August 2007 - The InTowner

Transcription

TheInTowner
Now Starting Our 39th Year of Continuous Publication
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Vol. 39, No. 2
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AUGUST
2007
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SEPTEMBER 14
Since 1968 • Serving Washington D.C.’s Intown Neighborhoods
Adams Morgan Day
Festival Set for
Sunday, Sept. 9
New Farmers Market in the
Bloomingdale Neighborhood
Welcomed and Very Popular
By Jenny Howard & Liz Hirschhorn*
By April Fehling*
L
ocal business and residential volunteers
are creating a beehive of activity as
they prepare for the 29th annual Adams
Morgan Day festival, which will be held
on Sunday, September 9 between 12 noon
and 7 p.m.. Both new and returning visitors
will enjoy the diversity of this cultural street
festival, revamped and reinvigorated by the
Adams Morgan Main Street Group. “We
are pleased with the positive response to
Main Street’s redesign of the festival layout,
with only one row of street vendors, which
creates a smoother crowd flow and visibility
for our neighborhood business storefronts,”
explained festival Chair Lisa Duperier.
Festival goers will choose from a cornucopia
of food, dance, music, and exhibits across
several stages and plazas.
J
ust a few blocks from an imposing concrete fortress soon to house the Bureau
of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the
Bloomingdale neighborhood flourishes each
Sunday on a more human scale. Barely
two months old, the Bloomingdale Farmers
Market is quickly becoming the heart of this
residential community nestled just west of
busy North Capitol Street.
Four Branch Libraries, Including in Shaw,
to Get New Buildings; “Partnership” Deals
for Some Projects Raising Major Questions
By Anthony L. Harvey
O
ften described as a “patchwork of holes and clusters,” the District’s public library
system — with over two-dozen branches located throughout the city — is in
crisis. It is a system said by many to have too many facilities in some areas and too
few in others. All seem in agreement, however, on the desperate need to both reopen
libraries at the four closed branch locations, and to renovate or replace nearly all the
others.
illustration—courtesy, DC Public Library.
photo—April Fehling—The InTowner.
photo—Raymond K. Fudge,
courtesy Adams Morgan Main Streets Group.
Like many neighborhoods throughout the
city, Bloomingdale and nearby Eckington
and Edgewood in Northeast are in transition. Long-time residents of the historically
African-American community are grappling
with skyrocketing property values as the
community becomes more racially, culturally and economically diverse.
Despite the changes, long-time and new
residents alike have embraced a vibrant
newcomer to the 1700 block of First Street,
NW: fresh, local produce, sold directly to
the community by the farmers who grow it.
The Kids Fair will be newly expanded this
year with games and activities for children,
and live acts such as puppet shows and
Cont., ADAMS MORGAN DAY, p. 6
☛
WHAT’S INSIDE
Where to find the InTowner:
See updated list at our website
www.intowner.com
The formal agenda for the July 20th
meeting of the Library Board of Trustees’
Facilities Committee reflected the importance of this condition with the first
seven agenda items dealing with closed,
interim, kiosk, and out-dated library facilities. These include the Martin Luther
King, Jr. Memorial Library, now a DC
Historic Landmark but in need of dramatic rehabilitation; the Shaw neighborhood’s Watha T. Daniel, closed in
December, 2004 for total replacement;
Tenley-Friendship; Georgetown, recently burned while undergoing renovations;
Anacostia; Benning; Sursum Corda, soon
to be re-located as part of a larger redevelopment effort; and the recently refreshed
West End Library, which is now slated
to become a condominium occupant of
a mixed-use, mega-residential develop-
☛
Letters
3
Community Forum
3
3
Around Our Community
Corcoran St. Safeway Gets a Jolt
4
5
Celebrating Annie’s 80th
National Night Out
5
8
Crimes Reported
ABC Board Actions
9
10-11
Scenes from the Past
At the Museums
12-13
Historical Society Exhibit
13
14-15
Food / Dining
Classifieds
16
17
Service Directory
19-20
Real Estate
■ ■ ■
Architect’s interior view rendering of the Tenley-Friendship interim library located in a 5,000
square-foot storefront space at 4200 Wisconsin Avenue, NW as seen from the front.
