TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 2010


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B5 2 days of glitches stall Metro fare increases


Delayed rate changes to take effect Tuesday, with new signs in place


by Ann Scott Tyson


Metrorail riders confronted malfunctioning fare gates, glitch- es with SmarTrip cards and con- fusion over fares Monday as Met- ro prepared to relaunch on Tues- day phase two of its largest and most complex fare increase. The difficulties began Sunday, when Metro officials realized that new fare signs posted at stations over the weekend neglected to tell riders using paper farecards that they had to pay 25 cents more per trip than those using


SmarTrip cards. “In the process of changing the signs, the distinction between pa- per and plastic was not con- veyed,” said Metro spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein. About 30 percent of Metrorail riders use the paper cards, and many of them were de- layed after buying cards Sunday, only to be informed they had to add another 25 cents. Metro postponed the fare in- crease until Tuesday— at an esti- mated loss of $60,000. The agen- cy then called for emergency vol- unteers from its staff to post signs in every station, informing cus- tomers of the delay and of the 25- cent surcharge for paper cards. “At high noon today . . . about 20 to 25 staff were assigned to fan out to stations” to tape up the pa- per signs on every fare machine


and kiosk, Farbstein said, pulling out a yellow sign and roll of tape from a brown paper bag as she posted the notices at Cleveland Park Station.


By the end of the month, Farb- stein said, Metro will post new fare signs at each station that will display the higher, paper-card ticket prices and tell SmarTrip card users that they will get a 25- cent discount. “It’s easier [to un- derstand] the other way around,” Farbstein said, referring to the decision to post the actual ticket fares for people who buy paper tickets at the machines, because SmarTrip card users tend to add money to their cards in larger chunks. Apart from added confusion over a multiphase, nearly $109 million rail and bus fare in-


crease that Metro officials ac- knowledge was already perplex- ing to many riders, customers at some rail stations Monday faced slow-reading SmarTrip cards, an inability to download SmartBe- nefits and malfunctioning fare gates. “Hold on! Hold on! One at a time!” a station manager at the Foggy Bottom Station told a line of customers, all of whom had farecard problems. “I couldn’t get SmartBenefits here or in Vienna,” said Eileen La- velle, 29, a fellowship coordinator at George Washington University. She said she e-mailed Metro but got no response and so went to the station, only to be told by a station manager that the Smart- Benefits system was down. “It’s annoying because it’s cutting into


Historic building makes a new move synagogue from B1


too.” The 273-ton structure has to be


delicately uprooted and moved by flatbed truck — first to a tem- porary spot, perhaps on the lawn of the nearby National Building Museum, and then to its perma- nent home at Third and F streets NW. “This is a once-in-forever


move,” said Stuart Zuckerman, past president of the Historical Society’s board of directors, which worked for nearly two years to arrange the unusual transport. “And we hope it will give us added exposure.” It could be several years before the Small Museum is planted in its final spot, said Sean Cahill, Dreyfus’s vice president of devel- opment. It’s also not the first time the synagogue has faced a “wing-and-a-prayer-type move,” Zuckerman said. When the Washington Metro- politan Area Transit Authority decided to build its headquarters on the block spanning Fifth and Sixth streets NW, the brick syna- gogue was forced to find a new home or face demolition. Through the historical society’s efforts in the late 1960s, the building became a federal and city landmark, and engendered both congressional support and a horde of private donors. On a December morning in 1969, the second and third floors of the building were severed from the ground floor, lifted and placed on a dolly nine feet off the ground and rolled three blocks to 701 Third St. NW. The first floor, which had been outfitted with big bay windows so shopkeepers could sell their wares, was too weak to make the trip. Hundreds watched the 21


⁄2 -hour move,


which in its complexity caused one small fire after a gas main burst, broke off branches from elm trees and killed a pigeon. The building arrived intact. “It really reignited the interest


in Jewish history and culture in Washington. It reawakened a lot of people,” said Phyllis Myers, a preservationist who has served as a research consultant for an exhibit on synagogues in Wash- ington. The Adas Israel synagogue was


erected in 1876 by a group of about three dozen Jewish fami- lies angry over liberal reforms in- stituted at the Washington He- brew Congregation, including the new practice of seating men and women together, the use of English-language prayers and the playing of Christian-style or- gan music during hymns. The cast offs raised $4,800 to con- struct the red-brick building in Washington’s “Synagogue Row,” which served downtown’s immi- grants along the growing Sev- enth Street commercial corridor. President Ulysses S. Grant at- tended the dedication ceremony on June 9, 1876, the first time a U.S. president attended at a Jew- ish religious service. When the congregation out-


grew the 25-by-60-foot building, Adas Israel moved in 1908 to a grander location at Sixth and I streets NW. The old synagogue


Original address


NW


Detail D.C.


