Town-Gown Truce? ANC, CAG, University Ask for Delay in Zoning Filing

April 5, 2012

Could there be peace in our time? In the April 2 meeting of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, a joint statement by neighborhood groups and Georgetown University asked the D.C. Zoning Commission to delay the deadline for filings on the university’s 2010-2020 Campus Plan process by 60 days.

Members of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, the Burleith Citizens Association and the ANC, all of which oppose the university’s expansion plans, and representatives from the university stood up at the meeting to affirm the surprising announcement. As it stands now, the university’s deadline for submissions is April 12, and neighborhood groups have until April 19 to respond.  If the zoning panel agrees to the request for delay, the submission and response dates will change to June 11 and June 18, respectively.

Only several weeks ago, Jennifer Altemus, CAG president, as well as student leaders and others on the university side, was lamenting the delayed decision by the zoning board.

Why the 180-degree turn? ANC chair Ron Lewis said that the delay was requested so that “we can explore the possibility of reaching common ground in our talks about the campus plan. . . We’re giving a somewhat different report than we had expected.”

“This approach reflects our continued efforts to seek common ground and to engage with city and neighborhood leaders,” wrote Rachel Pugh, director of media relations for the university, in an email. “Joining with our neighbors in requesting an extension is a meaningful sign of progress in a long process.”

Major sticking points between the parties, such as the demand that students be housed on campus by 2016, remain. But some persons in the process seem to be taking zoning commissioner Anthony Hood’s advice in February that residents and university officials meet more continually to resolve any issues affecting the neighborhood. At an earlier ANC meeting, Mayor Vincent Gray spoke of the town-gown tension and said he believed that common ground would be reached. Whether this small measure of unity displayed at the April 2 ANC meeting leads to a sea charge by which neighborhood and university leaders collaborate is anyone’s guess.

At the same meeting, the ANC voted unanimously to oppose the redrawn designs for the university’s planned Athletic Training Facility.

Georgetown’s Jack the Bulldog to Welcome Puppy Mascot-in-Training, April 13

Georgetown University’s Jack the Bulldog  is going to have to start making room on the couch and especially on the bleachers, because a bulldog puppy will arrive April 13 on campus to be trained by the boss, the veteran, the main four-legged mascot. The new guy, “Jack Jr.,” or “J.J.” for short, is a gift from Janice and Marcus Hochstetler, bulldog breeders in California, who have two children at Georgetown. This is their way, they say, of thanking the university for the education their children are receiving.

Jack recently injured his left rear leg and is expected to have surgery this month. He will be returning this fall to continue rooting on the athletes and begin teaching J.J. what it means to be a Hoya. “Jack’s presence will provide important support to J.J. since the older dog is already comfortable with his life as a mascot at Georgetown,” says Rev. Christopher Steck, S.J., associate professor in theology. “J.J. will be looking for signals from Jack, and Jack’s enthusiasm in different environments will encourage J.J.’s own.”

According to the American Kennel Club, Jack ranks 8th among 125 of the most famous dogs in pop culture. He spends his time cheering at Georgetown games (Hoyas say he is often seen attacking and eating cardboard boxes with the opposing team’s logo on them), or resting in the lobby of the Jesuit Residence before heading home to his New South apartment that he shares with Steck. 

The Washington Post reported that the new addition is not a replacement for 9-year-old Jack. J.J. was planning on moving across country since he was born in December. Steck tweeted last Friday, March 30, “Really excited about the new puppy, and just to be clear, Jack is NOT retired.”

Join Jack and J.J. for a special welcome event at Healy Circle, 4 p.m. on Friday, April 13, when Steck returns to campus with the little guy from San Diego. Meanwhile, check the university website which will map the puppy’s travels across America to his destination in D.C.

Library’s McCoy Earns Historic Preservation Award; Tale of 2007 Fire in the Comics

Jerry McCoy, special collections librarian, Washingtoniana Division of the D.C. Pubic Library, will receive an individual award from the Historic Preservation Office of the D.C. Office of Planning which chose the Georgetown Neighborhood Library project for the 2012 District of Columbia Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. The ceremony will be held June 21. 