“We so often have these invisible walls
that separate us along race and class,” said
ANC Commissioner Kris Hammond, who
represents Ward Five’s Single member
District 5C-02. “Sometimes good food is
just the kind of thing to bridge the gap.”
The dream of residents Lana Labermeier
and Stuart Davenport, the Bloomingdale
market opened in June alongside the couple’s breezy new coffee shop, the Big Bear
Café. Locals lounge on the café’s broad
patios or in the adjacent triangular park
while shoppers browse the colorful produce
stalls.
Cont., FARMERS MARKET, p. 7
photo—courtesy, DC Public Library.
Now closed Watha T. Daniel branch library
building as seen from 8th Street & Rhode
island Avenuie, NW. The building is slated to
be razed and replaced with a new structure.
ment across from the Ritz-Carlton apartment block.
Under its new Chief Librarian, Ginnie
Cooper, the DC Public Library (DCPL)
has crafted an ambitious and comprehensive capital construction plan complete with Mayoral and City Council
mandated funding. At the July 20th
facilities committee meeting staff reports
were presented on the status of the four
closed branches — Watha T. Daniel,
whose community interim library still
has an uncertain opening date (see,
“Shaw Neighborhood Branch Library
Still in Limbo,” InTowner, July 2007,
page 1); Tenley, which is continuing with
its storefront interim facility three blocks
from its shuttered and soon to be demolished old building at Wisconsin Avenue
and Albemarle Street; Anacostia’s 4200
square-foot interim library with 28 brand
new computers among its bright and lively offerings; and Benning, which is ready
to open with an interim facility like that
at Anacostia but which lacked electricity
at the time of the committee’s meeting.
Raze permits for all four old branch
library buildings have been applied for
and architects for the four replacement
buildings have been selected.
Opening the Benning interim branch
was predicted for the Monday following the facilities committee meeting.
Ironically, DCPL’s own press office
announced Benning’s opening later on
the same day of the meeting. And when
item seven on the committee’s agenda
was reached, those unaware of a developer’s interest in the Benning library’s
strategic location were surprised to learn
that City Interests, LLC. have expressed
Cont., LIBRARIES, p. 18
Page 2 • The InTowner • August 2007
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The InTowner (ISSN 0887-9400) is published 12 times per year by The InTowner Publishing
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t is without question incumbent on all of us, whether in the news business or simply regular citizen-taxpayers to keep a watchful eye on how our politicians and bureaucrats spend
our money — money which most of us only begrudgingly give over to the city treasury.
There has been much discussion and reporting over the past many months not only in
this commentator’s space, in letters to the editor, and in our news stories, but everywhere
else — from the Post and the Times to blogs, to impassioned exchanges on various listservs. What all this should make clear to our city government’s leaders is that there is a
growing groundswell of justified and quite knowledgeable skepticism about how our tax
dollars are being spread around.
And, while the mega-“bread and circus” projects seem to get the most attention, there is
another huge area of concern that has not been adequately addressed. We are referring to
the city’s payroll. While it is true that there has been much justifiable criticism about outrageously high, padded salaries and bonuses paid to high-visibility bureaucrats, the aspect
of the payroll costs that grabs our attention at this point in time has more to do with the
middle management.
It is in middle management that we are convinced lurks the biggest fiscal drain. This is
largely hidden because these people do not command attention, except in rare instances
when one of them performs so outrageously that we even learn they are on our payroll
and then we wonder why are we paying such people. That very emotionally disturbed
administrative law judge who so nicely succeeded in making the District of Columbia an
international laughing stock over his bizarre and frivolous pants lawsuit comes to mind.
(Why there has been any doubt within the bureaucracy about reappointing him we have
no idea; he should have been canned forthwith for bringing such disrepute on our city.)
If we are going to insist on paying employees generously –- and they do get compensated very well between actual salaries and benefits, plus they have far greater job security
than most ordinary workers who are not so fortunate to have a DC job –- then we must
demand that they perform 100 percent and return to us true value for what we pay them,
Unfortunately, too many only give 50 percent (maybe even less). We must insist they
shape up or ship out. Over the past umpteen years that we have dealt with DC employees we have encountered many who were/are definitely worth every dime we pay them.
