Automotive Adaptive Reuse in the Farmer's Market

Just beneath the pile of watermelons in the middle of the photograph is a wonderful example of automotive adaptive reuse. The Washington DC alleys have historically been full of auto repair shops and consequently used "bits and pieces" would find themselves serving novel uses. In this case a ring gear and flywheel have found themselves serving as a utility cover on the sidewalk. Few would be able to identify the "cover" and most don't even recognized that the cover is unconventional. It's a quaint reminder of another time. The original vehicle is probably long "dead" but the donated part lives on in another capacity. Much like an organ transplant.

Stables Struggle as Auto Repair Shops Today

This auto repair shop in the Mt Vernon Square area was once part of a row of stables. The hayloft beam can easily be seen on the second floor.
 
It’s not easy to get an older car fixed in DC today by someone with both experience and integrity. Dealerships have long left the city and the heart of the auto repair and sales businesses on the 14th Street corridor now beats to a new rhythm of cash, croissants, coffee and corks.


The transition from stables and blacksmith shops to alley auto repair shops was one that many owners easily made in the early 1900’s. At the turn of this century new transitions continue to occur so that even if the lives of the business become extinguished, the lives of the buildings continue. Most small alley buildings have survived many reincarnations. In fact a music group practices above the garage shown above.

Today, rather than being nestled in “quiet alleys” they are often open and exposed. Customers are aggressively ticketed. It’s not an easy business to run.

 The “Cash for Clunkers” program eliminated a generation of cars (about 675,000) many of whom had miles to go, if properly maintained and repaired. People who choose to continue to service their old faithful (paid for) family vehicle are quickly running out of economical maintenance options. To make matters worse, with Zip car costs likely rising due to parking taxation and DC meter rates and enforcement hours rising,. It looks like the value of pedal power just went up in this city! 

Darryl Carter responds by protecting neglected building

Note newly boarded up windows in rear

The editor recently received the following response from Darryl Carter's office. (see Dec 9th 2009 article)

"I am sending a heart felt thanks for your letter of March 9^th to Darryl Carter… I wanted to reach out your way personally since Darryl’s business travel is so intense (he’s away from DC more often than not)… in hopes of catching up with you before too much of a passage in time…  

In Darryl’s absence I will see that the building(s) are properly secured from direct elements. I sincerely appreciate your intervention and the heads-up with regard to the Historic Preservation Office. I do send assurances to you and the community, that it is not our intention to “neglect” the building(s). Quite the opposite – in our field, we routinely work with historic buildings – as a matter of course. If invited, I would very much enjoy attending upcoming Blagden Alley Naylor Court Association meeting(s) – and meeting you as well as some of our new neighbors… On this note - If you have any information to share about an upcoming meeting it would be much appreciated. Until we actually meet, you have my –

Very kind regards - 

Charles Grazioli Chief Operating Officer" http://www.darrylcarter.com

Snow Storms from the past

"President William Howard Taft and his wife Helen during inaugural parade, March 4, 1909. A snow storm forced the inauguration to take place inside the Capitol and it took 6,000 men half the night to clear over 500 wagon loads of snow from the parade route."  Library of Congress

Taft was also famous for destroying the White House stables to make room for new modes of transportation such as his 1909 Model M Steam powered automobile.

The power of five or six horses fits into Naylor Court stable

In 1887 for $800, William P Lipscomb had a brick stable with a tin roof and no plumbing built behind his 920 O Street home. One could reasonably assume that he had one or two horses, but probably not a carriage, for the stable measured only 24 feet by 28 feet with a hayloft on the second floor. This was a very common size and configuration for the average stable in the city at the turn of the century. This stable, in Naylor Court is now protected on the National Register as a National Historic Landmark - as are all of the buildings in square 0367. Like all city stables, it has lived many lives. Most recently it was the home of a lovely young couple who shared broad ranging interests including photography and a passion for vintage scooters (Vespa).

“Vespa is both Latin and Italian for wasp—derived from both the high-pitched noise of the two-stroke engine, and adopted as a name for the vehicle in reference to its body shape: the thicker rear part connected to the front part by a narrow waist, and the steering rod resembled antennae.” (From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vespa )

Some little stables in the back alleys of Washington became homes for mechanical horsepower after the need for animal horse power faded at the turn of the last century. Many became community auto repair garages meeting the needs of the poor in the neighborhood who tried to run old and failing cars on empty pockets. Some became lofts. Others were abandoned. Some simply fell down through neglect and the subsequent consequences of demolition by nature. Fortunately recognition of the sentimental and historic value of these little properties is gradually increasing in Washington. They are elegant in their utilitarian simplicity – just like the little Vespa!

