The parking saga continues. A response today from DDOT, and the email I sent back are here. The wife wrote the email that I sent back. I may be the complainer in the household, but she’s better at snippy. We make a good team.
Tag: Harvard Street
Wet socks
At the wife’s request, I did not take the bus this morning. She might not have made the request if she had, as I did, gone outside to take out the trash. If she had taken out the trash, she probably would have decided that it was raining too hard, and that we should take the bus. But she didn’t take out the trash, so we walked. For those of you not in or near DC, it’s been raining for a while now, and things are starting to flood. Not serious floods, but minor property damage and hydroplaning cars kind of floods. So, we bundled work clothes and lunch and whatnot into bags, put on our raincoats, and set off. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. There weren’t that many people walking, so there weren’t too many umbrellas to avoid. Umbrellas and puddles are the scourge of the city rain walker. Especially those giant golf umbrellas that take up the entire sidewalk. So I arrived at work, slightly damp but okay otherwise. I changed my clothes, and realized that my backpack is not entirely waterproof. The two things that got wet – my laptop power supply (Although not badly – I wiped it off and it’s fine) and my brown socks. So now I’m wearing brown slacks, brown shoes, a brown belt, and little white athletic socks. Oops. Perhaps the brown socks will dry, or perhaps I will just wear these all day. Only time will tell.
Parking a car in DC sucks
Posted a new Angry Letter today. I’m tempted to tear down a bunch of “Emergency No Parking” signs. But I probably won’t.
Alternative means of transportation
As some of you may know, I drive out to Falls Church for work every day. As I go down 14th Street NW in the morning, I look fondly at the bike path, trying to ignore the frequently double-parked cars, right turners, and other obstacles, and imagine biking to work. How smug I would be, getting some exercise, some fresh air, shrinking my carbon footprint. I mean, in terms of yuppie street cred, commutes go something like this, in increasing order of smugness:
- Drive
- Carpool
- Metro
- Long bus ride
- Metro from a “sketchy” stop like Brookland or Navy Yard
- Telework
- Full time grad student (Only if you’re at least 4 years older than most of your classmates)
- Short bus ride
- Walk
- Bike
I was thinking, though, how much longer it would take to bike than drive. And then I passed a guy on a bike. I passed him around P St, or maybe T. I thought to myself how it must take him forever to get to work. I wondered if I had that kind of dedication. And then, I got stuck at the light at N St. And he passed me. The light changed, and I nearly caught him, but then he was off as I waited at the light at the circle. I lost track of him after that.
My first speeding ticket since high school
First, let me say it is truly a joy to pay a ticket at the DC DMV website. Of all the things the DC government does, extorting collecting money through the DMV website is something it actually gets right. I got a speed camera ticket on Michigan Avenue near Catholic University a few weeks ago. There were all of two cars on the road, and I was doing 37 in a 25. It’s pretty annoying, because I really don’t speed much these days. It’s a $50 fine and no points, so I guess it isn’t too terrible in the grand scheme of things. It just bugs me because I’m mostly a law-abiding (though aggressive) driver. Every day, I see people doing things in a car that are unsafe and illegal with no consequences, and I get a ticket for speeding on an empty road. What about the cabbie who zipped around me to run the red light at 15th and Mass NW yesterday? Or the four cars that turned right on H from the middle lane of 18th because they didn’t feel like waiting in line? Anyway, I hope you enjoy my $50, DC. I hope it makes you very happy.
Target is cool, but . . .
I walked past Columbia Heights’ new Target last night on my way to Wonderland. I’ve never seen so many white kids in the neighborhood. It’s like a big magnet. It’s good to see people coming to the new stores, but I’m afraid that people are glossing over the problems that still remain. There has apparently been a big spike in crime this past week – muggings at gunpoint in broad daylight and on the Metro, and Target has serious theft problems. I imagine things will calm down a bit, but spring is coming, and with it the yearly crime spike when it gets nice outside. I hope Target and the rest of DCUSA are prepared.
Changes in Columbia Heights
The Washington Post | A Rapid Renaissance in Columbia Heights
Even within the rush of construction that has swept across the District, Columbia Heights’ renaissance is singular, not only because of its scope but because of its locale, a residential neighborhood that is among the region’s most economically and racially diverse.
Sweet. We’re singular. I think they chose that because the connotations of “unique” are too universally positive. “Singular” implies that you could be the only one, but still not that exciting.
Community leaders, said D.C. Council member Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), envisioned a neighborhood that would serve all residents’ dining and retail needs, and include a kaleidoscope-like civic plaza for the working-class families and professionals who make up the neighborhood’s population, as well as the shoppers streaming in from across the area.
Columbia Heights’ rebirth is not only about the arrival of bricks and mortar at a crossroads that long struggled to recover from the looting and arson that followed Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. It’s about the blending of cultures and classes.
Nicely done, way to get the MLK Jr. reference in there. It shows the author cares about poor black people.
The new luxury apartments along 14th Street join the neighborhood’s existing stock of subsidized housing, much of it preserved and rehabilitated by officials who feared that the poor would be forced out.
Never mind that other cities have had great success with spreading subsidized housing out all over the place so you don’t create these little clusters surrounded by new condos. If everything is spread out, you have this glaring reminder every day that people in those buildings are poor and people in these buildings are rich. That’s not how you build a diverse, integrated community.
Black residents made up just over half the neighborhood’s population in the 2000 Census, although their share had declined since the previous count while the numbers of Hispanic and white people grew. From 2000 to 2005, home buyers’ median income rose from $76,000 to $103,000, according to the Urban Institute .