We despair that their dedication is not properly recognized by their superiors. But we too
often encounter the slackers and suspect that their bosses may also be slackers. The only
way these matters will ever get worked out is for the top leadership –- Mayor Fenty -– to
address this issue directly in the same way he is willing to address the schools issues. We
need him to realize that personnel problems are not to be found in the school system
alone.
We do have some degree of hope that the Mayor may be trying to tackle this problem
by seeking to appoint persons of unusual managerial and leadership talent to head the
agencies and departments. It is too early to know if all his appointees will be of sufficient
caliber and have sufficient drive and abilities to reform personnel issues inside their bailiwicks. If they are really good they will weed out the dregs and by virtue of their own drive
and initiative and leadership acumen get greater productivity out of a leaner workforce
and end up helping the city reduce its astronomical personnel costs.
An example of the kind of stellar appointee we hope the Mayor will tap more of is his
recent appointment of Clark Ray to take over the troubled and long dysfunctional parks
and recreation department. Ray is exactly the kind of manager who will give back enormous value to us taxpayers by his service. He has already proven his worth to us through
his previous city government positions in which he was always out in the communities
solving problems and ensuring results. He listens, takes in and analyses quickly what
needs to be done and then does it. That’s our kind of public servant –- a non bureaucratic
manager who takes pride in working for the little people of this world.
So, we say to the Mayor, if you can find more Clark Rays both for the top jobs and also
for the middle management jobs then we may be able to begin the process of streamlining
our personnel overload and bring savings through greater productivity and lower overall
costs by virtue of reducing the workforce to a more realistic level. Having said this, however, we would also like to know if this expanded education bureaucracy you have created to
which you are apparently going to add 400 new jobs is going to duplicate what is already
being done by the hundreds of school system non-instructional employees? If so, then all
n
bets are off. Copyright (c) 2007 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 (“fair use”).
NEXT ISSUE—SEPTEMBER 14
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FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 7
Classifieds Deadline: Friday, September 7
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News, Events & Letters Deadline: Friday, September 7
NOTE: Publication date always second Friday of month.
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August 2007 • The InTowner • Page 3
AROUND OUR COMMUNITY
The editor welcomes the receipt of information about community happenings, such as church-sponsored events, neighborhood and block
association activities, public meetings dealing with neighborhood
issues, and other events of a non-commercial nature. These may be
emailed to us at newsroom@intowner.com, or sent by regular mail but
not by fax.
Because ours is a neighborhood newspaper and not a city-wide or
regional publication, we restrict our reporting to that about news
and activities occurring within the specific neighborhoods we serve
— Adams Morgan, Mt. Pleasant, Columbia Heights; Dupont, Scott,
Thomas & Logan Circles; Mt. Vernon Square/Pennsylvania Quarter;
Cardozo/Shaw, U Street.
Publication is always the second Friday of the month and deadline for
submission is always the first Friday, although every effort is made to
include later-received submissions on a space available basis. Notices
of selected events received following publication may be included during the ensuing current issue; again, on a space basis.
• Sat., Aug. 11 (3:30-5:30pm): The
Friends of Mt. Pleasant Library will be hosting a BOOK TALK featuring the authors of
two recent books about Mt. Pleasant at the
Mt. Pleasant Library (16th & Lamont Sts.).
Mara Cherkasky and Galey Modan, authors
of Images of America: Mount Pleasant and
Turf Wars, respectively, will read from their
books and conduct a discussion about the
past and present along Mt. Pleasant Street
and around the surrounding neighborhood.
Copies of both books will be for sale.
For more info, call 671-0159. (Cherkasky’s
Images of America is the subject of a review
appearing on page 11 of this issue of The
InTowner.)
• Sat., Aug. 18 (10am-5pm): Shiloh
Baptist Church 9th & P Sts.) is inviting “members of Shiloh, family members,
friends and the community” to join in
a no-charge OPEN HOUSE during its
homecoming weekend. With the theme
being “Our Village -- The Church and
Community Connected,” there will be fun,
food, games, and live entertainment. The
WiFi (Internet) Café will be open all day
and there will be tours of the Shiloh facility
at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. For more info, call
332-0691.
• Thu., Aug. 23 & Wed., Aug. 29 (6:308:30pm): As we were nearing press time a
schedule of “Education Transition Town
Hall” PUBLIC MEETINGS was received.
