Non-professional #four23dc election predictions

I'm not here to give you a prediction regarding the results of today's election. We'll find that out very soon. What I do want to put out there are some things that I would wager would be talked about given a few different scenarios. Here they are, in no particular order, and remember, I'm no professional prognosticator!

If Anita Bonds wins:

- She has the inside track for reelection in just under a year. Yes, that's right. The primary for next year's general election is April Fool's Day (April 1), and the power of incumbency will aid her greatly in that Democratic primary. Voters will get to vote for two candidates in the November 2014 election, and whomever has the (D) next to their name is a shoo-in for one of those seats.

- Expect talk about how the "newcomers/gentrifiers/progressives/white residents" still aren't organized enough to elect someone citywide (even though that loosely-defined demographic just did that with Grosso's election last fall).

If Patrick Mara wins:

- Expect some right-leaning blog or Washington Post pundit (George Will? Charles Krauthammer?) to write about how Mara's victory signals that "even a jurisdiction with an African-American majority is sick and tired of the librul Demoncrats and Barry Obummer." Don't expect them to discuss the fact that many of the people voting for Mara are HUGE Obama supporters and that the party affiliation of Council candidates really has little to nothing to do with national politics.

- If David Catania chooses to run for attorney general, mayor, or simply retire in 2014, Mara's incumbency would give him a pretty solid shot at reelection. As mentioned above, there will be two spots on the November 2014 ballot for at-large councilmember, and whoever wins the Democratic primary on April 1 has the inside track at one of those spaces. Since there would be no incumbent Democrat at that point, I'd expect an epic 15-way scrum for the Democratic primary.

- If David Catania chooses to run for reelection as councilmember, it would set up an interesting race between him and Mara for the likely non-Democratic seat in November 2014.

- Expect talk about how it looks possible for the city to elect a white mayor in 2014.

- Expect wailing, gnashing of teeth, rending of garments and the like from those who supported Bonds.

If Elissa Silverman wins:

- Elissa would have the inside track for reelection in 2014. (Seeing a pattern here? Elected incumbency is a powerful thing in DC.) Expect an attempt from the groups she didn't strongly court (big business, etc.) to draft a strong challenge to her in the coming year, though.

If Frumin, Redd, or Zukerberg win:

- This won't happen. One does not have a broad-enough base, another represents a party with no infrastructure, and the third is a non-serious one-trick pony.

Reader submission: WMATA passenger shortcomings

Metro Blur, by theqspeaks

We welcome the occasional reader submission here at The District Curmudgeon, and this little bit of righteous anger from our friend Jonathan Gitlin sums up what we're sure are pretty common feelings for many who use Metrorail on a daily basis.

Dear fellow WMATA passengers, here are some things I hate about you:

• Standing on the left on the escalators.
• Standing still at the exit of escalators, during rush hour.
• Standing still at the exit of escalators, during rush hour, pulling your enormous suitcase behind you.
• Standing in the doorway of the train I’m trying to get out, resolutely refusing to move an inch. No, I’m not sorry I barged you out the way.
• Meandering slowly up the platform, wandering from side to side as you go.
• Wearing sunglasses. Underground. When it’s already dimly lit. You look like a cretin.
• Eating. Are you blind, stupid, or just inconsiderate? Because it pretty clearly says no eating, you blind, stupid, inconsiderate fool.
• Schoolchildren.
• Having to deal with the pages of your copy of the Examiner that you littered all over the seat.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Let me add:

• Meandering slowly down the platform, during rush hour, in a crowd, pulling your tiny backpack on wheels behind you. You're an adult, carry the pack on your back, you lazy, inconsiderate, space-wasting fool. You're taking up the room of 4 people on this crowded platform!

Have a wonderful weekend!

State of Incompletion

As a former Michigander, it always bothered me to see the state represented without the Upper Peninsula or Isle Royale. A map showing only the Lower Peninsula, labeled "Michigan," is incomplete. End of story.

Map of "Michigan" from Van Diest Supply Company

When I see maps of Virginia like the one below in today's edition of the Washington Post's Express, without the Eastern Shore included, I wonder if Virginians are equally bothered.

Map of "Virginia" from the Express [PDF]

It bothers me to see maps produced without some level of concern for cartographic accuracy. This is the world we live in. Everyone can be a "mapper," but the level of quality is greatly diluted.

Irony: litter from Two Rivers PCS on its way to the Anacostia

I guess it's that time - the yearly litter bomb from Two Rivers Public Charter School.

