“As long as power flows through any of my circuits… I’ll fight you.”

When Optimus Prime said those words in the 1986 classic The Transformers: The Movie, he was speaking to Megatron, the evil leader of the Decepticons. But he could just as well be challenging the naysayers and regulators trying to keep him out of Georgetown.

A new fight is brewing over the fate of two massive Transformer sculptures placed by a Georgetown University neuroscientist outside his rowhome in the historic neighborhood, sculptures that, depending on whom you ask, have either delighted many visitors or horrified some longtime neighbors.

Dr. Newton Howard first placed the two-ton, 10-foot-tall sculptures of Optimus Prime and Bumblebee outside his Prospect Street NW home in early 2021, drawing attention from passersby in the otherwise staid neighborhood. But he also faced pushback from neighbors who said the sculptures didn’t comport with the neighborhood’s historic character.

When Howard attempted to get a permit to keep the sculptures on the planter boxes on either side of his front door, the Old Georgetown Board — the federal board charged with reviewing any changes to the exterior of Georgetown’s historic homes — shot him down, arguing that they’re “clearly not compatible with the Georgetown historic district.” The board’s members did give him a brief reprieve in the form of a six-month window to keep the sculptures up, though, lasting through the fall of 2021.

Those six months came and went, and Optimus Prime and Bumblebee have since quietly remained in place. In September of this year, though, a city agency urged Howard to again apply for a public space permit. And that has sparked yet another confusing regulatory fight over how, whether, and why a pair of Transformer sculptures should (or should not) get to stay put. (It’s not exactly a battle of good vs. evil for the fate of humanity, but not everything can be.)

Just as happened in early 2021, two weeks ago the Advisory Neighborhood Commission that includes Georgetown took up Howard’s public space permit application. What limited public comment there was on the sculptures came from Catherine Emmerson, the co-founder of the Prospect Street Citizens Association.

“There has not been an engineering study on putting these up. Children climb on these structures. They are rusting. Our streets are bombarded, our garages are blocked by cars, tour buses, and every other random [person] that comes here and takes selfies in front of these structures,” she said. (In his application, Howard didn’t deny that last point. “These figures grab ones’ attention, create conversation, and of course require the inevitable selfie!” he wrote.)

The ANC voted to reject Howard’s application, but just as in 2021, did so only on procedural grounds. Since Georgetown is a federally recognized historic district, the commission said, Howard would have to return to the Old Georgetown Board for its approval first. “The ANC asserts that, unless there is something here that is more than meets the eye, any discussion of how these statues fit within the historic district is best left to OGB, who, as a matter of proper procedure, should review this application prior to a public space review,” said the commission in its resolution, missing no opportunity to drop in a Transformers reference.

The Old Georgetown Board, of course, wasn’t convinced the last time Howard approached it. And not unlike what he experienced last year, Howard says having to relitigate the whole situation is “bizarre.”

“People have stuff on their planters, from Santa to a foreign flag. Why is this one such a big deal and confusing them and so overcomplicated for no reason? I have no idea,” he said in an interview with DCist/WAMU.

The ANC seemed to concede it had no idea either, noting in its resolution that “other residents in the historic district use the public space for things like planters and potentially even art installations, and the ANC does not typically see applications for such use of public space.”

The city, for its part, has quietly been pushing for a peaceful resolution. In August 2021, Howard signed an agreement with the D.C. Department of Transportation (which regulates the use of public space) requiring him to secure the sculptures so they don’t topple over. And in response to Howard’s most recent application to keep the sculptures up in public space, a reviewer from the Office of Planning found the sculptures “to be a lively addition to the streetscape” and said they did not impede passage on the sidewalk or pose any other risk.

“We would expect no less from citizens of Cybertron,” cheekily wrote the reviewer. “Unless there is more than meets the eye here and these are robots in disguise, there is no prime objection to this application for an installation of artwork [on] the public sidewalk.”

The path forward seems murky. Howard’s application for a public space permit has to be routed through the Old Georgetown Board before coming back to the ANC. But if the board again rejects it, it still remains unclear whether city agencies would do anything to force Howard to take the sculptures down. (The D.C. Department of Transportation did not respond to a request for comment.) There have been other efforts to keep the Transformers somewhere else in Georgetown, though; the Georgetown Business Improvement District has “explored locations that could work,” according to spokeswoman Lauren Boston.

Emmerson, for her part, decried the “significant abuse of the process that all of us who live in this historic district must abide by.” But ANC Commissioner Kishan Putta thinks the entire process has been too much. “I really hope they don’t have to come down,” he told DCist/WAMU. “They really have brought a lot of happiness to people.”

And much like the Autobots never backed down, Howard says neither will he.

“It’s not just a random bucket of flowers,” he says of the sculptures. “They interpret my inner self.”