The latest weekly permit report from the DC Historic Preservation Office shows that a raze permit application has been filed for 601 L Street, SE, which is the address of the old Capper Seniors apartment building. This is not a huge surprise, I've been hearing that the plans are for this building to be demolished by the end of this year (mainly so that the lot can be cleared in time for Opening Day 2008 so that it can be used for baseball parking). Some of its residents have already been moved to the newly opened Capper Seniors #1, and the rest should be moved by the end of spring into Capper Seniors #2. It will be quite something to watch that building come down.

In addition to the latest stadium photos that I posted on Saturday, there's also a smattering of new photos on the 20 M Street and Capper Seniors #2 pages, and even the Monument Half Street page (showing the hole in the ground starting to be dug as part of the Navy Yard Metro station upgrade). I also tossed in a few updated photos of the 4th and K and 4th and L intersections into the Photo Archive as well.

The demolition of the final two blocks of Capper/Carrollsburg buildings got off to a quick start last week with two buildings gone almost immediately, but since then only one building (along K between 2nd and 3rd) has been worked on (now about 75% demolished), and it doesn't look like they've done any work on the site for the past two days. That still doesn't stop me from taking pictures, so there's an ever-so-incremental update to the Capper/Carrollsburg page. Thanks to the current Google Satellite images of Near Southeast still being from about 2002, plus this overhead shot I have from 1999, I was able to count that there were fifty Capper/Carrollsburg buildings in the late 1990s (ranging from the seven-story Capper Seniors building at 7th and M to the three other five-story apartment buildings along Virginia between 5th and 7th to the four-story blue-roofed buildings along 4th and 5th streets to the two-story dwellings along 2nd and 3rd); there are now six left (well, 6.25), and five of those will probably be gone within the next month, leaving only old Capper Seniors standing--but with its residents starting to be moved to the new Capper Seniors #1 soon and to Capper Seniors #2 in spring, it too will probably be gone before too many more months go by. (If you're wondering, the first Carrollsburg Dwellings were built in 1941, and the first of the Capper apartment buildings opened in 1958; old Capper Seniors was originally "all-ages" public housing, but was closed in 1973, then reopened in 1981 [six years behind schedule] as a seniors building.)

A beautiful fall day on Saturday meant that I had no choice but to go on a photo-taking expedition: see my photos of the new ballpark, Capper Seniors #2, and 20 M Street.

Speaking of taking pictures, I've added some ones to my 100 M Street, 1100 First Street, Capper Seniors #2, and M Street photo galleries. 1100 First in particular has some striking before-and-afters now that trees have been removed along 1st and L streets. I also did some creative cropping of a Sept. 2000 photo of M Street to document (barely!) a solitary rowhouse that used to stand on the 100 M Street lot (where those steps-to-nowhere just west of the alley had been for the past few years, until meeting the wrecking ball over the past few weeks).

Busy day of photo taking (though I wish it hadn't been so dang hazy), and so look to the following pages for new photos: 20 M, the ballpark, Capper/Carrollsburg (where the 3rd/4th/I/K block is now almost demolished) and Capper Seniors #2. If, as I suspect, 70 I and 1100 1st/100 M are about to start, I'm just going to have to start sleeping in my car, camera in hand :-).

With 20 M Street and Capper Seniors #2 both in the midst of the Speedy, Obvious Progress Being Made phase, I'm taking a lot of pictures of them, and so have posted new photos yet again. And since I got a wide-angle lens for my birthday last week, you'll note that some of the pictures have a different look to them than my usual fare. No, the buildings aren't in danger of falling over, it's just the lens doing what's necessary to get a 10-story building into frame from a vantage point across the street, rather than three blocks away :-).

Updated pictures--and the debut of new goofy construction slide shows for these projects--on both the 20 M and Capper Seniors #2 pages. (20 M has begun work on it's 10th and final floor.) And I also added a few shots to the Stadium Construction Gallery, as work at the southeast corner of the site continues to proceed (concrete pillars have been poured, and there even appears to be actual construction of platform at 1st and O). I haven't updated my overhead shots in a while, I must admit--walking along the path on the Frederick Douglass Bridge is taxing normally, but in this weather, I'm not sure I'd make it :-). Will try to get there soon. But of course Clark/Hunt/Smoot's construction web cam can give you the up-to-the-minute overhead view better than I ever could....