All Hill breaking loose

Hal Gordon’s strategy is to skewer the well-heeled Capitol Hill community right in what could prove to be its massive Achilles tendon: liberal guilt.

A group of Hill neighbors came together and crafted a proposal to turn the crumbling Old Naval Hospital on Pennsylvania Avenue SE into a community resource called the “Hill Center.” On Aug. 31, the city selected the proposal. The decrepitude of the building has been a disgrace for years; finally, thanks to the hard work and vision of community leaders, it can become a valuable asset for everybody.

Gordon has taken this uplifting narrative and replaced it with his own: a story of rich white people trampling on poor black people. Gordon is the president of the Community Action Group (CAG), a rehab organization for the poor headquartered for 17 years in a two-story carriage house on the Old Naval Hospital grounds, next to the main structure. The Hill Center plan would give his office the boot and turn the structure into a family-friendly café.

Many Washingtonians cower from any discussion of race and class. Hill Center backers say it’s inappropriate for the situation, and they resent the ridicule over their plans for cooking classes in Gordon’s office.

“This simply is getting out of context,” said Guy Martin, a board member of the Old Naval Hospital Foundation, the group that designed the Hill Center. Martin and fellow board member Mark Gitenstein stress that their foundation worked hard on a compromise that would have allowed CAG’s administrative offices to stay at the carriage house, retaining the upstairs and sharing the downstairs with the café. (CAG’s treatment centers operate from several other properties throughout the city.) They’re flabbergasted that Gordon rejected the offer.

“We turned ourselves into a pretzel because we firmly believe that Hal made a very good case that he should be able to do what he’s doing there,” Gitenstein said. “We all are trying to do good things for the community. It shouldn’t be an either-or situation.”

“It was not feasible to expect a continuance of our operation from cramped quarters,” Gordon said. So he’s ratcheting up his campaign to prevent CAG’s eviction. On Sept. 9, he and 225 supporters (by his estimate) marched through the neighborhood and rallied at the carriage house, where “A Time to Stand” banners hang from the façade. On Sept. 11, Gordon and a handful of CAG employees berated the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) at its monthly meeting, asking the body to reconsider its support for the Hill Center. But only two commissioners voted in favor of a motion to ask the D.C. Office of Property Management to bring in a third-party mediator.

The Capitol Hill Group Ministry, an association of 27 neighborhood churches, drafted a letter urging the Office of Property Management to delay its decision on the Hill Center (a little too late). The Rev. Stuart McAlpine, pastor of the Christ Our Shepherd church on North Caroline Avenue SE, spoke before the neighborhood commission.

“Stop the clock,” he said. If the city doesn’t bring in a third-party mediator and lets the Hill Center move ahead, “there will be no winner.”

Gordon and his wife Janice are longtime friends of Nicky and Steve Cymrot, president and founding president of the Old Naval Hospital Foundation. Nicky Cymrot also heads the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, which in 2006 gave Gordon its community achievement award. When Hillscape sat in Gordon’s office on a recent morning, the first thing he did was ask after the Cymrots.

“The tragedy of this thing,” Gitenstein said, “is that a bunch of people living on the Hill for 40 years are arguing with a bunch of people who’ve lived on the Hill for 60 years.”

Soccer survey says …

 A survey of more than 300 Anacostia residents conducted by a group opposed to plans for a soccer stadium-centered development at Poplar Point mirrors the results of a smaller, less formal survey conducted by Hillscape on Aug. 1: An overwhelming 87 percent majority of residents doesn’t want a stadium. Many have never heard of the idea.

Granted, there are no actual plans for a stadium right now. But Ward 8 D.C. Councilmember Marion Barry has said that he will stand in the way of anything but.

ONE DC, a Shaw-based neighborhood advocacy group, held a press conference to announce the results of its survey as prospective developers boarded the Odyssey tour boat for a cruise to attract them to Poplar Point. Only a handful of activists showed up.

“They’re wining and dining the developers behind me,” James Ballard Jr. said as modern jazz wafted from the Odyssey. “We just want to make sure the mayor knows … that if they would talk to the residents being served by Poplar Point, they would find out we don’t want a stadium.”

D.C. United owner Victor MacFarlane never got past preliminary talks with the city on his stadium proposal, but the neighborhood’s elected representatives vociferously support the idea. Ward 8 honchos like Barry and ANC Chairwoman Mary Cuthbert insist that everybody in Anacostia wants a stadium, and they resent challenges to this official line.

“I feel as though you disrespected the elders,” said the Anacostia Community Land Trust’s Rev. Anthony Motley to ONE DC’s Dominic T. Moulden. “I was not afforded the respect of my position, of my longevity,” he said, his face three inches from Moulden’s.

A cursory examination of Motley’s longevity reveals that he initially opposed stadium plans, just like Barry did. Moulden says he was surprised to learn he was at odds with Motley, since they’d been “on the same page” in previous meetings. Motley’s name is one of dozens on a Sept. 3 letter from Barry to Mayor Adrian Fenty, indicating an intention not to cooperate with anything but a stadium. “We are not only disappointed,” the letter read, “but also outraged at the way that you and your administration have disrespected and misled us about the development at Poplar Point.”

Restoration battlefronts, east and west

 The Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee (EMCAC) is fighting a war on two fronts in the restoration of the Market. EMCAC members fear the city wants to crowd the east side of the building with wheelchair-accessible entrances, while continuing to let the west side languish as an alley.

“I think we’re being logical and reasonable,” said EMCAC’s Monte Edwards, who notes that EMCAC is statutorily bound to advise the city, and to strive to preserve the historical integrity of the building.

The concern over entrances compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is not new. The city began planning a renovation of the building long before it caught fire, and EMCAC has objected to the proposed number of ADA entrances — two on the east side of the South Hall alone — for a year and a half, because the ramps and railings take away from vendors’ space. Edwards says the Office of Property Management (OPM) hasn’t responded to EMCAC’s demands.

“I’m not sure that our reports really got much attention at OPM previously,” Edwards said. But he’s hopeful that with the new, energetic mayoral administration, the agency will be more responsive. Edwards said that EMCAC will send another letter this week.

OPM spokesman Bill Rice said his agency has always listened.

“We are aware of the arguments,” Rice said. “We have considered them.”

As for the west side of the building, Edwards et al argue that making it presentable isn’t just a matter of aesthetics, but safety: They believe the Dumpster adjacent to the building played a huge role in starting the April fire. Officials initially suspected the trash bin, then blamed bad wiring, but now say they don’t know how the fire began. EMCAC wants the Dumpster moved to the other side of the alley.