
Case No. 01-01.
If you write…please send me copies
of your letters because I am planning
to attend their hearing…I promise to
update you on any developments.
Thanks for your help.
Your neighbor,
NEIL RHODES
907 G Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Neil Rhodes believes the Condemnation
Board hearing has been scheduled for
February 28.
www.voiceofthehill.com 3
Vo i cem a i l
The Voice of the Hill is published and
distributed monthly to Capitol Hill
residence and business locations.
The focus is on the community and
includes contiguous neighborhoods
from Gallaudet University to the
Navy Yard and from the Capitol to
the Stadium Armory Complex.
Publication and distribution is the
third Friday of each month.
Advertising deadline is the first of
the month preceding publication.
Voice of the Hill
120 11th St., SE, Rear
Washington DC 20003
Editorial: 242 Kentucky Ave., SE
202-544-0703 Main office
202-544-2557 Editorial
202-547-5133 Fax
www.voiceofthehill.com
bruce@voiceofthehill.com
stephanie@voiceofthehill.com
adele@voiceofthehill.com
Staff
Stephanie Cavanaugh,
Editor
Bruce Robey
WebMaster
Adele Robey
Graphic Design and Production
Gene Miller, Church Editor
Larry Kaufer, Sports Editor
Patty Curran, Kids’ News Editor
Sarah Godfrey Intern
Phoenix Graphics, Inc.
T/A Voice of the Hill
and Stephanie Cavanaugh
Publishers
Community Action Group:
Distribution
Contributing Writers
Judith Capen
Brian Furness
Jim Myers
Kristen Hartke
Memberships
Printing & Graphic Communication
Association
Printing Industry of America
Capitol Hill Association of
Merchants and Professionals
Art Directors Club of Metropolitan
Washington
Barracks Row Business Alliance
Independent Free Papers of America
H Street Merchants Association
VOICE o f
T h e
H i l l
Doug Siglin
Duncan Spencer
Mary Vogel
To the Editor:
Thanks for publishing Robert Wright’s
innovative ideas for restructuring the
Eastern Market Metro Plaza [January
issue, Letters to the Editor]. Left as is,
this area is doomed to remain a neglected
zone of brick and trodden grass,
where only the homeless will care to
pass time. Robert’s plan provides a
viable alternative that accommodates
traffic...and the residents and pedestrians
of the area. What a concept!
What can we do to get the ball rolling
on this?
C. PLUME
To the Editor:
I saw the recent letter printed in the
“Voice” by Robert Wright concerning
the Eastern Market Metro Plaza. What
a great idea! He should be one of the
people working on transforming
Barracks Row. His idea would pull
everything together. Has anyone “offi -
cial” responded to his suggestions?
STEVE KENNEBECK
To the Editor:
The Van Ness Elementary School is
conducting a newspaper recycling
fundraiser, and we’d like to ask the
community to please deposit your used
newspapers in our dumpster!
Every time we fill the dumpster we
receive $40.00 from the recycling company.
Our goal is to us the money to
purchase musical instruments for our
students.
Van Ness is located at 5th and M
streets, SE adjacent to the Washington
Navy Yard. We have a Green/Red
dumpster located in our parking lot.
We would also appreciate any dona -
tions—they’re tax-deductible.
Trader Joe’s, Fresh Fields, The
Gap, Kramerbooks and
Afterwords, another Tex-Mex
restaurant. There’s plenty of talk.
How about some action?
Now on line at www.voiceofthehill.
com, in cooperation with CHAMPS,
the Capitol Hill Association of
Merchants and Professionals, and
the Barracks Row/MainStreet proj -
ect, a survey of the types of businesses
you think this community
needs—and a chance to comment
on what we’ve already got.
Results will be published in the
March 16 issue of the Voice of the
Hill.
The mess on 11th Street…see Download for the full story.
Note: The photos accompanying our January article on the Sewall-Belmont house and the
National Women’s Party were taken by Lena Lawrence. We apologize for our inadvertent
omission
4 www.voiceofthehill.com
dards of city hygiene but also to the
magnitude of Washington potholes.
Even so, and in spite of relative
improvement, by the late 1890s the
city did not bear close scrutiny. The
architectural community was especially
chagrined. They were planning
the 1900 National American
Institute of Architects Convention,
which was to meet in Washington.
Washington seemed particularly
grim to the architects, with its mis -
cellany of frequently dark Victorianera
buildings—including the
Smithsonian Castle, the adjacent
Centennial Building (now known to
us as the Arts and Industries
Ahundred years ago the
District of Columbia
was making plans to
celebrate the centennial
of the “removal of
the seat of government”
to Washington, and people
started looking around at what they
had for a city.
Things were certainly looking up
from a few decades before when residents
lamented foraging hogs in the
streets, hogs that sometimes even
ventured into house vestibules. One
appalled lady visitor reported seeing
a dead horse floating in a water-filled
pothole, testimony not only to stancity
in their minds.
Architects and planners of the day
thought the perfect city was the one
built of stucco for the World’s
Columbian Exposition of 1893 in
Chicago. The Exposition was a huge
success and heralded the end of late
Victorian-age aesthetics. The
Columbian Exposition was designed
in academic classicism, on formal
axial lines, and was white, thus
acquiring the label, “The White
City.”
Perhaps the image of the shimmering
White City, all new, all perfectly
in accord with the rules of
classical design, was particularly
appealing to a generation that had
grown up with galloping industrialization
fueled by wood and coal,
whose transport had a distressing
tendency to leave manure in the
streets, and who were only lately
becoming accustomed to sewer systems
that carried waste away from
their immediate vicinity.
At any rate, there we were. A fairly
grubby city, most of which had been
built during the hegemony of architectural
styles that preferred dark
materials over light, and that subscribed
enthusiastically to the
notion that if more was better, lots
more was much better when it came
to ornament and the mixing of
styles.
The movers and shakers of physical
design, knowing their professional
colleagues were coming to town,
felt much the same need to spruce
things up that we all do when
expecting company. To top it off,
they had an idea of what a city for
the new century should look like.
Thus, everything was in place for
the creation in 1901 of the Senate
Park Commission, formed by
Senator James McMillan and typically
referred to as the McMillan
Commission. It was composed of the
finest designers of the time, most of
whom had been involved with
Chicago’s White City. They were
charged, loosely, with making plans
to fix up the city, site public buildings,
plan parks.
The Park Commission included
Daniel Burnham, who had been the
director of the Chicago Exposition;
Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., son and
successor of the designer of the
grounds of the Exposition; Augustus
Saint-Gaudens, and Charles McKim,
also alumni of Chicago.
They produced a plan in 1902 that
attempted to tidy up some of the
mess made of the L’Enfant plan in a
hundred years and extend L’Enfant’s
design ideas out into the rest of the
District landscape.
Not surprisingly, the White City
came to Washington.
So here we are today, living in a
city whose basic big idea was the
product of a prima donna individ-
Building) and blocks of red brick row
houses. If buildings weren’t dark
they were heavy, like the Post Office
on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Besides dark buildings, Washington
also had a train station on grade
on the Mall in front of the Capitol—
trains then were smoke-spewing
coal-fired babies, not the tidy electr ified
ones we have now—and the
fetid Washington Canal, formerly
Tiber Creek, running down today’s
Constitution Avenue.
Perhaps Washington wouldn’t
have seemed so dreary if the designers
of the last decade of the nineteenth
century hadn’t had an ideal
M a ke No
Little Plans
BY JUDI TH CAPEN
for they have no power to
stir men’s [sic] minds
—DANIEL BURNHAM
www.voiceofthehill.com 5
ual, Pierre Charles L’Enfant (who
gave us those wonderful intersections
of diagonal and orthogonal
streets, the bane of the tourist’s existence);
and whose dominant physical
appearance, classicism, was largely
a product of the McMillan
Commission (which also created
some of our most attractive conveniences
such as Union Station, Rock
Creek Park, and the George
Washington Parkway).
Only time will tell if there will be a
comparable breakthrough for the
city for the 21st century. I could suggest
one: banning all internal com -
bustion engines within the limits of
the original L’Enfant plan, allowing
only electric powered vehicles the
size of golf carts. There: the parking
problem solved! Two golf carts in
each parking space. Residents of the
old L’Enfant plan area could keep
their internal combustion cars, for
trips to Ikea, in conveniently located
parking around the edges…
What I do see in our city is the
progression from a single man with
an idea, L’Enfant in 1791, to a
Commission of the top designers of
their time, all of a mind in 1902, to
the alphabet soup of the second half
of the twentieth century: NCPPC,
M-NCPPC, NCPC, NCRPC, COG,
PADC, CFA, etc. etc.
Unbuilt Washington
To me, the planning and design proposals
for the city that weren’t
implemented over the last two hundred
years are often as interesting as
the implemented ones.
Unbuilt Washington began even
before visionary and irascible Pierre
L’Enfant began scheming.
Thomas Jefferson sought to preempt
L’Enfant with his own plan for
the new capital city. Jefferson’s ideas
were singularly uninspired: a modest
little grid along the northern
edge of the Tiber Creek that would
have extended about from the
Capitol Building at around today’s
8th Street, NW, to the President’s
house near today’s 23rd Street, NW.
Unbuilt, or unrealized, ideas continued
with L’Enfant. In 1790 people
tended to work more with natural
features like streams, however
inconveniently located, than we do
now.
L’Enfant attempted to integrate a
substantial creek, the Tiber, into his
city design as a canal and a great cascade
down the front of Jenkins Hill,
“a pedestal waiting for a monument…”
It was a nice idea, a little on
the scale of Versailles near where
L’Enfant had grown up. But the
Tiber didn’t really have much fall
and too soon became a reeking open
sewer, insufficiently flushed by the
tidal Potomac. We have an aboveground
remnant of the Tiber at 17th
and Constitution in the form of a little
lock keeper’s house.
L’Enfant also underestimated the
effect of tobacco culture on the
Eastern Branch of the Potomac.
He thought the ceremonial
entrance to the city would be where
East Capitol Street meets the
Anacostia River, where RFK Stadium
stands today, a water gate to the city.
This made sense at a time when
most of the new nation’s development
and population were on the
water, and roads varied from dismal
to non-existent.
With the city’s main entrance
there on the Anacostia, East Capitol
Street, proposed as an astonishing
130 to 160 foot wide boulevard lined
with embassies and great houses,
would provide the processional
route to the front of the Capitol
Building.
But the Anacostia silted up from
upstream tobacco fields, the thriving
port of Bladensburg disappeared,
and the new nation began building
roads.
Had things been different, imagine,
instead of a stadium, a great triumphal
arch, and East Capitol Street
a tree-lined boulevard with a central
carriageway separating two broad
pedestrian promenades.
L’Enfant also imagined the city
center, as opposed to the governmental
center, would be south of the
capitol building, another development
that failed to materialize.
He underestimated the powerful
force exerted by the already extant
Georgetown, connected to the US
Capitol Building by Pennsylvania
Avenue. The Capitol Building barely
held down its end of the axis—with
the center of gravity of the new city,
such as it was, at the area around the
White House and fashionable
Lafayette Park.
Georgetown was the two hundredpound
weight that kept the whole
thing tilted in its direction. This
anticipated a growth pattern for the
city that has persisted ever since: to
the north and west. This thrust of
development was reinforced in the
second half of the nineteenth centu -
ry as the city developed its water system,
which tended to provide more
reliable water to the western parts of
the city, which were closer to the
dams and reservoirs.
Thus, Capitol Hill missed out on
‘hot’ several times. However, the silver
lining to the real estate reality is
that that backwaters tend to remain
the most physically intact.
The astonishingly intact Capitol
Hill we live in today is a result of our
long history of not being the cool
place to live or the hot development
location. K Street, even as late as
1915, was a wide tree-lined street of
grand houses, not the soulless cor ridor
of office buildings it is today.
Another of my favorite unbuilt
Washingtons is the winning scheme
for the Washington Monument.
Unlike the simple obelisk we all
know so well, the plan proposed by
Robert Mills in 1833 was dominated
by a colonnade at its base. The shaft
of the obelisk was cluttered up with
plaques, statuary, and inscriptions.
Depending on how you look at it,
the current monument is really a
monument to penury, not enough
money to do it right; or it is a blessedly
clean version of a proposed
mishmash.
The McMillan Commission had a
go at the Washington Monument,
too. They didn’t like the way the
monument was just perched on its
rise. They proposed to slice off par t
of the little hill west of the monument,
converting it to a g rand stair
and adding a couple of reflecting
pools.
Then there was the other grand
plan for the Lincoln Memorial.
John Russell Pope, who gave us
some of my favorite twentieth century
classical buildings (the Archives
and the West Wing of the National
Gallery of Art) was commissioned to
design a Lincoln Memorial on 16th
Street at Meridian Hill, part of Mary
Henderson’s scheme to make Sixteenth
Street into the Avenue of the
Presidents and an embassy row.
