“From the street, [Brooklyn’s Municipal Building] looks like ‘dead space,’” writes the Brooklyn Paper. “‘People have just accepted that government buildings are only for government,’” says Joe Chan of the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Downtown DC is even worse, with back to back Federal buildings each of which presents iron fences and blank walls to the street while Federal employees toil away. It leaves downtown nearly deserted in the middle of a weekday.

Brooklyn is changing this. According to the article, the building’s ground floor could become retail. If Brooklyn can do it, why not the Federal government? If the EPA building, across Constitution Avenue from the Smithsonian Museum of American History, had even a little cafe fronting the street, the Mall could be such a more welcoming public space.

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Tagged: brooklyn, dc, development, new york, public spaces, smart growth, the mall, urban design

David Alpert created Greater Greater Washington in 2008 and was its executive director until 2020. He formerly worked in tech and has lived in the Boston, San Francisco Bay, and New York metro areas in addition to Washington, DC. He lives with his wife and two children in Dupont Circle.