The Fun Theory: Musical Stairs

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For all of the beauty of downtown DC’s Metro stations, subway culture in DC has always felt a bit austere. The rare mural or artwork feel forced, intended not to offend rather than uplift or enliven stations. Street buskers aren’t plentiful either, though I’m not sure it would matter. When the Washington Post had world famous violinist Joshua Bell play during rush hour at the L’Enfant Plaza station, seven people stopped to listen. Only one recognized him. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to pick him out of a lineup. All of this seems to suggest that we treat our stations as through-puts rather than informal cultural venues, or momentary sites of entertainment. Yet their potential is immense.

… Continue reading

Rethink Infrastructure

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At the second event of the Rethink speaker’s series, Casey Anderson of WABA and Richard Layman of Rebuilding Place in the Urban Space talked about making (or trying to make) the suburbs more bike friendly for cyclists, both commuters and recreational riders.

Anderson has interviewed 10,000 federal employees about their attitudes and experiences and found some not surprising stats—potential riders are afraid of car traffic, and some surprising ones—even those who would never consider riding a bike think it’s worthwhile to invest in bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

Anderson says the take-away for policy-makers and politicians is that this is not flaky, the community will support this investment.

Layman is seeking to make cycling “irresistible,” and emphasized that a bike-friendly … Continue reading

MRO’s Own Edible Estate

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Tina Schneider, who works in Park and Planning’s Environmental Division, was talking with Planning Director Rollin Stanley about ways to “green” our site. They came up with a number of ideas, which will become our sustainable landscape plan, that include a few bee hives on the roof (starting in mid-May) and turning our flower beds into a vegetable garden rather than planting and replanting them with annuals through the season. About a dozen employees (from neophytes to experts) have volunteered to help design, plant, maintain, and harvest the garden.

Today, Mohammed Turay’s crew of the Parks Department generously got us started by removing the mulch, tilling the soil, and adding some amendments. We’ll have the soil tested this week … Continue reading

On Libraries and Books … and Connections

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One of the first things I did when I moved recently was to find the local library.  When I lived in Rockville, I had gotten used to being able to walk to the Twinbrook library and was hoping that my new place was equally library accessible.  It turns out that Long Branch library is about 6 blocks away – across from my two grocery stores, bank, and various other shops and restaurants that I am beginning to explore.  If it hadn’t been nearby, I still could have used the Silver Spring library near my office, but for weekends – why take the bus into Silver Spring … unless I’m going to the gym….

When I got to the library, … Continue reading

Philly Wrap-Up 1: Split-Level House in the Street

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Fitting “contemporary” design into existing neighborhoods and development can be a tricky business, especially where the existing character is strongly defined and fairly uniform.  As new projects fill in holes in our more-developed areas of Montgomery County, designers will mount these challenges with greater and lesser success.

A good case study is the Split-Level House in Philadelphia.  Designed by local architect Qb, it has been featured in several design magazines and websites (including the fantastic archidose.org).  But seeing the buildings close-up and in context (which is often conspicuously absent in much architecture coverage) is the real test for how the design works.

So here’s the shot down 4th Street.  The height is in the right place, but I think … Continue reading

Cool Communities

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The Coalition for Smarter Growth came out today with its Cool Communities report, that is, places that are mixed use and walkable, generating fewer auto trips and lower greenhouse gas emissions. The report has found a way to quantify diversity and local design, characteristics that are essential to community function and character, but often overlooked in more technical discussions.

Based on recommendations in the executive summary, Montgomery County seems to be doing a few things right—focusing development at Metro stations and making infill development and infill transit top priorities.

Another recommendation is to “create urban street grids” that support “walk and bicycle access to transit.” In Montgomery, all projects in most urban and suburban area include sidewalks, and outside urban … Continue reading

On the (Brooklyn) Waterfront

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Brooklyn continues to reclaim its waterfront for public use.  The Brooklyn Heights Promenade, perched atop the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, offers a delightfully open place to…promenade…and has great views of Manhattan (even in the rain).

The newest piece of this collection of public spaces will be Brooklyn Bridge Park, an extensive redevelopment of the Brooklyn waterfront south of the Brooklyn Bridge.  Pier 1, the only completed section, opened while we were there.  Our lads, while not tots, gave it a thorough going over.

Portions of the riverwalk had also been completed and were open.  With the rain that bedeviled our time in the borough, however, only park maintenance staff and people whose kids had been cooped up and needed exertion were about.

Spring Breaklyn 2010: Boerum Hill

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Over the first rainy weekend of Spring Break 2010, lads in tow we trundled up on the Amtrak to spend a few sodden days in Brooklyn.  Having only really been to Brooklyn in a couple of three-hour sittings, we looked forward to digging the scene, as it were.  Our “Nu”Hotel, situated directly across Smith Street from the famous Brooklyn House of D (at left), is on the northern end of the Boerum Hill neighborhood south of downtown Brooklyn.

The streets were lined mainly with older 3-4-story brick walk-up apartment buildings and rowhouses, with ground-floor retail on the north-south Smith Street and Court Street (with the latter moving into the adjacent Cobble Hill).

As you would expect, the shops featured a … Continue reading

Kickin’ the New Ka-nowledge

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The ReThink Montgomery speaker series began last night with a panel of five area bloggers discussing how they began, cultivated, and use their sites to disseminate knowledge and spark conversations. The panel, moderated by Community Planner Fred Boyd, generously gave us their time – when I’m sure they would have rather been writing – to talk about how individual sparks of interest led them to the relatively new platform of blogging as a value-added news and editorial medium. Like most blogs, these writers use their sites as collaborative spaces, political soapboxes, breaking-news outlets, and link depositories allowing people to pursue interests deeper throughout the web. What’s key to differentiating their sites from general topical blogs is the focus on … Continue reading

Rethink Blogger Panel

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Straight Line Blog Post

The Planning Department’s Rethink effort started last night with a blogger panel featuring David Alpert of Greater, Greater Washington; Dan Reed of Just Up the Pike; Barnaby Zall of Friends of White Flint; Cynthia Cotte Griffiths of RockvilleCentral.com; and Eric Robbins of ThayerAvenue.com.

Two ideas in the discussion struck me. The first was Dan Reed’s passion for his community and the sense of justice that prompted him to start blogging. His reporting recounted Maryam Balbed’s some success in connecting the Silver Spring skater kids to the planning process through his blog. This is the kind of outreach planners know that must do to create a valid plan, but don’t always achieve.

Connecting to a larger … Continue reading