Both ideas unrealized—although
one of the city ’s great parks, Meridian
Hill Park, did finally crown the
heights of 16th Street.
However you feel about unbuilt
Washington, relief or regret, we can
all be grateful that highway-
Washington, a city crisscrossed with
multi-lane freeways to facilitate the
commuters’ daily escape from the
city, stayed unbuilt.
Architect Judith Capen, who writes the
Voice of the Hill’s Ask Judith column,
is a principal in the award-winning
firm, architrave p.c. architects. Capen’s
advice column will return next month.
Washington Monument…the sketch and the reality.
6 www.voiceofthehill.com
Hospital, declared one of the ten
most endangered landmarks in the
District of Columbia.
We’re being asked to support a
“Millennium Gateway,” a major classically
inspired monument to be
built with private money at Barney
Circle, but nobody is promoting
community-sensitive development
around the Potomac Avenue Metro
stop.
The buildings in the 1200 block
continue to molder behind a board
fence, resistant to development, if
not to the weather and deterioration.
The eclectic and largely unappetizing
mix of carryouts and liquor
First of all, Pennsylvania Avenue is
our main commercial boulevard.
Although some businesses are or iented
to those who work (but don’t
necessarily live) on Capitol Hill—
think about all the sandwich shops
in the 200 block—most are neighborhood-
oriented.
Architecturally, the corridor looks
like Capitol Hill:low-rise and traditional
Victorian, not unlike the
downtown shopping districts characteristic
of small towns all over the
United States.
Pennsylvania Avenue’s shops also
have a significant impact on the
quality of life in our residential
neighborhoods—being close to
shops and commercial bustle is an
important part of life in urban areas.
Our Pennsylvania Avenue is also
one of the ceremonial gateways to
the Capitol; a role defined in the
L’Enfant Plan.
Although L’Enfant’s grand vista
was interrupted by the Library of
Congress, the Capitol dome looming
over the Avenue reminds us of its
national and international importance.
Its name alone has magic. The
City Council all but swooned over
the symbolism of the Pennsylvania
Avenue axis linking the President’s
House and City Hall (that is, the
Wilson Building) on Pennsylvania
Ave., NW and The Capitol with a
possible Mayor’s House on
Pennsylvania Ave., SE.
A Pennsylvania Avenue address is
irresistible to others as well, from the
political services consultancies and
national non-profits in the western
reaches, to the Boys Town’s project
for a facility for troubled teenagers at
Potomac Ave. (Why else would Boys
Town pay $8.2 million for a site they
could have had for much, much less
elsewhere?)
The Avenue is also a major transportation
corridor for the city of
Washington, and for the region.
Tens of thousands of cars use it
each day to get from Anacostia and
the Maryland suburbs to The
Capitol, a major employment center,
and to downtown Washington.
There are also three Metro stops in
close proximity, and a half dozen or
so bus routes—to say nothing of the
linkages along the 8th St. nor thsouth
corridor.
Who’s in Charge?
Pennsylvania Avenue’s legal status is
especially complicated.
The National Park Service controls
the median strip/esplanade, and is
responsible for the plantings and
maintenance, and controls as well
the Anacostia River shoreline.
Meanwhile, the District government
has jurisdiction over Barney
Circle and the proposed Millennium
Gate, and also handles lighting,
Planning a Capital
G a t e w a y :
Pe n n s ylva n i a
A ve n u e
BY BRIAN FURNESS
Sta r b u cks to replace Sherri l l ’s. The
Mayor’s Residence, or maybe a muse -
um, instead of the decrepit Old Naval
Hospital. Boys Town to replace the
c a rwa s h / p a rking lot. More Fra g e r’s
Hardware instead of a night club. A
Millennium Gate Monument at
Barney Circle.
These are some of the changes
that could or will be defining
Pennsylvania Avenue from The
Capitol to Barney Circle on the edge
of the Anacostia–Capitol Hill’s main
street and major thoroughfare.
Issues abound. For each development
that’s been done sensitively
and within a historic context, we
have examples of neglect and abuse.
The sensitive adaptation of the
Penn Theater, now the Penn Medical
Building, is offset by the continued
deterioration of the Old Naval
stores in the blocks between 14th
Street and Barney Circle provide little
incentive for either residential or
commercial investment.
Our hopes, our frustrations, and
our fears center around specific
issues, projects or initiatives, in part
because our vision for Pennsylvania
Avenue is cloudy...unfocused and
carried out in a vacuum, with little
sense of a larger framework that
would give us some perspective or
direction.
Pennsylvania Avenue is
Many Things
It’s not surprising that the vision of
Pennsylvania Avenue is conflicted
and confused—the Avenue is many
things.
www.voiceofthehill.com 7
streetscaping and road maintenance.
The Architect of the Capitol has
much to say formally about what
happens at the western end within
the Capitol Interest Zone, and something
to say informally about what
happens elsewhere.
The National Capitol Planning
Commission has suggested earmarking
several sites on Pennsylvania
Avenue for future monuments.
The western end is within the
Capitol Hill Historic District, and
thus subject to additional controls...
and protection.
Along its entire length, business
zones abut residential areas, creating
tensions about parking, traffic, noise
and litter.
The upshot is that nobody is
really in charge.
The Comprehensive
Plan—A Hollow
Framework?
To some extent, years of
work by community activists
and city planning officials
have created a framework for
looking at Pennsylvania
Avenue.
One objective of the Ward
6 Comprehensive Plan,
approved in 1999, is to
“Protect the historic character
of the Pennsylvania Ave, SE corridor
and enhance the image and
use of the avenue as a ceremonial
gateway to the U.S. Capitol through
special streetscape controls and
design standards.” (1723.1(d))
The Ward 6 Comprehensive Plan
returns again and again to Pennsylvania
Avenue in the sections discussing
economic development,
transportation, urban design, preservation
and historic features and land
use.
Some elements of the Plan call for
quite specific policies, such as the
promotion of a variety of retail uses,
and for the protection and preservation
of the “historic features, scale,
and texture of Pennsylvania Avenue
and adjacent commercial areas—
prohibit unpermitted alterations,
demolitions and incompatible new
construction.” (1727.1(f))
But above all, the Plan calls for
more planning with a focus on the
Avenue.
Recommendations include the
creation of a Special Treatment Area
to consider development around the
Potomac Avenue Metro Station.
There’s also call for a Comprehensive
Transportation Plan for the
Pennsylvania Avenue corridor, and
for the preparation of a Streetscape
Plan to be done in conjunction wit h
the National Park Service.
Despite the Ward 6 Plan’s emphasis
on planning and the eminent
common sense of its recommendations,
little has been done.
The Office of Planning has
ignored repeated pleas to undertake
the work mandated in the Plan.
Its Anacostia Riverfront Initiative,
which to date has been a fir st rate
model for community input into
planning, has not been replicated for
Pennsylvania Avenue.
The Architect of the Capitol has
listened politely to
suggestions
that he
support
efforts
that
would further
dignify and protect
the Capitol precincts that are
his primary concerns, but has not
put his very considerable weight
behind additional measures.
The latest effort, Mayor Williams’
Neighborhood Cluster Plan, covers a
broad swath of neighborhoods and
issues encompassing Pennsylvania
Avenue, but does not (at least yet ...
the effort is just getting underway)
acknowledge that the protection and
development of the Avenue is the
key to the stabilization and revitalization
of the residential and com -
mercial neighborhoods within the
cluster.
Other ideas, such as the establishment
of a Pennsylvania Avenue
(Southeast) Development
Corporation, with a mandate and
resources to do for Pennsylvania
Avenue Southeast what the original
PADC did for Pennsylvania Avenue
Northwest—with due recognition of
the differences between the neighborhoods
—has fallen on deaf ears.
Cases in Point: Boys Town
and the Millennium Gate
The Boys Town project illustrates the
problems. The Comprehensive Plan,
which favors the creation of neighborhood-
oriented retail business,
multi-family residential and appropriately-
scaled office uses, was never
applied or implemented.
Because the existing
zoning is
permissive
regarding
social
service
delivery facilities,
there was no official
opportunity for reviewing a
development that the Office of
Planning, city economic development
officials, and even the Mayor
regard—privately—as a disaster or, at
best, a missed opportunity to promote
economic development and
stabilization of a neighborhood desperately
ready to take advantage of
the buoyant economy.
Opponents, including the one
thousand or so residents that signed
a petition opposing Boys Towns’
plans, are reduced to trying to shame
the Omaha-based non-profit into
abandoning its proposal for a facility
for troubled teens.
Rodney M. Cook’s idea for a
“Millennium Gate” monument—a
classically inspired triumphal arch
and colonnade—at Barney Circle is
also being considered in a planning
vacuum. Mr. Cook is patiently making
the rounds, overcoming problems
and garnering support, if not
promoting much critical thinking
about the design or concept.
Cook claims that his monument
would promote healthy economic
development in the Barney Circle
area; he may be correct, but wouldn’t
a plan help ensure that it doesn’t just
lead to a proliferation of franchised
fast food outlets?
And wouldn’t it be beneficial if
some additional thought was given
to the theme? Personally, commemorating
the Millennium leaves me
cold...I did what I expect most
Americans did: hoped that my computer
wouldn’t die.
But what if Mr. Cook’s millennium
vision could be combined, as my
friend Nancy Metzger suggests, with
a memorial to John Philip Sousa,
who was born, raised and ascended
to national prominence on
Capitol Hill? He’s also buried in
adjacent Congressional
Cemetery.
Wouldn’t it be exciting and
stirring to have summer band
concerts featuring Sousa’s
music...what about an annual
Sousa festival? Now that
would bring out the neighbors
and bring in the crowds!
Where Do We Go from
Here?
Some efforts, consistent with
the Ward 6 Plan, are underway.
The Capitol Hill Association of
Merchants and Professionals
(CHAMPS) and the Capitol Hill
Restoration Society recently petitioned
the Zoning Commissioner to
permit more intensive business uses
in the commercially-zoned areas of
Pennsylvania Avenue in the Capitol
Hill Historic District.
Both organizations are looking at
ways to do the same east of 13th
Street, coupled with design controls
that would help ensure a look and
feel consistent with the character of
the Avenue and surrounding neighborhoods.
The Capitol Hill Business
Improvement District (BID) will
extend from the Capitol to Barney
Circle.
Planning, it seems to me, has to be
the touchstone. And the development
of a planning process that provides
for real community participation,
not only to set goals and objectives
but in the decisions regarding
key projects.
And perhaps we need the city to
exercise its powers to put a moratorium
on significant development
while we work out a plan…a plan
that protects and nourishes neighborhoods
while setting out coherent
and enforceable guidelines for economic
and residential development.
Brian Furness is the P resident of the
Capitol Hill Restoration Society. The
views above are his own, and not neces -
sarily those of the CHRS.
8 www.voiceofthehill.com
Area) subgroups, like PSA 109 East or
PSA 112 East, focusing on our specific
problems that include open-air
drug markets, abandoned properties,
drug-plagued apartment buildings
and homicides, many of which may
never be solved.
Whether or not other people’s version
of Capitol Hill includes us, the
neighborhoods east of the Safeway
parking lot, our demographics are
different, too. Our economic indicators
are generally lower; and our old
houses are more modest.
We’re a black-majority community,
too. Across the street from my
house is Payne Elementary School,
the centerpiece of my neighborhood.
At Payne, the student body is
100% black.
I mention the matter of race,
because differences in perspective
involving race can arise on Capitol
Hill, just as they do in the rest of the
country. For example, in nationwide
polls, black Americans tend to see a
racial divide, while white Americans,
by a similar margin, do not. The
country is divided over whether the
country is divided, and so it seems is
Capitol Hill. The further east you go,
the more you hear that Capitol Hill
to the west is a strange, different
place; the farther west you go, the
more you hear that the Hill is just
I hear these questions often raised,
especially when “planning” is the
subject.
It appears that some Hill residents
worry that a wave of Starbucks will
engulf them, or that some resident
won’t be able to afford a café latte
world. But I also look at these questions
from the perspective of living
on the eastern fringes of Capitol Hill
(if these fringes are, indeed, part of
the Hill).
We don’t see many Starbucks on
our horizon. Our best site for a
sidewalk café is occupied by an
entrenched liquor store that specializes
in vodka in pints.
For such reasons, many of us who
live east of 14th Street sense we
reside in a different world. Our issues
are different from the streets to the
west, and so are our problems.
Sometimes when we talk about the
dilemmas we face, people look at us
strangely and say, “That can’t be
Capitol Hill, can it?” Or they specifically
proclaim, “That’s not the
Capitol Hill WE know.”
No, it’s not the Capitol Hill they
know; we agree on that.
In recent years, some of us decided
that if we don’t live on the Capitol
Hill others know, why pretend we’re
talking about the same place? We’ve
formed our own PSA (Police Service
more precise to say that “newcomers”
—people who haven’t lived here
all their lives—are taking over.
