The Goodspeed Update

After years of inaction, the process of reconstructing the D.C. Public Library’s Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Branch seems on-track. A new temporary library hums with activity, demolition of the old building is well underway, and a meeting is scheduled later this month to reveal a preliminary design for the new building.

As noted by a visitor in a recent comment, at long last a fully equipped temporary Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Library has opened at 945 Rhode Island Avenue next to the Shaw Junior High School.
The grand opening is next Wednesday, November 14th from 4 to 5:30 p.m., to be followed by a “Hopes and Dreams” meeting […]

UPDATE: This meeting has been canceled. If, like me, you received a post card about it in the mail please disregard it.
Next week the D.C. Public Library will start the first round of public meetings connected to the redesign of three neighborhood libraries: the Benning Neighborhood Library, Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library, and Watha T. Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood […]

As several commenters noted on my recent post about the apparent demise of plans to build a new central public library, that building has recently been declared a historic landmark by the city and filed an application for listing on the federal register. The Historic Preservation Review Board staff report and the accompanying National Register […]

According to the Examiner, the DC Public Library has launched $2 million in renovations to Washington’s central MLK Library, including such much-needed improvements as revamped bathrooms and elevators, new lighting, and new computers. Meanwhile, the Fenty administration tells the paper plans for a new downtown library have been shelved — for now. Elsewhere progress marches […]

Could the site of the closed Watha T. Daniel library in Shaw become home to not only to a new library, but also housing and perhaps even a small store?
That’s what Cheryl Cort, Policy Director for the Coalition for Smarter Growth, is suggesting in a provocative proposal being circulated in the community, that I have […]

The future of Washington’s downtown Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library hangs in the balance. A bill now pending before the DC Council’s Committee on Education, Libraries and Recreation proposes to construct a new central library on the old convention center site, and lease the old structure as office space to help pick up the […]