McMillan Park as it is Now Before the Deal is Done

I learned recently that the city is moving forward with yet another plan to develop McMillan Park and fearing once again that I will forget to photograph it before the developers move in and wreck it I snapped these photos with my handy cell phone camera as I walked by last Sunday. There's just something about these strangely shaped towers, the vista with the manhole covers, the cobbled brick ramp and how we just don't recognize this sand filtration water cleaning technology anymore. That it was once powered by donkeys is also interesting. We hardly remember the number of lives that were saved by the clean water it produced. Of course, this new plan might be another plan that doesn't happen as there have been charges that the development office didn't follow procedures and once again the DC taxpayers are being bamboozled.  See this blog for the most recent challenge to the bureaucrats. I've lived nearby this site for over 25 years and remember when it was sold by the US government to DC in 1987. There's been years of talk and proposals and political grandstanding and everyone seems to forget that it was paid for by us taxpayers and we should have some say in what happens to it and it should be developed with open and transparent processes. After all, WE bought the site from the federal government in 1987 with $9.3 million of OUR money.
 

Here's  the history of McMillan Park taken from the BloomingdaleDC history site. The site is bounded by North Capitol Street, Channing Street, First Street and Michigan Avenue, NW.  The historic McMillan Park sand filtration site and McMillan Reservoir are part of a chain of public green spaces established in Senator James McMillan's 1901 plan for beautifying Washington. Following the death of Senator McMillan in 1902, the grounds of the site were renamed McMillan Park. In 1905 the sand filtration plant to purify the city's drinking water was built. The grounds of the site were designed by landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. The site was designated a historic landmark by the DC Historic Preservation Review Board in 1991.

DC's Disappearing New York Avenue

Just the other day I noticed that New York Avenue NE -- just before the BW Parkway begins -- is disappearing from what it used to be. There is no longer the Hess gas station nor the string of car and equipment businesses, nor the fast food joints on the south side of the street. In fact, it looks like they've all been abandoned and some sort of development is going to occur.  The properties are abandoned and fenced in, as if someone has been quietly buying the land for some purpose.  I wish I had photographed this sstreet section when these businesses were still alive and bustling but somehow I missed that moment and only have these.  It's not that these are amazing and wonderful looking buildings but it seems like the pace of development in DC is so fast that before I know it a streetscape has completely changed very quickly. So, before it's gone, I decided I'd better take a few photos or I might regret it like I regret not having photographed a couple of other unique sites and buildings within a mile or two of where I live.  Before I almost realize it, a bunch of buildings are torn down and some giant newscale building goes in. I know this is how cities grow and presumably improve, but I get used to what I've seen and feel I must mark the change somehow even if it's only in this blog.

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.