Still, the cry that whites were taking
over was heard when neighbors
successfully protested the beer-wine
licenses of three corner stores last
year. But also note that most of the
witnesses who testified about the
problems around the stores were
black.
And other demographic realities
in eastern neighborhoods may not
be what people assume when they
bring up themes like “gentrifica -
tion.” Many houses on my block
have been fixed up—even gutted—so
this street might seem a case of
whites taking over. But some of the
newcomers are black.
A History of Shifting
Demographics
Sam Smith’s 1974 book Captive
Capital describes other complex—
and often forgotten—demographic
shifts: “Although what was happening
on the Hill [in the 1960s and
early ’70s] was often described as a
white return to the inner city, what
actually happened was far more
complicated. For example, between
1960 and 1965, the two census tracts
closest to the Capitol gained 1,100
whites and lost 1,100 blacks, while
four other census tracts, still on
Capitol Hill but further away, lost
1,400 whites and gained 300 blacks.”
By 1970, says Smith, whites were
in the majority in the western sectors
of Capitol Hill. And blacks were
increasingly the majority in the eastern
sectors, with a net decrease in
the number of whites between the
Capitol and the Anacostia River.
At the same time, the core enclave
of the allegedly “real” Capitol Hill,
the community that became so
much whiter in the 1950s and ’60s,
was smaller than now and closer to
the Capitol. For the true believers of
the day, Capitol Hill only extended
east for a few blocks, a view reflected
one big happy family.
And these patterns follow demographics:
Capitol Hill gets whiter as
you go west, blacker as you go east;
and it can be an easily visible differ -
ence.
Years ago, I noted a quiet color
line at about 13th Street. West of
13th Street, you saw more white people;
east of 13th, you saw more black
people. Now that line is edging eas tward,
but neighborhood life is still
different on one or other side.
Take the difference of perspective
that showed up last year in reactions
to an article I wrote in Atlantic
Monthly, “Notes on the Murder of 30
of My Neighbors.” In fact, the article
could have said 31 neighbors;
another victim died before the magazine
hit the streets.
My neighbors easily recognized
the reality I described, yet residents
elsewhere on the Hill questioned it.
Some said the violence was a longago
tale from the 1980s; others said
the article was part of a long-standing
journalistic plot to make Capitol
Hill look bad.
A writer named Ruth Franklin
wrote a “Capitol Hill Diarist” column
for The New Republic, saying
that she lived less than three blocks
from me and had never encountered
anything like what I described.
“Although Capitol Hill’s reputation
for crime and mayhem is welldeserved,”
she wrote, “the neighborhood
is, at the same time, one of the
quietest, most civilized places I’ve
ever lived.”
Talk about two worlds. Yet some
will also surely insist there is no
color line, either; some black families
live west of 13th Street, and more
whites seem to be moving east of
13th Street.
And that’s true. My block on C
street was 100% black in the 1950s
and ’60s; the first white resident
bought a house in 1977. Now the
block is 50% white, and there’s
grumbling occasionally that whites
are “taking over,” though it would be
A C A P I TO L E A S T MANI F E S T O
The f u t u r e for one part of
the Hill should sta rt with a
n ew name
BY J IM MYERS
Here a re some ch a l l e n g i n g
qu e stions for the future: Wi l l
C a p i tol Hill surv i ve as a
“ d i ve rse” community? Wi l l
th e re be “affo rdable” housing?
Or will the Hill be “gent
rified” all the way from the Capitol to
the Anacostia River? And what about th e
divide that, some claim, splits the Hill
i n to east and we st? Will that idea pers i st ?
www.voiceofthehill.com 9
in naming of the swimming pool
behind Eastern Market. Note that it’s
called “The Capitol East Pool.”
Apparently, some of the “real”
Capitol Hill people didn’t want the
pool there.
Also, in the early 1960s, a stillinfluential
organization was the
Capitol Hill Southeast Citizens
Association; it had a “caucasians
only” clause in its bylaws that eventually
caused some activists to form
other groups that were integrated.
A Capitol East Community
Organization briefly flourished in
the ’60s, with its headquarters at
15th and East Capitol Streets. It even
had a credit union, I hear. But the
perimeters of the other Capitol Hill
were spreading outward as real estate
agents aggressively marketed homes,
gobbling up territory that a Capitol
East movement might otherwise
have claimed.
“As [real estate] prices rose,”
writes Smith, “new arrivals had to be
increasingly affluent; and it became
harder and harder for more young,
not-too-affluent families to move in.
… Finally, the character of the
incoming white migration was constantly
shifting, changing from its
early emphasis on young families to
increasing numbers of couples with
grown children or without children
and single persons including retirement
restorationists.”
Some of this still seems to be happening.
Look at what’s happened on
my block east of 14th Street. Suddenly,
we have only two children under
age 18.
Nearby are reflections of other
demographic shifts. Fifteenth Street,
remembered as mostly a “white”
street in the 1950s, is now black
majority.
Further to the east, the F ranklin
Investment Co. owned the entire
1700 block of Bay Street until 1971,
renting the homes to white workingclass
families. But when Franklin
sold out, the block immediately
became overwhelmingly black,
home to black families displaced by
urban renewal.
So, 50 years ago, Capitol Hill started
off with residential seg regation
akin to other Southern cities, patterns
that changed block by block,
with blacks and whites often living
down the street or just around the
corner from each other. But after
integration became law, Capitol Hill
took on more of the characteristics
of segregated Northern cities, where
most blacks live in one area and
most whites live in another.
For my specific neighborhood,
open housing brought another
change: Many black families moved
to Prince George’s County, leaving
narrow row houses behind. Today,
cars double park outside our churches
on Sunday. Surely, if the families
still lived here, they would walk to
church.
Some of my older black neighbors
say that a portion of the community’s
closeness left for the suburbs, as
well. In particular, the neighborhood
lost people who were doing
well, a form of de-gentrification.
And a few of my neighbors insist
that the very integration that
opened doors elsewhere marked the
end of the community they knew.
Still, today I have black neighbors
who know the family trees—all the
nieces, nephews and cousins—of
various families with connections to
the neighborhood. Few newcomers
are that well hooked up. It almost
seems that newcomers tend to live in
their own world that’s off somewhere
else.
As a result, you don’t see white
faces at the annual “For Old Times
Sake” neighborhood picnic at Fort
Dupont Park in July; it’s like a
reunion for people who grew up in
the neighborhood.
Similarly relative newcomers tend
to be over-represented in at community
events like PSA meetings.
Maybe, I’d prefer to see more of
the same faces at the picnic and the
PSA meetings.
Now I’m hearing that Capitol Hill
needs more “diversity” and more
“affordable” housing, and I begin to
wonder: Isn’t that something my
neighborhood already has?
This call for more “diversity” has
showed up at meetings on Mayor
Williams’s neighborhood planning
initiative—the need for “diversity’ is
cited in a summary of Capitol Hill
“citizen input” from at the 1999
“Neighborhood Action Summit:”
“Residents noted the need to
increase and champion the diversity
of Capitol Hill [and to] encourage
persons of different ethnicity, age
and sexual preference to live and
interact in this community.”
And the document continues:
“Residents also noted the need to
decrease the distrust and disconnect
between residents of Capital Hill
[sic] and Lincoln Park.”
Initially, I was puzzled. Is ther e
some terrible gulf between Capitol
Hill and Lincoln Park? I hadn’t
noticed it. Instead, I suspect that
“the distrust and disconnect” is a reference
to us—the neighborhoods
further to the East. It ’s just that
those making the reference don’t
know what to call us—what name to
use.
Call Us Capitol East
Our problem seems to be that
nobody outside our neighborhood
seems to know who we are or what
we’re about.
The dilemma was apparent at a
January 30 planning session for the
“Capitol Hill/Pennsylvania Avenue”
community. The city’s planning
agency rolled out an impressive
map: On the left side, the west, was
an area labeled “Capitol Hill.” In the
center was an area labeled “Lincoln
Park.” And on the right side, the
east, was a large area with no label at
all.
But that no-name place is where
we live.
This suggests that to get recognition
of our very existence, we need
to call ourselves something. If you
have a name, people can relate to
you; if you have no name, they’ll
regularly confuse you with somebody
else.
To start the discussion, I’ll nomi -
nate Capitol East. It has a noble his -
tory; it describes an area that is different
from “Lincoln Park” or
“Capitol Hill.” Some people might
even start using it.
Capitol East can claim the very
qualities that residents of “Capitol
Hill” and “Lincoln Park” say they
want. We’ve got “diversity,” lots of
diversity. And for the time being,
we’ve got “affordable” housing, too.
How long the latter will last we don’t
know.
Each day brings news of soaring
prices. But possibly there is a built-in
cap on home prices in Capitol East.
Our housing stock remains modest,
working class, and we can’t change
that. Our parlors still lack elbowroom;
some of our houses are
absurdly small, no matter how
grandly we love them.
This seems good: It is hard to puff
yourself up too much in surroundings
of utilitarian simplicity, and if I
search far enough in history, I find
my own house originally came sans
indoor plumbing—with a privy out
back. That detail seems another fine
barrier against pretense.
Maybe home prices will fly higher,
but I dream that people will choose
Capitol East as a place to live and
enjoy as much as for an investment.
And another point: Let’s try not to
let Capitol East—or whatever it’s
called—be seen as a place to dump
the results from stirrings of someone
else’s social conscience.
If there’s not enough diversity or
affordable housing on your block, do
something about it on your block. If
you think the society needs mor e
social agencies, halfway houses—or
whatever—start thinking about putting
them closer to where you live.
In Capitol East, we’re tired of fending
off other people’s ideas about
what we need or don’t need. Besides,
we’ve got some living to do.
Writer Jim Myers’ most recent book is
Afraid of the Dark: What Whites and
Blacks Need to Know About Each
Other. Last fall, he became technical
consultant to the CBS-TV drama, “The
District.”
In Capitol East, we’re tired of
fending off other people’s ideas
about what we need or don’t
need. Besides, we’ve got some
living to do.
10 www.voiceofthehill.com
a process began that has produced a
model of public housing unique in
Washington, and perhaps in the
nation—a new mixed-income village,
architecturally compatible with
the surrounding community, where
there had been a wasteland.
No, it was worse than a wasteland,
it was a hideous compound of 1940’s
institutional brick hovels that fairly
screamed “we are the downtrodden
of the city.”
It was in the fall of 1991 that the
Ellen Wilson Community
Development Corporation organized.
They planned to replace 134
units of run down housing on the
north side of the Freeway between
6th and 7th Streets with 154 brand
new townhouses—most of the units
would be priced for low and moderate-
income tenants, and the rest
would be sold at market rate.
The CDC later chose Telesis
Corporation as developer, and the
Corcoran Jennison Company as the
developer/builder.
Many members of the original
CDC are still active on the Board of
Directors: Ed Batal, Loraine Bennet,
Sallie Dancy, James Jennings, David
Perry, Brenda Sanchez, Frank Reed,
Dick Wolf, Frances Taylor, Jack King
and Dick Wolf. They’ve now been
joined by a nine member residential
Board, headed by Julius Terrell.
Between them they run what is
essentially a cooperative.
The townhouses for low and moderate-
income tenants were completed
just about two years ago, and are
completely filled. Now Ellen Wilson,
or Townhouses on Capitol Hill as it
is known today, is about to undergo
its next stage: the influx of wealthier
people as “market rate” houses are
built and sold.
This spring, construction will start
on 13 new houses, most of which
will face 6th Street, SE. Burt Mason
of Telesis says, “the buildings are
designed, and the permits are issued.
We are scheduled to start in April.”
When they and a community center
The Ellen Wi l s o n
P roject Goes Upscale
Phase II Begins on the Hill’s Gre a t
Social Experi m e n t
BY DUNCAN SPENCER Over nine years ago
www.voiceofthehill.com 11
Now some of the
same voices that
were loud in
objection are
wondering when
the project will
be completed.
Unless the current
Hill real
estate boom goes
completely flat,
the “market rate”
houses (originally
20, but now
scaled back to
13) will sell for
big prices, and
will be offered
through Pardoe
Realty’s Kitty
Kaupp and Avie
Donovan.
Prices, Kaupp
says, are uncertain,
but will be
“in the low
$300,000s to the
high $400,000s.”
The design and
quality of construction
(except for some interior
finishes) will be similar to existing
models. The styles will be varied,
some porch front, some Queen
Anne, and some turreted Victorians.
All have also been designed by architect
Amy Weinstein.
Numerous possible buyers have
already contacted the realtors, “But
up until this point, we haven’t taken
any names,” says Donovan. “We’re
just not far enough along in the
development of the project for it to
be realistic.”
Also to be built is a community
center, which will sit on the corner
now occupied by a trailer at 6th and
I Streets SE. The Community Center
is to be designed by architect Suman
Sorg, best known for her design of
the Phillips School in Georgetown,
who is also the odds-on favorite for
another local public housing
redesign—Kentucky Courts.
