Capitol Hill stuff

1. Last fall, UMD students did an urban design studio on Barracks Row. While their recommendations for retail were totally disconnected from market reality -- they suggest 160,000 s.f. of retail space which requires that more than 90,000 customers shop this space regularly, in order to make the space viable -- it's always interesting to look at these kinds of plans.

-- Connect Barracks Row: A Future Vision for a Washington, DC Community

2. The founding publishers of the Voice of the Hill newspaper (which has since been sold to the Current Newspapers, a "chain" of community newspapers serving many parts of the city), have created a web forum for Capitol Hill activities, called Hill Talk. (They had this type of feature on the original VOTH website.)

3. The Hill Rag monthly community newspaper serving Greater Capitol Hill has a new feature, "H Street Life," written by Elise Bernard, who runs the neighborhood's Frozen Tropics blog.

4. The Hill Rag also has a regular column called "Curious Minds," and this month it looks at the new U.S. Capitol Visitors Center, "A New Destination For Us: US Capitol Visitor Center is not just for Tourists."

5. And I forgot to mention the E-cruzers "shuttle" service, mostly oriented to Washington Nationals games, using electric vehicles.

E-cruzers.com electric vehicle, 3rd and Pennsylvania Avenue SE