Hey Vornado, Nice Way to Treat The Little Guy and His Dream

If Georgetowners want a forecast of how Vornado feels about Georgetown Park Mall and, significantly, our neighborhood, please regard their apparently soulless treatment of the guy with the National Pinball Museum; they set him up with his dream and now, according to him, have given notice to scram. So much for supporting the little guy and bringing much needed LIFE to that dreary pile of bricks.

I'm sure it is Vornado's legal right to do this, but that's not the point. It would be nice to see some community consideration from the big guy. After all, if I recall, the Pinball Museum was given lots of encouragement to get set up. Why go through all that tedious effort only to have the rug pulled out?

Does Vornado have the community's best interests in mind? I wonder. The fact that they floated Target as a possible mall tenant should be message enough about their bottom line "vision." Is there not room in that plan for a Pinball Museum? One wonders if any Vornado executive has walked the village, met the residents, spent any time here trying to understand what the community is about.

Again, my recommendation: tear down the damned eyesore. Build a village center. Have shops, bistros, apartments and a plaza that's open to the sky. Create something that's meaningful and innovative. Build something of sustainable quality and people will come. It's that simple. Or, settle for a slash and burn cash-in ethic, a company that will have its way with us, and then depart and leave the wreckage behind. It's time for Mayor Vincent Gray to get involved and pay attention to what Vornado has planned. Please look out for us, Mr. Mayor. 

Anyway, here's The National Pinball Museum details as reported by WTOP Radio News. Note: they are waiting for comment from Vornado. Aren't we all? 

WASHINGTON - Stoppers. Bells. Flippers. And the occasional tilt.

That's what you'll find with the more than 900 classic pinball machines at the National Pinball Museum in Georgetown.

However, this summer, the last pinball will drop, and the museum will close its doors.

David Silverman opened the museum six months ago in the Shops at Georgetown Park mall.

Last Thursday, he got a letter from the new mall owners, Vornado Realty.

"In that letter it basically says we're taking your lease ... and we're throwing you out in 60 days," Silverman says.

Silverman signed a lease that allows mall owners to void it at any time.

He says his original contract ends in December, so he's questioning why the company is shutting him down in just two months.

"Nothing's going to be going in between the time we have to get out and ... December," Silverman says. "I'm like in a state of panic, because it took me six months to build this place, $300,000 to do it. I don't have a penny."

WTOP has contacted Vornado Realty for comment.

WTOP's Thomas Warren contributed to this report.

 

Comments

[asuka]

I think you're taking the whole Georgetown Park issue a little too personally. "Have its way with us" - a bit dramatic, don't you think? Its just a mall. As for the developers "walking the village," I think they'd be hard-pressed to find more than a handful of residents who knew there was a pinball museum in DC, much less Georgetown, and even fewer who cared.