Starting Our 47th Year of Continuous Publication

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AUGUST2015

Vol. 47, No. 2

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September 11

Dupont East’s 17th Street Neighbors Gearing Up for 6th Annual Celebration

By Bill McLeod*

The annual 17th Street Festival is a community-building event celebrat-

ing the shops, restaurants, and services of 17th Street, along with vendors in the Art Zone, Pet Zone, as well as along the street. Rain or shine, the event will take place on Saturday, September 12th between 12 noon and 6 p.m.

As during past festivals, there will be an entertainment stage featuring, among other presentations, a rock band, dance troupe and drag performances through-out the afternoon.

Among the 100 vendors, there will be more than 60 local artists display-ing everything from fine art to jewelry, ceramics to crafts, and every creative item in-between. Other vendors will include area nonprofit organizations, politicians, and local entre-preneurs and businesses.

As a result of the recent field renovation at Stead Park, the Kids Zone will be held at that very central location, with easy access by way of the Church Street extension next to JR’s Bar & Grill. In partnership with Friends of Stead Park, the Kids Zone will have activities, games, and amusements throughout

the afternoon. The Pet Zone, sponsored by The

Cheeky Puppy, will offer pet supplies as well as the opportunity to adopt a pet through the Washington Animal League.

Unlike other DC festivals, the 17th Street’s does not have food vendors. Surprising to some, the goal of the festi-val is to draw people to the corridor and show off the 16 restaurants, most with outdoor cafés. And, every year, the res-taurants are packed with people stopping for lunch, taking a break with a drink, or those hungry for an early dinner.

More than 100 volunteers will be staff-ing the festival. Set up starts at 6 a.m. and

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Cont., CELEBRATION, p. 4

☞ What’s Inside?

2 Editorial: !

6 At the Museums: National Gallery of Art: Gustave Caillebottel

7 At the Museums: Freer | Sackler Smithsonian Museums Of Asian Art “Peacock Room”

☞

Around Our Community Column Now on Website as Community News

To access Around Our Community, click the Community News link button

on our home page.

See in Special Online Content:n Ecuadorian Embassy Sustained Significant

Earthquake Damage, August 23, 2011

n Balancing Neighborhood Retail: The 25% Rule

n Reconstructing Historic Holt House

n When Does My Cast Iron Staircase Need Attention?

For complete articles click Special Online Content link at right.

DC History Feature Moved to WebsiteTo access “What Once Was” (successor to the “Scenes from the Past” feature), click the link button on our home page. Being on our website allows for more extensive text & more images than was possible when in the issue PDFs.

photo—courtesy Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets.As seen at last year’s festival.

photo—courtesy Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets.

As seen at last year’s festival.

St. Thomas Church Project Crosses Another Hurdle With HPRB; Finality Remains Elusive

By Anthony L. Harvey

A doubting Thomas would be well advised to wait and see if the latest attempt to

resolve the controversies surrounding the proposed St. Thomas Parish church and residential tower project have been finally resolved by the Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB) through action taken at its July 23, 2015 public hearing. Height, mass-ing, scale, and landscaping of the architec-turally designed new structures continue to be unacceptable to ANC commissioners, Church Street neighbors, several Historic Preservation Review Board members, and City Councilmember Jack Evans, whose Ward 2 district includes the St. Thomas property at 18th and Church Streets, NW.

After contentious discussion between the applicant and the community — and HPRB members — at the June hearing on the proj-ect (see, “St. Thomas Development Project Design Not Completely OK’d; HPRB Calls for More Work,” InTowner, June 2015 issue pdf page 1), the Board voted to “approve the project and have it return on the Consent Calendar with revision of the following five items:

“The residential building should be photo—Hickok Cole Architects.

Early 20th century view of the original church edifice. Cont., CHURCH, p. 4

MLK Library Reconstruction Design Concepts Supported by Fine Arts Commission and HPRB

By Anthony L. Harvey

When the history of the planning and design process for the adaptive re-use of the historic landmark Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Library building — Meis van der Rohe’s only library building and his only constructed structure in Washington, DC — is written, the summer of 2015 will be highlighted as the season during which the re-imagining of the 43-year-old central library building into a state of the art library that will last into the future coalesced into a coherent, comprehensive architectural and programmatic vision.

In a series of presentations by principals of the DC Public Library’s two architectural firms selected to design the project, Francine Houben of Mecanoo Architecten in Delft, Holland and Tom Johnson of Washington, DC’s Martinez+Johnson along with the library system’s (DCPL) Executive Director Richard Reyes-Gavilan, the library’s build-ing program, its plan for the transformation of the existing building into a 21st century library and cultural center — a downtown destination building — and its strategy for

maintaining and further celebrating the legacy of Dr. King and the iconic Mies van der Rohe building itself were woven into a

image—courtesy DC Public Library.Architect’s rendering of how the interior public stairway can be opened up and made truly invit-ing to use as compared to its current service-like, gloomy appearance.

Cont., MLK LIBRARY, p. 3

Page 2 • The InTowner • August 2015

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The InTowner (ISSN 0887-9400) is published 12 times per year by The InTowner Publishing Corporation, 1730-B Corcoran Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20009. Owned by The InTowner Publishing Corporation, P.L. Wolff, president and chief executive officer.

Copyright ©2015, The InTowner Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. Unsolicited articles, photographs, or other submissions will be given consideration; however, neither the publisher nor managing editor assumes responsibility for same, nor for specifically solic-ited materials, and will return only if accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Signed contributions do not necessarily represent the views of this newspaper or of InTowner Publishing Corporation. Letters to the editor and other commentary are welcome. We reserve the right to edit such submissions for space & clarity.

