Transportation

I often do business at a building in DC's SouthEast neighborhood, near to the new ballpark. It's just under two miles from my office, two metro stops away.  The DC metro has a lot fewer stations than the NY subway, but there is a stop at the corner of my building, and it's the right line to come out right on the corner of the giant new government office complex built to anchor the neighborhood - it had to come before the ballpark could come. Transportation is celebrated there with public displays of ancient artifacts such as old train switches, and the Navy Yard is right across the street.

The metro is convenient, but in the middle of the day you can wait up to fourteen minutes for a train to make the eight minute trip. The new "bike sharing" system has a rack right at the other building, and one is planned for my corner, but its not there yet. Often my meetings over there are right before or after lunch, and I can treat myself to walking one way or the other. It takes about forty minutes, so I can't afford the time every day. I'm always looking for a chance to squeeze in a bit more activity when I can, and this is one I can often justify. Here is the route I took today:  SouthEast to SouthWest

Shortly after leaving the office complex and walking past the construction zones outside the ballpark, I enter DC's SouthWest neighborhood.  One of my colleagues in the other building, an extremely avid walker, won't walk there, such is the bad reputation of the area. Clearly an outdated and unwarranted feeling, in my opinion, but the area has an interesting history. Over the course of several walks I've read many of the local history signs posted around: River Farms to Urban Towers, and often muse about the effect of transportation on neighborhoods, and on the ability to get fitness.

In a nutshell, this peninsula within DC was cut off from the rest of the city by the building of huge expressways through the city right after World War II. It had been a lower class mixed neighborhood of African Americans and Jewish immigrants, and many of the tenements still had no electricity or running water after the war- this within the shadow of the U.S. Capitol. The solution, according to Congress which micromanaged DC those days and felt no qualms about running experiments with peoples' lives, was to bulldoze the entire place and build the first "urban renewal" neighborhood. The expressway was the excuse for the first bulldozers, and today it still roars through the neighborhood, so loud I can't listen to my ipod during the walk, and only a couple of streets have over- or under-passes to allow making my way north to the government office neighborhood where I work.  (The expressway goes underground and heads north past the US Capitol, and then surfaces and just peters out into regular streets. The plan was to continue it north through several more vibrant neighborhoods, including my current home, and connect it to the Beltway on the north. It was the first interstate highway ever blocked by activists, but that is a story for another day.)

Today, there are still some very un-lovely buildings dating from the fifties and sixties, and slowly the urban solid concrete jungle is being busted up to allow for some more green elements throughout. There has also been extensive re-development throughout the neighborhood, but there is still a gritty element in the less lovely sections. I can understand my colleague's lack of comfort in walking there, and I understand how tough it was in the past if you lived there. Not a place you would let your children go out and run around in. Many of the people there would not have their own cars, but you would want to cluster at the bus stops, not wander through ugly streets with no trees, no art, ugly buildings, and questionable people. At the bottom of the peninsula is Fort McNair, today home to the National Defense University, and which was where the Lincoln assassination conspirators where imprisoned and hung. The Fort is a very lovely urban oasis for those with the right id badge to get in - now - but it used to be much more industrial in feel, with big trucks running in and out, adding to ambiance of the neighborhood.

It makes for a very interesting walk, which keeps me moving.