DC Metrocentric

Each week we turn the site over to a different neighborhood blogger from the metro area and let them loose on a series of topics about what makes their neighborhood great. This week we are focusing on the District’s smallest quadrant, Southwest.

Site Name: SWDCBlog- Developing Stories in DC’s Southwest Quadrant.  Your Bloggers are Glenn and Greg, residents of opposite corners of the neighborhood.

Neighborhood: The “neighborhood” of Southwest, where almost everyone in the quadrant lives, is everything west of the new National’s stadium, east of the Maine Avenue Fish Market and south of I-395.  It’s bordered entirely on the south by the Potomac riverfront, the oldest waterfront in the city.

Neighborhood’s Best Kept Secret:

Glenn: Everyone says, “Oh, Southwest, the Fish Market,” but they’ve never checked it out.  Never haggled with a fishmonger.  It’s at Maine Avenue and 9th, and, since the mid 1800s, has offered anything you’d want to find in the ocean.

Greg: The swingers’ club down on Half Street keeps a pretty low profile too.

Favorite Neighborhood Building:

Glenn: The old Randall School has been through a lot, but still has a great neo-colonial character.  It’s set to be renovated as the new Corcoran College of Art and Design.

Greg: Tiber Island. Yes, it’s another one of Southwest’s high rise projects built on concrete stilts in a fit of 1950s zoning conformism. But this development doesn’t look worn at the edges and achieves a formal lightness, lifted above its surroundings rather than squatted on stubby pillars.

Least Favorite Building:

Glenn:  Tiber Island.  It’s a big cement box with little cement boxes glued onto the sides.  It could pass for a federal prison.

Greg: Where to begin?  Southwest was the nation’s greatest victim of 1950s raze-and-raise urban planning, so there’s lots of concrete, plazas, and concrete plazas.  The buildings are great places to live, but not so nice to look at.  I’ll say Waterside Mall, the dismal superblock shopping center that’s been torn down to provide space for pedestrian friendly mixed-use development.

Biggest Current Issue for Residents:

Glenn: Navigating around the construction sites.  Within two or three years we’ll have nearly twenty large buildings under construction in a small neighborhood, and the lane closings, blocked sidewalks and dark, empty lots can make it hard to get around.

Greg: Lack of places to shop.  Until we rebuild the old mall, we’re left with one CVS in a septuple-wide trailer and an old Safeway.

New Development You Are Looking Forward To:

Greg: The new Arena Stage should be awesome (pictured above). The construction looks strange, with curvy walls surrounding three separate theaters, but it creates a huge glass-enclosed lobby and multiple levels with views of the waterfront.

Glenn: “Sexy Safeway.” That’s what neighbors are calling the new Mt. Vernon  store, and we’ve been assured by the developers of our own new Safeway that it will be based on the same design.

Anything You Would Like to Ask the DCMetrocentric Readers:

Glenn: What would you like to see in Southwest? Water Taxis? Target? Museums? (Strip) Clubs? Cirque du Soliel? (Yes, this was seriously suggested.)

Greg: What’s the most important lesson that Southwest teaches us about “urban renewal?” Essays due Friday to swdcblog@gmail.com.