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From the Publisher’s Desk...By P.L. Wolff

Metro’s Last Straw: Time For Receivership

At the risk of sounding like The Donald, you’re fired –- top to bottom, all of you: out the door!

As regular readers of DC’s newspapers and on-line missives and regular viewers of the local TV news no doubt know without us stating the reason underlying our pronouncement above, this “last straw” is all about the very recent derailment at the beginning of the morn-ing rush bear Smithsonian of – fortunately – and empty train.

This derailment was caused by what is known in railroad circles as a track wide gauge flaw, the result being that the rails will have slipped out of alignment so that a train’s wheels no longer are in contact with those rails.

The scandal here is that although this very serious defect was discovered over a month ago no action was taken to perform an immediate repair. This condition is considered by the industry to be of such seriousness that when detected it is accepted practice to close down the affected track section without a moments delay.

Just the day before we sat down to write this commentary, the Metro board went on record stating that the one-month delay before taking action to repair the defect was an “unforgiv-able breach of safety [and was] outraged and dismayed that anyone working at Metro would have critical safety information and not act on it immediately.”

And, we might add, that the board could have driven its point home even more so by not-ing the probability that nothing would have been done but for the derailment that occurred on August 6th and if there had not been the derailment of the empty train nobody at Metro would have done a thing until a passenger-loaded train would have derailed at some later date.

This seems to be the culture at Metro: don’t fix known (or should have been known) dangerous conditions, as back in January, until passengers are injured and/or killed.

According to the Washington Post article on August 12th, “Many observers blame Metro’s myriad problems on its lack of permanent leadership. The agency has been without a gen-eral manager since Richard Sarles retired in January, and efforts to hire a replacement have been hampered by in-fighting among board members.”

While the Post doesn’t identify these “many observers,” we seem to recall that Metro big-gies have made this excuse previously. We do not buy it. Yes, there is no permanent GM, but that does not absolve the acting GM and all his many minions from the top down through middle management to the lowest grunt who actually walks the tracks from taking action.

We repeat, it’s a long-time culture thing with Metro -– passing the buck, not making waves, and worse.

There is only the one solution which is that the U.S. Department of Transportation has to be given the authority to assume a temporary receivership and place in key positions respected & highly competent –- probably from outside DC and environs –- to come in and clean house. That means firing all who are identified as slackers (and we suspect those per-sons are well known), filling those positions –- even those at the lower end –- with deserving and truly competent persons, based not on seniority or who is buddy with whom.

Only by starting all over as we suggest can Metro even begin to restore its operation to one of high competence and high regard and trust among the riding public.

Copyright © 2015 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 & 108 (“fair use”).

COMMUNITY FORUMISLANDER MEMORIES

By Joel DenkerAfter more than 25 years contributing to The InTowner his popular “Food in the ‘Hood” series — known in its early years at “The Ethnic Bazaar,” Joel Denker decided to retire one year ago. His highly readable and informative essays which always pointed our readers to neighborhood restaurants and purveyors of specialty foods in keeping with our mission of hyper-local reporting are digitally archived back to May 2010; earlier essays from April 2010 to January 2002 can be found in pdf format by opening monthly issues in the Current & Back Issues Archive.

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One evening a student of mine at U.D.C. drove me in his taxi to a Caribbean car-

ryout in a desolate area of Sherman Avenue. NW. He was Guyanese and he knew my appetite for ethnic food adventures. The eat-ery was the Islander, which had opened in 1978 by Addie Green, an ebullient woman from Trinidad, who was immensely proud of her culture and heritage. I remember that night drinking a mauby, a slightly bitter juice that had a flavor reminiscent of licorice and sassafras. It was an extract from the bark of a Caribbean tree.

There were many visits after that one, and I followed Addie as she moved to an upstairs dining room in Adams Morgan on Columbia Road and ultimately to her final destination, a larger restaurant cum bar and nightclub on U Street.

Addie has now closed her doors, although her son, Curtis, has talked of continuing the

tradition at a new location. This feels like the end of an era for me, a time — or at least part of one — when West Indian food was ascen-dant and ethnic food generally had a freshness and novelty that is less common today.

Addie became a friend, but also a guide to a young man not yet initiated into the lore of Caribbean food. For the Islander matriarch, cooking and culture were inseparable. There seemed to be a story about everything she offered me to eat. Part of my education was a whole host of food words still evocative for me today. Names like channa, callaloo, and pelau.

Several of the foods were testimony to the island’s Indian traditions. One was roti, the ubiquitous Trinidadian pancake wrapped around various fillings of curried shrimp, chicken, goat, beef, or vegetables. Roti, a Hindi word for bread, harks back to the Indian indentured laborers brought to the island

Cont., FORUM, p. 6

Page 3 • The InTowner • August 2015

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comprehensive tapestry of eloquent words, ingenious plans and drawings, striking imag-es, and compelling architectural renderings.

These were conducted in bravura illus-trated presentations for the public at the National Building Museum and in testimo-ny before the relevant government entities required to approve plans — the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC), the District’s Historic Preservation Review Board (HPRB), and the federal Commission of Fine Arts (CFA).

The National Building Museum presen-tation, co-sponsored by DCPL, was infor-mational; the NCPC session was for a mid-level staff meeting related to the fed-eral Section 106 historic preservation review process (a very technical bureaucratic pro-cess), with the HPRB and CFA presenta-tions being dramatic public hearings where

DCPL was seeking approval of its formal plans for this adaptive re-use of the MLK Memorial Library building from these two regulatory bodies — and it’s these last two events that are the subject of this article.

