Changing circumstances—a different and improved Downtown—led to the recent closure of the Downtown Neighborhood Association (DNA), conceived by neighborhood legend Miles Groves seven years ago to represent community interests. Groves died in 2010, three years after the organization was formed and incorporated. Over the years, the DNA had many successes, including eliminating or mitigating many public nuisances. The organization partnered with the BID to develop an annual neighborhood survey to help attract new and better retail to Downtown and worked with the BID, the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and others to establish a 10-officer patrol near Gallery Place (7th and H streets) and the Verizon Center (601 F Street). In 2008, it was instrumental in getting Precinct 130 on the Hill redrawn to create a separate, new polling station in Downtown at the Chinese Community Church (500 Eye Street) to better serve the area’s changing housing and residential needs. In a parting notice to the Downtown community posted on its website, the DNA urged all Downtown residents to attend ANC 2C meetings, held on the second Monday of each month at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library (901 G Street), in Room 221.