Stabilizing Businesses in the Alley Part II

The perimeter of a city block puts its best face forward and generally remains with a preserved and unchanging façade for decades. This is the face the world sees every day. In contrast, the cores of city blocks are in a continuous state of change and evolution. Their inhabitants reflect a wide spectrum of lives and needs over the years. There is a somewhat romantic ebb and flow to the nature of alleys that is so easily destroyed by government fiat and misguided urban planners. The cradles of creativity were rocked in many small alley dwellings and industrial lofts in DC and NY and elsewhere. Thankfully this fact and the recognition of the utilitarian value of alley space are slowly becoming recognized.

 St. Martins Lane stables turned into offices, 

homes and restaurants in Washington D.C. 

 “By utilizing the physical layout of the alley for “defensible space” and by manipulating the fears of “outsiders” toward the alley, alley residents were able to lay claim to control over their neighborhood, thus establishing a sense of sovereignty and power as well as security. This control over their own “turf” meant that alley dwellers were able to establish social control over their own community, and maintain the values and world view of that community.” (James Borchert from Alley Life in Washington)

“To skulk through an American alley is to step backward in time, downward on the social ladder and quickly to confront the world of trash collectors, garbage-pickers, weekend car mechanics and children. Refugees, all of them, from the wide-open world of the big street Out Front.

   Backstaged, the alley is the outback world of the unmentionable, if not the unwanted, the displaced of modern society. A few glaring exceptions – unpaved tracklets through old bucolic suburbs, or posh little stashes of elegant townhouses along refurbished alleys in Georgetown, D.C. and other Early American enclaves – silhouette themselves against a dark and vast majority. Out of sight, out of mind, the American residential alley has been the academic, geographic and social outcast of the built environment for at least a half-century.” (From Alleys a Hidden Resource by Grady Clay 1978)

1320 9th Street (4 in 1) has a bright future!

The property bought by Darryl Carter is actually a collection of four individual buildings (including the yellow stable in the alley) reflecting progressive expansion since the original building was constructed. Section #2 was built in the mid 1800’s as was the stable. The dormers (shown at the arrow) define one original face of the building. The front section on 9th Street appears to have been built in the mid 20’s like its neighbor the EFN Lounge. Fortunately the property is protected from demolition under law by virtue of its status on the National Register of Landmark Historic Properties. It is also protected by HPO and HPRB. The neighborhood anticipates great new developments here!

Naylor Court Stable To Begin Another Life!

The word on the street in the Shaw neighborhood is that Darryl Carter, a well-respected Washington designer, recently bought 1320  9^th Street. It is understood that the restoration of the 1800’s buildings will begin in shortly. The plans include preserving the stable at the back of the property which is vital because of the historic importance and legal protection of the stable and the Naylor Court alley. The little yellow stable in Naylor Court has been heavily modified over its lifetime, yet it retains its essential configuration as a stable with the central second story hayloft door and beam. Given the high quality of Darryl Carter’s design work and his eye for design that is respectful of the past and elegance of the traditional, it can be reasonably assumed that when he turns his hand to developing this languishing property – a former antiques store in another life - it will delightfully come alive once again.

        Even though Naylor Court and Blagden Alley are a collection of historic landmark properties protected by the National Register they have been relentlessly ravaged by neglect and willful destruction. However, there is still hope for the future preservation of its remnants. This will occur with one property at a time. Creative adaptive reuse of the stables through new owners such as Darryl Carter sets a high water mark in the history of the resurrection of one of the city’s little recognized or appreciated collections of alley gems in Naylor Court.

Blagden Alley/Naylor Court Historic District Designation

Bounded by 9th, 10th, M, and O Streets, NW

This district of residential, commercial, and service structures is notable for the network of alleyways enclosed behind a facade of middle-class residential streets. In isolated and cramped conditions, amid the stables and warehouses, such alleys provided habitation for the working poor. Blagden Alley in particular inspired humanitarian reformers to eradicate the deplorable living conditions that these alleys came to embody. While African-Americans were disproportionately represented in the alley population, the area developed as an economically and racially mixed neighborhood with a rich variety of architectural styles and diverse quality. The district includes dwellings of freedmen, examples of black real estate ownership prior to emancipation, and houses like the home of Blanche K. Bruce, the first African-American to serve a full term as U.S. Senator.