The Community Center will
include offices for the management
—but it notably will not
include any sports facilities or “activities”
areas for young people.
What’s it like living in the new
Ellen Wilson? Ask Lloyd Williams,
who’s lived at 602 I Street since
October 1999: “The problems we
have are basically the startup problems,”
he says, “everything is brand
new.”
Williams reports that the chief
neighborhood concern has been
that the city has failed to “dedicate”
the new east-west street (I street) that
was built into the community. As a
result, there are no meters or parking
regulations, and there is a free-for all
between residents and commuters
vying for free parking at curbside.
Other problems, Williams says, are
common on the Hill: “We’re having
trouble with the city picking up the
trash.” But, he continues, “I really
like the place. It was a wonderful
idea and it is even more wonderful
to live in it.”
Williams is a member of the
Townhouses of Capitol Hill residential
board and is a former Advisory
Neighborhood Commissioner from
Ward 4. He is a DC Public School
employee at the School Without
Walls.
Will the honeymoon continue?
Unspoken strains, and unanswered
questions, do exist. What, for
instance, is to happen if a resident
within one of the three income
“bands” (which determine how
much rent is paid and if that rent is
subsidized), were to earn much
more, or much less money?
“That is an open question,”
Williams says, noting that income,
plus other qualifications for residents,
come under regular review.
Duncan Spencer is a regular columnist
for the Voice of the Hill and The Hill
newspapers
project, “Ellen Wilson is unique. It
may not be repeatable.”
The uniqueness of the project is
not its design or the details, which
are the hallmark of the work of
architect Amy Weinstein, but it’s
location. That, Gilmore says, was the
hardest nut to crack, winning
acceptance from an increasingly
white and gentrified Capitol Hill
neighborhood for what is still essentially
a public housing project.
Also unique is its cost, which will
be argued about for years; suffice it
to say that it was enormously expensive
per unit, far higher in cost than
any other public housing ever built
in the city.
But once it was built, objections
dissolved. The design and the quality
of construction convinced even
the closest neighbors that the new
neighborhood was better than what
the antis had settled on—a park.
are finished, the complex will be
complete, and city planners and
sociologists will see if the exper iment
has indeed worked.
The Ellen Wilson of today is a
community where three income levels
of residents live under strict rules
(for example, a two bedroom unit
may not have four occupants) and in
apparent harmony—in spite of one
early study which came to a most
interesting conclusion: that if the
middle class, both white and black,
were uncomfortable living next door
to the poor, the poor didn’t much
like the middle class either.
In its location and in its feel, the
new community is positively luxurious,
so much so that newcomers to
town ask brokers anxiously whether
anything is available there. Says
David Gilmore, the court appointed
receiver of the D.C. Housing
Authority who backed the Wilson
200 C Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
phone: 202-543-6000
fax: 202-547-2608
• Closest hotel to the US Capitol Building
• 152 newly renovated suites
• Capitol Hill neighborhood rates available
• Short and long term lease rates available
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facilities of a prestigious private club
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12 www.voiceofthehill.com
Digging Up
THE DIRT
ON CAPITOL HILL
been any significant Federal work
done on the Hill since the passage of
the act, so there hasn’t been much
archaeological assessment done.
And private developers really aren’t
obligated to do any at all.”
What is it that makes Capitol Hill
a good area for archaeological investigations?
Says Sonderman: “People looked
for three things when they decided
where to live: water, food, and dry
ground. The area around the Hill
provides all three.”
Hill archaeology, it seems, divides
into two general segments: pre-historic
and historic.
The pre-historic part deals with
Native American artifacts and settlements.
The oldest Native American
artifacts in the area are stone points
found on the eastern side of the
Anacostia that date back 10,000
years or so. As we move towards the
present, the evidence of activity
increases.
There was a prehistoric Indian settlement
right on Capitol Hill: a vil -
lage at the site of Car roll Place, just
north of Garfield Park between 1st
and 2nd Sts., SE.
BY GENE C. MIL LER
“DINOSAUR BONES?!” says Bob
Sonderman, with not quite mock
horror in his voice.
Bob’s the senior staff archaeologist
for the National Park Service’s
National Capital Region. He’ll be the
guest speaker on Wednesday, March
7, at the Preservation Café of the
Capitol Hill Restoration Society,
when he’ll talk about archaeology in
the District of Columbia—with a
special emphasis on Capitol Hill.
“If you find bones, call a paleontologist,”
he continues, and then
goes all donnish-like: “Archaeology
is the study of the tangible remains
of human activity.”
So there. Take that. You and your
dinosaur bones. Don’t ask archaeologists
about dinosaur bones. [Editor’s
note: this tirade appears to be for my
benefit, but if you too thought
archeologists were fascinated by
triceratops thighs, you may share my
chagrin].
Archaeology studies the stuff people
left behind, not stuff dinosaur s
left behind. And people have left a
lot of stuff behind around Capitol
Hill. “We really don’t know much
about the Hill because there has
been so little digging done there,”
notes Sonderman. “It’s only been
since 1966 that the National Historic
Preservation Act mandated an
archaeological assessment whenever
any building or development is
being done on Federal property or
with Federal monies. There hasn’t
There is an ongoing dig near 7th
and K, SE, down by the Navy Yard.
The first phase of exploration uncovered
brick floors and s tone piers of
the original Eastern Market, built
there in 1804. The Phase I report of
the study recommends further digging
to unearth more of the market.
More artifacts means a more complete
picture of the development of
the market system of the local and
Middle Atlantic Tidewater region
during the early and middle 1800s.
The first phase of yet another dig
was recently completed at the western
foot of Capitol Hill where the
Museum of the American Indian is
to be built.
And what did our sober scholar s
find there? One of the highest-class
brothels in Washington, belonging
to one Mary Ann Hall. (That ’s “Miss
Hall” to you and me.) She opened
her drawers—er, doors—for business
around 1839 and remained there on
Maryland Ave. until her death in
1886. The number and quality of
broken champagne bottles found at
the site are a clear indication that
Miss Hall and her “substitutes”
entertained very comfortably
indeed.
And you thought archaeology was
just dirt-encrusted potsherds.
Most of the digging that goes on
now on the Hill is done by homeowners
doing renovations or developers
developing. There can nevertheless
be some finds there.
Sonderman points out examples
of what to look for: “Let’s take the
500 block of 8th St., NE, as an exam-
“And of course,” continues
Sonderman, “The Anacostia shoreline
can be considered one gigantic
prehistoric site.” That’s where the
Nacotchtank Indians lived when
Captain John Smith arrived in 1608.
Most of the Nacotchtank settlement
was on the south side of the river,
but there were a few sites on the
Capitol Hill side as well.
“Historic” archeology is so called
because the existence of written his -
tories provides a convenient dividing
line between two eras. What
we’re really talking about is the
arrival of Europeans on the scene.
Archaeologists study historic artifacts
too, and for the same reason
they study the older ones: to try to
form of clearer picture of what life
was like for our ancestors.
Are there any serious digs around
the Hill? Yes indeed.
There was an archeological survey
done along the edges of the
Anacostia as part of a proposal for a
new bridge at Barney Circle. Along
the western side, several test trenches
were dug between Congressional
Cemetery and the river, but nothing
of any longer-term significance was
found there.
www.voiceofthehill.com 13
ple. There you have brick houses
alternating with frame houses.
When you see those frame houses,
you know right away you’re dealing
with structures built before 1875 or
so, when the housing code was
revised to require brick dwellings.
We also follow the history of the
utilities: in the days before there was
a municipal water supply, houses
had wells, cisterns and outhouses.
When the water and sewer came,
more often than not, people would
just fill up their wells, cisterns, and
outhouses with garbage: table scraps,
broken china and other discarded
household items. Analyzing these
artifacts enables us to get a much
more complete picture of what
everyday life was like for the average
citizen back then.”
Nancy Kassner, archaeologist with
the District of Columbia’s Historic
Preservation office, agrees. In fact,
she’ll be happy to look at anything
you’ve dug up and think might be
interesting, from bits of glass and
china to nails and whatzits. You can
contact her at NancyKassner@hotmail.
com or 202/442-8843.
After all this, the question still
lurks: are there dinosaur bones on
Capitol Hill? The answer? “Yes!”
The last report of dinosaur bones
found on the Hill was in 1898, discovered
by men digging a sewer line
at 1st and F Streets, SE. They found
several bones that were identified as
a dryptosaurus. Apparently, nothing
more was discovered when the
Metro tunnels were dug.
Nevertheless, keep your eyes open
when you’re planting that new fallblooming
camellia. And if you hit a
dinosaur bone, don’t call an archaeologist.
Gene C. Miller is the Voice of the Hill’s
Religion Editor
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14 www.voiceofthehill.com
BY MARY VOGEL
In the circles I travel as an
Environmental Planner, I hear
a lot about sustainable development.
Seems I’m always
going to a forum or workshop
on smart design, green buildings,
low-impact development, smart
growth, and on and on.
Whenever I get a chance to introduce
myself to an audience, I relish
talking about my hometown,
Capitol Hill. My neighborhood, I tell
them, is racially and economically
mixed and has an architecturally
rich assortment of buildings; from
shotgun houses a few rooms deep, to
the wedding cake domed Capitol of
the United States.
Our shops and services are integrated
into the community, and we
have some great focal points like
Eastern Market and Union Station.
We’re also well served by transit, and
close to jobs and schools, theater
and dining. In fact, I bike or take
Metro nearly every place I go.
Then I tell them about my corner
row house, and the yard that I’ve
landscaped with iris, phlox, foamflower,
goldenrod, aster, violets and
ferns, all flowers and plants that are
native to the area.Out front, I say,
there are neatly bricked sidewalks,
and fine old trees, natives too, that
spread a broad leafy canopy in the
summertime, naturally cooling the
air and filtering pollution.
Know it or not, these are all
aspects of sustainability: spaces that
maximize the ability of water to penetrate
the soil either through yards
that minimize lawn with plants or
sidewalks of bricks and sand; walkable,
bikable neighborhoods with
enough people living closely enough
to support good services.
Capitol Hill already meets many of
the benchmarks for sustainable
development, no matter whose standards
you use.The Hill is testament
to the fact that we once did far better
at building neighborhoods than we
do today.
But with regional issues such as
the polluted Chesapeake Bay, failure
to meet air quality standards, and
perhaps the worst traffic congestion
in the nation, we need to build on
the wisdom of our forbears.
The Hill is now in demand. We
might use that position to car ry on
the sustainability traditions of our
predecessors with some demands of
our own. With each application that
comes before our ANCs and neighborhood
associations, we could ask
what the proposed development will
do to restore the Bay, improve air
quality and reduce gridlock—or at
least make them no worse.
The wearing of the green
Quite a number of neighbors, many
of them “smart growth” professionals,
are leading the way.
Katrin Scholz-Barth, an engineer
with Hellmuth, Obata & Kassabaum,
is developing a regional reputation
for her advocacy of green roofs. “A
roof doesn’t have to create runoff,”
she says. “Most of Germany, where
I’m from, taxes storm water runoff.
So most new buildings have green
roofs.”
“So what’s a green roof?” you may
ask. “A roof deck with a hot tub surrounded
by potted palms?”
Actually, that would go some way
towards capturing the water that
runs off our roofs when it rains.But
the most effective are roof meadows
composed of low maintenance,
hardy plants in a lightweight medium
that substitutes for soil. They’re
better at capturing rain and moder -
ating temperatures. The only feet
they’re meant to support are those
of birds. You can see one at the
Earth Conservation Corps’ Matthew
Henson Earth Conservation Center
at 2000 1/2 St, SW.
Another neighbor, Doug Siglin,
has taken up the banner of bioretention
areas for storm water, also
known as raingardens.
“We could be using our tree boxes
and our planting strips, even our
lawns and parks for rain gardens,”
says Doug, whose consulting business,
Capitol Hill Partners, has a
contract to do a demonstration rain
garden at the1st District police sub -
station at 5th and E, SE.
Doug plans to show that storm
water doesn’t have to go straight into
our sewers, taking pollutants with it.
Instead, this water can be filtered
through the ground first and
released more slowly. [See sidebar]
Yet another neighbor, architect
Jim Schulman, through his nonprofit
Sustainable Community
Initiatives, promotes economic
development through teaching nearby
residents to recycle buildings.
When buildings on the Hill are to
come down (such as the Kentucky
Courts housing project), they could
be deconstructed and recycled,
down to the window frames and
door knobs.
SCI’s broader mission is to develop
collaborative community projects
and public education programs that
promote community sustainability
in the Mid-Atlantic. Some of SCI’s
graduates in the Ivy City and Trinidad
(ICT) neighborhoods formed the
ICT Dream Team/ Deconstruction
Co-op.Jim and ICT have helped to
popularize the term “deconstruction”
throughout the city.