July 16, 2015 Fine Arts Commission Hearing

Reyes-Gavilan opened the MLK Library presentation with a brief, spirited overview of the library’s ambitious goals for a modern-ized MLK building, and then introduced architect Houben and Emily Eig of EHT Traceries, founder of the most prominent private sector historic preservation consult-ing firm in DC.

Eig adroitly distinguished the extensive and detailed historic preservation guide-lines for the entire Mies van der Rohe building, which her firm prepared and the HPRB adopted, from the changed condi-tions of the Library’s new plans for an MLK library and cultural center program. These current plans were — and are —

historic preservation mediation guidelines for an existing MLK Library program, the building being in very poor condition, said Eig. Circumstances have changed, how-ever, with a new library and cultural center program being developed for an adaptive re-use of the landmarked structure, which include the addition of a fifth floor and the significant redevelopment of spaces within the four floors of above grade space and the first level of the three underground floors. Thus, Eig stated, the building and its exist-ing guidelines are looked at “in a very, very different way.”

Architect Houben’s eloquent presenta-tion began with the display of an ingenious, bare-bones model of Meis’s dramatically stark design for this severe modernist build-ing — a rectilinear box with four cores linking a stack of four above grade levels of library floor plates. This simplification of Meis’s complex design for the MLK Library building provided a launching pad for describing and displaying the architectural plans for the transformation of the building without losing its Meisian historicity — in fact, enhancing it — by opening the front entrance of the building with transparent walls replacing flanking metal panels with clear glass; removing the stolid buff-beige brick walls in the vestibule with glass and adding a visually open, wide staircase spiral-ing through the building linking floors two, three, and four up to a new fifth floor and terrace and down one floor to a reconfigured and opened up lower level; and connecting the new fifth floor and its rooftop terrace with a fourth and fifth floor auditorium and theatrical performance space.

The four connecting cores — the front two now serving private spaces and the back two public — would be reversed, and the interior partition walls on floors two through four would be opened up, creating

clear vistas to reading rooms and program spaces on floors two and three. Lightwells through perimeter walls would dramatically brighten these intermediate levels.

The building’s first floor grand lobby would also be opened up by replacing the bricks beneath the MLK mural at the back of the lobby with clear glass pivot doors and constructing an events space behind those new doors through the redevelopment of the minimally used loading dock space originally planned for a book distribution system. In addition, an outdoor cafe would be created by removing one of the site’s outdoor walls at 9th Street and G Place, NW, and connecting that space with the corresponding first floor space.

These highlights of proposed changes and additions to Mies’ building engaged and excited the Fine Arts Commission members. Commissioner Edward Dunson commended the revised design and the new roof level: “it makes the Meisian building come to life,” he concluded. Another archi-tect member asserted that the design struck “a good balance between maintaining Meis and opening up Meis.” Other comments included a recommendation for more light in the cores and less of a masonry look, together with a plea for the building’s front façade brick replacement with glass. Design tweaks and modifications from commission members were summarized in commission Secretary Thomas Luebke’s formal letter to the three principals, which reads in part:

“Expressing great enthusiasm for the proposal, the Commission approved the submission with the following comments for the development of the design. The Commission members expressed strong support for the general approach of the project in balancing the preservation of this Ludwig Mies van der Rohe-designed build-

MLK LIBRARYFrom p. 1

Cont., MLK LIBRARY, p. 5

Page 4 • The InTowner • August 2015

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The mission of Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets is to expand its coalition of neighborhood stakeholders; retain, expand, and attract a mix of neighborhood businesses; manage and improve our public spaces; assist independent business owners; preserve the diverse and historic character of our neighborhood; and promote Dupont Circle as a shopping and dining destination.

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12:00-6:00 p.m.

will continue until noon assisting vendors with their wares. Then the festival is in full swing until 6 p.m. And then it is breakdown. While it sounds like a long day, we break up the volunteer shifts into three slots so everyone gets to enjoy the day. (For those who would like to participate, volunteers are especially needed at the end to assist with breakdown of the site when everyone is weary. Email volunteer@dupontcircle.biz.)

The festival is so expensive to produce with permit fees, police, tenting, and more; it would be impossible to bring about with-out our sponsors, and more sponsors would be most welcome. For those in a position to add their sponsorship, their business or

organization’s logo will be featured on the festival’s website, Facebook, the event’s tee shirt, and on the stage. This is a huge under-taking and it takes many supporters.

The 17th Street Festival is organization by Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets, with assistance from Lee Granados, fes-tival founder. To learn more, visit www.17thstreetfestival.org to register as a vendor, or www.DupontCircleMainStreets.org to learn more about HDCMS.

*Bill McLeod is the Executive Director of Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets.

Copyright © 2015 InTowner Publishing Corp. & Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §§ 107 & 108 (“fair use”).

CELEBRATIONFrom p. 1

photo—courtesy Historic Dupont Circle Main Streets.As seen at last year’s festival.

pulled back so that the bays align with the Parish Hall façade . . . ; 2. There should be further stepping back of the upper floors to minimize perceived mass; 3. The size of the residential windows should be similarly scaled to those of the Church Street row houses; 4. The detailing of the glass should [be] further developed for the top and entrance levels of the church . . . ; 5. The landscape at the front of the church should be further developed.”

The Historic Preservation Office (HPO) asserted in its staff report and recommenda-tions that St. Thomas had addressed these points and concluded that its architectural revisions had satisfied the concerns raised by the Board and the matter was thus placed on the Board’s consent calendar. The commu-nity and several HPRB members, however, demurred to the staff report and HPRB Chair Gretchen Pfaehler opened discussion on the matter by stating that the applicant had addressed the majority of the ANC’s concerns, several of which dealt with issues outside the Board’s purview — for example, zoning, traf-fic, parking — but that more design modifica-tions needed to be made to the Church Street façades, “including rounding the corner.”