No elucidation as to what the actual discussion focus of these meetings will be or
who will be appearing was offered with
this schedule. However, as devoid as it is
of information it does contain something
of importance: where and when meetings
will be held for Wards 1 and 2 residents. For
Ward 1, the meeting will be on Thurs., the
23rd, at Tubman Elementary School (3101
13th St.) between 6:30 and 8:30 p.m. and
for Ward 2, at Shaw Junior High School
(925 Rhode Is. Ave.), also between 6:30 and
8:30 p.m.
• Wed., Sep. 5 (7-8:30pm): The Columbia
Heights Citizens Association (CHCA),
along with the North Columbia Heights
Civic Association (NCHCA) and the South
Columbia Heights Organization (SoCHO),
will be holding its first monthly meeting
of the fall at the Urban League (14th &
Harvard Sts.). On the agenda will be apresentation by Police Chief Cathy Lanier
who will be accompanied by Inspector
Cont., COMMUNITY, p. 4
LETTERS
Letters must be mailed, faxed, or delivered to our office or sent via e-mail to: letters@intowner.com.
All correspondents MUST supply a home address AND both day and evening telephone numbers
for verification purposes. Persons employed by or volunteering with entities that are the subject
of their letters MUST reveal their positions with same so as to avoid misleading the readers as to
their special interest. In appropriate instances, if so requested, letters may be printed on a “name
withheld by request” basis. We reserve the right to edit for propriety, clarity, and to fit the available
space. Identifiers below writers’ names are inserted at the editor’s discretion.
Special Note: Only envelopes from government agencies, recognized civic groups and other
organizations, or mail from individuals in envelopes bearing verifiable return addresses that
include sender’s full name will be opened; any other postal or hand-delivered mail will be
either returned to sender or destroyed.
Out of Control Tax Increases Must End;
Politicians Take Heed
Our City Council representatives bemoan
the burden we put on businesses. [Ward
1 Councilmember] Jim Graham works
to ensure that more and more of Adams
Morgan commercial operations have tavern
licenses and that our many “restaurants”
remain bars. He gets a cash-strapped Metro
to pony up $70,000 for the Metro connector
shuttling drinkers from Metro stops to bars
late at night. [Ward 2 Councilmember] Jack
Evans supports these, and regularly deplores
the level of taxes borne by businesses in
Washington. One sees no one stepping up
to discuss residents’ property taxes, but they
are increasing to crisis levels.
According to the National Conference of
State Legislatures, we have shot up from a
relatively low comparative per capita property tax nationally to fourth in the country behind New Jersey, Connecticut, and
New Hampshire, states whose other taxes
are lower. New Hampshire has neither an
income tax nor a sales tax; New Jersey has
recently lowered residents’ property taxes 10
to 20 percent depending on income. Our
surge to the top may continue unabated.
Incredibly, the journal State Policy Reports
recently noted that the overall per capita
tax yield in DC has increased less than
any state, even states suffering from deep
manufacturing recessions like Michigan
and Ohio.
My taxes are skyrocketing. The property
tax on my house has doubled from $3,394
in 2000 to $6,958 in 2005. My assessments
have soared, and everyone tells us how rich
we are. Townhouses on my block have sold
for $1.3 and $1.5 million; my house now is
assessed at $1.3 million. A short hiatus in
tax increases in 2006 is about to end, and
our council members are reminding us
how thankful we should be that our 2007
increases will be limited to 10 percent. I
think perhaps the politicians in New Jersey
understood the math better.
Whose taxes are the Adams Morgan homeowner’s taxes replacing? How can we really
have given away so much in tax abatements
that those of us who actually pay huge
increases will be continually asked to pay
more? Why is there a police officer downtown guarding buildings constructed with
tax subsidies while Adams Morgan taxpayers
have to beg for coverage? Now that a house
on my street has sold for under $1 million,
will the assessments slide downward as easily as they slid up? One doubts they will
unless strong political pressure is applied.
Early in this country’s existence, Chief
Justice Marshall reminded us that the power
to tax involves the power to destroy. The
increase in taxes has certainly changed our
neighborhood, as lower- and middle-income
persons have fled. It may soon be impossible
for all but the very richest families to live
here.
Taxes paying for legitimate services can
be justified. We in Adams Morgan face
the prospect of continued tax increases
and simultaneous service degradation. We
should not allow our elected representatives
to do this to us.