Fellow architect and neighbor,
David Bell, of BellArc Architects, has
been attempting to integrate his passion
for historic preservation with
his recognition that even our old
buildings could be made far more
energy and resource efficient as they
are remodeled.
David feels that saving energy
saves everything:“Energy-efficient
buildings reduce the need for coal-
T O WARDS A SMARTER HILL:
S o m etimes Being Dense Is A Good Thing
www.voiceofthehill.com 15
fired generating plants, a heavy contributor
to air pollution, as well as
the chief source of acid rain,” he
says. “Besides, they’re far more pleasant
for people to inhabit, reducing
absenteeism and increasing productivity.”
Neighbors on both sides of H
Street are working with BP Amoco
Corporation, owners of most of the
square in the 300 block of H Street,
NE, to get them to build something
far more urban in character than the
mega gas station they’re proposing.
The most outspoken are insisting
that the developer give us more density,
not less, and development that
enhances the walkable neighborhood
that we cherish.
Neighbors are also taking on some
of the larger projects the city is proposing,
like the Anacostia
Waterfront Initiative and planning
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The opposite of deconstruction? Amoco
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16 www.voiceofthehill.com
Could your garden play a role in protecting the Anacostia River? How
about your front yard? Your tree box?
Yes. Yes. And yes.
Everybody knows that the Anacostia has water quality problems. Capitol
Hill’s neighborhood river carries a heavy load of metals, toxic chemicals,
bacteria, and lots of other bad things. That means no swimming. No water
skiing. No eating the fish. No jazz or food or art festivals. A major potential
asset for Capitol Hill is just too filthy to be used.
What most people don’t know is WHY
all that bad stuff is in the river.
Here’s why: city streets, parking lots,
sidewalks, and even rooftops are covered
with nasty muck left by combustion
engines, leaking cars and trucks, pets, pesticides
and a lot more. Every time it rains,
the debris washes off and gets pic ked up
by the rainwater. In some parts of the city
it goes into the street gutters, down the
catch basin and through underg round
storm sewer pipes right into the river. In
other parts (including Capitol Hill) it goes
into so-called combined sewer pipes, mixing
with all the waste from your sinks and
toilets. If there’s too much water (like
more than a half an inch), the combined
system overflows before it gets to Blue
Plains, dumping you-know-what right in
the river.
It doesn’t seem possible, does it? Why should we have raw sewage in our
neighborhood river in the 21st Century? Can’t somebody do something
about it?
Somebody can. Actually, anybody with a yard or a tree box can. There are
two things that need to be done to keep the bacteria, toxics and other
unpleasantries out of the Anacostia: the rainwater needs to be filtered
before it hits the river, and some of it needs to be slowed down and
detained so that it doesn’t make the sewer system overflow.
Unfortunately, the truth is that once all that water hits the pipes, there
isn’t much that can be done to filter it without huge engineering expense.
That’s where your garden, yard and tree box come in. They can help to filter
and detain the water before it hits the pipes. They can’t fix the problem
entirely, but they can make a difference.
Think of it this way: the contaminated rainwater is a little like litter. The
sandwich wrapper you keep out of the river won’t entirely solve the
Anacostia’s trash problem, but it helps.
Next door to the District in Prince George’s County, gardens, yards and
tree boxes that help to filter and slow down rainwater are called raingardens.
There are a lot of them, and they are helping to clean up that end of
the Anacostia.
There’s a rain garden next to the parking lot of the International House
of Pancakes on Route 1 in Colmar Manor. Drive by it and all you’ll see is
nice landscaping, with grass, beautiful flowers, and trees.
What you won’t see is that there is a drain underneath the layers of gravel,
sand, soil and mulch. Gas, oil, salt, rust, brake pad dust and other nasty
things wash off the parking lot and into the rain
garden. The water is slowed down and filtered
before it gets to the drain. Some of the toxic stuff
that filters through the mulch is broken down by
bacteria in the soil. Some of it stays in the mulch
and is cleaned out every ten years or so.
The IHOP rain garden isn’t solving all the problems
of the Anacostia, but it is playing a role.
Raingardens are beginning to sprout on Capitol
Hill, too. The Friends of Tyler School at 1529
Pennsylvania Avenue already has one. The
Metropolitan Police 1D1 Substation on E Street is
about to get one sponsored by the CHAMPS
Business Improvement District, the EPA and
the District. Two Capitol Hill schools and at
least one private business have expressed
interest, as has the Barracks Row project.
Even the National Park Service is talking
about them.
A rain garden can be professionally
designed and built, or it can be something as
simple as making sure the water running off
your roof goes to your garden and not to the
street. A plastic sleeve or pipe attached to the
bottom of your downspout will do the tric k.
It doesn’t have to be a big deal. Anything that slows down and/or filters
rainwater before it gets to the sewer pipes can play an important role.
There is a lot of reason to believe that one of these days, the Anacostia
will once again be a great asset to Capitol Hill. As part of that momentum,
the Hill is well on its way to becoming a national leader in using raingardens
to protect and restore our river. Maybe you should have a chat with
your garden, yard or tree box to see if the y’re interested in helping to protect
the Anacostia. Try explaining to them that the Hill could be a better
neighborhood for their efforts.
Doug Siglin is a principal in Capitol Hill Partners, a consulting firm that pro -
motes both economic development and environmental protection.
Islands. Instead of a highly polluting
golf course on Kingman Island,
they’re suggesting trails through a
restored forest.
Similar suggestions are being
made about the National Capital
Planning Commission’s Memorials
and Museums Master Plan, which
has designated nearly two-dozen
sites around Capitol Hill as locations
for future monuments.
Since every bit of conventional
pavement or rooftop we add is
ruinous to the environment, while
every tree we plant helps to fur ther
clean up the Bay and bring back
wildlife, “living memorials” are
being advocated.
I recently testified to the National
Capital Planning Commission on
behalf of the Anacostia Garden Club
that we should have only “living
memorials” along the Anacostia;
groves of native shade trees and
shrubs that will make a positive contribution
to the Chesapeake Bay.
Creating healthy density
While our neighborhood does not
contribute greatly to the traffic congestion
of the region, we are unduly
the recipients of the air pollution,
speeding traffic and parking
issues caused by automobile commuters.
Increasingly, applicants that come
before our ANC commissioners are
facing opposition to infill projects
that will bring more neighbors into
our area. Sometimes these proposals
meet with objections fromneighbors
who want more and better
shops and restaurants, but do not
want more people—though density
is what businesses need to thrive.
One of the major issues raised is
parking—yet many newcomers
might prefer walking or biking to
work, or taking advantage of the network
of Metrorail lines that run
through our area.
Dan Tangherlini, a Hill neighbor
who happens to be DC’s Acting
Director of Transportation, was the
guest speaker at a recent Stanton
Park Neighborhood Association
meeting. The audience peppered
him with questions about alternatives
to the automobile: What are
you doing to make the city more
friendly to bicycle riders? Will we be
A Rain Dance for Raingard e n s
BY DOUG SIGLIN
Colmar
Manor’s raingarden…
you
have to look
deep.
www.voiceofthehill.com 17
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seeing more bicycle lanes going to
places we need to go? How about a
trolley going up Pennsylvania
Avenue and maybe H Street?”
Dan listened with enthusiasm,
and even enlarged upon the trolley
idea—envisioning it running from
Barney Circle to Union Station.
Washington, DC, he said, has the
second highest per capita transit rid -
ership in the nation, with more than
50% of our residents reporting that
they use transit for getting to
work.We’re beaten only by New
York.
That number could be improved if
we made more demands on developers
to provide convenient, safe bicycle
parking in multifamily buildings
and bicycle parking and showers in
office buildings—Metro could help
by providing more and safer bicycle
parking at subway stations, better
bicycle hours on Metrorail, and
bicycle racks on all of our buses.
Traffic and parking are real problems
on the Hill.But here’s a heretical
thought: perhaps we should
think of getting rid of some of our
cars. Maybe we could recruit a car
rental-by-the-hour company, or start
a car-sharing program.
One neighbor noticed that the 35
or so cars on her block are hardly
driven. She figures they could be
replaced with ten: maybe a nice little
convertible for a drive in the country,
a pick-up for firewood and trips
to the dump, a mini-van to cart a
pile of kids to the bowling alley,
something formal, like a Mercedes
for major occasions, a heap for teens
learning to drive, and a small fleet of
VW’s for marketing. [Editor’s note:
Judith Capen advocates golf carts on
page 4.]
Our forebuilders gave us the gift of
a beautifully sustainable community,
now it’s up to us to come up with
some solutions to traffic and parking
problems, regional water quality,
biological diversity, air pollution and
congestion problems. What better
place to test the leading edge in sustainable
development than Capitol
Hill.
Mary Vogel is Chair of the Riparian
Forest Buffers Committee of the
Anacostia Garden Club and the Tree
Subcommittee of Stanton Park
Neighborhood Association.
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18 www.voiceofthehill.com
The dog barks madly, signaling
the arrival of the
mail. You take the
envelopes into the kitchen
with you so that you can
sort through the piles of birthday
cards, credit card offers, and bills
while you fix a cup of tea. And just as
the kettle starts whistling, you start
hyperventilating, staring at the gas
bill in your hands. $500? Could that
possibly be right?
D u ring a winter of skyro cket i n g
energy prices, solar heating and
other energy efficiency solutions
begin to seem like a good idea to
m o st homeow n e rs. Fo rt u n a t e ly fo r
John Hunting, he sta rted th i n k i n g
about energy efficiency six ye a rs ago
when he began making imp rovements
to his Capitol Hill home, just
t wo blocks from the Capitol building.
A self-described environmentalist,
Hunting says “I wanted to have a
house near the Capitol where I could
prove that energy efficiency was pos -
sible and practical.”
The renovations to Hunting’s
home included a wide ar ray of recycled
products, from drywall to bricks
to doors to decking, plus working
with the local Historic Preservation
board, which established the guidelines
as to what he could and could
not do within Capitol Hill’s historic
district. “I had to be sure to keep the
front of the house historically accurate,”
says Hunting, “but there was
more leeway as to what we could do
in the back of the house and, of
course, on the roof.”
Hunting’s home at 218 Maryland
Avenue, NE looks quite ordinary by
Capitol Hill standards, a well-kept
red brick Victorian. But tucked away
in the basement and on the roof
you’ll find a solar water heater, a
rain-water collection system, and an
air-source heat pump, which was
recently installed when Hunting put
his home up for sale.
One of the highlights of his home
when it was featured on the Capitol
Hill House and Garden Tour some
years ago was the “worm dr awer” in
the kitchen. “It’s quite simple,” says
Hunting. “You can buy worm composting
kits; all I did was designate a
drawer in the kitchen, lined it, put
the worms in there, and you then
add all of your banana peels, apple
cores, and so on. The worms do all
the rest of the work and then you
have great compost to put in your
garden.”
Although Hunting doesn’t like to
admit it, he’s a little disappointed
now that he no longer has the
worms. As part of getting his house
ready to sell, he thought it was probably
best to get rid of them, so he
passed his wiggly friends along to a
neighbor who also has an interest in
the environment, architect Katrin
Scholz-Barth.
Scholz-Barth’s specialty is “green
roofs,” an environmental technique
that is all the rage in Europe, according
to engineer Albert Nunez of Solar
King Supply, who worked with
Hunting on creating his energy-efficient
house. “Green roofs are just
starting to become popular here,”
says Nunez. “The way it works is to
plant sedums and other vegetation
on the roof; they slow runoff from
the roof, create beautiful spaces, and
provide additional insulation.” Both
the Pentagon and National Airport
have begun creating green roofs in
recent years.
There are an enormous variety of
products available on the market
today which can make it possible to
make an old Capitol Hill house more
energy efficient.
Says Hunting, “It’s hard to retrofit
a house, in comparison to building a
completely new house and installing
all of the energy-efficiency features
from the beginning. But there are a
lot of new products coming out
every year which make it a lot easier
now—even easier than when I did it
to my house six years ago.”
One of the new products which
could easily find its way onto
Capitol Hill homes are solar shingles,
which can be installed instead
of traditional shingles. Don’t think,
however, that they’ll come cheap,
since you’re basically getting a shingle
and solar panel in one.
“Traditional shingles can cost you
about $15 to $20 per square foot,”
explains Nunez, “while solar shingles
are going to be $50 to $60 per
square foot. However, they are a
great alternative for urban houses,
where you really need to think creatively
if you want to take advantage
of solar power. In fact, there are a lot
of products now which are really
quite discreet.”
Another highly energy-efficient
house on the Hill uses a product that
Nunez particularly espouses: the
Window Quilt. The home of Jean L.
Haines was outfitted by its previous
owner with lots of energy-efficient
products, including window blankets,
a movable window insulation
system.
