Though anyone who has ever strolled down U Street or driven from Reston to Tysons Corner knows better, there are a lot of folks around the country who view our fair city as a soulless ghetto of government offices and museums, with no character or business beyond the C-SPAN scene. It’s a major pet peeve for BeyondDC, personally. And while true that we may not be able to hang with New York, seriously, who can? The fact is, as a recent story in the Post argues, Washington is a monster of an economy that competes with the top 10 or 20 commercial centers in the world.

Nice to see it laid out in a forum like the Post, even if perhaps a bit biased by local bigwigs hoping to make good.

So remember folks: The next time you come back from a weekend in the Big Apple or LA, don’t get too down on the good ole District. A lot of other cities got nothin’ on us.

Over the past week or so BeyondDC and the newsfeed have been, for periods, inaccessible. The problems were caused by forces beyond our control that hopefully have now been resolved. Hopefully.

Now back to regular updates.

A light rail train in Baltimore

According to a story by the Gazette, the Ehrlich administration misrepresented potential transit ridership in studies for the Purple Line, Corridor Cities Transitway and Baltimore Red Line. A review by the Maryland Transit Administration found that studies written under Ehrlich grossly underestimated the likely ridership of those three projects, and will have to be re-written before the projects can apply for Federal construction grants. The edits will cause at least a year-long delay before earth-moving can begin.

Whether the inaccuracies were mistakes or purposeful attempts to submarine transit projects remains to be seen, but according to Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, “I suspect given the previous administration’s lack of commitment to mass transit, they probably did not mind the studies underestimated the amount of ridership.” It certainly would not be the first time the Ehrlich administration made a choice to put responsible infrastructure enhancements behind continued road building.

By the way, if you’re a bit confused about the Gazette’s headline, so were we. “Low ridership delays transit projects”? Misleading implications like that make us wonder who’s paying the Gazette’s bills.

It was bound to happen sooner or later – deconstructivism has come to DC.

According to Logan Circle News what you see at right is a planned boutique hotel on 14th Street. The Gehry or Libeskind-like architecture will be a first for DC.

At BeyondDC we’re not big fans of deconstructivism. It’s the sort of faddish design that’s interesting only as long as it’s new and unique. Once it’s no longer shocking it will lose value and cease to be worthwhile. We expect that in a few years, once the luster inevitably wears off, buildings like this will be thought about as attractive as the Portland Public Service Building and the Air Force Academy, both avant-garde masterpieces as venerated in their own day as anything by Gehry.

But there’s room in the big city for a few mistakes; that’s what diversity is all about. So enjoy this monster while it’s fresh and love to hate it once it’s old. Just don’t make a habit of building copies. If this sort of building isn’t extremely rare then it’s got nothin’ at all going for it.