Pfaehler reminded community attendees, who sat silent during the Board’s deliberation, the public not being entitled to speak at this part of the hearing agenda, that height for this proposed project was a matter of perception and had not been made one of a numerical limit.

Board member D. Graham Davidson observed that the height and massing of the revised proposal made very modest tweaks to the earlier version, and that the fenes-tration for the Church Street apartments — an important Board issue — remained unchanged. Finally, he noted that unlike the earlier versions, which came complete with models, 3-D imaging, and even one with a video, nothing of that sort was presented to the Board in support of this new proposal. Another Board member, Nancy Metzger, added that there was still way too much hard-scape in the landscape proposal — another

serious Board concern.A vote to remove the matter from the con-

sent calendar and place it back on a future hearing calendar failed, 3-2. Chair Pfaehler then crafted an unusually detailed motion that achieved more unanimity among the Board members. It states:

“After acknowledging receipt of community letters and addressing the concerns raised by the ANC, the Board approved the project with the following conditions: 1) that the applicant continues to work with staff in refining detail-ing on elevations to strengthen its pedestrian scale; 2) that the applicants meet with staff and a member of the Board to review the revised 3-D views; 3) that the applicants investigate taking further steps to insure that the height is minimized as much as possible along Church Street; and 4) that the applicants work with staff to develop a landscape design along 18th Street to maximum the extent of vegetation.”

The vote for approval was 4-1, with Graham Davidson dissenting.

Copyright © 2015 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without per-mission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §§ 107 & 108 (“fair use”).

CHURCHFrom p. 1

rendering—Hickok Cole Architects.

Early 20th century view of the church’s soaring nave.

Page 5 • The InTowner • August 2015

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ing with the enhancement of the facility as a contemporary metropolitan flagship library. They endorsed the range of interventions proposed — such as the trapezoid-shaped rooftop addition, the transformation of the building’s four cores, the conversion of the loading dock into an event space, and the reworking of the building’s site condi-tions — as protecting the austere Modernist monumentality of Mies’s architecture while adding vibrant new elements that are easily differentiated from the historic fabric.”

Continuing, Luebke added: “In their discussion, they suggested that the pro-posed green roof areas be simple in their design; they also raised concern that add-ing a guardrail at the upper roof would compromise the beauty of the design. They suggested that even more transpar-ency for the core circulation would be desirable, reveal-ing the expressive sculptural quality of the new stairs inside and helping to guide visitors through the building. For the site perimeter, they rec-ommended restudy-ing the conditions of the sidewalk and service areas, particularly at the proposed café on the northeast corner, to ensure a comprehensive and seamless design for the setting of the building at this prominent location in the city.”

HPRB’s July 23, 2015 ConsiderationThe preface to the HPRB’s consideration

of the library’s revised plans was provided, as is customary, with a report and recom-mendation to the Board from the Historic Preservation Office (HPO) staff. In a disin-genuous summary of the staff’s reaction, the report first stipulated the following:

“As a result of the Board’s [earlier] com-ments, the project has been modified to retain the brick façade, installing glass in only the two metal panels on either side of the entry. The form of the roof addition has been refined to better relate to the under-lying geometry of the building, and the walls of the circulation cores will be largely retained on the upper floors. However, in the vestibule, the brick walls are proposed for replacement entirely with glass.

“The HPO does not find that the design has moved in a successful direction toward this recommended approach or to the Board’s January recommendations regard-ing retention of the core walls.

“For the pivoting doors at the rear of the

lobby, a material has not been determined and the HPO seeks the Board’s input on the materiality and appropriate level [of] transparency.”

Yet somehow the HPO bureaucracy added a conclusion in contradiction to the report’s laying out of the HPO staff findings that asserted the revised design’s failings by stating in its final conclusion HPO’s recom-mended Board action: “With the recom-mendation for the removal of brick only within the recessed doorways of the vesti-bule walls, as noted above, the HPO recom-mends that the Board approve the concept as consistent with the preservation law and delegate further review to staff.” The real action desired by HPO is contained in the “conclusion’s” last five words: “delegate fur-ther review to staff.”

Next was the library’s presentation

with Gregory McCarthy, President of the Library’s Board of Trustees, opening with a powerful presentation that first summa-rized his own prior experience of serv-ing on the HPRB and subsequently being appointed by former Mayor Williams as the mayor’s State Historic Preservation Officer; he then summarized the importance to DC of the Martin Luther King Memorial Library building — second only to that of the Wilson Building, he said.

McCarthy also argued that MLK should be the hub of Washington — and it can be, he asserted, in an adaptive re-use, re-imagined version. He then recounted the alternatives considered — and rejected by the Board, pointed to the Library’s extraor-dinary track record in the adaptive re-use of the historic branch library buildings in Georgetown, Mt. Pleasant, Petworth, and Northeast and praised Mayor Bowser for continuing the legacy of her predecessors in funding such library projects as MLK, the Southwest branches, Lamont-Riggs, for example.

Library Director Reyes-Gavilan followed and even more briefly reprised his library programmatic summary, one centered on

MLK LIBRARYFrom p. 3

Cont., MLK LIBRARY, p. 6

image—courtesy DC Public Library.Architect’s rendering showing how the vista through the lobby into a newly created events space would appear following removal of the rear wall below the mural.

image—courtesy DC Public Library.

The G Street entrance vestibule as it as the architects envision it can be.

Page 6 • The InTowner • August 2015

learning and not objects; transformative rath-er than transactional, embodying Martin Luther King’s dream in a library organized, as said before, into a “journey of learning.”

