NewYoFla?

During a recent sojourn with fellow DC blogger the Washington Oculus last week, the Oculus suggested a nickname for the new New York Avenue - Florida Avenue - Gallaudet U Station now under construction on the Red Line between Union Station and Rhode Island Avenue. The $90 M project shares a similar problem with such stations as the Green Line's "U Street - African-American Civil War Memorial - Cardozo Station": a bloated name thanks to WMATA officials just a little too eager to make everything sound near a Metro station. Luckily for us the Oculus has coined the snappy NewYoFla.

The area just behind the new station is now a huge hole, where construction has begun on the future home to the Headquarters of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which the ATF press release promises " ... is scheduled for completion in the spring of 2005. The building will be approximately 422,000 square feet, and has been conceived and designed completely under the new post-Oklahoma City Federal guidelines and standards." And if you're really bored, here's what the GSA had to say holding the ceremonial shovel last spring.