House Caught in Twilight Zone

along Massachusetts Ave NW

I'm quite intrigued by how this little twilight zone house from DC's past got left behind and is now an eyesore surrounded by gleaming new brick and steel and glass buildings of a completely different scale. It's #433 on Massachusetts Avenue NW and I see it from the bus window every time I take the Circulator bus to work. It was a pizza place for a while, but now it's abandoned and unused, other than by some rats and other non-rent paying tenants. I vaguely remember hearing something about the owner holding out for a better offer when the developers started buying up the block, but somehow he missed the moment and this is what happened -- they built the development all around him. It's referred to as the "Ledo property" and there was a few articles on this in the Washington Post during the last big housing bubble when the owner refused to sell, thinking he could get more. I looked it up in the City's property database and the record shows it was bought in March 2011 for $715,000 and there was obviously problems with a previous owner not paying taxes on time.  Someone told me the property was still in some sort of  legal limbo with the city wanting to demolish it as it's unsafe -- apparently it lacks a back wall! and the owner was supposed to fix it or make it safer. So, this little brick building stands unkempt, trapped between yesterday and tomorrow, neither preserved nor renovated, a blighted memorial to a deal that didn't get made.