Streetcars, All Named Desire
Dear Bill Payers:
On Monday, Katya Weir wrote a revealing Washington Examiner article,
http://tinyurl.com/2crfn2n,
on the cost of DC’s planned streetcar program: more than a hundred
million dollars to build the first two short lines and $3.5 million to
operate them in the first year. The full streetcar plan is projected to
cost $1.5 billion dollars to build — and that’s the low-ball
official figure that omits all the predictable “unexpected” and “unforeseen”
overruns that will double or triple the cost before the system is
completed. The fares will probably cover around 30 percent of the
streetcar system’s operating costs, but the city will have to use its
own taxes to cover the shortfall. Unlike the subway and bus systems that
are part of WMATA’s regional transportation system, Maryland and
Virginia won’t share the cost.
The streetcar controversy reminds me more and more of the sports
stadium controversy, both in DC and in other cities nationwide.
Proponents of building both of these kinds of costly municipal projects
can always find a few economists who will promote the great financial
benefits they will bring, a few urban planners who will predict how
whole neighborhoods will develop or be revived around them, and several
politicians who will give glowing speeches about the great civic pride
they will engender. I haven’t seen any reason to change my mind about
the wonderful spin-off economic benefits the baseball stadium was
supposed to have brought to the District, and I don’t expect to change
my mind about the golden age of transportation that the streetcars will
usher in.
I have, however, changed my mind about one thing that I wrote in the
last issue of themail. Throughout the 1940’s, bus companies displaced
streetcar companies because they were cheaper to operate, their service
lines were more flexible, and customers preferred them. In Sunday’s
issue of themail, I predicted that the DC government would abandon
streetcars again after two or three decades, perhaps leaving a few
remnants to show to tourists. I’ve since had second thoughts about
that. Buses replaced streetcars the first time around because bus and
streetcar lines were, by and large, run by private companies, and the
private companies were sensitive both to costs and customer preferences.
But in 2010, both the streetcar and bus lines will be owned by the
government — and the government doesn’t care about either cost or
customer preference. The taxpayers will always pick up the bills, no
matter how high they are, and the users of the system will ride what the
government forces them ride. If consumers don’t use a short streetcar
line because it covers just a small portion of a longer bus line, then
the government will terminate the bus line at each end of the streetcar
line, and force riders to make two transfers to complete their trips. If
a bus line and a streetcar line run on the same street or parallel
streets, the government will simply shut down the bus line to ensure
riders will have to take the streetcar. The normal rules of free
competition don’t apply when government’s heavy thumb is on the
scale.
Gary Imhoff
themail@dcwatch.com
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Covering DC’s Budget Crisis
DJ Mallof, dave20009@yahoo.com
The Current Newspapers’ innocuous May 5 front page
headline, “Fenty budget critics float alternatives to fees, cuts,”
and the copy following it buried the lead, which finally appeared in the
nineteenth, closing paragraph: “Though [DC Council Chairman Vincent
Gray] declined to describe how he plans to address the fiscal crisis, he
said that finding a way — whether raising additional revenues or
cutting spending — is crucial. ‘If we don’t address this now,
there is a real possibility of a (federal) control board coming back,’
he said.”
Mr. Gray now joins the chair of the Committee on Finance and Revenue,
Mr. Jack Evans, who also was quoted in the article. Interestingly, in
mid-March Mr. Evans suddenly staked out a new rhetorical position by
warning of the very real possibility of the federally constituted
financial control board, which technically still exists, returning to
run DC. Mr. Evans’ sleight of hand is an attempt to come across as a
voice of prudence after having spent years as perhaps the top
perpetrator of DC’s reckless, myriad, and reprehensible financial
excesses. These practices have included wasteful and often corrupt
overspending, the selected bleeding of tax revenues, rampant
over-borrowing, and maintaining dangerously low cash reserves. He and
other officials also have lied repeatedly about the significance of the
higher bond ratings that were achieved for some new debt offerings
recently as a result of DC agreeing to encumber and decrease its ability
to manage our indebtedness.