Vic Miller
Adams Morgan
COMMUNITY FORUM
A MODEST PROPOSAL: LET DEVELOPERS
TAKE OVER THE WILSON BUILDING
By John Hanrahan
www.augustanadc.info
The writer, a former Washington Evening Star and Washington Post
reporter, is, along with his wife Debbie, a 40-year resident of the Dupont
East neighborhood.
A
ll of us soreheads who opposed the Mayor
and Council’s recent “fake-emergency”
legislation to turn over the West End Library
and other city property to well-connected
developer Anthony Lanier of Eastbanc need
to rethink our outmoded principles. Open
government, citizen input, debate (based
on facts, not self-serving fictions), adequate
notice to the community, transparent process, competitive bidding, planning, no conflicts of interest: All of these stand in the way
of progress and much-needed “reforms,” as
such local pundits as Marc Fisher, Jonetta
Rose Barras, Harry Jaffe and Kojo Nnamdi
regularly remind us meddlesome citizens.
The pundits, Mayor Fenty and my Ward 2
councilman, Jack Evans, have convinced
me. Democracy is a drag. Elected Board
of Education — bad. Overstuffed, overpaid education bureaucracy headed by a
deputy mayor/accused plagiarist — good.
Citizens — bad. Developers — good. West
End library developer — especially good.
Consider me reeducated.
So, given my heightened awareness that
giving away city property and assets is the
only True Path to Enlightenment and
Prosperity for All, imagine my chagrin that,
right under their noses, the Mayor and
Council are overlooking a prime opportunity for the grandest public-private partnership of them all on one of the choicest
city-owned properties. This property, as
Jack Evans would say, is “ripe for development,” located in an ideal downtown
location, near Metro stops and within
easy walking distance of fine restaurants,
the National Theater, the Mall, great
Smithsonian museums and other wonderful attractions. Frankly, I’m surprised this
property has escaped the notice of developers and Evans, chairman of the unofficial
Committee on Public Land Giveaways,
Stadium Boondoggles and Random TIFs,
Cont., FORUM, p. 5
COMMUNITY
From p. 3
Linda Brown. Ward 1 Councilmember
Jim Graham will not only be introducing
the MPD guests but, as part of the PNC
Bank-sponsored Schools Book Promotion
Program, he will also be presenting checks
to the libraries of Tubman, Raymond, Bruce
Monroe Elementary Schools. Larry Ray,
CHCA’s president also has informed us
about the Sep. 8th (10 a.m. to 12 noon)
44 block neighborhood clean up effort that
will be taking place on that day in cooperation jointly with the city’s public works
department and parks and recreation. For
more info or for questions, send email to
DCLarry@aol.com or call 483-0241,
• Thu., Sep. 6 (12:15-12:45pm) The
“Music at Midday” no-charge, Thursday
lunchtime RECITAL SERIES at Thomas
Circle’s National City Christian Church
resumes for the fall with a program to be
presented by the church’s minister of music
and organist Charles Miller, which he is
calling the “Battle of Two Pipe Organs.”
And, the following Thursday (same time),
guest orghanist will present a program to be
titled, “The Improvisor’s Art.” For more info,
call 232-0323.
These concerts, launched 25 years ago,
are held inside the magnificent sanctuary designed in 1929 by noted architect
John Russell Pope. The church’s Möller
pipe organs, containing 7,592 pipes, were
renovated in late 2003 to install new solidstate relays and a new Solid State Logic
Combination Action on both organs, thereby updating the mechanical controls of
both organs with the latest in computer
technology.
Also not to be missed will be the concert
on Saturday, the 8th, at 8 pm, in the church
sanctuary by the 45-member Washington
Sinfonietta chamber orchestra, under the
direction of Jason Love, presenting an allBeethoven program featuring “Leonore”
Overture #3 and Symphony No.3, the
“Eroica.” Tickets, $10 for adults (available at the door); children 18 and under,
free. Reduced fee parking ($4) available at
Washington Plaza Hotel on Thomas Circle,
directly across from the church. For more
info, visit www. washingtonsinfonietta.com.
