The city lost one of its greatest Judges Sept. 18 with the death of Judge Steffen W. Graae of Superior Court. The legal world has joined in praise of his brilliant mind, his temperament, his sense of social justice and his crowning work in ordering into receivership the city’s corrupt and nonfunctioning public housing system in 1994.

But Graae, short and slim yet graced with a voice not unlike a foghorn in its depth and power, was also a great racing rower. He lived, worked and jogged the streets of Capitol Hill most of his adult life.

Not for him the pulling of the oar, however. Graae was the coxswain, the man who steered the racing shell, who guided, directed and encouraged, who strategized and plotted. He was one of the best coxswains Yale University ever had, and later, as a post-graduate at Oxford’s St. Edmund Hall, one of the best coaches ever to ride the towpaths of the Isis and the Thames.

It is a shame that the dead do not hear their friends lament them and tell their stories; so let it be with good Judge Graae. Yet he shared with me, face to face, some of the most memorable moments of rowing life.

The first was the upset freshman heavyweight Harvard-Yale race of 1959. Graae and I sat coxswain and stroke in the eight. It was my first “big” rowing event. He had already competed successfully at Kent School, a rowing powerhouse. But on that day we were underdogs, having wallowed in Harvard’s wake (and in the wakes of several other crews) at the Eastern Sprint Championships. Our crew was lackluster, and coach Ron Wailes desperately sought the right combination of rowers as time ran out.

But on the big day at New London, Conn., as we sweltered in the June heat and waited to race, the coach came with a verbal strategy. One of Harvard’s strongest men, he said, had come down with stomach flu. And to each of his anxious freshmen, he gave a white pill. “Don’t tell anyone,” he said, “but this will help you.”

This is not the time to bore the reader with details of the race itself. Graae steered brilliantly. The Harvard strongman was as strong as ever.

The pill turned out to be a salt tablet. But somehow, owing to Graae’s urgent voice, after being behind for most of two miles we started to gain.

We got past Harvard in the last 20 strokes. I had nearly passed out. Graae splattered me with water, shouting with his clarion voice, “They’re folding, they’re folding ...” and we won a never-to-be-forgotten victory. That night at the banquet tent, we were Yale’s heroes, the regatta’s only Yale victors.

In 1962, we two found ourselves once again in the stern of a slim cedar shell, bound to a starting line against Harvard for the last time. But this time, we were a fine Yale crew. 1962 was before Yale president Kingman Brewster condemned athletics, and rowing in particular, at Yale. With Graae as pilot we were winners of the Eastern Championships, we had beaten everyone we had faced at least once.

A day or two before the event, Graae was forced to withdraw — appendicitis. He took the blow with complete calm. We went to the line with a substitute and almost lost to a dogged Harvard crew when one of our number rowed himself into insensibility. The margin was two-fifths of a second, the closest in modern history for this event. With Graae back in health, we went on that summer to race in England against world competition at the Henley Royal Regatta. Graae became a legend as a coach at Oxford, came back to Washington and began a small law practice. The rest is known.

That was the other side, and the other voice and spirit, of the famous jurist who died this month.

Whom should the District honor?

The sky is falling — at least for Louisiana and Texas and the rest of the Gulf Coast states — the war grinds on, and now there’s a call for more statues in the Hall of Statuary in Congress.

The call comes from our own Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), whose limitless energy has kept the city from becoming an unimportant chore for Congress to deal with. She’s a bit upset that there is a bill afoot to honor two “outstanding” citizens of New Mexico with statuary in the Capitol and poor old D.C. hasn’t even had the first one.

Norton makes the very good point that a prophet or a hero of any kind is seldom honored in his own back yard. That at least is the polite explanation of why the District has not been honored in marble, bronze or carbon fiber. But there are others. Such as the fact that nothing that happens here in the city helps a single member of Congress get elected back in the home state.

And never far from the surface is the thought that the city should still be punished for steady support of former Mayor Marion Barry (D).

But what is curious about Norton’s wakeup call is that there was no list of names attached. Did none come to mind? Or did each, as is the case with so many D.C. notables, come freighted with baggage to heavy to bear? It must be remembered that one front-runner for honors of this kind, the famed Alexander Robey “Boss” Shepherd, bankrupted the city in the 1870s and fled to Mexico.

Who else? Mayor Walter Washington — the city’s first elected mayor of the last century? John Wilson already has a building named for him. Eleanor, it’s time to name names.

A link to the Metro: Light rail pushed

Everyone likes the idea of light rail.

Let’s face it. Buses are a last, unreliable resort. With iron tracks in the ground, you can be sure that something is coming.

But a lively debate has been launched over the present plans for light rail, which consist of a track along the Anacostia River roughly linking Bolling Air Force Base with the Pennsylvania Avenue Bridge and the Metro subway system. The big advantage is that some track and much of the property is already in the ground and is owned by CSX.

The big disadvantage, say a swelling number of advisory neighborhood commissions in the Hill’s Ward 6 and adjacent Wards 5 and 7, is that the present plan for light rail does not include a link with the “new” developing neighborhoods of Northeast, in particular the H Street corridor and Bladensberg Road.

They want light rail to go from Union Station to Minnesota Avenue Metro Station as well. And they support rail tracks on existing streets — a far cheaper installation.

ANC chairmen and -women from five Hill and near-Hill commissions (said to represent 125,000 residents in all) have sent an urgent message to D.C.’s transportation chief, Dan Tangherlini, as well as to City Council leaders. The message, as put by ANC 6A chairman Joe Fengler: “Measure twice, but cut once.” He wants links with west-of-the-Anacostia development centers.