The NoMa neighborhood (for North of Massachusetts Avenue) is DC's version of the redeveloping-downtown-adjacent-former-industrial-area that every large US city seems to have. It's
located immediately northwest of Union Station, and is rapidly becoming an extension of downtown.
NoMa has many of the ingredients of a great neighborhood: Solid infrastructure, good architecture, increasing density. But it's clearly still a work in progress. The buildings are dense and generally well-done, but the neighborhood is still half empty, with plenty of undeveloped properties or remaining light industry mixed in with the residential and office high-rises.
The result is a place that has all the usual sterility of a brand new neighborhood, but also still feels empty at times. The streets just aren't full yet. But both those problems will solve themselves in time, as buildings age and more properties fill in.
The neighborhood's main street is First Street NE. It's home to a lovely brand new cycletrack.
New and interesting buildings sprout up everywhere. Closer to Union Station most are office. Further north they transition to become mostly residential.
I really like this one. Such a unique facade treatment. I'm a big fan of ornament like this. I don't care whether it's historicist or contemporary, I just want something interesting to look at.
Near the downtown end, and a couple of blocks over on First Street NW (that's NW instead of NE), there's America's most urban Walmart.
This picture is from the winter.
Being brand new, the neighborhood has a lot of new features. The sidewalk landscaping all doubles as bioswales - stormwater runoff catchment areas. In the last couple of years this has basically become standard on all new sidewalks in the DC area.
Most of the old industrial buildings are pretty banal and are just being torn down. But the ones with some character are being kept and repurposed. This was a department store warehouse, now residential.
A block east of First Street, Metrorail runs elevated.
The NoMa Metro station is one of the few in DC that looks like it has an entrance building.
Directly across the street from the Metro is the headquarters of the US Department of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. It was built at the height of the post-9/11 terrorism scare, and as a result is basically a fortress. It's very anti-urban, and it already feels out of place. But it was one of the first large buildings to be built in this part of NoMa, so oddly for a few years it was the neighborhood's main anchor. There's some weird irony there.
The Metro tracks run parallel to the intercity rail tracks leading into DC Union Station. There's also a regional bike trail called the Metropolitan Branch Trail (MBT). Next to the elevated Metro station, the trail runs elevated too.
Yes, that's the US Capitol dome in the background.
The elevated trail is a nice spot to overlook a couple of streets. This is M Street. The metallic leaf is public art at the Metro station entrance.
This one is not M Street.
A block or so north of Florida Avenue, the elevated section hits ground, and the trail runs at-grade next to the rail tracks.
New York Avenue passes by overhead, via a large bridge above the rail tracks. The red things are decoration.
The trail's ugliness on that block soon gives way to a beautiful wildflower-covered empty lot.
A little further north, we hit buildings again.
Zoom in...
That's the next Metro station north, Rhode Island Avenue. Also elevated.
OK. Off the trail and back into the neighborhood. North of New York Avenue it's more low-rise. XM radio's headquarters are here, or were before XM and Sirius merged. The merged headquarters are in New York, but XM still has a big office.
Heading back south, we soon reach New York Avenue and its bridge.
Until about a year ago, the bridge had big opaque metal walls, so you couldn't see over its sides. But it was recently renovated, and now the opaque walls have been replaced by transparent ones, so it's a great view.
The walls are necessary because of all the train tracks running underneath. I guess they're concerned people will jump, or maybe throw things. So we get a sturdy glass wall, with little horizontal black lines. Much improved over the
old solid metal.
This is an Acela high-speed train, by the way. Not as good as the true bullet trains of Asia or Europe, but the fastest train in the western hemisphere.
That's Noma Metro station off to the right. The blurry line is the top of the glass wall. I stood on the ledge of a light pole to get this picture.
That same Acela train.
Looking in the other direction, there's a big Metro railyard.
And straight down, there's the trail again, and the property with the wildflowers.
The bridge and/or the NoMa Metro station are one of America's best spots for watching passenger trains go by. These pictures are from a weekend, so rail traffic is comparatively light, but even so there was a steady stream of trains and movement.
This is a regular-speed Amtrak train, using one of their brand new
Cities Sprinter locomotives.
Want some locomotives?
There's also Maryland's MARC regional rail, which recently started weekend service to Baltimore.
Virginia's VRE commuter rail still only runs on weekdays, unfortunately.
And that's NoMa.
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