• Sun., Sep. 9 (10am-2pm): The
Bloomingdale Farmers Market (1st & R
Sts.) will host a FREE COMMUNITY
BARBECUE, accompanied by the 30-plus
member Haitian orchestral symphony Les
Petits Chanteurs; these musicians and singers from Port Au Prince’s Holy Trinity
School of Music are visiting music halls
and churches on a U.S. tour. With support from Ward 5 Councilmember Harry
Thomas Jr. and at-large CouncilmemberKwame Brown, the market will roast a freerange pig provided by market vendor Truck
Patch. Bread will be provided by vendor
Bread Line, and other foods will be supplied by local businesses. The barbecue will
celebrate the contributions of all those who
helped launch the farmers market this June.
(For the complete story, see “New Farmers
Market in the Bloomingdale Neighborhood
Welcomed and Very Popular,” page 1 of
this issue.) For more info, contact the
Bloomingdale Farmers Market manager,
Ted McGinn, by email at mcginnfamily@
aol.com.
n
Copyright (c) 2007 InTowner Publishing Corp.
All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without permission is prohibited, except as
provided by 17 U.S.C. §107.
10 p.m., Saturday, August 4 —Oops!
17th & Corcoran Safeway Gets a Jolt
he delivery
semi was
pulling out from
the loading dock
and something
very peculiar
happened: somehow the top of
the truck snagged
on the steel lintel
beam supporting the opening
and the whole
thing got pulled
out and came
crashing down
between the
truck’s cab and
the trailer portion. No injuries
and only minor
damage to the
truck. But a big
mess to clean
up and rebuild
without delay
so that deliveries would be
able to resume.
And with that in
mind, store manager Margaret
Newchurch
wasted not a minute that Saturday
night. Within an hour she was on the scene securing the site and calling in crews to start
planning the repairs. So, as we were going to press a few days later, the loading dock,
while not fully rebuilt, was once again able to be used to receive deliveries.
n
photo—The InTowner.
T
Celebrating
Annie’s 80th on
17th Street!
R
photo—Todd Franson, courtesy Metro Weekly.
egulars and friends will be joining the Katinas family at their
nearly 60-year-old family restaurant,
Annie’s Paramount Steak House on
17th Street in Dupont East to help
Annie Kaylor celebrate her 80th on
August 20th. But the marking of this
milestone is not just a one-day affair:
all month long, dinner customers
will be treated to a complimentary
slice of birthday cake to help mark
the occasion and keep the fun going
until the 31st.
A
Neighbors and MPD Officers
Getting to Know Each Other
ll across the country the
annual “National Night
Out” was being held on
August 8. And neighbors and
officers from PSA 306 getting
to socialize on Hopkins Street
in Dupont West was one such
happening. While the burgers and hot dogs, donated
by P Street’s Palomar Hotel
were grilling away and neighbors were enjoying other food
donated by the nearby restaurants, live jazz courtesy of the
Leather Rack was setting the
relaxed mood for casual visiting by all who dropped by. n
photo—Morgan Zehner, Exec. Dir., Historic Dupont Cir. Main Sts.
FORUM
From p. 3
Corporate Subsidies and Tax Abatements.
I speak, of course, of the John A. Wilson
Building. Talk about your downtown living! Now some cynics would argue that
our City Hall is already owned by the
corporados in a flourishing public-private
partnership -- what with all the giveaways
to the corporate world fueled by generous
campaign contributions, and what with
all the corporate types in key positions of
city government (e.g., the Federal City
Council’s Victor Reinoso as Deputy Mayordesignee for education; the Federal City
Council’s CEO John Hill as president of
the Board of Library Trustees; Matthew D.
Cutts, as chairman of the board of the DC
Sports and Entertainment Commission, a
partner of Jack Evans at Patton Boggs, the
powerhouse law firm whose many practice
areas include public-private partnerships
and stadium development). But I say, let’s
formalize it. Let’s have the Federal City
Council, the Greater Washington Board
of Trade, the DC Chamber of Commerce
and favored developers such as Herb Miller
and Anthony Lanier right in the same
building as their co-benefactors. (Yes, I
know, you’re probably like me -- when I
hear the term public-private partnership
I hold on to my wallet; but that’s the old
unenlightened me talking.)
