Wednesday, August 05, 2015

Photos from Last Night's National Night Out at the Starburst

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There was a large turnout for the National Night Out event at the Starburst Intersection last night. I spoke with Anwar Saleem or H Street Main Street who told me they had already had over 1,000 people come through by the time I talked to him at a little after 8pm. When I arrived shortly before 8pm a second band had taken the stage, and the food was gone, but the crowd was still going strong. Several agencies and community partners had tables set up with information for residents. I spotted a lot of neighbors and a few ANC commissioners from ANC 5D (including Keisha Shropshire, Kathy Henderson, and Adam Roberts). Multiple Councilmembers had stopped by earlier in the evening.



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They even had the fountain turned on (the fountain is rarely on, and that's a sore point), a fact that did not go unnoticed by some residents pointing out on Twitter that even as MPD officers and community members gather to celebrate a united front the District is in the middle of a serious crime upswing. Twitter user and neighbor Matt Ashburn, who frequently tweets about public safety issues, pointed out that the District had three shootings earlier that same day.

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Officer Kopp wears one of MPD's new body worn cameras.IMG_1844
One of the new body worn cameras.
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9 comments:

Anonymous said...

What was the deal with the fountain being on? I thought it was non-functional/broken or something. Was it turned on only for this event?

inked said...

It's complicated, and different things have been said about it at different times. Part of it has involved failure to take responsibility for it, and problems related to a maintenance agreement. I'm fuzzy on details because it's been a while. I think the fountain is partly a symbol of the various government (mostly) failures surrounding the Starburst.

Anonymous said...

We will soon say the same thing about the streetcar

pat said...

They said the same thing about Metro. The Streetcar is imperfect but it will ultimately become the basis for a major city transit network.

Anonymous said...

Pat, are you serious?

h st ll said...

+1 Pat - should be starting soon and then many of the haters will be eating crow.

Anonymous said...

I dunno Pat. I hope you're right but even as a supporter I'd be crazy to bet on this thing being a success at this point. It's on total life support and has been bungled at every turn. The only hope for the rest of the city, really, is dedicated lanes.

Anonymous said...

We don't need a dedicated lane for the streetcar. DC needs the guts to give the streetcar the right of way, and enforce it like they do in San Francisco.

Anonymous said...

The Metro does not run , the fountain does not run. Why do we need a streetcar that has more issues then solutions?