New Apartments

I'm happy to post something that isn't brown and grimy and drab!

This is the final draft of the two classy (we hope) apartments that will be built on the second floor. Apartment 1 faces Central Park on the east, and looks up North Marion Street on the north. Apartment 2, with only five windows, looks out on Main Street, and toward the Court House to the northwest.

Both apartments will have spacious living/dining areas, a 'real' kitchen with a pantry, and room for laundry facilities. Both apartments will have maple flooring in the main rooms, but will have tile in the wetter areas. When we pick it out, we'll show you what it looks like.

We plan to reuse the old doors and door hardware, including the 1876 Centennial lockset (see October's post). Apartment 2 will have a metal ceiling in the bedroom and living spaces which is just like the metal ceiling on the main floor. Since there was no metal ceiling in apartment 1, it will have a slightly lower drywall ceiling which will cover the cracked plaster while allowing heating ducts and wiring to be installed more easily.

More Ghosts

This time the ghosts are windows. The evidence was found upstairs on the south wall where three arched cracks atop vertical cracks are spaced six feet apart. Each window is about three feet wide.

Faith and Luck

The walls on the second floor are being prepared for a layer of insulation and drywall which will cover the old plaster and wallpaper, and the stains from rain and soot. Before that happens, I want to be sure the apartments are as snug as they can be, so …



… I rolled out my yellow fiberglas and began to stuff the gaps between the window frames and the bricks.



I was itching to finish (if you have used fiberglas insulation, you know what I mean!)
Refocusing away from the task for a moment, I found an inscription on the bare plaster next to one of the front windows.



It must have been written before the first wallpaper was pasted up, and before the second and third layers were added, and long before the wallpaper was painted, and longer ago than the rain began to stain and loosen the wallpaper layers. Was the writer thinking about this unnamed day, sometime in the future, when some unnamed person might find the message and wonder why it was written and who had had such faith in luck?

Packages!

The brown truck stopped today and left a BIG box and a lot of little boxes. We've been waiting for this moment. They represent one of the first real, concrete decisions we've made. So much is still on paper, or tape/chalk on the floor, or is a dirty mess-in-progress, but these boxes represent the finish line.



Oh sure, you want to see what's inside, don't you? OK, but promise you won't pass judgement until you see them in the proper setting -- on the wall!



PS - about a third of the second floor window sashes have made it to Sorrell's where they're getting new glass.

Another Hint?

OK, Here's a Hint

What Has Changed?

Post your observations using the Comments link.

Square a restricted beer, liquor zone

By: Linda Wenger
Washington Evening Journal
02/08/2007


The Washington City Council adopted an ordinance amendment that allows business owners to apply for Class B beer permits and liquor licenses in the blocks adjacent to the Washington square. The final version of the amendment opens up the opportunity of other business owners applying for the permit and license in the blocks adjacent to the square. The proposed ordinance amendment the council considered during the first and second readings would have only affected the block on West Main Street between Marion Avenue and B Avenue.

Because the language of the amendment changed between the second and third readings of the ordinance, city attorney Craig Arbuckle explained the changes to the council and audience of approximately 30 people.

Arbuckle said that there was "some controversy" about the proposed amendment during the second reading on Jan. 17 when, on a 3-to-2 roll call vote, the council moved the amendment to a third reading.
"At present, our ordinance restricts the four sides of the square and extends one block in each direction from the square," Arbuckle said.

Arbuckle then said that the proposed ordinance amendment approved at the first and second readings "is somewhat equivalent to spot-zoning legislation." The changes in the language for the third reading "will correct and be better legislation."

Arbuckle also said that a new proposed ordinance will come before the council in the future which would allow only one business in each of the affected blocks to apply for the Class B permits and licenses. He characterized the upcoming proposed ordinance as "a density ordinance."

Early in the council's discussion, councilwoman Sandra Johnson said, "This was my brain child. My intention is to treat all sides of the square the same."