Francine Houben introduced the model and quickly reprised the project architects’ study of Meisian designed buildings. Emily Eig provided the changed circumstanc-es gloss on the design guidelines for the Meisian building — written for remediation of the building in its present use and now to be considered in the building’s proposed re-imagined adaptive re-use.

Tom Johnson then presented the revised plans for this proposed adaptive re-use. It was a tour-de-force presentation by Johnson, who demonstrated his absorption of the detailed design of the current library building; the historic Meisian design objectives for such a mid-20th century modernist structure; the HPRB design guidelines for MLK, and a respect for the historicity and historic des-ignated spaces in the building design; the work of the team of project architects from both firms in re-imagining MLK and, for that matter, input from the retired archi-tect who worked with Meis on the origi-nal design; and the programmatic require-ments — and desires — of the Library for a 21st century library and cultural center. The ease and prowess with which Johnson articulated how these complementary con-cerns and requirements had been woven into the project’s design recommendations obviously impressed the Board as reflected in their subsequent questions and comments and concluding endorsement of the project team’s work.

Johnson began by noting the major chal-lenges faced by the designers — that of integrating public functions throughout the building and opening up the building and its cores to ensure that vertical connectivity was clear and transparent throughout. He then reprised the presentation made to the Fine Arts Commission in greater detail for the Board, adding fascinating architectural concerns regarding the removal of brick walls and original specifications of Mies — for example, green marble where the metal pan-els flank the entranceway and the industrial style buff beige bricks that Meis customarily used at the back of his buildings.

Comparison of existing public stairways with those being proposed was illuminating, and not to the advantage of Meis. Johnson followed with the redesign of the vestibule, the visually open stairway leading both up and down, the two-level auditorium and per-formance space on the fourth and fifth floors, the open public roof terrace, the new event space behind the MLK mural, the entrance being visually transparent with glass pivot

doors, and the outdoor café at 9th Street and G Place. More details of each redesigned floor were shown. It concluded with an overview in a single large screen display of five images for the five “interventions” being proposed by the designers in the historic landmarked Meis building.

Public WitnessesPublic witness came forward to testify

as a panel of five, the first being long-time civic activist and nearby neighborhood ANC Commissioner Alexander Padro, who served as a library trustee from 2000 to 2005 and was a long-time advocate for renovation and restoration of the building and the build-ing’s retention as the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library. While a trustee, Padro recounted, he read and studied all the cor-respondence and plans for the building in the library’s archive; he supports the positions taken by the staff in its report, especially those calling for the retention of the brick in the vestibule and building interior; he additionally recommends that the first floor “tilt walls” be brick and not glass. Finally, he called for the retention of original handrail designs — in some fashion — from the exist-ing public staircases in the cores at the back of the building.

Robin Diener, Library Renaissance Project Director and testifying as President of the Friends of the MLK Memorial Library’s executive committee, praised the work of the architects and spoke in support of the proposed café and the opening up of the first floor lobby and getting rid of bricks — which served as reminders of a prison to her literacy students who meet at MLK. Diener called for more glass and more transparency — as proposed in an earlier version of the project plans, a great central reading room — “a sacred space for books” as it is being called for by former Mayor Anthony Williams. She

also recommended more community discus-sion of the roof design. And in “correcting the record,” Diener spoke of her role in saving the Mies building along with “others in the community,” together with such civic organizations as The Committee of 100 on the Federal City; all the while, she assert-ed, the Library Board of Trustees remained silent. Further, she recommended against any approval of the plans until such time as DCPL fully informs the community of its plans — e.g., who are the partners who will share space with the library in the expanded and reconfigured Mies building.

ANC 2C Commissioner John Tinpe, chair of the ANC District in which the MLK Library is situated, reported on the ANC’s resolution in support of the project. And both Jo-Ann Newhaus, long-time urban planner representing the Penn Quarter neighbor-hood and Susan Height, former historic pres-ervation planner for the Rouse Company and President of the Federation of Friends of the DC Public Library joined Tinpe in support of the current plans.

According to George Williams, DC Public Library Press Officer, all five public wit-nesses are members of the Library’s MLK Modernization Advisory Committee.

QUESTIONS FROM THE BOARDAll five Board members hearing the case

were supportive of the library’s revised plans. Three of the members joined in an active engagement with the architects. Nancy Metzger charmingly coined a new term of art — “wallness.” This neologism arose when Metzer was wrestling with the ques-tion of replacing the brick in the vestibule and under the MLK mural. She confessed to a divergence from strict historic preserva-tion when noting that she couldn’t stand the brick every time she entered the vestibule; vestibules should be welcoming and with

the brick the building is not — and think-ing aloud wondered if Meis would share the same reaction. She did, however, express concern about the lack of “wallness” in clear glass planes, especially since the new plans would provide two ways to come into the building from the vestibule — one by means of the new up and down stairway and the other directly into the first floor lobby. Similarly, she wondered if the clear glass of the pivot doors under the MLK mural would be distracting to activities occurring in the event space.

Architect D. Graham Davidson found it reassuring to learn about the vision of the library program and the attention to preserva-tion; reminded the Board that Meis designed his buildings to be flexible in their interiors (Tom Johnson had earlier noted that Meis liked murals in the interiors of his buildings and did not like colored walls); Davidson praised the roof design as the best yet — the most resolved, combining the organic with the rectilinear; he agreed with the “flipping” of the building cores; recommended that the front entrance be a plane that is somewhat solid but “see through”; and agreed with the open staircase but wondered at the solid balustrades, which seem to be left over from an organic style, one quite separate from that of the building.

