Today I noticed some of the new vehicles you can see about in DC these days. There's these little
Smart cars which look almost like toy cars and come in snazzy little designs and look very very easy to park. Turns out they are made by Daimler and originate from Europe! Then, if you have some extra time and want to take a leisurely taxi or ride there's some pedicabs you can hire. In fact one day I took one home when I was on P Street. It was a green one, in the photo here, and the guy had breath enough to pedal away and chat with me about his new business and how it was very competitive with a couple of other pedicab companies in the area now. I think DC is changing right before our very eyes if we only just notice the transformation.
I pass by 391 Rhode Island Ave NW all the time either on the bus or walking or in a car and have been watching with fascination the transformation of Frazier's Funeral Home to condominiums. Apparently the building was sold in 2011 for about $850,000 and is being re-worked into a multi-unit residential property. Interestingly, originally it was three row houses that had been turned into the funeral home back in the day. The dividing interior walls were removed when it became a funeral parlor and so the new developer has probably sliced this up in a new way. There are some websites discussing this re-use of the building with lots of conversation about bringing the dead back to life, dangers of embalming chemical residue, and whether or not there are ghosts haunting the place. It's a crazy traffic corner there at Florida and Rhode Island and 4th Streets NW -- apparently there is an abundance of accidents due to people running the light -- so I hope the developer put in good windows or the new live tenants will go nuts from noise.
