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Federal Govt. Closed Tuesday
Snowmaggedon 1.0 in Time Lapse
Walking to The Passenger last night, my mind drifted toward thoughts about the development of the area north of H Street along 7th Street NW. Perhaps it was destiny, then, that I stumbled over this photograph of Mt. Vernon Square taken in 1992 by Jack Boucher for the Historic American Buildings Survey of the Library of Congress, which DCist flickr contributor rockcreek shared with our image pool yesterday. It's a good reminder of how far the neighbohood has come in the last seventeen years.
This editor highly recommends taking a closer look at the photograph, where rockcreek has left several photographic links to what the overwhelming number of parking lots in this photograph have been transformed into -- restaurants, the art walk, Verizon Center, and obviously, the new convention center. It's a testament to the success of walkable spaces that such a parking utopia in 1992 could transform into such a bustling center of activity, instead of just a place for commuters to dump their hunks of metal for eight hours a day.
Certainly something to raise a specialized cocktail to.
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Nice embedded features, but I'm not just seeing it. We've merely replaced one vacant lot with a building (the "new" convention center) and replaced one building with a vacant lot (the "old" convention center). The ugly office buildings were nuked in favor of the Verizon Center, and yes, the parking lot where Acadia now stands is a building. A few other changes here and there, but I would hardly describe it a bustling street scene, other than during games/concerts, and even then I believe that the term traffic clusterf*ck is more apt.
Historical time and development in a city is interesting. 17 years of our lifetime seems like a long time, for now. But think back a hundred and twenty five years. For example, my home downtown was built in 1885. Back then, much of Mount Pleasant and Columbia Heights was literally farmland- these areas were not densely developed until 1900- 1920 or so.
Can anyone living today really appreciate the difference that those 15-45 years made? I know I struggle to.
Wow. Incredible that this was only 17 years ago.
Good to see that this parking lot wasteland and the wholesale devotion to car commuting has been rebuilt into a walkable, livable neighborhood with a very solid mix of uses - entertainment, sports, office space, restaurants, bars, residences, museums. And all centered on a key transit station. Nice work on the part of DC planners.
Similarly, for anyone who hasn't used it, it's always interesting to use the "history" view in Google Earth to see what your neighborhood looked like a decade or more ago, although it's only an aerial of course.
Hey, I work for HABS! Awesome!
Just one teensy tiny correction: while nearly everything we produce goes into the LOC archives, (where the HABS collection is one of the most-used online databases thereof), we're actually a division of the National Park Service. And, I believe, we're also one of the last remnants of the WPA still in continuous operation.
Anyway, thanks for putting us out there!
the loss of some of the buildings (hell, most of the buildings) from where acadiana is, and from the old convention center was, was a tragedy. that's the kind of solid, urban stock that most would kill for today.
Great Walkability; Just not after dark.
That area's fine after dark, just so long as you stay away from O Street. And Clydes. In my dotage, I have come to prefer my diarrhea to be a little less explodey.