D.C. For the Summer

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I’ll be in D.C. for the summer working as an intern at a general contracting firm called GCS-SIGAL. I’ve been here for almost three weeks and I already love it.

Other than a weekend visit to see my friends and cousin years ago and a quick stop when I was younger with my family, I don’t think I ever really spent time here. It feels like a European city. Its roots are in Baroque city planning (like Paris), with wide diagonal boulevards that offshoot diagonally from nodes, but it’s also the lack of skyscrapers (due to the city’s height restrictions) and diverse architectural styles. Add the free Smithsonian museums and a public transport system that’s easy to get around and you have a city that I could see myself living and working in after graduating.

Work

GCS-SIGAL is a general contracting firm that’s been around for 45 years, but it used to be two separate companies, each half created by the parents of the current president. Around five years ago, they combined the two, creating the current company, so they’re really like a five-year-old company that’s attempting to find its footing after its rework. As a general contracting firm, they are responsible for the day-to-day activities of a project, acting like a middleman between the architects and the tradesman.

You may be thinking, “Joe, I thought you wanted to be an architect. Why aren’t you working at an architecture firm?” And the answer is, they were the only company to offer me a position. But, sometimes all you need is to be given a chance and the chance that I am given will be a fantastic opportunity to learn about the processes that go on at the other end of architecture. All the things necessary for something to get built. Because they are a general contracting firm, they work with a variety of architects on the different projects, so it will be possible for me to make connections for the future. 

Fun fact: the new office they moved into was the first place The Beatles had a concert in the U.S. It’s called Uline Arena. 

Accommodation 

I’m renting the fourth floor of a friend’s friend’s family’s row house in Columbia Heights. The friend, is a friend of mine who taught English in Korea. They’ve lived in their row house for the past 35 years. The house is huge, it’s 4,500 square feet, and almost every inch of it is eclectically decorated. The dad loves antiques and frequently buys old furniture and artwork at auctions. He also mentioned to me that they’ve tried to get rid of stuff, but people keep giving them stuff. “You have an old house, here’s something old,” is what people say to him.

The room is on the fourth floor in the “attic” and it’s been converted to a studio-like apartment with a small kitchenette. There is an electric two-stove burner that works well enough and a small waist-high fridge that doesn’t have a freezer. The room has no windows except a skylight in the middle and one off to the side, and the bathroom is one level down on the third floor. Their son lives at home on the third floor so I share the bathroom with him.

It sounds like a strange set-up and honestly I was worried about how it would be, but other than having to carefully walk down perilously steep steps in the middle of the night to use the bathroom everything is great. Their son is around my age and we have a lot of shared interests. The parents are welcoming and allow me to use the freezer in their kitchen (which I felt weird about at first), although I have to strategically plan my trips so that I’m not running up and down four flights of stairs.

The first week my legs were so sore, once up in my apartment, I loathed the idea of going back down. Location-wise it’s in an amazing spot. It’s located in Columbia Heights, slightly north of the main downtown area. It’s a 4-minute walk from the metro, which if I hit the transfer perfectly is only 24 minutes from work, and I can take it north or south, so whatever comes first. It’s also a 2-minute walk to the buses that bring you right to the National mall. And it’s only a half a mile away from my friend who just had a baby. 

My goal is to visit a new museum (one of the free ones) every weekend. So far I’ve visited the Hirshhorn museum, the Museum of Asian Art, the Museum of African Art, the Dumbarton House, the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the Washington monument. Unfortunately, the aerospace museum is under renovation until that fall, so I will not be able to go there. 

Additionally, I’m trying to do a sketch everyday, so we’ll see how that goes. 
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