McCoy is well known in Georgetown for heading up the Peabody Room at the R Street public library. It suffered extensive from an April 2007 fire. Nevertheless, firefighters and staff saved 95 percent of its historic collection, including the beloved portrait of Yarrow Mamout, a early 19th-century Georgetowner who emigrated from West Africa and a popular resident at the time. (Today, the library stands fully reconstructed.)

That story was re-told in the Washington Post’s March 25 comics sections in the “Flashbacks” comic-strip. “I thought the denoument of the Yarrow story featuring the Peabody Room’s portrait and its rescue from the fire was pretty spectacular,” McCoy said.

Capital Bikeshare Opens First Stations on the National Mall


The District Department of Transportation and the National Park Service announced last month that the first Capital Bikeshare stations have been installed on the National Mall. Two stations were installed just days before the start of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The new stations are located at Ohio Drive and West Basin Drive, SW near the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial; and on Jefferson Drive between 14th and 15th Streets, SW, close to the Washington Monument.
 
“We are delighted to offer Capital Bikeshare to our residents and visitors as they traverse the historic landmarks and monuments on the National Mall,” said Mayor Vincent C. Gray. “We strongly believe that a Capital Bikeshare presence on the Mall will promote greater use of bicycling and other sustainable transportation options throughout the five week festival and beyond.” 
 
The new stations are the first of five Capital Bikeshare stations planned for the Mall and they will remain in place after the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Street Art Classy-Style Comes Downtown


Notice those black and steel interwoven figures dominating the median of New York Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets? They’re the second installation of the New York Avenue Sculpture Project www.downtowndc.org/go/new-york-avenue-sculpture-project by international sculptor, Chakaia Booker, who unveiled them last month on International Women’s Day, more than two years after the National Museum of Women in the Arts www.downtowndc.org/go/national-museum-of-women-in-the-arts (1250 New York Avenue) teamed with the D.C. Office of Planning and other agencies to begin work on featuring changing installations of works by contemporary, world-class women artists.

New York-based Booker works almost exclusively with recycled tires that are cut, shaped and folded, then woven into large-scale expressive works fusing ecological concerns with explorations of racial and economic differences, globalization and gender. The art project has changed the look of New York Avenue, one of Downtown’s major boulevards.

Analysis of MLK Library Begins


The Urban Land Institute issued its final report on a proposed plan for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library www.downtowndc.org/go/king-library (901 G Street) last month, setting the stage for the 40-year-old historic landmark to begin an in-depth analysis to determine the feasibility and cost of implementing the report’s recommended scenarios. Although an analysis of the city’s central library will begin next month, its fate has been discussed for years, particularly as Downtown has become more vibrant and property values have soared.

ULI presented preliminary details of its finding to help guide city leaders and residents in deciding the 400,000 gross-square-foot building and MLK Library’s future in November. The three scenarios for consideration include keeping the existing building as a library and lease excess space to another commercial, non-profit or municipal entity, maintaining the existing building for the library’s complete use and selling the building and identify another downtown location for the central library.

The Freelon Group, a nationally recognized architectural firm and the library’s architect-of-record, will examine how the library can be reconfigured for co-tenancy, add two additional floors, and identify, prioritize and provide cost estimates for needed major improvements. In addition, the library will work with the D.C. Office of Planning to explore whether there are viable, alternative locations in downtown that can accommodate a 225,000 SF central library.

Keys to Halcyon House Passed to S&R Foundation

March 27, 2012

S&R Foundation attorney Alice Haase has confirmed that Halcyon House, one of Washington’s most historic homes at 3400-3410 Prospect Street, N.W., has gone to settlement. Under contract since November 2011 to the S&R Foundation, a National Cherry Blossom Festival participant, the property was sold by the Dreyfuss estate for $11 million. 

Purchased by Edmund Dreyfuss and Blake Construction in 1966 from Georgetown University, Halcyon House has been held by the Dreyfuss family and its business concerns for almost 46 years, the longest tenure of any of the property’s deed holders, including its builder and original 1787 occupant, Benjamin Stoddert, the first Secretary of the Navy and friend of George Washington.

Sculptor John Dreyfuss, who led the renovation and reconstruction work during the 1980s and 1990s at the house and its gardens, as well as building a lower studio and hall, received an award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation for his efforts. At one time, Dreyfuss also headed up the Francis Scott Key Foundation, a non-profit which completed Francis Scott Key Park and the Star-Spangled Banner Monument on M Street, now part of the National Park System, next to Key Bridge.