These “quilts” move up and down
on tracks installed on the sides of
the window, with a strong seal created
at the top and bottom. They
reduce heat loss by 50 to 60%, come
in light-filtering or room-darkening
styles, and can be coordinated with
other fabrics in the room.
Besides the window quilts, Haines’
home includes a special paint on the
tin roof which reflects heat away, as
well as a thermal wrap on the house,
and water-saving toilets.
“This house is so well-insulated,”
enthuses Haines. “The house is totally
electric and my entire bill for las t
month was $176.” Compare that to
what a typical Capitol Hill home -
owner is spending on gas and electric
this winter, and energy-efficient
products really start to seem worth
the investment.
Haines, who rented the downstairs
apartment for several years
before being given the opportunity
to purchase the house, is cur rently
waiting to have the glass on the back
of the house replaced. What’s being
used is Alpen Glass, a museum-quality
glass designed to reflect light and
heat from the house while also pr o-
H e re Comes
the Sun
Solar power, window quilts, and
worm composting
BY KRISTEN HART K E
Jean Haines’s home is loaded with
energy saving products including
Window Quilts, insulated glass and
an energy-efficient fireplace.
www.voiceofthehill.com 19
viding superior insulation.
Nunez suggests that installing
“heat mirror glass” is probably a first
step towards making a home more
energy efficient: “That type of glass
has an insulation factor of R-10. But
even the standard glass which is
available today is R-4, which is an
enormous improvement over what
you typically find in older homes.
Then you’re looking at an R-factor of
1.”
If you still have original glass in
your windows and love the beautiful
imperfections, you can look instead
to replacing furnaces, appliances,
and air conditioners with more efficient
units. Energy experts says that
if homeowners replaced their 10-
year old appliances and heating and
cooling units with brand-new ones
that the energy savings, to both
homeowners and the environment,
would be enormous.
As usual, the Europeans are ahead
of us, generally because high energy
taxes have driven their technology
to become more efficient. Another
piece of energy-efficient equipment
beginning to take hold in the United
States, according to Nunez, is the
instantaneous hot water heater,
which is much smaller than a traditional
hot water heater and simply
heats water on demand rather than
having to maintain hot water
throughout the day when it is not
being used.
But how did environmentalist
John Hunting think his own experiment
worked, in the shadow of the
Capitol? “I’d have to say that I
didn’t personally see that much sa vings
in my energy bills,” he admits.
“I travel a lot and don’t really use
my house in the most efficient way.
It would be more efficient for a family
of five, in terms of the savings
that they would see. I just wanted to
get Members of Congress in here to
see what I was doing, and understand
that it’s really a viable way of
life on a daily basis.”
So Hunting gave a lot of parties
and a lot of tours to a lot of
Congressmen and Senators, who
enjoyed his hospitality and appreciated
his efforts. But, in the end, says
Hunting, “Everyone seemed to
think my house was terrific, but I
didn’t see any changes in legislation.”
And he doesn’t even have the
worms anymore.
Kristen Hartke is a regular contributor
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Spencer Says
Modest Pro p o s a l :
Make Station “lock and lose” Zone
Into a Bicycle Business
BY DUNCAN SPENCER
It happened at midnight. Returning on a late
train from Philadelphia, I lugged my briefcase
with a heavy load of books and papers out to
the west side of Union Station where I had
securely locked my precious $50 ten-speed.
The Kry ptonite lock I had depended on cost
almost as much as the well-used Schwinn, but at
least I felt secure. The bike had been placed in the
bike s tand the Station had provided, and was fastened
through the frame and the front wheel to its
structure.
At first I couldn’t believe my eyes—I circled, looking
for the right bike.
During my day trip, thieves had brazenly entered
the bike park at Union Station, undone my back
wheel and made off. Fury grew ever darker as I
struggled to wheel the remains of my bike the 15
blocks to my house. How could it happen in such a
well-lit, well-guarded place? And from the look of
the other wrecks owners had abandoned there after
they were dismembered, it has happened over and
over.
What better situation could there be from the
thieves’ vantage point?
People locking bikes at the Station are almost certain
to be A. shopping, B. taking the Metro or a
train, C. getting something to eat. All three are
guarantees that the bike thief will be left in peace
for at least 20 minutes—and most like ly much
longer.
S e c u rity officers eve n t u a l ly admitted that th e
problem was almost impossible to solve. Anyone
with a backpack can go into the bike park and work
on “his” bike. Besides, Union Sta t i o n’s bra z e n
th i eves usually park a lookout near the Met ro
Station entrance, a person innocently waiting for a
friend, who can quickly warn the “mechanic” an
officer is near.
There is no way conventional law enforcement
can deal with such a system of thievery—and even
if they did arrest the usually young culprits, what
are the penalties for “attempted bike theft,” besides
a scolding in Juvenile Court?
H e re ’s a modest proposal: Union Station sees
close to 20 million visitors a year according to the
D.C. Visitors Bureau. It is by far the biggest single
passage point for tourists and other visitors.
What it needs, and what would solve the exasperating
security problem for both residents and
visitors, is a bike rental business.
In other cities, you lay down a deposit and you
rent a bike, for a day, for a week, whatever. It comes
with a lock and a tourist map. It delivers freedom.
That’s right. They do it in Rome, they do it in
London, they do it in Madrid.
In these cities, all fabulously bikeable (as is D.C.
with the Capitol complex, the Mall and downtown
all in easy reach) concessionaires run bike rentals
from major transit interchanges.
At Union Station, the we st side bike park is
already dedicated to bicycles (or should I say the
skeletons of bicycles). Why not just improve it?
The bike rental business could also offer secure
parking as a sideline, offering pay parking for bikes
inside an enclosure. People with cheap bikes like
me would be willing to pay a buck or two just for
the peace of mind, not to mention the owners of
the $800 machines who now simply do not dare
bring their bikes to town.
What about the night, as in my horrible example?
Bike parkers would have to choose between
leaving their bikes within the enclosure during the
hours the rental concession was closed, or outside
at the present peril. But they wouldn’t be expecting
security as they do now.
The benefits to Union Station? Happier tourists
and more of them.
O ther tour companies, the Gray Line and the Old
Town Tro l l ey and oth e rs already ta ke adva n tage of
the va st numbers of visito rs th e re. These to u ri st s
and their bikes would soon find their way to th e
H i l l ’s re sta u rants and shops and to the East e rn
M a rket. Wi th the summer parking problem grow i n g
p ro gre s s i ve ly wo rse, bikes are more and more th e
b e st solution, both for access and for free parking.
www.voiceofthehill.com 21
LARRY CHARTIENITZ Pardoe/ERA
(Direct) 202-546-7000 x 228
(Cell) 202-255-3731
E-mail: lchartienitz@pardoe.com
Licensed in DC, VA and MD.
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The Station’s management would also have a
huge headache removed; police would be relieved
of unfruitful service runs; even the thieves themselves
would benefit: they could sell their ill-gotten
bicycles to the renters.
But how do you stop the rental bikes themselves
being stolen, you ask?
For one, you don’t rent out $800 bikes, but plainer,
more utilitarian types. Number two, you label
them in such a way that thieves will not want to be
seen riding them. In Rome they do this by inserting
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a plastic disk inside the rows of spikes in the front
wheels. “Bike Roma” it says with a telephone number.
Problem solved —with an additional benefit to
the agency.
It’s just a modest proposal....
Duncan Spencer is a regular columnist for the Voice of
the Hill and the Hill newspapers. His views are occa -
sionally shared by one or another of the publishers.
Spencer invites you to rant back to:
Dcspencer9@aol.com
B e c a u s e
Fitness Matters…
fitness@agle.net
202.546.0269
Bike carcasses at Union Station lock up.
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When Evan Pe h rson opens his
Randolph Cree, Ltd. Salon, upstairs
at 218 7th St., SE, sometime in the
next few weeks, he’ll be moving
into one of Stanton Development’s
smaller projects, the kind of thing they just toss off,
a scribble, a footnote.
The building is across the street from one of their
bigger deals, The National Association for Home
Care, which is up the block from Prudential Real
Estate, an earlier redo. It’s also next door to another
of their projects, the old Po st Office building,
which is now home to Bluestone Café and Ben and
Jerry’s, and next door to an Extra Strength Tylenol
of a job, 666 Pennsylvania Avenue, which used to
be Kre s g e ’s 5&10. Tu rn the corner onto
Pennsylvania and there’s Yes! Natural Foods, which
Stanton Development completed last spring.
The team of Frank Reed, Kitty Kaupp and Ken
Golding has been building buildings all ove r
Capitol Hill for the last 20 years, racking up plenty
of awards in the process. The old Kresge’s, where
Bread and Chocolate now anchors the corner, has
won three awards, including one in 1991 from the
American Institute of Architects, for excellence in
architecture. Their office building at 518 C Street,
NE, on Stanton Park, received the same award the
next year. In 1996, the Home Care building also got
an AIA award, and the list continues.
It’s a neat division of talents. Frank, a lawyer,
handles the legal end of things, the “structuring.”
Ken handles the financing and the marketing. Kitty
works with the architect, to make sure that things
turn out nicely.
That architect is Amy We i n stein, who has
designed most of their buildings. Her playful take
on period arch i t e c t u re, incorp o rating fri e z e s ,
mosaics, columns and such, is dist i n c t i ve. The
style, once you get the hang of looking for it, is
immediately recognizable.
Since Frank Reed started the whole thing, or at
least he seized the title of President, we chatted him
up in the company’s offices at 666 Pennsylvania
A venue, which became 660 Pe n n s ylvania on
February 1—but we’ll get to that.
VOICE: Stanton Development, I take it, is named
for Stanton Park.
FR:Well some people think that, but actually it’s
named for my 8th grade girlfriend, Susie Stanton,
my first unrequited love.
VOICE: You’re pulling my leg. Don’t do that, I’m
gullible.
FR: My partners don’t know it but, yeah, it’s
named doubly. She didn’t share my affections. And
she didn’t show up at the 45th class reunion either.
A major disappointment.
VOICE: Did you have your offices on Stanton
Park?
FR: Never. But the first project that we attempted
was the Bosley Animal Hospital at 317 Mass Ave.
VOICE: How’d you get started in real estate development?
FR: I met David Deal in the 70s through mutual
friends—he was a very well known rehab specialist.
David knew I was interested in doing some investment
property, and had found this house at 311
Mass, I think it was in 1978 or ’79. We put an addition
on the back, and rented it. It was fairly successful.
VOICE: What came next?
FR: David found this property on 9th Street, SE. It
had a little sun porch that projected onto a side
yard, so it actually occupied a double lot. He’d
rehab the existing house and I would build a new
one—which I later sold to Bob Prosky.
VOICE: When did you team up with Kitty and
Ken?
FR: It was at about then that I met Kitty. She and
I bought Betty Nussbaum’s house across the street
[from Prosky’s] and we developed that. Kitty was
with Rhea Radin Real Estate at the time, and was
quite knowledgeable about commercial real estate.
Then, in ’81 or ’82, we spoke with the doctor who
owned Bosley—this cinderblock and stucco animal
hospital between the Lee Funeral Home [now the
Senate Page residence] and the White Tiger—and
asked if he was interested in selling. He turned us
down, but a couple of years later he called and asked
if we were still interested in buying.
We had, in the meantime, met Ken Golding. Ken
and his father were doing the Willard Hotel with
Ollie Carr—and Ken was in town to look after his
father’s interests, and to do stuff on his own.
VOICE: So, you teamed up to do the Bosley.
FR: Yes. We formed a company, and Ken brought
in Amy Weinstein—he knew her from this little
chamber music group they were in. Amy played the
cello, and I don’t know what the hell Ken played.
The violin? I don’t know.
VOICE: Amy was in from the beginning?
FR: When this project came up, Amy was a fledgling
architect. She had a little office in her father’s
a rch i t e c t u re office out in Chevy Chase. This
became really her first major project.
VOICE: Your buildings fit in nicely with Victorian
architecture—but are not replications of Victorian
buildings.
FR: The buildings that the Historic Preservation
Review Board basically want are not brick by brick
reproductions of Victorian buildings, but reflect
the overall style. That’s what the Bosley reflected,
from an architectural standpoint. A typical appearance,
but not identical.
VOICE: That style informs all the buildings you’ve
developed.
FR: That’s because Amy did the other buildings—
except for this one that we’re in, which is art moderne
or something, which required a different treatment.
This is about to become 660 Pennsylvania, by
the way
VOICE: I had that on my list. People have said to
me that they wouldn’t lease space in a building
numbered 666 Pennsylvania; it’s like being on the
13th floor.
FR:We’ve had some people—not a lot—but some
people, who had some difficulty with it. It never
occurred to us, but some people know about those
supernatural things, the signs of the devil, whatever
they are, so we are changing it.
VOICE: When?
FR: As we sit here. We’re changing the 6 to a zero
right now.
VOICE: Oh! I almost walked under his ladder to
get in here.
FR: I did. Literally.
VOICE: Oy. So what project came next?
