I feel like I’ve read somewhere about city schools that have been closed have been sold to developers. Am I remembering this right? For the folks who live here is this an example? Anyone know the story on these particular condos?
So is it odd for a former school to be turned into condos or is that common?
I’ve always admired the sign on this shop located at 3223 Georgia Ave. It has been open for four years and features, you guessed it, hip hop cds and also old school go-go. Some of the go-go greats you can find here include EU, Backyard, Rare Essence and lots more. When I checked out the store I was psyched to hear the sounds of some old school Tribe Called Quest – I forget just how good those guys were. Anyway, I hope this cool store manages to survive given the fact that the music industry seems to be switching to MP3s and such. Check out a photo of the interior after the jump. (more…)
Thanks once again to DC Real Estate agent, Kevin Wood for putting together a list of home and condo sales for the month of April. Kevin has compiled a list home sales for zip codes 20011, 20010, and 20009. Click on the following link to open up a PDF of the list. April Home Sales So do you think prices have started to stabilize in this zip codes?
That’s a pretty cool building from the outside, yeah? What year do you think it was built?
Thurgood Marshall, Frederick Douglass, but who’s in the middle?
I was lucky enough to get a tour of the facility from Director of Marketing and Development, Julie Green. While it may look a little imposing from the outside the inside is truly extraordinary. As many know the school is located at 3600 Georgia Ave. on the corner of Georgia Ave. and Otis Place, NW. The building has 46,000 square feet on six floors and will eventually host 468 students from pre-K through 8th grade. The school is named after Dr. Euphemia Lofton Haynes, “the first African-American woman to receive a doctorate in mathematics, a teacher in the DC school system for 47 years, and the first woman to serve as President of the DC Board of Education”.
The school, currently located above the CVS at 14th and Irving in Columbia Heights will move to its new location in June. Currently the Haynes school has 300 students from pre-K to 5th grade. 60% of the students are from Ward 1 and the remaining 40% are from all over the city. They chose this location because the school partnered with a group called Building Hope which is a charter school facilities fund, with funding provided by Sallie Mae. And as Ms. Green explained it “the location chose us”. Green explained that Columbia Heights real estate prices were no longer realistic and the school wanted to stay relatively close to Columbia Heights and near a metro so that they wouldn’t lose their current families.
I asked Green the million dollar question: How do they plan on dealing with being situated between a strip club and a liquor store? She replied that the school always keeps children’s safety as the number one priority. She continued, “we’ve faced issues being in Columbia Heights and we are experienced with complicated situations and we will continue to be diligent about student safety and security.” Furthermore, she told me that the school had been in touch with the owners of the liquor store and will be in touch with the owners of the strip club in order to build a good relationship. The number one concern about the strip club is the explicit fliers that sometimes people find on their cars. Green assured me that the school will work with the club to ensure the students don’t encounter these fliers near the school. Green concluded, “at the end of the day we hope that we prepare the kids to make good choices. Being in a big city there will always be challenges. We are thrilled to be here and we’ve been warmly welcomed by our neighbors who have been loving, patient and generous.”
Green hopes that in the future the school will partner with the community in a variety of ways. Some possibilities she mentioned include providing meeting spaces and organizing youth basketball leagues at the school. The bottom line is that the school strongly wants to be partner and be a part of the community at large. Lots of photos after the jump. (more…)
What is this building located at Park and New Hampshire?
If anyone attends the press conference fill us in on the details. I just received this in an email: “At 2pm today in the 3500 block of Georgia Ave., Councilmember Graham
will be holding a press conference to announce that Central Union
Mission IS NOT coming to Georgia Avenue. They are staying downtown. I
do not know the details but this is good news!”
UPDATED: Email from Council member Jim Graham:
“Good news!!! Central Union Mission is not moving to Georgia Avenue in Ward One. It is moving downtown.
We have re-defined the project to include real progress for lower Georgia Avenue. Instead of a 170-bed men’s shelter on the 3500 block of Georgia Avenue, there will now be mixed-income housing.
This is a solid victory for grassroots activism. I worked with the neighborhood, who came together to send a very effective message that a homeless shelter was not the kind of improvement we wanted.
I joined Mayor Fenty this afternoon for a press conference to announce that the Mission had signed an agreement to move to 65 Mass. Ave.
Congratulations to everyone involved, especially the Georgia Avenue residents, local ANC, Georgia Avenue Redevelopment Defense Squad and the Pleasant Plains Civic Association! And a special thanks to Mayor Fenty and his fine team.”
It is my pleasure to present Volume Two ( here is Vol. One if you missed it.) of Intangible Tales by local blogger Intangible Arts. Intangible Arts’ assignment for Vol. Two was to demystify Georgia Avenue. Enjoy the journey.
Georgia Avenue has become DC’s new test lab for balanced development. It’s an ambitious task, and I’m not sure it’s ever been done right.
Tricky! How to balance the new money vs. the long-time residents that are the backbone of the neighborhood, in one strip of development? Other neighborhoods have tried this and failed miserably (creating national retail hell-holes with no local flavor), and that is why we watch our little street with great interest.
I heard from one new resident that Georgia Avenue can be a damned scary place. Maybe that’s true, but a little familiarity can go a long way. When we bought our place, we didn’t have anyone to point out the neighborhood gems, and so we’ve tried to find ’em ourselves. As a result, the strip isn’t nearly as damned-scary as some might think.
And that’s the real point here: A brief tour of my home stretch of Georgia Avenue, southward from the Petworth Metro to the top of Howard University. Due to space, it’s a short list. Story continues after the jump. (more…)