URBAN ARCHAEOLOGY: Holy Rood Cemetery's Sad State of Disrepair

ONE OF THE DISTRICT'S BEST VIEWS unfortunately sits in one of the most depressing of places: Holy Rood Cemetery off Wisconsin Avenue at the edge of Glover Park. Some cemeteries are beautiful places, like Brooklyn's parrot-filled Green-Wood, literary Sleepy Hollow near Concord, Mass., and Hollywood in Richmond, Va., just to name a few.

But while Holy Rood has its charms, it is a pretty sad place. Years of neglect have left it in awful shape. Graves are damaged, vandalized and largely forgotten. Unlike Capitol Hill's Congressional Cemetery, there are no known famous politicians buried there (at least according to the authoritative Political Graveyard database). But it is the oldest Irish Catholic cemetery in operation in the District, according to The Washington Post, which documented Holy Rood's sorry state in 2008.

And that's not all, so says The Post:

As many as 1,000 free Catholic blacks and slaves are believed to be buried there, although many are in unmarked graves or were buried with wooden markers that rotted away.

Other graves hold Catholic hoteliers, butchers, laborers, maids, war veterans, mothers who died in childbirth, victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic and many others.

When I was up at Holy Rood this week, I had lost track of the ongoing conflict over the terrible condition of the cemetery.

To sum up the situation, Holy Rood was established as a cemetery by Holy Trinity Church, which was founded by Jesuits affiliated with Georgetown University. During World War II, oversight of Holy Trinity was transferred to the Archdiocese of Washington, but Holy Rood was left under the university's care.

As The Post reported:

It has not been a happy combination, according to research by local historian Carlton Fletcher.

Over the years, the university has appeared at times to be a reluctant cemetery owner, skimping on maintenance, fighting with owners of burial plots and, at one point, seeking to remove the graves so that the land could be developed.

The university repaired Holy Rood's Wisconsin Avenue retaining wall and keeps the grass mowed.

When I was up at Holy Rood this week, it's pretty clear that not much has changed. Graves are deteriorating. Many grave inscriptions are illegible. (Fortunately, there is a partial directory online.)

As time passes, Holy Rood's condition will only worsen.

Perhaps the neighborhood's dog lovers could come to the rescue and establish a satellite branch of CemeteryDogs.org for Holy Rood?

» More background on Holy Rood at Georgetown Metropolitan

Dodge the Interior Rain on the D2 Metrobus, Which Falls in All Directions

IF THERE ISN'T A WORSE TORTURE than waiting for a D.C. Metrobus in the rain, it's riding one where it's raining inside. As transit rolling stock ages and deteriorates, moisture will find its way in, especially around the emergency roof hatch. (Or in the case of older New York City subway train cars, like the R32s, leaky ceiling air conditioning units.)

This afternoon heading into Dupont Circle on the D2 bus, the rain came inside as I was sitting toward the back. Depending on turns and the rates of acceleration and braking, streams of droplets would rain down in all sorts of directions. Since the D2 has a twisting, stop-and-go route through Georgetown, Burleith and Glover Park, you can only imagine all the fun dodging the water inside the crowded bus.

While the leaky buses are no doubt annoying, at least D2 riders don't have to deal with the old Orion II Metrobuses, lovingly called the "short bus" by some and derided by others (I have previously described the trip on a rush hour Orion II as a scene from an Dickens-esque omnibus). These contraptions were formerly seen on a handful of routes around town, including the now-defunct Adams Morgan-U Street Link (with the odd multi-colored linked paper doll design) and on the D2 as well. While the tiny Orion II buses had issues with engine smoke making drivers regularly nauseated, neighborhood residents in Glover Park were more vocal about how bad WMATA's squeaky bus brakes were disturbing the peace.

Smoke vs. rain? I think I'll take interior rain than a nauseating ride on the short bus.