In the spirit of one of the Eastbanc proposals for the West End library -- to put it
on top of a new fire station, with housing
on top of the library -- I say, let’s give the
first floor of the Wilson Building to retail,
and the second floor to the Federal City
Council, the Board of Trade, and the
Chamber of Commerce. Then, let’s put
the Mayor and Council members on the
third floor, with seven-figure luxury condos
above them on the fourth and fifth floors.
Chairman Vincent Gray -- despite his differences with Mayor Fenty -- will need to
be near the Mayor’s office so that when the
Mayor calls out, “emergency, emergency,”
as happened with the West End properties, Gray can quickly slap it on the next
Council agenda with virtually no notice to
the public, and then the Council, acting
with no community input and on the basis
of false information, can ramrod it through.
What about an office for Phil Mendelson,
the sole council member to vote against
the West End proposal? If you have seen
the movie Office Space, you know the
answer: “Storage B.” (“Uh, Phil, we’d like
you to go ahead and move your desk down
to Storage B. Uh, that would be great.”)
Then again, maybe there is too much
“public” in my proposed public-private
partnership for the Wilson Building. To
further streamline the process, why not
eliminate the Council altogether? That
would free up more room in the Wilson
Building for retail or condos, save a lot
of money for taxpayers, and eliminate
any possible obstructionism such as
Mendelson on the West End library or
David Catania and Mendelson on the
publicly financed baseball stadium. Just
think how much time could have been
saved if there had been no Council and
we had left the stadium decisions solely
up to then-Mayor Williams and the Sports
and Entertainment Commission, with Jack
Evans in the role of Deputy Mayor for
Professional Sports and Other Fun Things
That Are Way More Cool Than Schools
and Affordable Housing. Public hearings?
No more. Debates? No more. Disclosures
of yet another budget-busting stadium cost
overrun? No more. Streamline the process!
n
Emergency! Emergency!
ADAM’S MORGAN DAY
From p. 1
Jake the Magician. Older kids will enjoy
the return of the popular Rock Wall and
Survivor, Jr. New this year will be the first
ever Meow Mix A-Cat-Emy: ”Think like a
cat!” Coordinated by Samatha Cribari, and
held on the grounds of Marie Reed School,
the Kids Fair will offer an police mobile van
to give parents a record of their children’s
fingerprints and DNA for safekeeping at
home. “We keep emphasizing the family
friendly focus and activities of the Adams
Morgan Day festival,” said Maria Gomez
of Mary’s Center, one of the key leaders in
Adams Morgan Main Street, which assumed
the festival’s helm from 2004 onward.
Mini Cooper will debuts as the main
festival sponsor and “will showcase their
cars on-site for festival goers to see up
close and personal, and even sit behind
the wheel,” according to Main Street’s
Executive Director Janet Lugo-Tafur. The
Adams Morgan Partnership, responsible for several excellent “clean and
safe” neighborhood programs, is returning as a major sponsor. Lowe’s and
Bank of America will be sponsoring
the Cultural Stage (Columbia Road at
Euclid Street), which will showcases
theater, gospel, and cultural performances.
Continuous live music will resound
from the mainstay Florida Avenue and
Columbia Road stages — always crowd
pleasers. Washington Post Radio’s Jerry
Phillips again will mastermind the
Florida Avenue stage, the theme of
which will be “A Global Community
of Performers.” It will be offering
groups such as The Wayne Wilentz
Trio of Brazilian jazz, a jazz big band, and
will close with Verny Varel y Su Orguesta,
fabulous Latin Salsa. By popular demand,
the Columbia Road stage will feature the
return of Supreme Commander, along with
Bossa Bistro’s Nayas and Touch Acoustra,
and the popular series of live music groups
photo—courtesy, Adams Morgan Main Streets Group.
and photography.
Arts on Belmont, Dance Plaza, The
Kid’s Fair, and the live music stages are
made possible by sponsors PNC Bank,
Commerce Bank, and BB&T. The
memorable collector’s item T-Shirts
will be sold, designed by a local artist
and underwritten by Mini and local
business sponsors such as SAKI Asian
Grill, Adams Mill Bar & Grill, and
Millie & Al’s. Other returning festival
sponsors are Adams Investments, DC
Lottery, and Hilton Washington.
Almost all local businesses now stay
open during the festival and report
having a very successful day. “Adams
photo—Raymond K. Fudge, courtesy Adams Morgan Main Streets Group.