Johnson then read aloud the final version of the ordinance amendment as recommended by Arbuckle. She also made the motion to adopt the amendment, which was approved on a 5-to-1 vote with councilman Mike Roth voting no.

"Speaking for the people I represent - no," Roth said.

Present for the council's decision were Tim Johnson and his attorney Dan Kitchen. T. Johnson asked the council to change the city code so that he could apply for a beer permit and liquor license for his new business, The Soup Kitchen.

With a Little Help From Our Friends

Lorraine Williams of Café Dodici has graciously allow us to share her letter to the city council regarding the impending third, and critical, vote to amend the city's alcohol ordinance. The amendment under consideration would allow a live entertainment venue which is planned for our basement to sell alcohol.

As a front runner of a new emerging downtown in Washington, Café Dodici would like to promote the liquor ordinance for the “Soup Kitchen”. Café Dodici has performed in the past two years exactly as we promised. Why should the Soup Kitchen be any different? We have enticed customers from all over Iowa and the surrounding states. We receive letters everyday from happy customers thanking us for providing such a venue in this small Iowa town. We have shown responsibility with the serving of alcohol. We have won awards in many categories and have had articles written about us in the Press Citizen, the Gazette, the Des Moines Register, The Cedar Rapids Corridor Business Journal, The Source Magazine and Great Chicago Getaway Magazine.

After-dinner entertainment completes an evening out. Our customers want to stay out but currently must leave the area to find this after-dinner venue. Washington Revitalization is in local hands, investing time, money, and making a place to live with a variety of entertainment options

The most important piece of information that I received from Tom Guzman of the Downtown Assessment was that the Washington of 30 years ago is gone (ie: JC Penny’s, Joe Falk’s and the Chocolate Shop). We must accept change and create our new niche. Let us not live in the “fear” that someone might do something we don’t like in the future. There is time to “take away” privileges given in the event that such disrespect occurs. Let’s move forward and embrace the NEW Washington without fear and worry. The Soup Kitchen is vital to the continued success of Café Dodici and the attracting of citizens who choose to live here.

We ask the council to let the renaissance continue.


Thank you,

Lorraine Williams
Tsalika Drown
Alessandro Scipioni

I Turn My Back for Just ONE Afternoon

and look what happens!




At 9:00 AM there were walls and doorways ~



but by 3:30 in the afternoon, the walls were down and the dust was everywhere! including on the camera lens - see the gray haze in the photos?

Yesterday the crew removed the window trim. We're saving it to reuse, but it needs to be cleaned and repaired. The exterior walls will be insulated and the window sashes rebuilt before everything goes back together again.

Buried!

If you're asking where I've been lately, and why the postings have stopped, I'd have to refer to these photos and just say, "Buried!"



While the apartment floor is not completely soot-free, it's as close as it will get until the refinishing process. Prospective walls and partions are chalked on the floor, which has helped us tweak the layout. Working in the apartment (and watching HGTV) has produced some cool ideas about how to enhance the space.

The 40 foot long awning visible in previous apartment photos (it can also be seen in the 1920s photo posted in October - Sixty Years) has checked in to rehab at Dave Long's Protective Products near Iowa City. Andy thinks that with a bucket of grease and some new threads, they can bring it back to being a classy-looking, fully functional, hand-cranked awning, not just another shady character.

Oh. There was one other achievement under the heading 'Buried' ~

Twins? Siblings? Distant Relatives?

The caption with this photo identifies the view as the west side of Second in downtown Los Angeles at the corner of Spring Street. "That's the Hollenbeck Hotel in the immediate foreground to the left, beyond which we can see the full majesty of the Bryson Block. " He's talking about the red brick one with the tower and the gabled roofline.

Apparently John Bryson was just warming up while he lived in Washington!

The LA Times maintains a daily blog about life in the city 100 years ago, and this article about John Bryson's later life was posted last October. Death of a Millionaire

Coincidentally, the Los Angeles Times building is located on the Bryson Block site today. At least Washington's Bryson Block is still with us.