Bruce Robey, a friend and colleague

Bruce Robey.

Upon the sad news that Bruce Robey has died, Mark Segraves, now of WTOP radio, has a nice tribute. Bruce was a co-founder with his wife Adele of the Voice of the Hill community newspaper--they created it because at the time the Hill Rag was a truly a rag and at the time a stooge for the H Street Community Development Corporation and other interests (the competition truly made the Hill Rag better)--and the H Street Playhouse.

I got to know Bruce and Adele around H Street revitalization issues. They agreed to let me distribute the Voice of the Hill north of H Street, to help tie the neighborhood more closely to Capitol Hill. I did it for a few years and when they sold the paper a couple years ago (to the Current Newspapers) the paper continued to be distributed in the H Street neighborhood.

They helped lead a community effort to revive the Atlas Theater, which at the time was mothballed and derelict, owned by the H Street Community Development Corporation, and while the effort was "unsuccessful," it did bring about change and the sale of the theater building to the group that became the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Bruce and Adele were staunch supporters of H Street Main Street when I was first involved, and they agreed to run a monthly article about the program (provided we/I wrote it and it didn't need much editing), and free "image development" ads every two months like this one.

This ad was produced by Kevin Palmer, based on a concept we developed jointly, and it ran in the Voice of the Hill, gratis.

I ran the first phase of a neighborhood historic preservation survey in 2001-2002 (the second phase of the survey was conducted this year), and they ran the final report in six or seven installments of the paper, telling the history of the neighborhood (which was written by architectural historian Nancy Schwartz).

And when I did the first H Street alley tour two years ago, they agreed to let me show their alley rowhouse (for a time they lived behind the Atlas Theater on Linden Court, a short alley mews). See "Alley Homes Fight for Respect -- and Trash Pickup" from the Washington Post for more about alley living.

Washington Post photo by Nikki Khan.

Bruce was involved in many many other projects and initiatives, things that I wasn't involved in, including the Capitol Hill Merchants and Professionals Association, and helping to launch the Capitol Hill Business Improvement District, the Theater Alliance, probably the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop and much more.

His and Adele's efforts on H Street helped pave the way for others, including Joe Englert.

And he was a friend.

My condolences to Adele, Julia, and the rest of the family.