I’m not sure why you cherry pick home buyers’ median income, unless you’re afraid to mention that the overall median income is less than half that.
“Columbia Heights potentially is the manifestation of Dr. King’s vision,” said William Jordan, a resident of more than 20 years. “You have the potential not just for token integration but for a critical mass of old and young, low-income and affluent.” But Jordan questioned whether that spectrum can withstand economic pressures. “Can this last longer than half a generation?” he asked.
No. Not unless you do something about the schools so that the young middle class doesn’t move to the suburbs as soon as they have school-age children.
A few blocks south, in a concrete-paved park at 14th and Girard streets, talk of the neighborhood’s changes can be heard at tables where men play whist and checkers. The park is across from a new condominium building and down the street from where two homicides occurred last year. Graham has secured city funds to renovate the park, a plan that includes installing a fence that would block access at night. Although Graham said a broad spectrum of residents support the design, including park regulars, some say they feel insulted by the District’s attempt to impose control over a spot they consider a second living room, and they see a connection between the fence and all the new development.
This park has a really bad reputation that I don’t think is deserved at all. It happens to be at an intersection where a lot of crime happens, but most of the people who use the park are older, longtime residents. They’re not committing the crimes. But almost every building visible from the park is subsidized housing. Fencing in the park and closing it at night is just going to move the problem down a block or two, and insult the people who’ve been hanging out in that park for years. I love to see positive changes in the neighborhood, but flowery articles that focus on the new money coming in and gloss over the problems under the surface aren’t really helping anyone.
GAAAH! Unwanted mental image!
Swimming Naked When The Tide Goes Out « Jon Taplin’s Blog
What Buffet didn’t say, but I will, is that the Bush-McCain Republican economic policies can qualify as “financial folly” and they are are going to be naked, clinging to each other as the tide rolls out this summer.
Since I’m going to spend the rest of the day with the image of George Bush and John McCain, nude and hugging each other at the beach, seared into my brain, I wanted to make sure that you all are, too. I don’t really know enough about the economy to really speak intelligently about the state of the nation (I know, ignorance has never stopped me before). But I do know that Columbia Heights is feeling the housing market difficulties. There are two large buildings of new condos that have been converted to apartments. One of them, Allegro, converted after taking deposits from many buyers, and is now refunding them. And there have been complaints on the Columbia Heights community forum about home tax assessments going down. A few years ago, it would have been unheard of for a home in the DC metro area to actually lose value. Usually, they say, the DC area is insulated against recession because so much of the money around here comes from the federal government, which isn’t going anywhere. There will always be people here, and there will always be jobs here, even if the economy is terrible. Columbia Heights is probably less insulated because it’s currently “transitional”, and so there is a lot of upheaval and a lot of young people moving in. These young people often have huge mortgages, and probably aren’t tied to their home as much as someone older might be. Without kids and whatnot, it’s much easier for them to pack up and move somewhere cheaper if it gets tough here. And that’s not even looking at the low income residents of Columbia Heights. The median household income here is below $40,000, I believe. Well more than half of the neighborhood isn’t even mentioned when you talk about home sale prices because they don’t make nearly enough money to even consider buying. The wife and I are lucky in that we have some room to cut back if things get much worse. We have some savings, and we’re living within our means (Even though she complains about my credit card bill). Plus we have families to fall back on if we ever got into trouble. But many people aren’t in that situation, and are getting into real trouble. All this to say that, while I would love to see the Bush administration get what it deserves (A 0% approval rating and universal recognition that the last seven-plus years have been an unmitigated disaster), I would rather see the economy improve and people stop losing their homes.
Eat Well DC hires new chef – Washington Business Journal –
Eat Well DC hires new chef | Washington Business Journal
Eat Well DC Restaurant Group has hired a new chef to oversee the company’s four D.C. restaurants. Branden Levine, who was formerly chef and owner of The Tavern Restaurant in Heathsville, Va., replaces Sal Del Rosario, who was with the company for 18 months.
This is interesting news. I’ve been to Merkado once, and to The Heights numerous times (How smug are we about being there opening night?). I have no idea what’s going to change with a new chef. The food there is good, although I liked what I had at Merkado better than most of what I’ve had at The Heights. There’s something about the food at The Heights that knocks it down a notch. It’s not that the food is bad, because it isn’t. It just feels like they could tweak some recipes just a little bit and be much better. So, we’ll see what happens.
Take that, DC Parking Enforcement!
Complaint Hub » Blog Archive » I win! I’m a big winner!
We’re still waiting on a response for the big ticket, the $100 ticket. The wife wrote that letter. She’s a lawyer, so she should be better at convincing them, but we had a much stronger case on the one that I contested. So we’ll see.
Yes, I just quoted myself. Shut up. A couple of days ago, we finally got the letter saying that they forgave the big ticket, too. We weren’t sure what was going to happen – the car still had the old Virginia tags then. I’m sure if they tried they could get my SSN or VIN or something from Virginia and track down my DC registration that way, but that involves WORK, and I just wasn’t sure they were actually going to do that. But I didn’t want to contact the DMV after it was taking them forever to get back to us on this ticket, because that would absolve them of doing any work to connect me to the old ticket. Anyway, it’s moot now, because they finally succumbed to my wife’s crushing grip of reason and tore up the ticket. That brings our record on contesting tickets to 4-0, I think.