Nearly a year ago to the day, I wrote about this school's lazy attempt at neighborhood outreach. They've printed the exact same flyer, on different colored paper, with updated dates, and done the same thing - hanging it on the fence of every house in the neighborhood.

Same thoughts as last year - couldn't they have procured a database of some sort so they know which homes actually have school-aged children? The vacant homes on the block aren't going to send to many children to any school. Same goes for the houses with retirees and those with DINKs.

Unfortunately, there was a pretty good breeze today, and many of the flyers blew off the fences and into the streets and gutters. Here are a few photos from our street.

Irony? Flyer from "Two Rivers"about to go down the drain toward one of those rivers.

They gave us three flyers this year. I guess one wasn't enough?

I could take a dozen more pictures of the treeboxes and gutters of our neighborhood, but I believe the point is clear enough. I wonder if teachers teachers at Two Rivers could take their students out for a real-world lesson about stewardship of our natural resources and how good neighbors aren't litterbugs.

DDOT photo of the old Sears building on Bladensburg Road

I was poking around in DDOT's photo archive on Flickr last night, and I came across the following photo:

Southeast/Southwest Freeway 1968 (DDOT on Flickr)

It's a picture of the construction of the Southeast/Southwest freeway through Capitol Hill in the late 1960s. It's a stark reminder that the freeway cut a neighborhood in two, and it's a scar that we'll likely continue to have for decades to come.

What caught my eye, though, was the bright patch at the top of the photograph. I've cropped that section out, enlarged it, and circled the interesting spot below:

You can click above to enlarge it even more. I'm pretty sure this is the old Sears, Roebuck & Co. building. (At that link, you can see a photograph of this amazing Art Deco building, which was still standing until the late 80s/early 90s). It was located on Bladensburg Road, just north of the Starburst intersection, across the street from Trinidad. It's now the location of the Flats at Atlas apartment building, which is better than a vacant lot, but certainly not as cool as a repurposed Art Deco beauty would have been.

A two-block shuttle for "urban lifestyle" apartments?

Trilogy NoMa is a strange apartment complex.

To start with, the name is ridiculous. The buildings were built in a long-established neighborhood (Eckington [PDF], since 1830) that just happened to have some empty lots. The business improvement district (BID) to the south is called NoMa, and it includes a few of the commercially-zoned lots at the southernmost extent of Eckington. The developer decided to use the NoMa name for the complex, most likely because they felt it was a "brand" they could exploit.

The contact page for the complex, though, says these are "Apartments in Chinatown DC - Trilogy at Noma DC Chinatown" at the top of site. Clearly there is some confusion on the part of the ownership regarding where they made their investment. I wonder if they know the city and neighborhood well enough to know where they're actually located.

What "drove" me to write this post, though is the photo below:

That contact page touts the Walk Score for the apartment complex - a respectable 71. (Worth noting - the Transit Score is a 72 and the Bike Score is a fantastic 89!) It's questionable if the management really believes in that Walk Score, though, since they have a shuttle van to drive you the two blocks to the Metro station.

Sure, a shuttle service for handicapped residents might be necessary and a nice service for those who need it. But this van, dropping off passengers at the northern entrance of the NoMa station, wasn't equipped for wheelchair access, and the twenty-somethings disembarking from the van appeared to have no problem walking the few feet from the van to the turnstiles.

Lazy? Silly? A waste of fuel while the van idles at the curb? All of the above? All of the above.

Open letter to local stone masons

A solid low-stone retaining wall is about to become part of history (probably tomorrow). Do you know any stone masons in DC who could use this material? Let them know as soon as you can! Read on for more...

Titan of Trinidad noted that the church at the corner of 14th and Maryland NE has finally been demolished. This is the first step in the construction of the new "Maia" apartment building that will be built in its place.

I'm writing about the detritus of the construction project, though. As you can see from these pictures, there are thousands of bricks, many of them already broken into shards, remaining on site. There are many who would gladly take solid, century-old bricks to reuse them for other projects, but I'm afraid that it's probably too late for most of these solid pieces of history. We don't value recycling and reusing in this society to the extent that we should.

I'm concerned about this stone retaining wall that encircles much of the property. Surely the demolition crews will be removing it very soon. This is the kind of thing that simply isn't built these days - people use cheap cinder block construction for retaining walls instead.

There must be a stone mason in the DC area that would be interested in getting their hands on this material. I imagine someone could take this wall apart relatively quickly (certainly not as fast as a backhoe, but let's be realistic here!) and reuse the material elsewhere.

If you're reading this and you know someone who might fit this description, please pass the story along. I'd love to see some of this material reused instead of becoming backfill for a pit somewhere.