Chair Pfaehler expressed her pleasure that the library program was being worked through by the architects and that the open stairs moving up through the higher floors and down to lower levels provided the opportunity for organic curves within a geometric building but recommended that the balustrades be more transparent. She also expressed agreement with the revision of site walls, noting that Meis himself had problems with site walls. And for the pivot walls under the mural, translucent or as board member Andrew Aurbach suggested, metal mesh, observing that pivot walls do not need the same sense of solidity as does that of the vestibule. With the vestibule, Pfaehler recommended that planes be combined and emphasized that the vestibule need not be brick; rather, a framing system and translu-cent planes.

Phaeler then prefaced her articulation of the Board’s action endorsing the revised plans by directing the HPO staff to engage HPRB members to work with the applicant and a Board member through any issues that might arise as the architectural plans move to completion. The Board then adopted a reso-lution stating that “the Board approved the concept as consistent with the preservation law and delegated further review to staff.”

Copyright © 2015 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part with-out permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §§107 & 108 (“fair use”).

MLK LIBRARYFrom p. 5

image—courtesy DC Public Library.How the informal events space now to be opened up from the rear of the lobby can be utilized; the build-ing shown through the expansive windows is across G Place immediately north of the library.

after the end of slavery to work the sugarcane fields. The workers, it is said, carried their lunch folded in the bread. The islanders took this import and made something of their own out of it. It became the classic Trinidadian street food and take-away. I still hunger for the Islander’s dal puri roti, a wrap hot off the griddle filled with yellow split peas.

On many a Sunday afternoon at the Columbia Road site, I sat at a table relishing my favorite — curry shrimp, rice and peas, and often a “roti bake.” I experimented with the incendiary hot pepper sauce, made from the dimpled Scotch bonnet peppers. Caribbean music played in the background. One memo-rable tune, “Curry Tabanka,” lamented the loss of a lover. The grieving singer especially missed the curries she fixed.

I enjoyed other treats outside the restaurant. At Christmas Addie sold customers pasteles, meat pies cooked and wrapped in a banana leaf. Another “reminder of home” she purveyed was black cake, full of raisins, currants, and prunes, rich in rum. “Punch a cream,” the Trinidadian egg nog, was another holiday refreshment.

It was Addie’s vivid presence that is most imprinted in my mind. There was the celebra-tion at the Columbia Road spot at which she staged a fashion parade to honor her home-land’s diversity. Wearing a colorful headdress, she introduced each person in the procession. Addie highlighted the ethnic diversity of the women — African, Indian, French. They rep-resented the cultural medley that was Trinidad. She herself had a Portuguese grandfather.

On another occasion, a book signing event at the National Press Club, Addie took center stage in a gathering of strangers. At my invita-tion, she arrived with her husband, Ernest, a soft-spoken Virginian whom she had met

in England, while she was studying nursing and he was an airman (he went on to become a DC fireman). Wearing her resplendent headdress again, they both moved around introducing themselves to all the guests. She wowed the crowd and quickly became the life of the party.

Addie was also a shrewd promoter of Caribbean food at a time when it was not well known in Washington. She brought her food to parades, picnics, Smithsonian events, and other gatherings. Most importantly, every-where she conveyed her vivacity and lively personality. She also preached the gospel of industrious independence. “The idea is to work for what we want and not to expect any-one to give us anything” was her motto.

I will miss Addie, Ernest, and her family — Darryl, Curtis, Brian, Gwyneth. Most of all I will miss the vital social connection that the mistress of Trinidadian food brought to my life. In her home in Orlando, Florida, there is

certain to be another “Addie’s Island.”

*The writer was a Peace Corp volunteer in Africa many years ago, and is the author of several books, including “Capital Flavors: Exploring Washington’s Ethnic Restaurants” (1988, Seven Locks Press), which evolved from his series in this publication known then as “The Ethnic Bazaar.” He is also the author of “The World on a Plate: A Tour Through the History of America’s Ethnic Cuisine” (2007, University of Nebraska Press), in which part of one chapter was drawn from articles that originally had appeared in this space. In addi-tion, he has written about ethnic food for the Boston Globe, the Philadelphia Enquirer, Washingtonian, as well as The InTowner.

© 2015 InTowner Publishing Corp. & Joel Denker. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part with-out permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. SS107 & 108 (“fair use”).

FORUMFrom p. 2

Page 7 • The InTowner • August 2015

NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART 4th & Constitution;

(202) 737-4215 Daily, 10am-5pm / www.nga.gov

In a wonderfully engaging and brightly illuminated exhibition of over 55 mas-

terworks by the little known but vitally important Impressionist painter Gustave Caillebotte, the National Gallery has mount-ed a broad and representative survey of Caillebotte’s late 19th century paintings with a focus for this viewer on his stunning por-traits, amazing still-lifes that, for example, juxtapose beautifully depicted dead birds with vibrantly colored fresh fruits, and bril-liantly composed scenes of Parisian urban life. Classic examples of Impressionist land-scapes and riverscapes of boating and sailing round out the range of works by this relatively short lived (1848-1894) but triumphantly productive French artist.

Born into a wealthy upper middle class family, Caillebotte was freed by his fam-ily’s wealth from market pressures on the production of his work. He never sold nor, apparently, did he ever try to sell any of his paintings; rather, after having been educated as a lawyer, he took up art as his life’s career, one that allowed him the luxury of leisure for other pursuits as well: rowing and sailing, the design of yachts and sailboats, stamp collecting, horticulture, and the support and patronage of his many artist friends — in all of which pursuits Caillebotte excelled.

In addition to purchasing works by his fel-low Impressionist artists and acting as a patron when needed, Caillebotte financed, planned, and designed the Third Impressionist exhibi-tion, which was said to be its most successful and representative. Without a gallery rep-resentation or any official or academic con-nection or publishing venture, and avoiding the limelight of a wealthy man about town, however, Caillebotte was little known during his lifetime outside the circles of his family, friends, and fellow artists.

