Along 16th St. NW

Contractors have been working on the lower terrace of Meridian Park, just above Florida Avenue NW. Last week one could be delayed by a front-end loader dropping debris into a dump truck along 16th. The front end loader reached only so high, and the plywood ramp it drove up was limited in height by the need to allow pedestrians to cross. It usually took the operator of the front-end loader two or three tries to shake everything out of the shovel and into the truck. This part of the work seems to be done.

 For many years, the only commercial establishment on 16th St. NW north of Scott Circle was The New Hampshire Mart on the northwest corner of 16th and T. For some months now, probably for more than year, the property has been surrounded by a chain link fence, and the building undergoing some sort of reconstruction, though I never see anyone working on it in the morning. The store should have been profitable, for it sold wine and beer. Perhaps the price of real estate meant that the property was worth more than operating the store would have been.

To the east, the 1500 block of T was blocked off by equipment, and had been dug up. Now it is open to traffic, though the pavement is roughly patched the  Friends who live on the block say that this has been going on for quite a while.  It appears that the city is replacing water pipes there. The pipes replaced could be about 125 years old.

On the terrace of the Masonic Temple at 16th and S, there are yoga classes, or anyway sessions, on Monday and Tuesday morning. This is new since the pandemic: I have walked along this block for many years, and never seen anyone practicing yoga there. I suppose that a lot of persons within a few blocks found themselves working at home, ergo with more time. The usual complement seems to be a dozen or thirteen working out, plus the man who leads it.

A day camp is in session at the Jewish Community Center (JCC) at 16th and Q. Campers and counselors wait on the steps for a bus to take them to the JCC in Rockville, which has much more space. I think that a new session must have started, for yesterday I heard an older counselor introducing a camper to the bus counselor, saying that he could answer any questions she had while on the bus. The counselor looked to be fourteen or fifteen.