S&R Foundation, which last year purchased another historic Georgetown home, Evermay, is a non-profit founded in Washington, D.C., by Dr. Sachiko Kuno and Dr. Ryuji Ueno in 2000 “to encourage and stimulate scientific research and artistic endeavors among young individuals.” The foundation plans to operate its day-to-day business from Evermay on 28th Street in Georgetown. The married couple, Ueno and Kuno, founded Sucampo Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a global biopharmaceutical company based in Bethesda. Sucampo is one of the sponsors of the National Cherry Blossom Festival.

In addition, with its Japanese-American mission, S&R Foundation is hosting its first “Annual Overtures Artist Concert Series,” which will feature seven award-winning, world-class performing artists at the Kennedy Center as part of the festival’s centennial celebration, honoring 100 years of the gift of trees from Tokyo to Washington — Wednesday, April 4 – Sunday, April 8, Tuesday, April 10, Thursday, April 12; all performances will begin at 7:30 p.m.

Viola Drath’s Alleged Killer Remains in Psych Ward

March 22, 2012

A D.C. Superior Court judge ordered Albrecht Muth, accused of killing his 91-year-old wife Viola Drath, held for another month during a mental health hearing last week. He has already been formally indicted for murder.

Muth remains in Saint Elizabeth’s psychiatric hospital for a competency test. Some want to make sure he is not faking his mental condition. He was said to have been hearing the voices of angels and seeing visions. Muth had previously protested his incarceration, saying it was all a plot by Iranian spies, and that he was an officer inthe Iraqi Army.

Drath and Muth lived in a townhouse near Q and 32nd Streets. Muth, who has plead not guilty, is scheduled to appear in court on April 25 to see if he is fit to be on trial at all.

ANC2E Full Report, January 30, 2012February 7, 2012

February 7, 2012

ANC Report: Full House on DCFEMS, DCRA, Pepco, Food Trucks and Evermay.

Got all that? In an especially full and varied meeting Jan, 30, Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E tackled a packed line-up:

**Fire & EMS**

Chief Kenneth Ellerbe, of D.C. Fire & Emergency Medical Services, fresh with his department’s safety and health demonstrations at the Georgetown Safeway Jan. 28, addressed the meeting and stressed the role of firefighters who are also paramedics and emergency responders.?Ellerbe’s insistence on the use of the full name?and not just “DCFD” (the chief ordered uniforms and t-shirts must show the full acronym, DCFEMS)? has some firemen and members of the union bothered. But the chief continues to talk about the department’s “soft presence on the streets” and the 161,000 calls in 2011: 130,000 were medical, and only 500 were real house fires. Ellerbe also said the department had gotten 25 new ambulances and defended the newly proposed firefighters’ working hours of?12 hours on, 12 off.

**Building Collapse Still Unknown**

Nicholas Majett, director of the D.C. Department of Regulatory and Consumer Affairs, talked about how the agency “touches everyone,” and then dealt with the partial collapse of the building at 1424 Wisconsin Ave., N.W., as well as regulations on the newly popular food trucks around the city. The partial collapse happening Thanksgiving Day, and there is a stop-work order on the site. The owner must hire a structural engineer to determine the cause?a possible conflict of interest that commissioners found troubling and said so to DCRA’s Bill Davidson and his boss. Citing a construction collapse of a Wisconsin Avenue building ten years ago, which was owned by the same businessman and about one block to the south, commissioner Bill Starrels recalled, “The owner has a history as a bad actor.” Owner Robert Solomon of the 1422 Wisconsin Ave. building complained about a window being bricked up. The cause of the collapse remains undetermined, and DCRA needs to know if it is to issue a permit for rebuilding at the site, which was slated to became a Z-Burger eatery.

**Where Food Trucks May Park**

As for food trucks, the commissioners voted to ask that they not park on residential streets. Current law allows them to park in any legal spot.?