There are approximately 150 buildings, c. 1833-1941, and sites with archaeological potential; DC designation September 19, 1990 (effective November 13, 1990), NR listing November 16, 1990; designation superseded by an expanded DC district July 22, 1999 (effective September 7, 1999); NR listing amended September 9, 1999 to create a larger Mount Vernon West Historic District; original DC designation reinstituted December 16,

1999; see also Shaw HD

http://planning.dc.gov/planning/cwp/view,A,1284,Q,570748.asp

Stabilizing Businesses in the Alley (Part I)

In a lovely 1978 monograph simply titled “Alleys as Hidden Resources”, Grady Clay expresses his vision of the modern day beauty of alleys. Clay’s book was reviewed in the Louisville Courier-Journal by his friend and architecture critic William Morgan. 

In his review Morgan writes … “Despite the fact that alleys are often seen merely as traffic shortcuts, places in which to dump trash, or as places where you wouldn’t want to meet people in the dark.” Clay points out that the alley is “an institution as American as apple pie.”

Morgan expressed the hope that Clay’s monograph “will not be forgotten or placed on a shelf as is so often the fate of such studies.” He then quotes Lewis Mumford whom he considered to be the dean of American planning historians – “I would prefer to walk in the rear alley … precisely for all those little hints of life, activity, transition which the placid visual arts of suburbia did their best to suppress or politely disguise.”

This book has indeed found new life in this author’s library shelf and on the shelf of this blog for many to appreciate - something that was unimaginable in 1978. In fact the book came into the author’s hands through the internet and the graces of William Morgan himself! It will be a valuable tool in the quest to nurture and protect the more picturesque and historic stable alleys in the city.

EFN Bar Responsive to Cleanup Efforts Behind Stable

The owners of the EFN Lounge and Motley Bar have responded promptly to community questions about trash management in the alley behind the stable.

Due to the increase in traffic to the 1318 business there has been an extreme amount of waste generated.  After carefully assessing this issue and how to keep our staff and neighbors safe and in a clean environment, we have increased our waste removal to 3 days a week including Saturday.  In an attempt to maintain cleanliness, I have instructed all staff to store waste inside the building until it can be disposed of properly.  I read the blog and saw the images; I agree that it is unacceptable.

I do my best to respond positively to any concerns regarding 1318. I am open to discussion as to how waste can be disposed of in a way that eliminates a dumpster as the venue does not have an area that is away from customers on premise. Storing waste in the building near customers would be in violation of health codes.  My solution was to keep the waste in the building after the business day and I would personally load it into the dumpster for removal the following morning. This way waste is not every visible to customers or neighbors.

I do apologize for this hurdle in making our community more visible for positive growth. 

The EFN Lounge & Motley Bar

1318 9Th Street NW

Unstable Trash

It's really not necessary to trash the neighborhood (around the corner from Azi's Cafe on 9th Street). For a more encouraging view of Shaw Living check out this video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw1Xe5dKqOU (credit goes to RenewShaw for this link).

(the editor has no promotional or any other connections with this video source)

EFN Lounge Alley Trash

 Naylor Court "alleypaper"

Trash Talking in the Alley

(photo behind the "EFN bar" stable in Naylor Court)

Isn't it sad that there is a persisting mentality in much of Washington D.C. that the sole purpose of alleys is for trash, vehicular access, drugs, robberies and prostitution.? Alley trash is just like graffiti. It sends a message about the neighborhood - not a good one. Some alleys in the city may be beyond salvage but the National Register Historic alleys of Blagden and Naylor Court are in their early days of restoration and desperately need protection. NPO, HPRB, DCRA, BZA, ANC's and the community - step up it up a notch! We're talk'n trash here.

Community anger is rising about how badly these alleys are being treated. Don't you think that it is beyond time to leave the past of horse manure and corruption and move into a more civilized era of people and places? Let's stop trashing this place.

The "Restoration/Reclamation" Conversation Continues

The lines between freedoms of expression and excrescence.

Building Bones exposed

The original building that once lived beside the Queen of Sheba has long faded from local memories leaving the party wall we now see. The author has labeled this photo to clarify the elements of the composite building that today, fully occupies the property. Even the originally separate two-story stable has had a layer built on top of the original building. In the near future, this view of the building will disappear as a new Burmese restaurant and apartment complex will be born beside it to hide the glimpse of insight into how these buildings evolve over a century. This photo also serves to underscore why developers are tearing down stables at the rear of buildings so that they can quietly access and destroy the bones of the rest of the historic building while leaving the front facade (sometimes historically insignificant) undisturbed.