SW MICHAEL S. WILLIAMSON/THE WASHINGTON POST


A stairway leading to the second floor of the former Adas Israel synagogue, which is being relocated for a second, and third, time.


“Who would have ever thought it


would be moved again?” — Henry H. Brylawski, 97, who as president of the Jewish Historical Society helped oversee the building’s first relocation 41 years ago.


was left behind, later serving as a Greek Orthodox church, St. So- phia’s, and then the Evangelical Church of God. After World War II, it became a carryout restau- rant (that, oddly enough, sold pork barbecue), a grocery store and then a lunchroom. Its history was all but forgot- ten until a student of Jewish ar- chitecture and religious art, Eve- lyn Levow Greenberg, rediscov- ered the building’s past and launched a spirited campaign to save it. “Who would have ever thought it would be moved again?” said Henry H. Brylawski, 97, who as


president of the Jewish Histor- ical Society helped oversee the temple’s first move 41 years ago. “We had no money and the city wasn’t really all that interested in the building, but they were nice enough to go along with it. But now, it’s taken on a lot of mean- ing.” Washington never drew the numbers of working-class Euro- pean Jews who established en- claves in cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. In the 1850s, the District had fewer than 3,000 Jewish residents in a total population of 40,000. In the 20 years following World War II,


THE WASHINGTON POST


Jews left Northwest in droves, scattering to Maryland and Northern Virginia. Much of Sev- enth Street NW became run- down, especially after the city’s devastating riots in 1968. But the historic Adas Israel


sanctuary has remained one of the area’s enduring landmarks, Brylawski said. Wolf von Eck- ardt, The Washington Post’s for- mer art and architecture critic, once called it a “dear and most lovable little building of utmost simplicity.” The Small Museum is open nine hours a week, and a full walking tour takes about 10 min- utes. It is estimated that a few hundred people tour the building each year. Something positive will come out of the move, officials say: The synagogue will now face east, the proper orientation for Jewish places of worship.


kravitzd@washpost.com 3 dead in separate shootings in Pr. George’s The violence began just before


Two people also hurt in apparently unrelated incidents Saturday


by Matt Zapotosky


Three people were shot and killed and two were wounded in separate incidents in Prince George’s County on Saturday, au- thorities said Monday.


1 a.m. in the 3800 block of Re- gency Parkway in the Suitland area, authorities said. Police were called to the area on a report of a shooting and found Antwann Massey, 34, a nearby resident, suffering from an apparent gunshot wound, said Evan Baxter, a county police spokesman. Massey was taken to a hospital, where he died, Baxter said. About 4 a.m., police responded


to another shooting at an apart- ment complex in the unit block of Cindy Lane in the Capitol Heights area, Baxter said. Detectives found three victims with gunshot wounds; one later died, he said. Police identified the deceased


as Bryant A. West, 30, of South- east Washington. The injured vic- tims were described as a 22-year- old man and a 26-year-old wom- an.


Police were investigating a third homicide in the 5000 block


of Fable Street in the Capitol Heights area, authorities said. Details were not available, Baxter said. Police issued an alert about 1 p.m. Saturday, saying that a male had been found suffering from gunshot wounds to the up- per body and was pronounced dead at the scene. Baxter said that no arrests had been made in any of the killings and that the shootings appeared to be unrelated. zapotoskym@washpost.com


my day,” she said. The problem was not system-


wide, Farbstein said. Fare gates were another prob- lem contributing to the line of frustrated riders at Foggy Bot- tom, and technicians had opened up several of the machines to in- spect them at midday. Cables leading between the sta-


tion’s computer and the fare gates needed repair, which was vital to ensure that new fare tables were properly updated in the fare gates, Farbstein said. “We have specialists who have been work- ing to fix it,” she said. “My SmarTrip wasn’t working here today,” said Justin Reed, 25, a consultant from Arlington County, as he stood in line for the station manager. tysona@washpost.com


Barry, staff cleared of breaking D.C. law


barry from B1


jective, very subjective. . . . I think it needs to be really sort of tightened up a little bit,” Barry said. “But I maintain, and I was correct, that I broke no laws.” Barry, who was being followed by a cameraman filming footage for a reality show pilot, was jo- vial, exchanging niceties with re- porters before he began the low- key news conference — a con- trast to the circus atmosphere that surrounded him in March when his colleagues voted unani- mously to administer the un- precedented punishment of re- moving him from his committee and censuring him after what be- came known as “the Bennett re- port.”


Bennett found that Barry had COURTESY OF THE JEWISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF GREATER WASHINGTON A 1960s photo of the original Adas Israel synagogue building, which has undergone several incarnations.


3-block area to be the location of a mixed-use development.


H ST. H ST.


Current synagogue location


G ST.


Nat’l Bldg. Museum


F ST.