In spite of Caillebotte’s relative short life as a painter, his works are astounding in their range and complexity, as well as in their bold and innovative realism, compositional ingenuity, and dramatic lighting, beginning with the work that brought him his initial recognition — one that included both high praise and harsh criticism. Titled The Floor Scrapers, it depicts three young men stripped to the waist who are hand-planing, with arms stretched out in exaggerated length, the wooden floor of the artist’s new studio.

The subject matter — ordinary working class life and the decidedly un-heroic nature

of the workmen’s appearance — garnered a rejection of the painting when submitted by Caillebotte to the jury for inclusion in the annual exhibition of the Paris Salon. It subsequently, however, received an eager acceptance from the organizers of the Second Impressionist exhi-bition where, as the author of the handsomely illustrated free leaflet introducing the show notes, Caillebotte was able to “display his work alongside paintings by Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Claude

Monet.”The Floor Scrapers is a boldly conceived

and superbly executed, radically “realistic,” painting; it is one of the best of Caillebotte’s works.

The artist’s portraits and urban scene paint-ings are the strongest works in the show. Most if not all of the portraits are of friends and relatives — almost always men. They reflect an intense and close inspection of physiognomy and beautifully captured set-tings for the portraits, typically the interiors of well appointed, richly furnished rooms. Somber and unemotional, they are nonethe-less boldly painted with careful, expressive

brush strokes. Complex in color and compo-sition, Caillebotte’s portraits reflect the work of an artist whose aesthetic insights seem wonderfully appropriate to his resigned and respectful, elegiac acceptance of life.

His Portrait of George Ramon seated in an overstuffed chair in front of heavy drapes and a gauzy window scrim captures a powerful, stolidly somber personality while an equally powerful painting of Henri Cordier at his desk in his scholar’s study is almost placid by comparison. A light touch is achieved in the Portrait of Monsieur R, a painting of a mys-terious friend about which nothing seems to

be known. Caillebotte also did graphite draw-ings of Monsieur R, a pert and pretty young man whose portrait in oils finds him sitting on a sofa covered in a loud, patterned fabric of broad blue and white stripes in front of a wall humorously covered in the same, over the top pattern.

The catalog authors observe that “Caillebotte brought a wholly original vision to the [portrait] genre and one wishes he had made more, including a portrait of his sailing mate Joseph Kerbrat, with whom Caillebotte lived during his final years and to whom he gave his deeply melancholic and poignant last self-portrait,” which is not in the exhibition but is reproduced in the catalog on page 164.

Two nudes are in the show, the first being that of a stunning and handsomely built male depicted from the rear, toweling off after a bath; the second is of a reclining and far less attractive female nude lying on a beautifully patterned day bed and pictured as though an

At the Museums By Anthony L. Harvey*

CONTINUED ON NEXT PAGE

Caillebotte, The Floor Scrapers (1875)

Caillebotte, Self-Portrait at the Easel (1879-’80).

Caillebotte, The Pont de l’Europe (1876).

Caillebotte, The Fields, a Plain in Gennevilliers, Study in Yellow and Green (1884).

Caillebotte, Man at His Bath (1884).

Caillebotte, A Boating Party (1877-’78).

Page 8 • The InTowner • August 2015

anti-odalisque. Several charming sailing and boating paintings are prominently featured; my favorite is a masterfully composed and gloriously colored work titled A Boating Party. It features a robust and attractive, stern-faced rower decked out in perhaps his Sunday best or in stalwart regatta clothing. Among the still-lifes, the show stopper is Gamer Birds and Lemons, while The Fields, A Plain in Ginnevilliers, Study in Yellow and Green is my favorite among the many fine Impressionist landscapes. Paris Street, Rainy Day from the Art Institute of Chicago, one of the best known and most loved of Caillebotte’s large paintings graces the front and back of the exhibition leaflet and the back cover of the terrific exhibition catalog.

Caillebotte never married, first living as an adult with his parents and upon their death with a brother and finally with Joseph Kerbrat; the male Caillebotte family mem-bers were not long-lived and Caillebotte’s masterworks are primarily held by family members who are heirs to great nephews and nieces who descend from Caillebotte’s sister. These family members along with other pri-vate holders and public institutions have gen-erously lent works for the present exhibition.

Caillebotte himself was very generous with his own collection of Impressionist art — 60 of which were left to the Luxembourg Gallery (and then to the Musée du Louvre); these ultimately became the nucleus of the Impressionist collection in the Musée d’Orsay. Renoir, who was co-executor of Caillebotte’s estate, added, in collabora-tion with Caillebotte’s heirs, the artist’s own The Scrapers and Rooftops in the Snow to Caillebotte’s munificent bequest to these state museums.

“Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye” continues through October 4, 2015.

FREER | SACKLER SMITHSONIAN MUSEUMS OF ASIAN ART

Independ. Ave. at 10th St., SW; info, 357-2700 / Daily, 10am-5:30pm

James McNeill Whistler’s notorious and elaborately decorated dining room called

the “Peacock Room” has undergone its third refurbishing since it ended its peripatetic journey from its original home in the South Kensington suburb of London, England, where shipping magnate Frederick Richards Leyland and his architect were completing a decorating scheme for the magnate’s formal dining room where Leyland intended to dis-play his large collection of over 350 expensive blue and white Chinese pots and a pair of dramatic paintings, both by Whistler.

