Posts by David Alpert — Founder
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Landmark or mistake?
If a building is ugly, doesn’t serve its intended purpose, and the people who own it want to tear it down… but it was built by the firm of a famous architect and is a prime example of its architectural style, should it be a landmark? That’s the debate before the DC Historic Preservation Review Board about the Third Church of Christ, Scientist (aka Christian Science)… Keep reading…
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Racial politics kept College Park Metro far from campus
It may be an urban myth that racism kept Metro out of Georgetown (while many residents did oppose a station, Metro planners hadn’t included the neighborhood in initial plans in the first place), but according to a graduate paper from 1994 that Rethink College Park found and put online, it played a significant role in the decision to locate College Park’s Green Line stop… Keep reading…
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Density on U Street?
I got my first taste of local politics last month by attending the Dupont Circle ANC meeting. DC is divided into a number of regions each with an Advisory Neighborhood Commission, a group of unpaid local elected representatives. They do have certain powers, such as reviewing and approving liquor license applications, though most of the board’s actions are advisory, like giving… Keep reading…
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The soul-crushing emptiness of downtown DC
410,000 people enter Washington, DC each weekday (as of 2005), the second-largest increase of any American city. But if you walk around large parts of downtown in the middle of the day, you might not think so. So many buildings face inward, with their public spaces in central courtyards cut off from the fabric of the city, feeding their workers in indoor cafeterias, leaving the… Keep reading…
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Metro actually works (sometimes)
Reading the Washington Post and local blogs, it’s easy to think that Metro hardly works, with numerous reports of delays when trains must single-track due to equipment failures or sick passengers. And I’m sure these things do happen, and are very disruptive (this weekend, a train we were riding waited for ten minutes at Dupont Circle for some unknown reason, without… Keep reading…
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Is Red Hook de-gentrifying?
SoHo, Alphabet City, Cobble Hill, Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bushwick. One after another, New York neighborhoods full of gritty industrial buildings and unsafe streets have turned into yuppie meccas. Red Hook was next… but then it wasn’t, argues an article in New York Magazine. Despite a Fairway and beautiful riverfront views of Manhattan, would-be gentrifiers… Keep reading…
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Soaring gas prices are slowing sprawl
With gas prices over $3 a gallon, drivers are changing their driving habits. Those who already live in car-dependent areas are locked in to driving and have few alternatives beyond carpooling and buying more fuel-efficient cars, but in the housing market, it’s clear people are choosing their communities with the new costs of driving in mind. Speculators out in the exurbs are… Keep reading…
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Visualizing different modes of transportation
Driving down a busy street, a bus seems to be about twice the size of another car, and a little bit harder to pass. But that bus is also carrying about the same number of people as all the other cars for several blocks combined. In other words, you could replace all the traffic with just two buses. If the whole lane were replaced with light rail, it could carry 18 times as many people per hour. Keep reading…
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The Upper West Side of the future
What if Upper West Side streets devoted more space to pedestrians and less to cars? StreetFilms created a series of photo simulations re-imagining Amsterdam Avenue, 81st Street, and Broadway. Keep reading…
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Ramp spaghetti on the Potomac
The National Mall in Washington DC is an American icon, visited by millions of tourists, but also somewhat threadbare-looking; since 2001, increasingly choked with security barriers; and gradually becoming overbuilt with memorials for every group with clout in Congress. The National Coalition to Save Our Mall is fighting these disappointing trends. Keep reading…