FR: While we were doing 317—actually in the
middle of starting construction—we became aware
that Doris Hoove r, who owned Hoover Court
Reporting Service across the street, might be interested
in selling her three buildings,
VOICE: That’s where 2 Quail, and Café Berlin are.
FR: So right in the middle of developing the
Bosley we gutted and remodeled the three buildings
across the street—we had projects going in
stereo.
VOICE: Somebody recently told me that you own
o n ly a portion of the land that 660, or 666,
Pennsylvania—the old Kresge’s 5&10—is on.
FR: Yes, that’s right.
VOICE: I think many people would find this mysterious.
FR: It is mysterious. It’s ver y, very complicated.
These things take months—and in some cases years
to put together. You can’t imagine how much leadtime
is involved in this stuff.
VOICE: But this was only one building, wasn’t it?
FR: Yes, but when Kresge’s wanted to build this
thing in the 30s or 40s, they were able to buy the
corner and a couple of other lots. The rest of the
land was owned by other people who would not
22 www.voiceofthehill.com
Business Bits
T h e re’s Development, and then there ’ s
Stanton Development
sell, but agreed to a ground lease—to lease the
ground.
When we bought the building from Kresge’s—
and this is a project that we worked on for at least
two, probably three years, it was very complicated
—we had to negotiate with these owners, and get
99-year leases from them.
VOICE: What was the most interesting project
you’ve worked on?
FR: Your fir st one or two, you know, are always
fascinating. But the most interesting and challenging
and complex was this building. This was a complicated
deal: buying the existing structure from
Kresge’s; getting a variance for the upper floors—
Kresge’s was only one story; dealing with the HPRB
and the community; being stretched out on loans,
with your fingers crossed that you’ll be able to put
the second and third and fourth floors up. While
not exactly fun, it was the most satisfying to accomplish.
VOICE: Back to the beginnings…what came after
the Bosley?
FR: We came over here and did 216 7th Street, the
old Long and Foster Real Estate Office, which is now
Prudential. Then we went over to Stanton Park and
did 518 C Street, NE, the corner building on the
north side on the park, where Sid’s tax service was
and—let me put it this way—an unoccupied 2-story
Victorian
VOICE: Why do you say it like that?
FR: I don’t want to say it was abandoned, it was
owned by a man who owned a lot of property in the
city and on the Hill. That became an endurance test
to develop. There was opposition—to build th e
building we did, we had to demolish two structures
on the site.
Nobody cared about Sid’s, a World War II vintage,
one-story, with a nondescript façade. But we
had to demolish the Victorian—which the HPRB
had deemed “contributing” because it was a
Victorian structure. In order to demolish a contributing
building in a his toric district, you have to
present them with a replacement project of superior
merit. Then you’ve got to go to the community
to get approval.
VOICE: What made you tough it out?
FR: It was an eyesore—the kind of thing that
brings a community down. But we weren’t t otally
altruistic—we have profit motive in doing any of
these things. This site? First, we found out it could
be purchased. Second, we felt it was detraction; a
negative as far as the community is concerned.
VOICE: You guys are pretty fussy about tenants.
Kitty mentioned that she’s turned away several dry
cleaners, and other businesses that were interested
in leasing the ground floor of the building you’re
fixing on 7th Street, next to Bluestone Café. She
said she wants a restaurant downstairs.
FR:Well, there are obviously certain retailers that
we don’t feel bring anything or do anything for the
community
VOICE: Are you allowed to discriminate?
FR: You can’t discriminate on the basis of race,
creed, color, or sexual preferences…but if I don’t
want a dry cleaner, I don’t have to rent to a dry
cleaner.
Shopping centers do this all the time, they select
a mix of retailers that they want in their setting—if
they have the luxury of doing that. Obviously in a
market where you don’t have a lot of options, then
you are prepared to rent to almost anybody. Look at
some of the crap that’s gone in on 8th Street—those
retailers get there because those people don’t have a
lot of options. They take whoever they can get.
VOICE: Well some are turning people down. I’ve
heard the check cashing service went to several
www.voiceofthehill.com 23
The Stanton Development Team: Ken Golding, Kitty Kaupp and Frank Reed
Left: The exterior of Stanton’s latest
project at 218 7th Street, SE.
Above: Top floor of 218 7th, soon to be
the grand new home of Evan Pehrson’s
Randolph Cree Salon.
24 www.voiceofthehill.com
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building owners before he found one that would
take him.
FR: Well that’s what happens, you’re desperate
for tenants and…[he shakes his head and sighs]
check cashing. People have been so worried about
this place becoming another Georgetown or
Harbor Place, you end up with…what you get .
Frankly, up here you don’t have a lot of leasing
options. People are not beating down the doors to
get here. [Maurice] Kreindler got Radio Shack –I’m
impressed
VOICE: And he got Starbucks. He would have
been a hero for that, if we didn’t already have
Xando across the street.
F R : We we re late at the table about th a t —
Sherrill’s. Our problem is that we look at these
buildings and sta rt thinking in these gra n d i o s e
terms. We talk ourselves out of them rather than
saying, look, let’s just go in and fix the place, not
build the Taj Mahal.
We don’t have to stop doing that, but we have to
temper our enthusiasm with a little more realism.
Be a little less ambitious maybe.
VOICE: But you do nice projects.
FR: We always want to do nice projects, and we
have to credit Kitty with that, because Ken and I
don’t have any taste.
VOICE: Which does cost money…
FR: Our objective is to always do buildings that
a re of good qu a l i t y, that are an arch i t e c t u ra l
enhancement to the community—and are, hopefully,
economically sound. We have not tried to
cheap it out, or put ourselves in for big construction
management fees on buildings we’ve built for ourselves.
We forsake those so that those funds can go
into the building.
VOICE: Yet people scream about the rents you
guys charge.
FR: Listen. If you’re paying between $40 and $50
per square foot rent in new and rehabbed buildings
downtown, what we charge here, $28, is perfectly
in line. And that’s full service—including all common
area maintenance and operating expenses.
VOICE: Why do you think the Hill has such a hard
time attracting good businesses?
FR: It’s not because of the rents. There are no people
here in the daytime; this is not a high traffic
area. What are you going to do if you’re running a
Sutton Place Gourmet during the week—sell a few
sandwiches?
VOICE: How about lowering rents?
FR: You lower your rents, you get schlock.
VOICE: Frank, we’re in the middle of a real estate
boom. Our waterfront is beginning to look like K
Street on the Anacostia. That’s going to have a big
impact on this neighborhood, commercially and
residentially
FR: I think so and so does Ken. But Kitty doesn’t
think it’s a big deal residentially.
VOICE:With that many people coming in? Surely
some percentage will want to walk to work?
FR: I think that too. It obviously cannot hurt.
VOICE: How do you think Pennsylvania Avenue
will look 10 years from now.
FR: Much improved. I think there will be some
c e remonial entra n c eway down th e re at Barn ey
Circle, whether it’s what is proposed or not. I’d like
to see something. This is one of the monumental
entrances to the city.
And the streetscape will change and improve.
Wi th the new zoning ove rl ay th a t’s pro p o s e d ,
there’ll be an incentive to improve the end of the
avenue east of the historic district.
VOICE: Maybe with apartment houses?
FR: I think that would be great—but these sites
have to be analyzed. Proposals for rezoning east of
the Historic District will provide ample incentive
for building re s i d e n t i a l — a p a rtments. The
Restoration Society, incidently, supports that.
VOICE: Which leads us to Boys Town. Kitty’s
involvement in selling that property at 14th and
Pennsylvania has upset a lot of people. Did Stanton
Development have any part in that?
FR: It had nothing to do with us—but she’s taken
a lot of grief for it.
Hey, this goes back decades. Beau Bogan owned
the property, and the Restoration Society thwarted
his plans to do something there, maybe rightly, I
don’t know. So instead he put in a car wash.
Now 20 years later, the site is of value, and someone
comes along and is willing to buy it—and pay a
huge price. He’s not sitting there saying, ‘Aw gee,
this is a lot of money, but I really shouldn’t do this
because the community wouldn’t like it. So I’ll forsake
several million dollars and wait for something
else to come along.’
That’s his call—and the Restoration Society has
to assume some responsibility for that. I don’t know
how awful his plans were. I don’t know what got
them so upset. But he wasn’t disposed to care about
the community.
So what’s Kitty supposed to do? Say, ‘Ah no.
We’re not going to present your offer to Mr. Bogan
because the people of Capitol Hill East will get mad
www.voiceofthehill.com 25
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What do you think Boys Town would do? They’d
call up Prudential, or Long and Foster, or Remax
and they’d say—wow—and go running to Bo Bogan
with the offer, and get the commission.
VOICE: What’s the next project?
FR: We’re working on 300 Independence; the
white building on the corner. We’re going to rehab
that as offices.
And we’ve signed a contract with Larry Quillian
for his site.
VOICE: Behind the CVS at 14 th and
Pennsylvania? Where St. Coletta School wanted to
go in?
FR: The contract allows for a long-term feasibility
study before we have to, go hard, as we say. Before
you really have to go to settlement and buy it. It’s a
very challenging site.
VOICE: Fresh Fields anyone?
Frank Reed, Kitty Kaupp, Ken Golding
Stanton Development
660 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
544-6666
F i e s t a ! For va rious reasons his name remains a
secret, at least for the time being. But he’s known to
many hundreds of us, adults and kids (he’s watched
innumerable tikes outgrow booster seats and graduate
to nose rings). Call him Señor X.
The native of El Salvador has been on Capitol Hill
since “1986 and one half,” coming here fro m
Adams Morgan where he worked his way up from
dishwasher to cook at one this city’s best Latin
restaurants, La Plaza, on Columbia Road.
Now he’s started his own full-service catering
company, La Plaza Catering, serving Tex-Mex and
Latin dishes for 20 to 50.
While his menu includes favorites like pupusas,
tamales, fajitas and quesadillas, Señor X also has a
deft hand with fancier fare like paella, and flounder
stuffed with crabmeat and mushrooms.
Reach him at 202-723-3617 or on his cell at 202-
236-2316.
Cat Walk. Janet Crowder, whose antique shop, Two
Lions, has been a fixture on Pennsylvania Avenue
for the past 17 years, is moving her silver spoons
and nobly provenanced armoires to the small but
growing commercial area around 11th Street, SE, a
few doors from Newman Gallery and Custo m
Frames and around the corner from Fra g e r’s
Hardware.
Janet, an interior designer who has handled commercial
and residential projects up and down the
east coast—and is currently working on a house in
the Hamptons, and another in St. Au g u st i n e ,
Florida—says the building at 507 11th is, “not bigger,
just different. It’s two s tories, and I’ll use both
floors. I’m so excited to be over there.”
The new shop needs some renovations, but she
expects to be moved in by April. In the meantime,
the 621 Pe n n s ylvania Avenue sto re will re m a i n
open Saturdays, and weekdays by appointment—or
chance. You can reach Janet at 546-5466.
Those Spouses Who Sell Houses Can Really
Produce! Tom and Alice Faison, the ReMax real
estate duo, have added another partner, 8 pound 10
ounce John Gaston. Baby Faison debuted January
23 at 8:30PM at GW Hospital, after (Tom says,
“Don’t say this, Alice will kill me,” so of course, we
won’t) 14 hours of labor. John is the third little
Faison, joining 6-year-old Henry, and 4-year-old
Anna Lea. The sibs have been celebrating hard, as
you can see from the pic.
Business bits is written by Voice of the Hill Editor-in-
Chief, Stephanie Cavanaugh
www.voiceofthehill.com 27
Income Tax Services
Jackson Hewitt Tax Service
8th St., SE 554-8840
Internet Provider Services
DC Access
118 Kentucky Ave, SE 546-5898
www.dcaccess.net — a local ISP
Mason
Michaliga Masonr y
321 C Street, SE
544-4484
Mortgage Lenders
Apex Home Loans
301-474-7100
See our ad on page 13
Jeffrey A. Love, Loan Officer
Federal Funding Mortgage Corp
202-210--7106 jlove@ffmcorp.com
Pet Supplies
Doolittle’s Pet Supply
224 7th St., SE 544-8710
See our ad on page 20
Office Supplies
Capitol Hill Innervision
Art and Office Supplies
701 8th St., SE 544-4664
Photography
Motophoto
666 PA Ave., SE 547-2100
See our ad on page 25
Picture Framing
Frame of Mine
522 8th St., SE 543-3030
See our ad on page 36
Newman Gallery and Custom Frames
511 11th St., SE 544-7577
See our ad on page 31
Plumbing & Heating
Leakbusters Plumbing & Remodeling
202 544-5000
Real Estate
Valerie M. Blake
Prudential Car ruthers Realtors
5025 Wisconsin Ave, NW 202-362-1348, x111
www.DCHomeQuest.com
Accounting
Marina Martin, MBA
Innovative and versatile range of services for
small business and non-profits 547-9536
Antiques
Antiques on the Hill
701 North Carolina Ave., SE
See our ad on page 28
Astrology
Ajai
Good advice since 1979
543-9053
Attorneys
Rick Halberstein & Karen Byrne
705 D St., SE 543-1110
Arts Center
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
545 7th St., SE 547-6839
See our ad on page 30, 35
Association
CHAMPS
621 PA Ave., SE 547-7788
Bank
National Capital Bank
316 PA Ave.,SE 546-8000
See our ad on page 17
Bed and Breakfast
Bullmoose B&B
5th and S Sts.,NE 547-1050
Doolittle Guest House
504 E. Capitol Street, SE 546-6622
See our ad on page 11
Bicycles
Capitol Hill Bikes
709 8th St.,SE 544-4234
See our ad on page 37
Books
Capitol Hill Books
657 C Street, SE, 544-1621
Good Used Books Bought & Sold.