The Peacock Room was disassembled fol-lowing Leyland’s unexpected death in 1904 (Whistler had died the year earlier) and subsequently sold to Charles Lang Freer, Whistler’s American patron — the second after Leyland of his two great patrons) and shipped to Detroit, Michigan for installa-tion in Freer’s residence at 33 Ferry Avenue, where it took on the more modest role of a work and study room for Freer’s extensive collection of Asian art and ceramics.

Following Freer’s death in 1919, the room was disassembled and shipped, along with the Asian art and ceramics, to Washington for installation in the magnificent mansion-like museum Freer had constructed on the Mall — all of this plus a large endowment having been gifted to the Smithsonian Institution.

Very few of Freer’s pots were exhibited during the first years of the room’s installa-tion and apparently none of Leyland’s had conveyed with the room. A 1989-1992 major conservation effort restored the room to its original splendor and displayed many blue and white Chinese pots of the kind Leyland collected. A new restoration of 20 years later

now displays the full complement of historic Asian pots collected by Freer.

This fall and early winter will provide an opportunity to view both the Peacock Room as envisioned by Whistler and Freer (the Freer is closing for a major museum restoration on January 3, 2016) and a re-imagining of the room in a satiric decon-struction by artist Darren Waterston called “Filthy Lucre” — the title memorializing the bitter battle between Leyland and Whistler over the asserted, by Whistler, cost (or artistic worth) of the Peacock Room. “Filthy Lucre” is on display in the adjacent Sackler Gallery through January 2, 2017, and a fascinating catalog accompanies the show. It documents the process by which this extraordinary instal-lation art work was constructed — first for dis-play at MassMoca, the museum that commis-sioned the work, and now at Freer/Sackler.

“Filthy Lucre” is sadly the kind of back story that makes the gossip of the art world flourish in this age of late finance capitalism where money is the driving force for the cre-ation of faux art works — at great expense — that both titillate the casual viewer and ulti-mately depresses the serious student of both contemporary and historic art. The titillation is provided by the laying out in public of the lengths to which two accomplished profes-sionals — Leyland in business and Whistler in art — were willing to go to present them-selves in such unpleasant lights. Leyland was depicted by Whistler as a tightfisted scrooge and a criminal businessman, and Leyland depicted Whistler’s usual behavior as a vain and arrogant artist.

The depression is wrought by the viewer having to observe the lengths to which a fine and accomplished painter such as Darren Waterston is willing to go to ridicule the Peacock Room as a symbol of someone else’s decadence. And the back story of the dispute between Leyland and Whistler is classic upper middle class, new-rich controversy where an artist goes hog wild in an over the top creation of an interior decoration scheme, one in this case that was expected by Leyland as the cli-ent to simply be a job requiring two or three days to finish what Leyland’s architect had left undone, and Whistler’s seizing the oppor-tunity in Leyland’s absence for a summer vacation to create a decorative extravagance for the entire formal dining room in Leyland’s London mansion. Whistler billed Leyland 2,000 guineas; Leyland would only pay half –- 1,000 pounds and insultingly not guineas, which were 21 rather than the pound’s 20 shillings; Whistler retaliated by finishing the

room not with the promised painting of the three girls but with a pair of puffed up fight-ing peacocks — the artist and the patron.

Had Whistler lived one more year he would have immensely enjoyed the spec-tacle of Leyland’s demise and the sale of the disassembled room to his American patron Charles Freer; Whistler would have been especially thrilled by the front page announcement in oversize type of the arrival in America of the Peacock Room appearing on the front page of the September 4, 1904, issue of the Chicago Sunday Tribune. Its headline read, “Whistler’s Peacock Room World’s Greatest Masterpiece Of Decorative Art Bought By An American.”

While it is surely Whistler’s greatest master-piece of decorative art, it is hardly that of the world’s, filled as is the world with astounding rooms in great mansions, palaces, and public institutions with far greater interior decora-tion all over the globe. England alone — which Whistler would certainly have known — abounds with country houses and palaces containing immense and astoundingly deco-rated rooms — as do Spain, Portugal, Italy, France and Imperial Russia, to name only several other world venues. The Peacock Room is a trifle by comparison — even if a luxuriant and engaging trifle when looking its best.

The prompt card describing the show, available together with a free leaflet, describes Waterston’s “Filthy Lucre” thusly: “An

immersive installation by painter Darren Waterston, “Filthy Lucre,” re-imagines James McNeill Whistler’s famed Peacock Room as a decadent ruin collapsing under the weight of its own aesthetic excess.”

Maybe, but I was first struck with the fresh and finished beauty of Waterston’s golden peacocks and surrounding decorations, and the intact pots and vases embellished with Waterston’s own painting. “Filthy Lucre” seems a combination of avant garde interior decoration — professionally installed — and street boy vandalism. The meltdowns and stalactites, the George Ohr-style pottery tech-niques, the glowering golden fire appearing through window shutter slats seem decorative rather than threatening. Darren Waterston’s “Filthy Lucre” is both entertaining and a demonstration of the artist’s terrific painterly and compositional skills. It is certainly a hip-ster departure from Freer/Sackler’s usual seri-ous and scholarly presentations of great Asian art. Perhaps it is simply an interlude of these museums “getting with it.”

*Anthony L. Harvey is a collector of contempo-rary art, with an emphasis on Washington artists. He is a founding member of the Washington Review of the Arts. For many years he was the staff person in the United States Senate responsible for arts and Library of Congress oversight by the Senate’s Rules and Administration Committee and the House and Senate’s Joint Committee on the Library.

MUSEUMSFrom p. 7

Whistler, Harmony in Blue and Gold: The Peacock Room. [View of a portion of the room as installed at the Freer.]

Darren Waterston, Filthy Lucre (2013–‘14). [Courtesy of the artist & DC Moore Gallery, New York; installation view, MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts].