GW, capitalist amoeba of death?
Well, according to the Hatchet, Mayor Williams is in favor of GW's plans to use Square 54, the now-vacant lot that used to be GW Hospital, for mixed-use but non-university development. They quote him:
"It's easy for me to say this because I'm not running for re-election, but I think the community has been a little hard on the University...
"Certainly you can say that a part of Foggy Bottom has been lost," Williams said. "But sometimes we need to let a good thing be. It would help the city with our taxes and business, and I commend (University) President (Stephen Joel) Trachtenberg."
That's about right. It does take a certain something for a sitting DC politician to go against these folks, a bunch of monied government retirees and homeowners who hold considerable sway in local politics (and I think that something is called "being a lame duck"). I expect to hear the howls of their apoplectic rage when I return to campus. I've had enough experience with members of the Foggy Bottom Association to find that they're a spiteful, unreasoning bunch who hold dearly to a long-departed vision of what the community once was, and seem to blame solely GW for issues caused by much larger trends of district development that have left the neighborhood trapped between highways and downtown. The Foggy Bottom of their memory can never be again, and what lies there now is not so worth saving that they have any special moral high-ground in defending it.
But I've also had my share dealings with GW administration, and while they may not match the caricature pained by the FBA, President Trachtenberg and others cannot be ascribed any particular virtue in regard to caring about the community. If it suited their financial interest to raze the whole place and put in a Wal*Mart, poison factory or puppy-dog deathcamp, they would.
So I don't think the Foggy Bottom residents have any extra right to be critical of the University, but I do think the plans for Square 54 are questionable (and should be examined as closely as any move made by this administration). GW has a responsibility to make good on its investments for all we students' sakes, but I fear that students' academic needs are being given less attention in this development than are the University's financial goals. Perhaps all need will be met by the completion of renovations of Funger and the return of all the classroom and office space it once provided, but for the time being experience tells me that GW is very short on academic space.
"It's easy for me to say this because I'm not running for re-election, but I think the community has been a little hard on the University...
"Certainly you can say that a part of Foggy Bottom has been lost," Williams said. "But sometimes we need to let a good thing be. It would help the city with our taxes and business, and I commend (University) President (Stephen Joel) Trachtenberg."
That's about right. It does take a certain something for a sitting DC politician to go against these folks, a bunch of monied government retirees and homeowners who hold considerable sway in local politics (and I think that something is called "being a lame duck"). I expect to hear the howls of their apoplectic rage when I return to campus. I've had enough experience with members of the Foggy Bottom Association to find that they're a spiteful, unreasoning bunch who hold dearly to a long-departed vision of what the community once was, and seem to blame solely GW for issues caused by much larger trends of district development that have left the neighborhood trapped between highways and downtown. The Foggy Bottom of their memory can never be again, and what lies there now is not so worth saving that they have any special moral high-ground in defending it.
But I've also had my share dealings with GW administration, and while they may not match the caricature pained by the FBA, President Trachtenberg and others cannot be ascribed any particular virtue in regard to caring about the community. If it suited their financial interest to raze the whole place and put in a Wal*Mart, poison factory or puppy-dog deathcamp, they would.
So I don't think the Foggy Bottom residents have any extra right to be critical of the University, but I do think the plans for Square 54 are questionable (and should be examined as closely as any move made by this administration). GW has a responsibility to make good on its investments for all we students' sakes, but I fear that students' academic needs are being given less attention in this development than are the University's financial goals. Perhaps all need will be met by the completion of renovations of Funger and the return of all the classroom and office space it once provided, but for the time being experience tells me that GW is very short on academic space.
posted by onlooker at 11:37 AM
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