* There's been a couple changes to the route of the Union Station-Navy Yard Circulator: "Service on this line has been streamlined near Columbus Circle in front of Union Station, providing a faster trip and allowing passengers to transfer between the Georgetown route and Navy Yard route on Massachusetts Avenue.Stops have also been added on Seward Square (Pennsylvania Avenue at 5th Street SE) on Capitol Hill. Because of construction to begin this fall on Columbus Circle, the stop at Delaware Avenue had to be discontinued for passenger safety."

* Adding to their growing Flickr cache of historic photos, DDOT has posted 23 photos from the construction of the Southeast/Southwest Freeway. They're a bit grainy (they look like they may have gotten water-splattered at some point), but most of them are from the area along Virginia Avenue near 6th Street, SE, so you'll see the old Capper Apartment buildings at 5th and Virginia, along with the Ellen Wilson projects that were north of Virginia. When I get some spare moments, I will of course be grabbing some of these shots to add to my own Historic Photos page (thank you, Creative Commons license!). This is wonderful of DDOT to be posting photos from their archive, and I hope they keep them coming. And other DC agencies with their own photo archives should take note.

"The Office of Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) released a letter today from Norton to Brigadier General Robert R. Ruark, Assistant Deputy Commandant for Installations and Logistics, objecting to the potential sites selected by the U.S. Marine Corps (Marines) as the location to replace the D.C. Marine Barracks known as Building 20. Norton objected to the criteria the Marines seem to be using to narrow site selection, and wrote that conveniences for the Marines appear to have trumped their consideration of other possible sites. She objected to the two potential sites, Square 929, where Dogma runs a dog day care business, and to Square 930, where the community has converted a former drug haven into a park and community garden where residents grow fruits and vegetables.

"In her letter, Norton wrote, 'Your emphasis apparently has been on selecting a site in close proximity to the Marine Annex and Barracks Row, a convenient walk for the Marines, whose training is perhaps the most rigorous of all the armed services. Notions of convenience for your Marines should not supersede important community concerns, including consideration of the convenience for the community and the displacement of important community assets.' "

The release goes on to suggest as a possible location an "empty lot on 5th Street, between K and L Streets, next to the Marine Annex parking lot" -- which would appear to be referencing the current proposed site for the Capper community center.

The Marines are supposed to be having a "charette" in October or November (pushed back from September) to discuss the direction the site search is taking. You can read more about it at the Marines' web site for the project, or browse through my (many) previous entries on the subject.