Rock Creek Park maintenance work to disrupt multi-use trail access
The National Park Service (NPS) will temporarily narrow parts of the Rock Creek Park paved multi-use trail from Monday, February 25 to late-March. The trail will not close, but park visitors can use alternate routes to go around the work area if they want to avoid it. The change is to accommodate maintenance work between the Beach Drive, National Zoo tunnel and the Klingle Road NW overpass from 9:30 a.m. to 3:45 p.m. Monday- Saturdays. Trail users should expect to see workers, signs, fencing or equipment on the trail until the project is complete.
The NPS is installing a barrier in the ground between the Rock Creek Trail and the bamboo growing in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Zoo. This barrier will prevent the bamboo from growing through the asphalt and from damaging the trail. The NPS is coordinating with staff from the National Zoo on this project.
Wilson High School renaming proposed
In 2015, three Wilson High School teachers started a renaming petition after Princeton University students tried to have the former U.S. president’s moniker removed from that university’s school of public and international affairs. A neighborhood group, the DC History & Justin Collective, as well as Wilson’s Diversity Task Force, posed renaming the local high school at a public forum in the school’s auditorium on Tuesday, February 12th. Among the names suggested were Reno City High School — as an homage to the settlement of former slaves that had existed in the immediate area.
Target takes the former Best Buy space in Tenleytown
Target will fill the vacancy left when the Best Buy in Tenleytown closed on November 3rd. The 10-year lease, with six five-year extension options, was signed on February 11th. Target in Tenleytown is expected to open in 2020.
DDOT considers three-mile pedestrian and bike trail along Potomac River
Over the past few months, District Department of Transportation (DDOT) planning officials have been studying the possibility of building out a three-mile pedestrian and bike trail along a grassy stretch of the Potomac River. Built out along the Palisades Trolley Trail, which once hosted the Glen Echo Trolley line, it would replace a trail which has largely been neglected for decades. DDOT’s ongoing study will explore “topography, utilities, site conditions, and historic resources” in Georgetown and Palisades.
