Reviving H Street Main Street

The H Street Main Street logo was created by Kevin Palmer, during the application preparation process in February and March 2002. We applied this logo to a tee shirt, which we all wore during the presentation to the DC Main Streets selection committee. The beautiful logo features a rendering of some of the historic buildings on the north side of the 400 block of H Street NE.

Well, I have my opinions about H Street Main Street and the likelihood of its impact. Right now on the National Main Street e-list there is a discussion about the failure of commercial district revitalization programs to really understand and focus on the economic restructuring piece of the Main Street Approach. ER is essential and the foundation of a successful Main Street program because it is the economy of the commercial district as a whole that must be "fixed," making buildings look pretty or sponsoring events isn't enough.

The big reason is that it's hard, and people don't necessarily have the sophisticated understanding of what needs to be done. A lot of times Main Streeters say that you need to "staff" this committee with realty executives and bankers, but I think that can be problematic because all economic development ≠ successful revitalization. Crappy development is crappy development and doesn't move a commercial district forward.

406 H Street, owned by a prominent "slumlord" of H Street properties, who at the same time is an owner of well-tended properties in Capitol Hill proper.

This building is located at the same point as in the historic photo depicted below in the transportation ad. This one-story building with a fake second floor replaced 4 historic buildings of two to three stories in height. This building project received $1 million in funding from the DC Department of Housing and Community Development (and additional funding from LISC, the Federal Home Loan Bank of Atlanta, and Suntrust) for a total of about $2.5 million. Photo by Elise Bernard.

After 18 months of relative moribundness, the H Street Main Street group is having a set of new committee meetings. From an email list:

Please come out for the first 2006 Design Committee Meeting on March 6, 2006 at 7 pm and the Economic Restructuring Committee Meeting on March 8, 2006 at 7 pm. Both meetings will be held at the H Street Main Street Office (Old Bank of America building at 10th and H).

As far as people understanding the issues, I think something I wrote in August 2004, "About H Street Main Street -- My opinion," is still relevant.

Hopefully, people will read it, and maybe even the Board will begin to open itself up to influence from the committees and the volunteers, rather than continue its very inside dealing, top-down, chair-centric approach.

This ad was one of four created for the "Talk about H Street" image development campaign that ran in the Voice of the Hill community newspaper because of the strong support of the publishers, Bruce and Adele Robey, founders of the H Street Playhouse, at 1365 H Street NE. The campaign was my idea, admittedly based on the "Talk about Downtown" campaign of the Downtown Partnership of St. Louis. Kevin Palmer executed the campaign brilliantly. Click here for three more ads. Original image of 8th and H Streets NE courtesy of Leroy O. King Collection and Lee H. Rogers, and was taken sometime before February 1949.

If the organization continues operating the way that they do, which includes not having elections for board members, not having term limits for the chair, officers, and committee chairs, not having a nominating committee to vet people, not considering volunteers on committees in the pool of potential board members, and not reorienting the building (which Bank of America graciously allows the program to use rent-free) in a way that is much more open to the public than the permanently locked doors presented currently, then they are likely to not succeed.

People like Kevin Palmer and I did some great work. I am proud of our accomplishments-- creating a successful application, creating a video for the selection committee presentation in 15 hours, creating an organization, starting and running successful committees, getting 125 people to our first (and last) Annual Meeting in 2004 (Kevin's last major accomplishment), producing monthly articles for community newspapers, etc.

It's too bad that such contributions were ultimately denigrated, ignored, and ultimately, not sustained.

My marketing and communication skills (not just mine) were essential to the success of the effort. After the award was made, there was an attempt, successful in the long run, to shunt many of us aside. Frankly, I feel used.

H Street Main Street Booth, City Living Expo, October 2003. The booth was organized by Kevin Palmer and myself in less than one week, after others dropped the ball. More than 700 people visited our booth in the two days of the conference. Photo by Kevin Palmer.

I hadn't really considered the war when we came up with this concept. I still like the idea, given our location in the nation's capital, although I am not big on the war. Kevin Palmer, graphic artist extraordinaire, created the final product. David Bell of Bell Architects kindly printed a large version of this poster on an architectural drawings printer as a donation to the program.

The "It's our neighborhood. It's our business." slogan was mine, which accounts for its feisty, in-your-face succinctness. The board never really approved it. I kept asking. Finally Kevin just slapped it on the collateral materials we were developing.

Index Keywords: urban-revitalization