Especially egregious has been the committee’s lead role in
siphoning-off revenues and funneling the money — via repeated, ever
larger, inequitable, and fiscally corrupt public subsidies using
abatements, public indebtedness, and other tax schemes — into the
private hands of a few who possess special, preferential access and
influence in the offices of certain elected officials. Add to this the
committee’s long standing lazy to often nonexistent financial
oversight of DC’s finances, despite many repeated annual warnings
published by the District’s independent auditor. The majority of DC’s
fourteen elected officials at the Wilson Building have a congruent
interest in smoothing over these looming truths as long as possible to
get reelected this year. Come next year, expect the full brunt of
reality to come to light, since all the financial tricks will have been
attempted. These include recently extending principal debt repayments to
pay interest only for the next four years, draining remaining restricted
cash reserves no matter how illegal, and borrowing up to or even beyond
the debt ceiling (especially damaging when the full extent of added
spending on unapproved capital projects eventually comes to light, as in
the still-emerging recreation center construction scandal).
Thus Messrs. Evans and Gray are right in their newfound prudence. The
fiscal Frankenstein-like reawakening of the control board is quite
possible. If and when it happens, the District will have the same
leadership re-ensconced and acting as if it’s just the economy and the
recession that are to blame for the decrease in our self-governance.
###############
Open Letter To AFT President Randi Weingarten
Willie Brewer, Agnes Dyson, and Sheila H. Gill, wtueboard@gmail.com
This open letter was forward to American Federation of Teachers
national union President Randi Weingarten on May 13: “As you well
know, we are elected WTU Executive Board members who were laid off
October 2, 2009. We have been denied our right to complete our elected
term of office and right to continue our membership by WTU President
George Parker. As a result, 265 other WTU members have been damaged by
the loss of health insurance and other membership benefits directly
attributable to these actions. Upon attempting to maintain those
benefits, we were provided misinformation including a WTU parliamentary
opinion, thereby robbing us of our rights as a WTU, AFT, and AFL-CIO
members. At no time were we advised of AFT’s constitution addressing
the laid-off member policy by the aforementioned or AFT personnel. AFT
Constitution & Bylaws, art. III - Membership, Para. 6, cl. C.
After our own research yielded the above, President Parker undertook
obstreperous actions to disallow WTU Executive Board members
consideration of our concerns. Constitutionally mandated union meetings
— executive board, delegate assembly, and membership meetings — are
often canceled or they do not have voting quorums and are held in places
from which we are barred (DCPS and the WTU offices). This complaint
notice informs you that WTU is not being managed according to its
constitution or AFT’s, and AFT’s representative agents, Mr. George
Bordenave and Mr. Jody Easley, sit idle while these significant
violations transpire.
Since a fair hearing of our concerns is not available at our local
union level, we must exhaust all intra union remedies. We are requesting
you to inform us in writing, with the necessary citations, of our rights
to complete our elected term of office as WTU officers. Furthermore, we
are requesting you to order all 265 wrongfully terminated teachers full
membership rights reinstated immediately pursuant to AFT’s
constitution at a dues rate of $6.00 per month remitted to the AFT. We
look forward to your prompt response, as time is of essence.
###############
Graffiti Prevention Public Arts Program Begins
Third Year
Kevin B. Twine, kevin.twine@dc.gov
The DC Department of Public Works and Councilmember Jim Graham are
launching the third year of the MuralsDC program, created to replace
illegal graffiti with artistic works, to help revitalize communities and
teach young people the art of aerosol painting. This initiative
positively engages DC youth and has been successful in deterring future
acts of graffiti vandalism on the property.
Commercial sites that have been tagged will be considered for a free
mural if they are privately owned and highly visible from the street.
Mural concepts are developed based on feedback from property owners and
community members. Property owners must sign an agreement form
authorizing use of this space for the mural (which will be approximately
10 x 20 feet) and agree to keep the mural intact for one year.
For more information, please contact Nancee Lyons at 671-2637 or send
an E-mail to receive an application and release form. You may also visit
http://www.muralsdc.org
for a slideshow tour of the 2009 murals.
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For the past few months, Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh has worked to
secure passage by the council of her Healthy Schools Act of 2010 (Bill
18-564), which received final approval on May 4. Under the bill “nutritional
standards for school meals” would be established, with preference
given to “locally grown, unprocessed foods.” In recent weeks, Cheh’s
Healthy Schools Act has received renewed attention because she has
proposed that the bill be funded by a one-cent-per-ounce tax on sodas
and sweetened beverages.
It is against this backdrop that Cheh’s actions at the council’s
administrative meeting on Wednesday should be viewed. During the council’s
marathon meeting on the FY 2011 budget, lunch was brought in from a
Chinese restaurant and served to councilmembers in Chairman’s Gray’s
office. The lunch didn’t include a dessert, however, and Cheh said
that it wouldn’t be a meal without dessert. Within thirty minutes of
the budget meeting’s being reconvened in the afternoon, Cheh announced
that she had dispatched her staffers to secure dessert. She walked into
the conference room with two large boxes that she placed on the
conference table. In one box were saucer-sized chocolate chip cookies,
and in the other were gooey, oversized slices of chocolate brownies.
Because the administrative meeting was broadcast on cable television,
the councilmembers and their staffs can be seen devouring the sweets for
the remainder of the afternoon.
###############
The Soda Tax and Healthy Foods in Schools
Martin Andres Austermuhle, martin.austermuhle@gmail.com
I’m in favor of the soda tax, even more so after having read a New
York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/business/economy/19leonhardt.html?ref=business)
that pointed out the following: “The typical American consumes almost
three times as many calories from sugary drinks as in the late 1970s.
This increase accounts for about half the total per capita rise
in calorie consumption over the same period. Remember, many of these
drinks have zero nutritional benefit — unlike meat, cheese, or juice.
As Kelly Brownell, a Yale researcher, says, the link between obesity and
soda is scientifically stronger than the link between obesity and any
other type of food or beverage.”
The column also linked to a local blog (http://www.betterdcschoolfood.blogspot.com/)
that has images of some of the stuff that local kids get served in
school cafeterias. The pictures alone are enough to make a supporter of
Mary Cheh’s Healthy Schools initiative out of anyone.
Gary, you may think that people who promote healthy living are part
of an “anti-pleasure cult,” but given the very direct links between
what kids drink and eat and their health (not to mention the cost it has
on society as a whole), this is something our elected officials have to
be addressing head on. Kale and cauliflower may not sound exciting, but
serving that to kids is undeniably better than chicken fingers, French
fries and cans of soda.
###############
Decorum in themail
Gabe Goldberg, gabe at gabegold dot com
Must editor Gary mock and demonize people and opinions with whom he
disagrees? Recent extreme stridency and scorn isn’t calculated to
generate reasoned discussion and exchange of ideas. I’m sure it’s
fun to write and it clearly elicits responses (themail was indeed too
quiet for a while), but it’s less productive, less informative, and
much less collegial than simply expressing opinions with supporting
facts and reasoning. Language such as, “Whenever I think of the
misbegotten enthusiasms of the food police,” “In a capsule, that is
the hair shirt nutritionalism,” and “A photograph . . . epitomizes
the excesses of the anti-pleasure cult” [themail, May 16], hardly
respects people (readers of themail, public figures, etc.) who hold
opinions being mocked. Why attribute such malign motivations? To
deliberately irritate and put on the defensive people whom Gary would
presumably like to hear from, to continue discussing issues raised and
give themail a reason to exist? How about showing as much respect for
others as Gary (presumably) would like to receive? How about recognizing
that others have as much right as Gary to hold opinions, that Gary doesn’t
have a uniquely accurate and valid view of the world, and that others
might be right where Gary is wrong? Is pointless vitriol Gary’s
preferred conversational style, nasty and personal, rather than
substantive and polite? Or is it all just to keep the pot boiling? I’m
not sure which reason for the nastiness would be worse.
[I would like to second Martin’s recommendation of the column by
David Leonhardt in the Times, because it makes very clear what is
at stake. Leonhardt argues that foods of which he disapproves, such as
sodas, are a health danger. Just as with tobacco products, Leonhardt
argues, there is no individual right to use dangerous products, and
people should not have the freedom to choose their own diets. On the
contrary, bad health imposes costs on society, so the government should
prevent people from choosing foods that it deems to be unhealthy — if
not with an outright ban, at least with taxes high enough to be
punitive. Having government dictate what you can and cannot eat is an
attractive prospect to Martin and to Mary Cheh, but it makes me sick to
my stomach. After all, the school lunches in the photographs that Martin
deplores are the result of putting government in charge of people’s
diets.
[Gabe disapproves of my humor, but I hope that even the most
humorless anti-food crusader at the Center for Science in the Public
Interest would recognize and appreciate that it’s funny to try to
entice middle school students into the Brave New World of painful school
diets that awaits them by treating them to a yummy, yummy lunch of
steamed kale and garlic cauliflower. I suggest that Gabe review http://tinyurl.com/23e25ex
— it’s eighty-four years old, but still funny (at least to me) and
still accurate. — Gary Imhoff]
###############
Streetcars
Sue Hemberger, Friendship Heights, smithhemp@aol.com
Let me preface this statement by pointing out that I’m pushing
fifty, have never had a driver’s license, live in an affluent but
car-less household and that we have sustained this lifestyle while
raising a kid. I’ve spent my whole life getting where I wanted to go
without relying on cars and I’d like to see that project get easier
— not harder — as I grow older. That’s where my opposition to DDOT’s
streetcar project is coming from.
It’s a dangerous oversimplification to frame the choice as “optimizing
automobility” versus investing in mass transit. It begs what should be
our fundamental question — not “should we invest more in public
transportation?” (yes, of course) but “how should we invest in
public transportation?” From a transit perspective, in DC, streetcars
are a stupid investment. They’re costly, inflexible, and offer
inferior service not only to Metrorail, but even to buses. Yet we’re
talking about diverting sorely needed funds from WMATA to create a
system that DDOT has allegedly spent fourteen years planning but, in its
own words, “does not currently have the capacity or capability
internally to deliver.” (See “Streetcar Management RFQ,” March
2010). Thus far, “Ready, Fire, Aim” seems to have been the mantra of
our streetcar “planners.” As a result, our streetcars, purchased in
2005, were out of warranty before they were even shipped to DC. (Don’t
worry, we paid to extend that warranty and to warehouse them in the
Czech Republic where they had to be run regularly to be kept in working
condition). Now that they’ve arrived, we still have no place to use
them. Meanwhile, DDOT has laid various segments of track without having
first resolved such basic issues as funding, power sources, lane
alignments, and the location of storage facilities and turnarounds. Such
actions have been justified as economically efficient (let’s piggyback
on Portland’s streetcar order; while we’re doing roadwork anyway,
let’s lay track) yet the result is we find ourselves being backed into
a project that, frankly, looks likely to provide substandard transit at
a premium price.
While the increased capacity of a streetcar compared to a bus is
often touted, the fact is that buses (even the forty footers) have more
seats than the streetcar (38-43 versus thirty). The extra capacity is
achieved by imagining another 120-140 people standing during the ride.
And when this extra capacity is pitched as a way to reduce operating
costs, the bottom line is that the only way to achieve such savings is
to replace two buses with one streetcar. From a rider’s perspective,
that means I’d wait twice as long for a streetcar as I do for a bus,
and have access to thirty seats rather than eighty. Not fun when you’re
schlepping groceries, traveling with kids, short (not many good
handholds for standees), or have difficulty standing in a moving vehicle
(e.g., have a sprained ankle or need a cane for balance). And, as with a
bus, I’m still caught in traffic (even more trapped, in fact, since
lane changes and detours are out of the question with a streetcar) and
still standing outside while I wait.
Under the circumstances, it strikes me as insane to invest at least
$1.5 billion in capital costs alone to bring such a system on line. That’s
money much better spent on service upgrades to Metrorail and Metrobus.
As a public transit reliant District resident, I want more frequent
service, more reliable service, quicker travel times, longer hours, and
more and better routes. From a mobility standpoint, we’re much better
off continuing and increasing our investments both in Metrorail and in
cleaner and more fuel efficient Metrobuses with enhancements like
traffic signal priority and dedicated rights-of-way. If you want to get
people out of their cars, you have to give them viable transit
alternatives — not just a shiny new toy whose novelty will soon wear
off.
###############
I’m with the pro-streetcar group. They are more pleasant to ride
than buses. They are much more pleasant for surrounding pedestrians than
cars or buses, since they do not make roaring noises or spew noxious
fumes. And they are much better for sound development, since investors
naturally prefer fixed streetcar stops as development sites rather than
spread-out and uncertain bus stops. But I am writing because, in all the
talk about streetcars in American cities, I am surprised no one has
mentioned Philadelphia. I know that West Philadelphia has a network of
streetcar lines, which run partly underground to go downtown. I believe
other parts of the city have streetcars as well. Ditto Boston, which, at
least as of a few years ago, used streetcars (which also run partly
underground) as an important part of its transit system.
###############
[See the article in the AARP Bulletin, “Streetcar Revival:
Will Your Town Be Next?,” http://bulletin.aarp.org/yourworld/gettingaround/articles/streetcar_revival.html,
and the letters to the editor in the next issue, http://bulletin.aarp.org/opinions/letters/articles/letters_to_the_editor_may_2010.html.
The letters follow.]
“Kudos for the fine article ‘Streetcar Revival,’ which
highlighted the growing interest in streetcar technology. Although many
cities — including my home state capital, Boise — were not
successful in the most recent round of federal funding for streetcar
development, it is encouraging to finally see an administration that
gets multimodal transportation and puts streetcars on a level playing
field with roads and highways. — Jon Cecil, Meridian, Idaho”
“I take issue with the statement that the streetcars in Washington,
DC, were ‘dirty, noisy and unreliable.’ I was a DC resident from
1942 to 1972. I rode the streetcars every day from 1942 until their
demise, both to school and to work. They were very quiet and extremely
reliable. They were as clean to ride in as buses. Getting rid of the
streetcars in DC was one of the dumbest things ever to happen in the
city. — W.G. Walters, Chandler, Ariz.”
###############
I originally was going to post a rebuttal of Gary’s comments about
the DC Streetcar program. But there were so many effective rebuttals to
the substance of your original post in the last themail that I, as
someone who was a transit planner and WMATA (Metro) oversight project
administrator in DC government for twenty years, felt both preempted and
vindicated. More to the point, I think the recent rebuttals effectively
demonstrated why the idea of a comprehensive supplemental (supplemental,
mind you) light rail (a.k.a. streetcar) system in a built-up,
car-choked, older horse-and-cart-based urban center like Washington is
not only necessary. It is clearly the only way this city can redevelop
and rebuild its way out of the Soweto-by-Beverly Hills urban
schizophrenia that has characterized DC almost all of the 59 years I
have lived here.
Frankly, after calming down and rereading your original criticisms as
dispassionately as I could, I conclude that the only substantive fault
you find, or found, with the current DC streetcar program is the current
city leadership that is implementing it. Note I did not say “conceived”
or “planned” it. That is because a late coworker of mine — Richard
Bennett — was the author of this program. In 1988, he and I wrote a
staff white paper proposing essentially the very light rail (streetcar)
network and route system that the city is trying to scare up the money
to put into service. In effect, all Adrian Fenty, Neil Albert, Gabe
Klein, and Harriet Tregoning are doing right now is a good job of
reading Richard’s handwriting. And, by the way, no one took Richard
(okay: Richard and me) seriously when we broached this concept of going
back to the streetcar future over two decades ago. We were often
dismissed with the cavalier comment that streetcars, something this city
had for almost a century until 1962, were ohhh, so retro that no one
would ride them once they had been spoiled by Metrorail, which was still
bright and shiny new back in the late 1980s. Besides, the logic went
back then, the region needed money to complete Metrorail.
And, as the two of us were often told as we were booted out the
policymakers’ door, the city leadership at the time did not want to be
fiscally or programmatically distracted. They could not, or would not,
divert even intellectual resources to having to plan ahead (as every
other jurisdiction in this region was doing at that time) for the day
when Metrorail was complete, up and running, and DC had to figure out
how to transport those transit-dependent residents here who could not,
or could not afford to, use Metrorail.
I have a range of problems with the Fenty Administration, but having
the good sense to consolidate the expensive, environmentally unfriendly,
and operationally out-of-date city transit bus system into a more
efficient, twenty-first century multi-modal public transport network is
not one of them. I suggest that, before you condemn the streetcar
system, you direct your criticisms to the estimated 42 percent of
working DC residents who either do not have a car, or do not have
reliable enough access to one to be able to use it to commute to work.
###############
More Misinformation
Bill Potapchuk, Community Building Institute, bill@communitytools.net
Gary, you continue to provide misinformation on public transportation
in the United States. Talking about streetcars alone is like talking
about SUVs without talking about the broader category called “automobiles.”
Streetcars are a part of a broader category called light rail transit.
Here are two links for you and others to learn more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail_in_the_United_States,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Light_Rail_systems_by_ridership.
If you take the average automobile occupancy in this area of 1.1
occupants per car (MWCOG) and the average ridership of one of the cities
with just one light rail line, we would be taking somewhere between
twenty and thirty-five thousand car trips off the road, per day! And
what might a new streetcar/light rail line get us? Less traffic, cleaner
air, and safer travel. Sounds like something wise to do, not lambast.
Gary, which of those public benefits are you opposed to?
[There are two problems with this analysis. First, streetcars don’t
compete primarily with cars; they compete with buses. Few people whose
transportation needs are better served by cars than by buses will find
that their needs are better served by streetcars, but some bus riders
may find that a particular streetcar line provides a more convenient
commute. “Cleaner air” is also a questionable advantage. Streetcars
in most cities are powered by electricity that is generated by far-off
coal-powered plants. That certainly puts the pollution out of sight, and
thus out of mind, for city dwellers. But I’m not convinced that a
streetcar system generates less total pollution than a bus system; it
just displaces it. — Gary Imhoff]
###############
FYI, Philly, too: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SEPTA_Subway-Surface_Trolley_Lines
###############
DCGOP Fully Supports Gandhi for the BOEE
Paul Craney, DC Republican Committee, pauldcraney@yahoo.com
On behalf of the thirty thousand registered Republicans in the
District of Columbia, we fully support the nomination of Mital M. Gandhi
to serve on the District’s Board of Elections and Ethics. The DC
Republican Committee strongly believes confirming Mr. Gandhi, a
Republican, to the Board, is a step in the right direction of bringing
open government to the District of Columbia. Every mayor since the
beginning of Home Rule has nominated a Republican to the Board. We are
pleased Mayor Fenty has nominated a Republican who has the full support
of the local Republican Party.
It is important in any democracy to have a viable two party system,
to ensure that we have checks and balances. The Board is no different.
Election integrity is one of the most fundamental principles of a
healthy democracy. It is our hope that with the addition of Mr. Gandhi
our Board will operate more effectively and with more transparency.
District residents deserve a Board with a member of the minority party,
that is endorsed by the minority party, to ensure we have minority
representation.
Mr. Gandhi has served the District well. He has been an ANC
Commissioner for nearly six years, a member of the DC ABC Board, with
full council confirmation, for the past three and a half and has served
as an International Election Observer in Ukraine’s Presidential
Election. He has shown his integrity and experience to serve on the
Board and we urge the Committee on Government Operations and the
Environment, chaired by Councilmember Cheh, to approve his nomination
expeditiously.
###############
Correction on Nominee Gandhi
Hetel B. Patel, hetel.patel@gmail.com
In a prior issue of your weekly E-mails, you incorrectly stated that
Mr. Mital Gandhi, nominee to the DC BOEE, hosted a meet and greet
fundraiser for Mayor Adrian Fenty in August of 2009. I wanted to respond
to you and your readers about the truth. Mr. Gandhi has and continues to
be involved in Asian American outreach to District residents. In part of
this outreach he has helped to organize or facilitate meet and greets
with publicly elected and appointed officials. This was not a
fundraiser. He helped on a similar one three years ago that I attended
as well. I for one appreciate his outreach to the Asian American
community in Washington.
