1400 Block of 7th Street NW (rear)

*Hat tip: Karen A. Szulgit

There have been a number of shootings lately in Shaw. This has touched off a lot of worries on the part of community leaders that a gang war has started up. Councilmember Jim Graham dashed off a letter to D.C. Police  Chief Cathy Lanier and others concerning these recent events.

Read the letter after the jump.

Read More "Has A Gang War Started In Shaw? Graham Says Yes." »

Random parking lot not in Shaw

The Issue: An abandoned parking lot in Shaw neighborhood is being scrubbed down, spiffed up, and revamped into…another parking lot. This time, however, the 1300 block of 9th Street NW will be turned into a posh 24/7-valet lot, serving area restaurants. But the neighbors think the space’s rebirth isn’t exactly a step up the karmic property ladder. They argue there are better uses; also, the proposed expansion of the curb on 9th raises a Catch-22: A new curb will steal valuable street parking—but without it, the block may be buggered with traffic.

No More Parking! Ralph, of the blog Renew Shaw, told City Desk: “Based on [my conversations with the neighborhood] everyone —myself included—seems greatly opposed to the lot…it would not add value or bring patrons to the area like, for example, a farmers or flea market or community garden would.” Another commenter on the blog says: “There are already two huge lots in Naylor Court on land where historical homes once sat.” The lot is situated close to “the old Abate building,” a federally protected building that neighbors fear could meet the same fate as the demolished Naylor Court stables.

It’s Just Parking: According to zoning regulations, the space is allowed to be any sort of parking lot the lessee wishes—and the only thing the Advisory Neighborhood Commission can do about it is protest the curb expansion. So far, that seems unlikely: Every ANC 2F member called by City Desk hadn’t even heard of the parking lot issue.

Next Step: If this is your sort of NIMBY, talk to the ANC about the curb issue and keep an eye on the Abate home. For the record, there could be a farmers market there someday; the lot is a lease and won’t be there forever.

Photo by Paul Wansen, Creative Commons Attribution License

The Issue: How far should the city go to keep mourners from worrying about parking tickets? A bill before the D.C. Council proposes a five-hour window in which funeral attendees cannot be ticketed in residential zones - as well as the creation of designated funeral zones non-attendees can’t park in during that same time slot. But in neighborhoods like Shaw, which has more than three dozen houses of worship, some fear the legislation is impractical and could hurt business. Read More "Funeral Parking: Should You Have to Worry About Tickets?" »

The issue: Shaw residents are infuriated by delays at the National Park Service (NPS). They want the agency to hurry up and develop three vacant, rundown properties in the neighborhood, including the Carter G. Woodson Home National Historical Site. Is NPS doing all it can?

No: Irate resident Ray Milefsky writes on the Shaw listserv: "You, the Park Service, are dissing the Shaw community and the City by keeping these buildings as magnets for vagrancy, trash, and criminal activity...We are fed up and angered at being told to look for the pie-in-the-sky when all we can smell is the defecation at your doorstep in OUR neighborhood."

Read More "Neighborhood Watch: Shaw Residents vs. The Park Service" »

The D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services department has hydrant problems, that much we know. With water flow cited as a key cause in the destruction of Peggy Cooper Cafritz's Chain Bridge Road manse last month, the department has been checking and rechecking plugs across the city to prevent another disaster.

Tania Shand also has hydrant problems.

Shand lives down the block from the FEMS headquarters, in the former Grimke School at T Street and Vermont Avenue NW. She has a hydrant in front of her house, and fire department brass are constantly parking in front of it.

Read More "Fire Brass Likes Parking in Front of Hydrant" »

To hear Theresa Sule tell it, the year-long campaign against illegal billboards in D.C. has finally paid off.

Originally authorized in 1931 for a period of three years, the boards on New Jersey Avenue and P Street NW have remained in place illegally for an impressive 75 years. But Sule, ANC 2C commissioner, says a few of them will soon be carted away.

Sule calls the offending billboards "unattractive," and believes their removal "now...leaves the place open for other uses for the public."

One blogger on renewshaw.com noted that the controversy is not simply a question of taste:

Read More "Cleaning D.C. Streets, One Billboard at a Time" »

For years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has endorsed recycling old tires into cushiony playground surfaces like the one slated to go under the “play rocks” in Shaw's planned Tenth Street Park.

Now, it turns out, the agency is having second thoughts, given that tires contain arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury and other chemicals known to cause cancer.

Read More "Playgrounds: The Ideal Cancer-Delivery System?" »

From the desk of Shaw ANC Commissioner Alex Padro: Shiloh Baptist Church is back to making promises about its vacant properties stinking up around the Convention Center and its surrounding blocks. The church has announced "that they will present their current plans for all the vacant properties," Padro writes in an e-mail, at ANC 2C's meeting today at 6:30 p.m. at the Kennedy Recreation Center (1401 7th Street NW).

Before anyone gets their hopes up, the church has a long history of making promises and community presentations about its vacants. The promises have been going on for years. At different points, church leaders formed a community development corporation to deal with the properties. Among its proposals: a skyway connecting some of its buildings. Can anyone imagine a skyway on 9th Street?

Read More "Shiloh Baptist To Present Plans For Its Vacant Properties" »

Wiltberger Street, 2001

Good morning, City Desk readers. The holiday season is officially over, and that means we here at City Paper are again ready to spend all our time serving the needs of DC's Urban Explorers. And now for some news:

• Geopolitical scientist Samuel P. Huntington died last week. Jonah Goldberg wrote an interesting sendoff for the Los Angeles Times.
• Southwest...The Little Quadrant that Could posts the top SW stories of 2008.
• The Prince of Petworth asks a pretty decent Friday question: What's your favorite foreign film?
• In Shaw (AHGB)'s Mari posts a year-end essay about the good, the bad, and the gentrified.
• The DCeiver got hold of the Annotated Inaugural Advisory, and warns, "You will not in any way be through the security checkpoint by the time the program begins, because the security checkpoint will be a storied clusterfuck."
• Theater News: Studio Theatre's Grey Gardens has been extended (again) to January 11. Woolly Mammoth's How Theater Failed America opens January 7.

Get on with yourselves.

Photo by Flickr user ajagendorf25

Good morning, City Desk readers, and thanks to everyone who came to City Paper's Christmas party--I hope your headaches are exponentially less painful than mine. And now some news:

• In WaPo: The MPD has tied the death of 14-year-old Giovanni Sanchez to Mara Salvatrucha (also known as MS-13).
• New Columbia Heights alludes to a new restaurant coming to 14th St.
• Now that the recession has reduced individual spending power, says Penn Quarter Living, is it finally acceptable for good people to buy those cheap Prada knockoffs at the metro kiosks?
• Word of new shopping options coming to Petworth, courtesy of Petworth News.
• Braveheart over at River East Idealist sounds a call to arms: "Let us not develop River East just for development's sake. Let's fix broken windows and everything they represent."
• And Now, Anacostia has some good news and some bad news: Verizon FIOS is coming to Anacostia, but it won't be fully in place for 9 years. (That's kind of like Georgia Ave. resident fantasizing about the supposed trolley system that's on its way.)
• Also in WaPo: Police confiscate cocks in Virginia.

Update: Asher Corson, Mary Cheh's communications director, writes in to clarify the FiOS deal: "The build out deadline is just that, a deadline, not a timeline.  What I mean to say: FiOS is more likely than not to be entirely built before the 9 year deadline."