Curbed DC: In NoMa, Another Train Underpass Lights Up as Public Art

On Tuesday, a new visual experience opens in NoMa’s L Street NE underpass, one of several passageways beneath elevated rail tracks that run through the neighborhood. “Lightweave,” a responsive lighting display designed by San Francisco-based design studio Futureforms, is the NoMa Parks Foundation’s latest installation in the neighborhood and part of a $50 million grant. The display consists of six formations of cloud-like, lattice LED tubes suspended below the ceiling of the underpass between First and Second streets NE. With three formations on either side of the underpass, the tubes react to ambient noise, such as trains passing on the tracks above or cars driving along L Street NE. Read more.

NoMa is preparing to break ground on the new Tanner Park in January, potentially bringing the first large green space to the near northeast neighborhood by next fall. The NoMa Business Improvement District and its contractor Forrester Construction have nearly all the necessary permits in hand to begin work on the 2.5-acre space next to the Metropolitan Branch Trail north of New York Avenue, representatives said at an Eckington Civic Association meeting Monday. Construction is expected to take 10-12 months. Read more.

The 8,000 square-foot lot at 3rd and L streets NE was very nearly home to yet another gleaming new condo building in NoMa. Instead it will be the neighborhood’s first public park when it opens on Saturday. Swampoodle Park will feature the neighborhood’s first official dog park, benches, and a Wallholla—a vertical children’s playground. Local leaders will celebrate the grand opening on Saturday with an inaugural climb on the structure, followed by a dog procession. The opening is part of a flurry of new public parks and spaces in NoMa, long in the making, that have been shepherded by the non-profit NoMa Parks Foundation. Read more.

NoMa has a name drawn from a buried piece of D.C.’s African American history for a new large park in the works. The new 2.5-acre park adjacent to the Metropolitan Branch Trail just north of the New York Avenue bridge in NoMa will be called Tanner Park. Read more.

The plans for NoMa’s first parks are finally in place. Now they just need some names.

The NoMa Parks Foundation is asking for the public’s helping in dubbing a 2.5-acre park on Harry Thomas Way and an 8,000-square-foot park at 3rd and L streets NE. Read more.