**Evermay to House S&R Foundation**

Evermay’s zoning variance request was approved in a most collegial manner. Evermay LLC requested that the S&R Foundation, headed by the property’s new owners, biotech business partners and spouses Ryuji Ueno and Sachiko Kuno, be allowed to operate from the estate at R and 28th Streets with strict restrictions on frequency of events and number of employees. The foundation’s mission encourages musical and scientific excellence while it promotes American and Japanese ties and studies responses to disasters, such as tsunamis or earthquakes. S&R Foundation attorney Alice Gregg Haase listed the restrictions, which include parking all cars on Evermay’s land, no outdoor amplified music, no more than 100 persons on regular events and more. The ANC voted to review the approval after five years, not seven as was requested by the foundation. “This is the way it should work,” said ANC chair Ron Lewis. The zoning commission will make its final decision at the end of this month.

**Hey, Be Alert: Lock It**

The monthly police report by Metropolitan Police Department officer Kathryn Fitzgerald stated the obvious: lock your doors and secure your items. One business cash register was robbed when employees left keys in the register; another left its business office doors unlocked and was robbed. (The perps were caught.) As for iPhone thefts, need we say more?

**Better Wiring in the Hood**

Pepco officials were also at the meeting to discuss outages and how the utility is switching neighborhoods to different electrical grids, such as Hillandale, and upgrading lines as well?all to improve service in Burleith.

**Hang On, O and P**

For the O and P Street Project: the 3400 block of P Street should be complete now.? Check [FixingOandPStreets.com](http://www.fixingoandpstreets.com) for updates, such as a utilities turn-off next week.

Quick question: Who said the following? “Rocky’s Report should be taken with a grain of salt.” It was ANC chair Ron Lewis speaking of Georgetown University’s more personable approach to campus crime reporting.? More quotes this and next week on the zoning commission’s decision?expected momentarily?on the university’s 2010-2020 campus plan.

Wal-Mart Negotiates First DC Area Store

November 3, 2011

Wal-Mart is negotiating opening its first store in D.C. on New York Avenue N.E. near the intersection of Bladensburg Road.

The chain has been interested in opening a store in the District for years but has not yet signed a lease for the land that is believed to be owned by a family in the taxicab business, according to the Washington Post.

Currently, various auto part shops and the Skylark Lounge, a strip club are on the property.

Unlike other locations Wal-Mart has considered in the past – such as property in Anacostia – a store on New York Avenue would likely require no city subsidies or zoning charges. This could allow the company to avoid the political concerns it attracts due to uneasy relations with organized labor.

The addition of a Wal-Mart could help send shoppers and sales taxes to the suburbs. It would also offer a large number of jobs, since Wal-Mart is one of the nation’s largest employers with about 1.4 million employees, as of March 2010.

Nice Place You’ve Got Here


 

-The Washington Design Center is announcing the debut of its brand new Design House, located on the fifth floor of their building, 300 D St. S.W. The WDC has lined up Washington’s best of the best to design it first — the WDC Hall of Fame Designers, including Olivia Adamstein, Frank Randolph, Nestor Santa-Cruz and more. Elle Décor magazine, one of the few interior design pubs not made mincemeat by the economy, will serve as media sponsor for this exciting project.

The Halls of Fame Design House will be revealed at a black tie gala on May 20 and run through Dec. 4. All proceeds from the Design House will benefit WDC’s charity partner, Georgetown University Hospital/Department of Pediatrics. Admission is free. www.dcdesignhouse.com.

Trash Collection Schedule to Change with Triple-Digit Temps


D.C. Department of Public Works’ crews will begin trash and recycling collections one hour earlier this week, due to the weather forecast of close-to-triple-digit temperatures and unhealthy air quality.

Garbage collection trucks will start picking up trash and recycling at 6 a.m. Wednesday, the DPW announced.

Throughout the summer, crews will begin their work at 6 a.m. when the temperature is predicted to be above 90 degrees or the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments announces a day with unhealthy air quality. DPW hopes this will alleviate strain on the environment and public health.

Collections for Monday were also suspended because of Independence Day, so trash and recycling pick-up date will “slide” one day. For example, Monday’s collections will “slide” a day and be picked up on Tuesday.

In neighborhoods that have twice-a-week collections, Monday and Thursday’s collections will be collected on Tuesday and Friday, Tuesday and Friday’s collections will be made Wednesday and Saturday.

Read the Department of Public Works announcement here.