You insinuate that after he hosted this fundraiser he was nominated
to the Board of Elections and Ethics. Clearly, even from the web site
you link to, it states its simply a meet and greet with three sponsoring
organizations, The Network of South Asian Professionals (NetSAP), South
Asian Bar Association of Washington DC (SABA-DC), and the American
Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (AAPI). In addition, Mr.
Gandhi didn’t even attend the meet and greet with the mayor this past
August. You may have known that if you were there. I spoke in favor of
his nomination at his confirmation hearing and I can assure you he has
the full support of many Asian American District residents whom he has
worked tirelessly for. In addition, if you would like to hear from other
Asian Americans in DC regarding your blatantly false E-mail, please let
me know and I will forward it on to them.
###############
CLASSIFIEDS — EVENTS
National Building Museum Events, May 21-22, 24
Johanna Weber, jweber@nbm.org
May 21, 6:30-8:30 p.m., CityVision Final Presentation. Come hear the
middle school students of Burroughs Education Campus and Stuart-Hobson
Middle School present their innovative design ideas for the DC
waterfront, developed in collaboration with the National Capital
Planning Commission. Free; registration not required. Refreshments will
be served following presentations. At the National Building Museum, 401
F Street, NW, Judiciary Square Metro station.
May 22, 10:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Construction Watch Tour: Smithsonian
Institution Horticulture Services Greenhouses. Work is nearing
completion on fourteen new greenhouses and support facilities being
built by the Smithsonian Institution to house and maintain its
horticultural operations and preserve its orchid collection. Paul
Lindell, landscape architect with the Smithsonian Institution, leads a
tour of the 64,200-square-foot facility, located in Suitland, Maryland.
$25, members only. Prepaid registration required. Register for events at
http://www.nbm.org.
May 24, 12:30-1:30 p.m., Building in the 21st Century. Building the
Green Economy: Drexel Smart House and University Research in Sustainable
Systems. Join Drexel University professor Eugenia Victoria Ellis for a
lecture on the student-led Drexel Smart House (DSH). Ellis is a
co-director of the Drexel Engineering Cities Initiative and the faculty
advisor for the DSH, a multidisciplinary student organization committed
to researching and inventing alternative energy systems and smart
technologies for residential living. Free; registration required.
Walk-in registration based on availability. At the National Building
Museum, 401 F Street, NW, Judiciary Square Metro station. Register for
events at http://www.nbm.org.
###############
Join Franklin School Coalition Steering Committee Chair, Joe Browne,
for a neighborhood walking tour that will begin at the Charles Sumner
School and end at the Benjamin Franklin School, with an update on its
future.
Saturday, May 22, 10:30 a.m. till noon. Meet at the Sumner School
Museum entrance, 1201 17th Street, NW (Farragut North Metro station),
and end at Franklin School, 13th and K Streets, NW (near Metro Center).
Fitness: low; .75 mile distance; wheelchair/stroller accessible. No
reservations required.
The two flagship buildings of Washington’s public schools will be
the beginning and end points for this walk. Beginning with a brief visit
to the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives, see how neighborhoods
emerged and changed in the post-Civil War years. We will attempt to
recreate the most prestigious residential neighborhood in the 1870s —
K Street — and end at Franklin School which, like Sumner, was designed
by German-American immigrant Adolf Cluss. The architect also designed
ten other buildings in the K Street Corridor between 13th and 16th
streets. Presented by Cultural Tourism DC member organization
Goethe-Institute Washington in partnership with the Adolf Cluss
Exhibition Project, and led by local historian and director of the Adolf
Cluss Exhibition Project, Joseph Browne.
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Dupont Circle Citizens Association, May 22-23
Robin Diener, president@dupont-circle.org
Open Studios spring art event by Mid City Artists. Mid City Artists
is a diverse and talented group of nearly forty professional artists who
have come together for the purpose of promoting their art and the Dupont
and Logan neighborhoods they call home. The artists consider their union
as an opportunity to integrate their art with the fast growing retail
and commercial concerns that are located in the area. This year,
twenty-two artists will open their studios to visitors. More information
at http://www.midcityartists.com
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