Today I was able to take some photos from up high at the Courtyard by Marriott--since it was a clear day, I could indeed see forever. First off, with the Capper/Carrollsburg demolition west of 5th Street now complete, I've posted before-and-after photos of the Capper footprint that illustrate the astonishing difference 10 months and six blocks' worth of demolition can make; this page also has new photos as you scroll down showing ground-level shots of the final demolished block north of K between 2nd and 3rd. Next are photos-from-above of the holes in the ground at 70/100 I and 100 M/Onyx, with comparison shots from last year (scroll down a bit from the top of the page). And, if you can bear to scroll ALL the way to the bottom, I have views of the Nats ballpark construction from this Courtyard vantage point--it's pretty much like looking into the stadium from dead center field, except four blocks away. And, at the top of the Capper Seniors page, there's a neat shot of all three Capper Seniors buildings. Alas, now I will have to return to taking boring street-level shots for a while....

I've heard through channels that the Capper Seniors #1 low-income housing building is possibly within a couple days of receiving its Certificate of Occupancy. 135 of its 162 units are already pre-leased through the DC Housing Authority, but apparently some units at the building are going to be made available to the general public for rental at market rates. There will be a leasing office on site, with the property to be managed by Edgewood Management; when it opens, I'll pass that along, as well as any additional information I get. And there will be an official ceremony marking the opening sometime in early 2007. It's a happy moment for me to see this project completed, because it was its precedessor--the long boarded-up Capper apartment building at the foot of the SE Freeway's 6th Street exit ramp--that helped spur me to start paying attention to news of the plans for south of the freeway....

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.)

Thankfully I looked at the weather forecast before planning my weekend, and scheduled a photo excursion for Saturday, not Sunday. Lots of new pictures in the Stadium Construction Gallery, now also reorganized so that as you scroll down you're basically walking clockwise around the stadium site from it's construction starting point at 1st and N Place all the way down Potomac, up South Capitol, and over on Half back to 1st. And I also added a new photo or two (and updated the spiffy animated slide shows) for 20 M and Capper Seniors #2. Let the icon be your guide to the additions, as always. UPDATE: Oh yeah, duh, there's also the Capper demolition along the south side of L Street between 3rd and 4th, I added a couple of shots of that as well to my Capitol Quarter page, I'll update when the last of the blue-roofed apartment buildings comes down, probably within the next week.

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....

A correspondent passed along an image from the paperwork filed with the Zoning Commission for the stadium hearing last month, which shows a concept rendering of the now-infamous condo- and hotel-wrapped parking garages on the north edge of the stadium site. I've put it at the top of my Stadium Renderings page, where you can scroll down to remind yourself of the plain parking garages originally planned for that location. Now I just have to figure out how I'm going to move all my discussions and photos of this land between N Street and N Place to my Ballpark District page without completely gutting my Stadium page :-). (I think I'll wait until the Ballpark District Master Plan is released.) In the meantime, I also added a couple of new photos to my M Street page, my Capper/Carrollsburg page (celebrating at long last the completion of above-ground demolition on the 3rd/4th/I/Virginia block), and the Capper Seniors #2 page (the 4th and M location is starting to look very different).