Future location


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JUDICIARY SQUARE


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taken a cut of Watts-Bright- haupt’s contract and had vio- lated conflict-of-interest rules. “The report speaks for itself,” Bennett said Monday. “There’s not a single thing in the report that’s been rebutted.” One of the most damning find- ings in Bennett’s report was that Barry personally delivered a check to Watts-Brighthaupt and then drove her to the bank to cash it. Barry had loaned Watts- Brighthaupt money to help pay her mortgage before he gave her a personal services contract to develop a program called “Emerging Leaders of Ward Eight.”


Bennett also found that Watts- Brighthaupt’s written work for the program had been copied from sources on the Internet. But Kathy S. Williams, the campaign finance office’s general counsel, found that Barry did not violate the law because Watts- Brighthaupt was qualified and delivered “a satisfactory written product.” “It cannot be reasonably con- cluded that the Councilmember hired Ms. Watts-Brighthaupt un- der a $10,000 personal services contract to repay him for the loan of one mortgage payment in the amount of $700.00,” Wil- liams wrote. The campaign finance office probe also cleared Barry’s staff and others involved in the ear- marks process, though Collier- Montgomery wrote that “Barry failed to closely monitor and oversee the activities of his em- ployees and the operations. . . . Because of these failures to take the appropriate action, Council- member Barry’s conduct ad- versely affected the confidence of public integrity of District gov- ernment.” The probes into Barry’s con-


tracts and earmarks were spurred by his arrest July 4, 2009, on allegations of stalking Watts-Brighthaupt in Anacostia Park. The charge was quickly dropped, but some council mem- bers questioned why Barry had hired Watts-Brighthaupt. Barry publicly accused council member David A. Catania (I-At Large) of being behind the scru- tiny into his office. He shied away from speaking about Catania at Monday’s news conference, say- ing only that Catania was the one of the first council member to use earmarks, in 2005.


“One main lesson I learned is


that the enemy, no matter who that may be, whether it be the media, whether it be jealously, never sleeps, never sleeps,” Barry said. “They are always there, 24/7. . . . I have to be vigilant all the time.”


stewartn@washpost.com


Staff writer Tim Craig contributed to this report.


NF407 1x6


Detectives to probe Malvo’s claims


Sniper told TV show that he and Muhammad had many more victims


by Dan Morse Montgomery County detectives


are investigating recent claims by convicted sniper Lee Boyd Malvo that he and John Allen Muham- mad shot additional people dur- ing their rampage in 2002 that left 10 people dead in the Wash- ington area, officials said Monday. “If nobody follows through on these latest statements, there are going to be questions out there,” Assistant Montgomery Police Chief Drew Tracy said. The claims were aired recently on the cable channel A&E, as part the series “Aftermath With Wil- liam Shatner,” in which the for- mer “Star Trek” star revisits high- profile new stories. In a phone in- terview with Shatner, Malvo said he and Muhammad shot 42 peo- ple. Their rampage began in Febru-


ary 2002 in Tacoma, Wash., and ended in the Washington region. They were linked to 27 shootings. Law enforcement officials in Vir- ginia dismissed Malvo’s claims last week as nonsense. Tracy, the assistant Montgom-


ery chief, said the claims might turn out to be nonsense. Mont- gomery detectives have visited Malvo twice recently at Red On- ion State Prison, in Wise County, Va., where he is serving a life sen- tence without parole. The visits haven’t yielded new information about additional killings. “I know of no open homicides


that would point the finger at Malvo or Muhammad,” Tracy said. “We have no factual information that there are additional shoot- ings.”


But he said that a task force


that investigated the case years ago was based in Montgomery and that Montgomery police have a responsibility to look into the claims. Montgomery detectives want to speak with the psychiatrist, Neil Blumberg, who said Malvo told him of about 42 shootings as well, and they want to see if A&E has additional material that could be helpful. Detectives will try to gather more information and in- terview Malvo in the next three to five weeks, Tracy said. “If he lied, at least we can put


that to rest,” Tracy said. Paul B. Ebert, the Prince Wil- liam County commonwealth’s at- torney who prosecuted Muham- mad, earlier said, “I don’t think there’s much credence to [Mal- vo’s] claim.” He noted the nationwide scope of the investigation and said: “Any unsolved shooting was looked at. Maybe a couple slipped through the cracks, but not many.” Malvo’s youth was an issue dur- ing his trial, and a jury in Chesa- peake, Va., declined to impose the death penalty sought by Fairfax County prosecutors. Muhammad was executed in Virginia in No- vember. He was 48. morsed@washpost.com


TheWashington Post is printed using recycled fiber.


MASSACHUSETTS AVE.


2ND ST. INTERSTATE 395 3RD ST. 4TH ST.


6TH ST. 5TH ST.


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