© 2011 Michael W. Hicks

© 2011 Michael W. Hicks

What if you had a giant TV screen blinking outside your living room window at all hours of the evening? That’s already the case for some Gallery Place residents—and it may soon get worse.

Just when residents thought they were safe from larger-than-life billboards popping up around the city—the D.C. Council shot down Mayor Adrian Fenty’s billboard blight resolution—Gallery Place may soon turn into a mini-Times Square.

Orange Barrel Media, an Ohio-based advertising company, wants to install eight billboards. But not just any billboards: The outfit's forte is digital displays and 20,000-square-foot wallscapes.

Assuming the D.C. Office of Planning gives the go-ahead, a 57-foot-by-9-foot digital billboard, animated from both sides, will be installed along the rotunda above Clyde’s at Seventh and G Streets NW, adjacent to the 192 units at the Residences at Gallery Place. That's scaled down by 50 percent from the original proposal.

Although Orange Barrel's sign falls within the realm of the District’s 2004 Gallery Place Project signage legislation, the bill is meant to protect Gallery Place from becoming an eyesore. But residents believe these signs are just that.

The Times Square comparison doesn't quite work: It's a major commercial center, with nothing residential. Gallery Place/Penn Quarter’s revival was due in part to the humanity that moved in and the businesses that prosper as a result. It’s supposed to be a neighborhood, says resident Drita Tonuzi. “We don’t have the height of the buildings in Times Square or the width of the street, so when you put all these Times Square features on it, it just looks ridiculous,” Tonuzi says.

“There’s no way anybody who lives along there couldn’t feel the impact of the lights coming from this thing,” says Ann Hargrove, of Scenic DC, a nonprofit geared toward visually enhancing the city.

In one resident’s condo, the sign outside will extend the length of his bedroom to his living room. “The company that’s putting the sign up suggested that I put black out drapes in my room, so I couldn’t see out and light couldn’t come in—that was their solution for me,” says Tom Held. “Thought I’d get some black paint and paint my windows black, that might be even better.”

The G Street alley will be home to a second digital billboard, and six eight-foot digital kiosks will be placed along the sidewalks.

Some residents are frustrated over a potential drop in property values, the bad deal Orange Barrel offered for the right to light up the neighborhood, and concerns about the safety of the signs. One of Orange Barrel’s LED screens on the corner of Seventh and H Streets NW caught fire last summer.

“The proposed signs are only a few feet from where some people sleep,” says Martin Ditto, one condo owner and founder of Stop the Billboard.

But the billboards have been scaled back on account of resident concerns, says Pete Scantland, president of Orange Barrel. The giant vertical billboard was originally going to be 75 feet in height. Plus, the LED sign in the G Street alley and its audio features have been eliminated. The signs will be operational only between 7 a.m. and 1 a.m. Motion graphics will stop at 10 p.m.

“We spent the last year working with them, developing an agreement,” Scantland says. Residents also knew of the possibility of signage when they signed their condo agreement, Scantland adds.

But residents argue the billboards are out of line. That’s like comparing our consent to retail-like noise to using a jackhammer at midnight, Ditto says.

Tonuzi says, “The pitch they gave us was, we could do a lot more than what we proposed, but we scaled it back for you.”

The condo association of the Residences at Gallery Place signed onto the project earlier this year. The agreement dishes out $125,000 a year for seven years to the condo association, according to a copy of the agreement with Gallery Place Media, LLC, the partnership between Gallery Place Partners and Orange Barrel Media.

Individual residents, who’ve agreed, will also receive compensation for seven years–the amount is determined by the size of the condo.A number of residents have declined to accept the money. Ditto, for instance, turned down $39,900.

Revenue from the ads will be split between Orange Barrel Media and owners of the building–including Akridge and Western Development Corp, who recently filed a lawsuit against the condo association, reported the Washington Business Journal.

The condo association board has not endorsed the project, though, Ditto says. “They’ve been pressuring the board, saying it’s going to get passed no matter what—get on board, and we’ll pay you, or don’t get on board and we won’t pay you.”

The condo association board, which has signed a non-disclosure agreement, would not comment to City Desk.

Held worries that allowing these signs “sets a precedent, that once this sign goes up, then anybody can put up a 40- or 50-foot sign.”

They expect to send in a proposal to the D.C. Office of Planning in the following weeks.