Building Bones

Interpreting the past lives of old buildings is like doing an architectural/archeological autopsy. Each building carries its own scars, personalities and underlying pathologic processes. Many have had superficial face lifts. Many look great on the outside but are in terrible shape inside. Some have had easy lives and others hard lives. The Queen of Sheba (1503 9^th Street NW) is a great example. The original stable – the bones of which can still be made out – was built in 1890 for $400 and measured 20’ x 23’. [Two stories – Owner: A. Long, Builder: JC Yost]^*

The associated home in front of it facing 9^th Street, was built in 1901 for $5,000 and measured 23’ x 32’. [Three stories – Owner: A. Long, Architect: Edward Woltz and Builder: J.C. Yost]^* Since the lot measures 95 feet in length and today has a fully occupied property footprint, the deduction is that forty feet (95 feet – 55 feet = 40 feet) of the property footprint consisted of “infill construction” to join all of the elements together.

You can see the same process in the wall of the building to the North of the 9^th Street BP Station. It’s easy to see how this evolution would escape notice unless the building is revealed in its entirely as occurs when neighboring structures disappear.

The complexity of past architectural history can make the HPRB decision making process daunting at times. It can be difficult to sort out what is original, what has been added, what can be demolished and what needs to be saved!

* Data retrieved from the Kraft database of buildings in Washington DC

More Equine Artifacts

While horse drinking troughs were on almost every block years ago, few people would recognize them today. Sometimes owners add "equine artifacts" to their stable so that passersby can recognize the origin of the building. An example is on the wall of this stable in Georgetown near the Key Bridge. (The horse trough photo is from Shorpy's web site)

D.C. Equine Artifacts of the Past

Although horses have long left the city of Washington, lingering reminders exist all around us. These little artifacts are seen by many but are probably recognized by few. For example, when you walk down 10^th Street between P and O NW you will find a rein ring embedded in the east side curb about half way down the block. Perhaps this would have tethered a milk wagon horse or a street cleaning horse and wagon. If you continue down walking down 10^th Street you will encounter an old mounting block embedded in the sidewalk on the west side between M Street and L Street. This reminder of our equine past was saved from destruction by local resident Jim Loucks who manages an architectural firm, has a design education and is an historic architectural preservationist. The development of a “people’s” (10^th Street) park on the east side of this block beside Café Cozy Corner is another example of Jim’s proactive thinking and community activism. Sometimes when walking in alleys you will even see horse-head-height rein rings secured between bricks in the walls of old stables. Too bad all of the old iron drinking troughs in the city have been destroyed, for they would have made great city boulevard planters or even homeland security barriers! Who could have predicted “back then” what life would be like in D.C. today. One suspects that the iron horse drinking troughs were scrapped decades ago to help support the efforts of another American war.

Claremont Academy to Ride Off Into the Sunset

The Claremont Riding Academy on West 89th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam Aves. is closing this Sunday after the weekend's riding is done. Opened in 1892, Claremont is the oldest continuously operated horse stable in the U.S. It was initially used as a livery stable, but was turned into a riding academy in the 1920s. Riding lessons are given in a small ring on the main floor, while stables occupy the basement and upper floors, which horses reach via ramps. Owner Paul Novograd said he was closing the business because pedestrian traffic was becoming too congested along Central Park's bridle trails, making it difficult to ride. Homes will be found for the roughly 45 horses that currently stable on 89th St.

The building that houses the Claremont Riding Academy is located at 175 West 89th St. on the north side of the street. It was designed 115 years ago by Frank A. Rooke, who also built The Gershwin Hotel on East 27th St. According to the AIA Guide to New York City, the structure narrowly escaped destruction in the 1960s when urban renewal advocates called for its removal from the neighborhood and replacement as part of a consolidated stable facility inside Central Park, but preservationists prevailed. 175 West 89th is now a New York City Landmark and on the National Register of Historic Places, so any alterations will have to be approved by the city's Landmarks Preservation Commission. We imagine that after washing away 115 years of horse smell, the four-story building could be worth a lot of money as a residential conversion project.

Last year we wrote about how luxury condo developers got the jump on the Landmarks Preservation Commission by removing the facade of the Dakota Stable on 77th st. and Amsterdam Ave. before the building could be landmarked, thus removing any reason for it to be landmarked. The stables at West 89th should avoid this fate because the building is already landmarked. Urban equestrians may now have to decamp to Brooklyn's Kensington Stables located in Prospect Park, which has well-used bridle trails. And although information is fairly difficult to come by, there is a horseback riding facility on Ward's Island.

http://gothamist.com/2007/04/24/claremont_acade.php