Neighborhood Notes - Foxhall: 24 October 2001
There’s been a refreshing burst of construction activity
with many local residential streets being resurfaced. For a full list of the
streets in the two-year rehabilitation
plan, see www.ddot.dc.gov.
Some of the streets in worst condition have not yet been done, such as 1400
block of 44th St NW, only because they are scheduled for
reconstruction. This includes not only the roadbed but also curbs and sidewalks
where needed. Reconstruction work is scheduled to be done with FY2002 budget
while the current resurfacing work is using up FY2001 budget monies.
Less encouraging are disturbing news items about DC’s plans
to bring troubled kids home from distant centers to either group homes or to
residential centers: ”places of last resort, a final effort to save
emotionally disturbed children before they self-destruct”. For adolescents,
there is only Riverside Hospital on MacArthur Boulevard, which from
MPD crime
statistics alone appears to be a place of increasing violence. Riverside is
proposing a very high fence around the facility - this gives an appearance of
security for the neighborhood, but what about the kids?
There is not a high level of confidence in the operation of Riverside, nor of its choice of patients: it appears to be bordering more on
being a prison than a hospital - frankly we would prefer this facility instead
to be bought out for use as an expanded ‘K - 8’ Rock Creek International
School, and to get our former Hardy Elementary school back as a public school
for neighborhood kids.
As it stands now, the RCIS lease was transferred to the
D.C. Office of
Property Management, even though D.C.P.S. Facilities Management would love to get it
back into inventory to help out their shortage of swing space for remodeling.
Decisions on RCIS lease extension are with a group uninvolved with public
education.
© Bob Andrew, Foxhall
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