Riverby Books
419 E. Capitol St., SE 547-3228
See our ad on page 17
Chimney Cleaning
Winston’s Chimney Service
Washington DC (301)571-8546
See our ad on page 28
Church
Christ Church Washington Parish
620 G St., SE 547-9300
See our ad on page 45
St. Peter’s Church
2nd & C Street, SE 547-1430
See our ad page 36
Clothing & Gifts
Art & Soul
225 PA Ave., SE 548-0105
See our ad on page 33
The Village
705 N. Carolina Ave., SE 546-3040
See our ad on page 20
Computer Consultant
Better Computer Solutions
623 N. Carolina Ave., SE 546-8084
See our ad on page 31
Drug Store
Grubbs Care Pharmacy
326 E Capitol SE 543-4400
See our ad on page 19
Electric Repairs
Bob Willett / K&W Electric
301-283-4004
Service work small jobs
Funeral Services
Pinckney-Spangler Funeral Home
524 8th St. NE, 544-7720
A full service funeral home. Traditional burial
or cremation services. Burial or cremation
can be accompanied by a viewing and/or
funeral or memorial service.
Garden and Landscape
Gingko Gardens
911 11th St., SE 543-5172
See our ad on page 33
Frager’s Garden Center
1115 Penna Ave., SE,
543-6157
Ornamental Garden
544-7831
District Cityscapes, Inc
202-544-4886
Hardware
Fragers Hardware
1115 Pennsylvania Ave., SE 543-6157
See our ad on page 15
Health & Fitness
GI Jane
645 Pennsylvania Ave., SE 547-7906
See our ad on page 28
Results the Gym
3rd & G Sts, SE, 234-5678
See our ad on page 13
Home Furnishings
Woven History
311 7th St., SE 543-1705
See our ad on page 35
Home Repair
Handyman on the Hill
Washington DC 206-7185
See our ad on page 35
Hotel
Capitol Hill Suites
200 C St., SE 543-6000
See our ad on page 11
Business Directory Listings:
Voice of the Hill is including a yellow-pages style directory of businesses and services that cater to the Capitol Hill community.
To be included in the directory businesses must commit to a one-year contract, payable in advance by check, Visa or
Mastercard. The annual fee is $250. Display advertisers on annual contracts will be included in the directory at no additional
charge.
Each business will be given three lines in the directory; two must be used for the company name, address and phone number.
An extra line is available for your name, a description of your business or service, or a direction to see your ad. Additional
lines may be added at an annual cost of $60 per line (per year). If you would like to be included in the next directory, please
fill in the following form and send it, along with your check or payment information, to: The Voice of the Hill, 120 11th St., SE,
Washington, DC 20003. If you have questions please call Bruce Robey at 544-0703.
Your Name:_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Company Name: ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Address:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Phone: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Business Description: (30 character maximum) ____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please charge my Mastercard or Visa
Name on Card: _________________________________________________________________________________________________
Card Number: _______________________________________________________________________Expiration Date:____________
Business Serv i c e s
Thom Burns
Coldwell Banker Real Estate
109 8th St. NE 547-5805
Larry C
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
Tom & Alice Faison
REMAX Real Estate
220 7th St., SE 546-5881
John C. Formant
John C. Formant Real Estate
225 PA Ave., SE 544-3900
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
See our ad on the back cover
Jackie von Schlegel
REMAX Real Estate
220 7th St., 547-5600
Phyllis Jane Young
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
John Parker
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
Real Estate Settlement
Congressional Title
650 PA Ave., SE 544-0800
See our ad on page 29
Eastern Market Title
210 7th St., SE 546-3100
See our ad on page 28
Restaurants
2 Quail
320 Massachusetts Ave. NE 543-8030
See our ad on page 15
Banana Café
400 8th St., SE 543-5906
See our ad on page 31
Ben & Jerr y’s Ice Cream
327 7th St., SE 546-CAKE
See our ad on page 32
28 www.voiceofthehill.com
Business Serv i c e s
Bluestone Cafe
327 7th St., SE 547-9007
Café Berlin
322 Mass. Ave., NE 543-7656
German American Cuisine
Hawk ’n’ Dove
329 PA Ave., SE 543-3300
See our ad on page 32
Sheridan’s Steak House
713 8th St., SE 546-6955
Stompin’ Grounds
660 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, 546-5778
See our ad on page 32
Salons
Randolph Cree
325 7th St., SE
In early 2001.
Social Services
Capitol Hill Group Ministr y
421 Seward Sq., SE 544-0385
Schools
Capitol Hill Day School
210 S. Carolina Ave., SE 547-2244
Edmund Burke School
2955 Upton St., NW 362-8882
Levine School of Music
2801 Upton St., NW 686-9772
AN T I QU E S
BU Y SE L L
TR A D E
701 N. CAROLINA AVE, SE
WASHINGTON, DC
202-543-1819
Toll Free 877-509-3772
THE ORIGINAL HEALTH, DIET AND FITNESS
BOOT CAMP
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is Helping to Reduce the Epidemic of Obesity in America
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SIGN UP FOR 1 YEAR
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body workouts with free weights
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Expires March 30.With this ad. Not valid with any other offer.
Winston’s
Quality Service since 1976
Cleanings • Repairs • Relinings
Expert second opinion
Air duct cleaning
301-571-8546
Licensed • Insured • Certified
202-CHIMNEY
(244-6639)
Recommended by
Washingtonian Magazine
1984-1987
DCHIC #3615
Chimney Ser v i c e
St Peter’s School
422 3rd St., SE 544-1618
Spiritual Advisors
Corrin Bennett
920 G St., SE 543-5825
Gabrielle Hill
639 E. Capitol SE 544-438
See ad on page 33
Vacation/Travel Consultants
Jan Cammarata
Judiciary Express Travel
7th & Penn SE, 547-3007
Workshops
Writer’s Way Workshops
Make time for you! 547-3506
www.dcwritersway.org
Yoga Studio
Dancing Heart Center for Yoga
221 5th St., NE 544-0841, www.dancingheartyoga.com
See our ad on page 33
St. Marks Yoga Center
3rd $ A St., SE 546-4964
www.us.net/edow/1/stmch/yoga.htm
Computer We e n i e s
• Repairs, Upgrades, Troubleshootong
• Network & Lan Installation
• Internet Web Page Development
• Quality Work at Reasonable Rates
202-543-7055
t h e c a n c e r d i a g n o s i s
frightening, maddening,
confusing
individual, couples and group
psychotherapy for those with cancer
joseph tarantolo, md
board certified psychiatrist
certified group therapist
202/543-5290
but also a time for
self-reflection and enhancement
of personal development
Eggs-traordinary
Capons • Turkeys •
Ducks • Cornish Hens
Eggs-traordinary
Capons • Turkeys •
Ducks • Cornish Hens
Mel, Sr. Mel, Jr.
MARKET POULTRY
Eastern Market
225 7th St., SE 202-543-7470
MARKET POULTRY
Eastern Market
225 7th St., SE 202-543-7470
www.voiceofthehill.com 29
d o w nL o a d
Talk About a Building Boom
The Waterfront Couldn’t be Hotter
Fe b ru a ry 7. Councilmember Sharon Ambro s e
quipped that it always rains for her wa t e rf ro n t
“ sta ke h o l d e rs” meetings. Maybe it’s the Higher
Authority’s way of cooling down what she calls,
“the hottest development area in the city.” Indeed,
things have grown so hot that by the end of her
Fe b ru a ry 5 session at the Officer’s Club in th e
Washington Navy Yard, the heavens began dumping
buckets of wet snow.
A m b ro s e ’s semi-regular meetings, which have
been going on for the last few years, pull together
developers, city and federal honchos and community
leaders to coordinate the many and various
plans in progress—and those still in the dreaming
stages.
J u st a partial list of projects on M St re et, SE
includes: Ten office buildings under construction
or being re n ovated, plus the massive Mari t i m e
Plaza office, hotel, and retail complex which is
being built just past the 11th Street Bridge, and the
old Washington Post printing plant that is being
turned into a tech center; the South East Federal
Center, fronting the Anacostia and adjacent to the
Navy Ya rd; a comp l ete re n ovation of M St re et ,
including paving, sidewalks, lighting and landscaping;
a commuter ferry between northern Virginia
and the Navy Ya rd; a “River Walk” fro m
Bladensburg to Buzzard’s Point; and the Anacostia
Community Rowing Center.
The catalyst for all of this is the Washington Navy
Yard at the foot of M Street, SE. It all started back in
1995, when Congress approved spending $200 million
to turn the Yard into an office center for the
Naval Sea Systems Command, known as NAVSEA,
w h i ch designs, builds and maintains ships,
weapons and other equipment. The agency had
been headquartered in leased office space in Crystal
City.
NAVS E A’s 44 00 most ly white collar civilian
employees began moving into the Navy Yard in
January of this year, at the rate of about 200 a week.
By June, the daytime population of the 65-acre Yard
will have nearly doubled to 10,000.
The land grab around the Navy Yard came shortly
after the move was announced. Many government
contractors are required to be within spitting
distance of NAVSEA, o thers just find it more convenient.
John Imparato, who is in charge of organizing
the move, said construction at the Yard is nearly
complete. They’re down to putting the finishing
touches on the parking garage, and painting the
traffic lane stripes. “People,” he claims, “are happy
with the buildings…and are going out into the
[ C a p i tol Hill] community, spending money.”
However, the new employees are unfamiliar with
m a ny of the “amenities” outside the wa l l s .
Imparato is planning a series of “information fairs”
this spring, so that restaurateurs and local businesses
can introduce themselves.
In January, METRO began making circulation
easier. Shuttle buses are now rolling between the
Yard and the Eastern Market and Navy Yard subway
stations. The buses pick up passengers at regular
stops along the route, and can be used fo r
lunchtime forays into the neighborhood. METRO
has also struck deals with developers of several of
the new buildings along M Street to provide direct
service to those offices.
Deeply involved in the design of the waterfront
outside the Navy Yard walls is the District’s Office
of Planning. Uwe Brandes, the Project Manager for
what is called the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative
said, “Last March an agreement was signed by DC
and 15 Federal Agencies to coordinate the planning
along the Anacostia…This neighborhood is changing
the most radically in real time. Every day I hear
of another exciting project.”
Since then a staff has been hired which spent the
fall hiring designers and consultants. Now under
contract is a planning team that includes architects,
landscape architects, environmentalists and
engineers.
“The power of the waterfront is being realized,”
said Brandes. “We’re not looking at this as isolated
components, but as a single neighborhood…[and]
we’re concerned with land use, land management,
use of the river and protecting the river.” For planning
purposes, the “neighborhood” includes
C a p i tol Hill, both sides of the Anacostia, and
Southwest.
Brandes figures this will be a 12-month process
during which members of the community will be
invited to a series of small workshops. These will be
alternated with larger meetings with the consultant
team. “Every two or three months,” he said,
“there’ll be a workshop or a presentation.”
The centerpiece of our waterfront will be the 55-
acre South East Federal Center, stalled for years, but
now moving forward. Tony Costa of the General Building boom on M Street
30 www.voiceofthehill.com
Writers
on the
Hill
M A R C H 1 0
Connie Shade, Poetry;
Catherine Breeden, Fiction
A P R I L 1 4
Shirley Cochrane, Poetry and
fiction; David Kresh, Poetr y
Sponsored by Trover Shops
and Riverby Books
www.chaw.org for more info or call 202.547.6839
A new program of
the capitol hill arts
workshop
4 - 5:30 p.m.
with reception to
follow
in conjunction with
capitol hill arts
district second saturday
series
$5 donation
Capitol Hill Arts
Workshop
545 7th Street, SE
Services Administration (GSA) said that the original
plan for the area was to build 6 million square
feet of office space on the site, which is just west of
the Navy Yard walls. But now, he said, the GSA recognizes
that they “have to work with the community
on what type of mix of development would be
best.”
“$30 million has already been spent by the GSA
to clean up the area,” said Costa. “How we structure
developm