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This month, we honor Veterans and celebrate Native American Heritage Month. Check out the Commemorative Work Spotlight and Data Corner below, as well as the podcast featured below in which OP’s Archeology team discusses the District’s collection of Native American artifacts.
Sincerely,
Anita Cozart
Acting Director, DC Office of Planning
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On November 15th, the DC Council voted to approve the Congress Heights Small Area Plan (CHSAP). The CHSAP will serve as a guide for the community, government, and private sector to take action to bring improved affordable housing, safe public spaces, economic development, and civic facilities to the Congress Heights community. Thank you to the Congress Heights residents, community leaders, business owners, youth, seniors, non-profit leaders, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioners who participated in the development of the plan over the past 18 months.
See the final plan and learn more here.
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For Native American Heritage Month, DC Public Library Podcast featured a discussion on the archaeological artifacts archived at the MLK Library with State Archaeologist Ruth Trocolli, Chief Jesse James Swann of the Piscataway Conoy Tribe, and Armand Lione of the DC Native History Project. The episode covers what these artifacts tell us about the Indigenous peoples who made a home and livelihood here for thousands of years, connects the neighborhoods of Washington, DC with their roots in Native American History and Culture, and the need for increased education of Native Americans in the District.
Listen to Episode 72: Preserving Native American Artifacts at MLK Library.
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Using funds from a National Trust for Historic Preservation grant awarded to OP, the Historic Preservation Office has engaged two social historians to undertake a study on the history of resistance at Lafayette Square beginning with the Women’s Suffragist movement in the early 20th century, through the Civil Rights era and anti-War movement of the 1960s and 1970s, to the more recent events associated with the death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement. The research and final narrative, which will be available in April 2023, will provide the context for identifying and marking several sites, city-wide, associated with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Learn more about OP’s historic preservation partnerships here.
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Woman Suffrage Pickets at White House, Harris and Ewing, 1917, Library of Congress
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Demonstrators in Lafayette Park to protest the death of George Floyd, Alex Brandon, 2020, AP Images
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With the publication of the 2021 Comprehensive Plan, OP took the opportunity to reconsider our approach to urban design and better emphasize how it can positively guide development and promote better and more equitable social experiences. Last month, for Part 1 we detailed Shaping a Shared Civic Identity. Today we continue with Part 2: Designing the Livable District, on how we are working to make a lasting design impact on the District’s public spaces.
The measure of a city’s livability can mean so many different things to the people who call the District home. Important factors include: a healthy environment, physical and mental well-being, sense of safety, and social inclusion. The Comp Plan includes policies that; encourages communities to host weekend block parties, creative placemaking and pop-up retail in streets and public spaces (see Policy UD-2.1.7) and, and to preserve or create new neighborhood open spaces as part of the infill development process (see Policy UD-2.2.7).
Temporary placemaking brings neighbors together in Adams Morgan for OkuPlaza Fest, part of OP’s Crossing the Streets project in 2016.
Central to this effort is designing spaces to serve people of all races, income and ability levels and all ages. Notably, the District was one of the first urban areas in the country to include a Comprehensive Plan policy that immigrant and refugee populations and pregnant persons deserve equitable access to neighborhood open spaces (See Policy UD-2.4.1).
Café seating makes for a lively public space at the Brookland ArtsWalk.
To read about these efforts and more, check out the Urban Design Element of the Comprehensive Plan.
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As the nation’s capital, Washington, DC is home to many monuments and memorials honoring individuals and events of national significance. The District is also a city of neighborhoods and residents, with a local history of people, places and events deserving their own commemoration. In this section of our newsletter, we will highlight Commemorative Works from across District each month.
On November 11, 2022, the National Museum of the American Indian held a ceremony at the museum to dedicate the National Native American Veterans Memorial. The memorial is the first to focus on military contributions of Native American, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians. Designed by Native artist and veteran Harvey Pratt, the memorial depicts an elevated stainless-steel circle (symbolizing dance, storytelling, and prayer. The circle is balanced on an intricately carved stone drum and surrounded by water for ceremonies, benches for gathering, and lances where visitors can tie prayer cloths. Continuous music plays throughout the memorial and includes thirteen Native American veteran songs from the Ojibwe, Menominee, Blackfeet, Ho-Chunk, Kiowa, and Lakota Nations from the Smithsonian Folkways recording American Warriors: Songs for Indian Veterans. More than 140,000 veterans that identify as Native have served in the US armed forces in every major military conflict since the Revolutionary War.
The memorial, located at 4th Street and Independence Avenue SW on the Grounds of the National Museum of the American Indian, is free to visit and open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
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Learn more and get involved in our community planning projects:
OP in the Community
Join us at the following events where OP staff will be available to answer any questions and share information about OP’s work:
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Wisconsin Avenue Community Design Conversations - Tenleytown, November 19, 2022
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Open Streets DC on Wisconsin Ave NW, November 5, 2022
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OP is looking to hire two Policy Analysts to join our Food Policy team. Learn more about the positions and apply today!
Food Policy Analysts (Closing Date: 12/21/2022)
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