Bender Building Blocks Block?
27 01 2009We have spent considerable time on this site rallying against any and all new projects that have potential to be block killers, but something we haven’t spent much time on is the buildings out there that already are blights to our cities streetscape. We submit to you the Bennder Bender Building along 18th street.
This building is one of the few left downtown that has above surface parking on the first three floors topped by offices (a feature common in Rosslyn). The green shrubbery along the corner does little to detract from the horrible whitewashed concrete latticework, not to mention the dangerously huge curb cuts.
Once these things get built there is little that can be done, which makes it all the more important to make informed decisions on new building plans when they are in the design phases, otherwise we will be stuck with more Benders!
What do you think?
[Photo: DCMetrocentric]
FYI—it’s the “bender” building (one N)
hopefully, this building could follow in the footsteps of others that have been torn down and rebuilt in the west end and downtown. that way, they could replace it with something that actually has retail on the ground floor…
Ugg. we need to let Bender in there for a few days to destroy the place.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bender_(Futurama))
Those curb cuts are huge!!!! How did they ever get away with those, especially in such a crowded part of the city?
The 18th St facade could definitely use improvement, but it’s worth noting that the building has ground floor retail on both the L St and Conn Ave sides.
Funny enough, I saw them use the Bender Building exterior for shooting the upcoming movie State of Play (based on the British series with the same name). It’s the “Washington Globe” building. They spent a couple of days shooting the exterior shots (with Russell Crowe, even). Happened to be in Starbucks across the street and met one of the producers.
I like the Bender Building. Nothing else downtown looks like it. As said before, it has commercial on two other sides, so I don’t mind having parking on the rear. If every building downtown looked like this, with parking on the first three levels, we’d have an urban planning/design problem. But we don’t. We have maybe 5 buildings like this in downtown, so losing street front to parking in this one spot means it’s not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
The Bender Building is a DC landmark in one of the best locations in the city. Across from the Mayflower and a short distance to the White House. There is retail on 2 sides of the building. Why does there have to be retail on all sides ?
The interior of the building is beautiful and the architecture is unique and classic. Why do we need to tear down all the distinctive buildings of the past to all look the same ?