Vic Socotra

31 March 2009

Pet Friendly

(Kitchen in The Dumbarton Model at The Madison at Ballston Station)

It was an unsettling weekend, all around. The weather lurched from a gray drizzle to a brush with sunshine and temperatures that scraped the high sixties.

Mother Nature could not seem to make up her mind, and the Visiting Dog gave not a backward glance as he strode off down the hall with his Mistress, Sara I late in the afternoon. I thoroughly admire his ability to live in the moment, anticipating the next one, not dwelling on the past.

I had to consider that, glancing at the evening news. The White House has apparently decided to go into the car business, which is piling one bureaucracy that doesn’t work very efficiently onto another. What surprised me was that the government fired GM’s CEO, a fellow named Rick Wagoner, even as they announced expectations for a bold restructuring of the enterprise.

I looked out the window at the scudding clouds that by turns revealed the dazzling last rays of the sun. Why fire the head car guy, when the government let all those financial wizards stay at their posts?

The argument cannot be that they did such a swell job that they should get a do-over. You can argue that Mr. Wagoner was on the verge of actually delivering an affordable electric car, and had secured a deal with the UAW over hourly wages and health care that might allow the company to restructure.

He dealt with the cards that were dealt him. He didn’t invent a new deck of them like the High Finance Whiz Kids who destroyed us.

No sense dwelling on relative injustice, I suppose, and any time the government gets too close there are going to be serious bruises.

I went out on the balcony and looked at the fresh new asphalt and the brightly painted new white lines. I could hear dogs barking from out back, exuberant at the change of season.

It is nice that Big Pink is a pet-friendly building. That was one of the founding provisions of the place, being institutionalized in the establishment of the place as an independent Condominium, owned by the residents. Frances Freed must have permitted pets in the building previously, since there is a vocal minority that hates the dogs, and contributes to a continuing tension in the otherwise placid residents.

Frances Freed had hired the renowned modernist architect Vlastiml Koubek to design Big Pink as built it as an upscale apartment building in 1963-4, and it survived as a rental property like the rest of the Buckingham neighborhood right through her last big project, the Hyde Park Building over on Glebe.

That end of the Buckingham development had some social and transportation issues. The community recreation center was located on the north end of the garden home development, and with the passage of the Civil Rights bill in 1964 and the end of racial covenants in the leases, the pool had become a lighting rod for the two irritating local hate groups, the Klan and George Lincoln Rockwell’s American Nazis.

Rockwell’s would-be bully boys had their headquarters in nearby Clarendon, and their periodic presence was offensive on so many levels that the County’s need for through traffic across the self-contained neighborhood led Frances to agree to demolish the pool complex on the north side of Glebe Road and the detached apartments on the side.

In their place, she hurled up the Hyde Park, completing the work in 1972, just in time for the oil shock and the onset of inflation.

The big buildings share a common heritage, you can see that plainly from the long severe balconies and stark internationalist lines. Frances had Vlastimil fix some of the quirks in Big Pink. He added four stories to bring the new tower to twelve floors. Garage parking was increased to match the number of cars attached to the renters. Washing machines moved into the individual units from Big Pink’s common laundry rooms, which was a big advance at the time.

Koubek had envisioned twin towers separated by an elevated park over the garage, but the real estate market turned soft and  Frances never erected the second tower. Only wildflowers grew there for years after.

The big pet battle went the other way at the Hyde Park. They are pet friendly to the extent that residents are permitted to have cats, caged domesticated birds, hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, fish, small snapping turtles and tortoises, and “other creatures normally maintained in a terrarium or aquarium.”

They draw the line at dogs. None are permitted, nor are monitor lizards, rodents, snakes or other unusual house pets are allowed.  According to their strict rules, only one pet per residential unit is allowed and none are permitted in the common areas unless carried, which makes sense for at least the fish.

I’m sure there are some residents at Big Pink who would like to see that policy here, but there would be rioting.

The Hyde Park and Big Pink both went condo when Buckingham was sold after Frances died in 1980. The new developers ruthlessly spun those properties off by selling them to the residents, and started to do the same with Buckingham, though they only got a couple blocks into the conversion to condos before the bottom fell out of the market.

The only thing that was left for the rest of the neighborhood was to maintain them as slowly disintegrating rental properties.

What was becoming an eyesore soon became a magnet, and then a social cause.

That is why I was so interested in the tour at The Madison. As a condition of development, the Paragon people agreed to set aside “no less than 300 committed affordable units.”

Many of them are located in some existing Buckingham garden units that will be refurbished, and the rest are supposed to be in The Madison, and the next looming building that is supposed to be built across a small park to the north.

I asked Kate the rental specialist about that on my tour of the one and two-bedroom units with the Visiting Dog. Pet friendly, the place is, so long as the dog is not over 80 pounds. and there is a small premium added to the rent for the privilege.

She didn’t mention anything about monitor lizards, and she said that the concierge desk will be manned only until 0200, starting up again at 0700. I clucked at that. I mentioned that the hours when no one is at the desk are the very best ones here in the neighborhood, but it didn't seem to register.

I was impressed by the units, and exclaimed as much to Kate. They are not wide, like Big Pink, but they are very tall. The washing machines are in the halls, and the kitchens are bright and efficient.

At the income level I claimed to have, the rents are pretty steep. In fact, if you throw in the utilities (which are extra) the two bedrooms are more expensive than the mortgage I can’t get out form under at Big Pink.

The Visiting Dog and I expressed our thanks to Kate as she walked us down past the party room and the exercise facility, which is not hidden away in the basement like it is at Big Pink. You can see people sweating on the machines right off the lobby.

The dog and I were walking back across the fresh asphalt when we saw Mary Margaret, one of the nicest and most thoughtful Big Pink residents. She told me she had been over to take a tour of The Madison herself. I asked her what she thought, as the dog looked askance at one of the black squirrels that the Mayor feeds from his office window.

“It is very expensive !” She said, putting her hands on her hips. “ Great party room but terrible view and very small  pool.  Three units are occupied so far.  Dogs are welcome but there is a doggie rent!”

I shook my head. You would think in this market you would have to be more pet-friendly than that. But I imagine even the dogs have to pay their own freight.

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