Watch Orange Barrel Media's promotional video for the Gallery Place billboards:

Photo by Francisco Diez, Creative Commons Attribution License

The Issue: Will a lone commuter bring down the Penn Quarter Farmers' Market? The market has called the north end of Eighth Street NW, between D and E Streets, home for the last seven years, operating a few hours every Thursday. Ken Crerar wants that to change. According to the DC Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA), Crerar recently contacted the Department of Transportation to suggest the market’s permit be revoked. Crerar, who is president of the Council of Insurance Agents & Brokers, says the route he is forced to take around the market adds 15 minutes to his commute. Is he speaking for the silent majority of disgruntled drivers—or should the market stay put?

Time Over Produce: The argument that farmers markets cause traffic problems—specifically, Crerar says the congestion on Seventh and Ninth Streets slows down his connection to E Street—is not new. In September, the White House Farmers Market underwent similar controversy for closing part of Vermont Avenue. Jamie, writing at Prince of Petworth, says, “If this guy is really having 15 minutes added to his commute once a week, it is reasonable to assume that hundreds, if not thousands of other people are similarly affected.” Crerar has proposed an alternative site: the south side of the Smithsonian galleries on F Street.

Leave the Produce Alone: But Crerar doesn’t seem to be garnering much vocal support from his fellow commuters: An online commenter on DNA says, “I follow the same route…it would be an overstatement to say that having 8^th street closed adds five minutes to my trip.” And Pat Lute, a spokesman for Freshfarm Markets, told City Desk: “The feedback the farmers market has received has been overwhelmingly positive, it’s been called a jewel of the neighborhood. ...We are very hopeful that everything is going to work out.” The DNA dismisses the Smithsonian gallery alternative, saying F street is too busy and must remain clear for access to the museums.

Next Step: According to Lute, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6C passed a resolution Friday in support of the market. The transportation department's Public Space Committee will also presumably discuss the issue at its Oct. 22. meeting.

Photo by Alicia Griffin, Creative Commons Attribution License

Penn Quarter Living debuts a new column called High Rise Life. The first one is on elevator etiquette. It's not so much a column as bad comment bait of which I am sometimes guilty of. Here's a sampling from PQL's rookie effort on sharing an elevator: "Fob in and offer to push buttons or don’t offer and make sure others belong in the building? Remind neighbors that bicycles and their owners usually ride the freight elevator or zip it? Heel your dog or let him/her sniff around and be friendly? What is good neighborly elevator etiquette?" Fascinating.

Frozen Tropics reports on the breaking news last night concerning the pedestrian hit by a Metrobus in Trinidad. The Post is reporting that the woman has suffered life threatening injuries:

"In Monday's incident, the woman had just gotten off the D-8 Metrobus on Mount Olivet Avenue NE, between Trinidad and Montello avenues. She apparently crossed in front of that bus and then was struck about 6:30 p.m. by another Metrobus traveling in the same direction, Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel said.

Two men who said they witnessed the incident told television stations that the woman was thrown a distance down the street, and appeared to be unconscious after being struck. One of the men said that after the woman was hit, the driver of one of the buses 'got down' and prayed."

The Georgetown Metropolitan answers the question: Just what are Georgetown's boundaries?

Do you want to see pictures of people buying records? Someone posted a bunch of pictures from the DC Record Fair held this past Sunday. We wish we could have been there. Meanwhile....Fair sponsor The Vinyl District is giving away tickets to this week's Gossip show at the 9:30 Club.

The New Teacher On the Block offers their take on the hundreds of teachers laid off last week. In the Rhee vs. Gray fight, the blogger sides with Gray:

"Now, of course, this has resulted in finger-pointing, name calling, and a complete lack of transparency on many people's parts (Standard Operating Procedure for DCPS, really). Rhee blames the City Council for not providing the money required to allow all of these teachers to keep their jobs. City Council member Vincent Gray the DC City Council fired back with a press release accusing Rhee of using the council as a scapegoat in executing her master plan of getting rid of large numbers of DCPS teachers.

In this case, I'm in Gray's corner. The numbers just don't lie. It's just another example of the lack of transparency Rhee feels she is entitled to. When I came here, I thought I liked her: I am among the legions of teachers she's supposedly replacing the entire DC teaching force with and I support a lot of the ideas she proposes. But both her behavior and her attitude are counterproductive and arrogant; since I have been here, she has done nothing but alienate, obfuscate, and out and out lie."