Morgan Main Street is about celebrating community, which includes our
from Madam’s Organ covering the varying
colorful local storefronts and sidewalk cafés,
shades of blues to bluegrass.
especially promoting the independent,
Adams Morgan Main Street’s popular
unique venues,” concluded Washington
new festival innovation, the dynamic Dance
Post Radio’s Phillips.
Plaza will return, coordinated by Cheryl
The festival’s success depends on local
Hardy who promises performances, demos,
volunteer efforts, those who coordinate perclasses, and dancing in ethnic, traditional,
formers and music groups, gather petition
and popular dance styles. The festival will
signatures, work on vendor management,
open with costumed Bolivian dancers paradand work the actual “day of.” Volunteer
ing up 18th Street to the Dance Plaza
opportunities include pre-festival, “day of,”
— another first! And don’t miss the DC
and breakdown. To volunteer, send an email
Casineros or the Malcolm X Drummers &
to Cheryl Hardy at Vols@AMMainStreet.org
Dancers. New for 2007, Harris Teeter will
or call (202) 232-1960. For festival informaoffer “Oasis in the Park,” a quieter area for
tion updates, visit www.AMMainStreet.org.
local residents to enjoy jazz in Kalorama
n
Park away from the bustle of 18th Street.
“Arts on Belmont” will completely fill the *Jenny Howard and Liz Hirschhorn are college interns from
beautiful tree-lined block of Belmont Road the University of Michigan and Williams College, respectively
with 35 artisans offering original works in a and are spending the summer in Adams Morgan. Jenny hails
variety of media and every conceivable style. from Michigan, and Liz is a native Washingtonian.
Coordinated by Avner Ofer, who operates
Western Market every Saturday in Adams Copyright (c) 2007 InTowner Publishing Corp.
Morgan, will open early — at 10 am — and and Adams Morgan Main Street Group. All
will present an outstanding quality and rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
range of artists this year. Check out oils, part without permission is prohibited, except as
watercolor, sculpture, textiles, glassware, provided by 17 U.S.C. §107.
FARMERS MARKET
ered people they didn’t even know were living on their street.”
From p. 1
With her life-long love of fresh foods,
Shuster has helped foster a local shopper
Unlikely restaurateurs, Labermeier and base, as well. Despite greeting hundreds of
Davenport’s only prior coffee shop experi- shoppers at three farmers markets throughence was patronizing them. And their farmers out the city each week, she remembers
market knowledge was limited, too. “We’ve patrons’ names and their favorite market
never made any claims to know what we’re items. “Victorio!,” she called out to a passing
doing,” smiled Davenport, a DC native and shopper on a recent Sunday. “Did you get
general contractor who was recently elected your squash blossoms?”
ANC 5C-03 commissioner. But the couple
Each week, she stops to chat with shopstrongly believed that Bloomingdale needed pers, sharing recipes and cooking tips. “I
a meeting place where neighbors could forge love to share things I like,” Shuster said. “I
a stronger sense of community. “The only love converting people to things they might
way to break down barriers is to get people not like, or that they think are too difficult
talking to each other,” Davenport said.
to prepare.”
Michael Henderson, vice president of the
To ensure the market’s goods are accesEdgewood Civic Association, also sees the sible to the entire community, all producers
outdoor market as a galvanizing force. “It’s at each of Shuster’s markets accept Farmers
just the kind of thing we need around here. Market Nutrition Food Stamp Program couIt gets people out of their homes and brings pons. The coupons are part of a USDA
people together...and that’s good for the com- program to increase consumption of fresh
munity.”
produce among seniors, pregnant and nursBloomingdale residents were vested in ing women and young children, and can be
the market from the outset — quite literally. redeemed only at farmers markets.
Davenport and Labermeier raised $2,000
Working with city health clinics, a
from 73 local residents in just three days, and Markets and More outreach campaign in
collected more than 100 statements of sup- Mt. Pleasant helped more than 700 WIC
port to get the initiative underway. They also customers buy fresh fruits and vegetables last
sought out U Street resident Robin Shuster, year, says Shuster. She and McGinn have
owner of Markets and More LLC, for pro initiated similar efforts in the Bloomingdale
market’s customer area, reaching out
to local WIC clinics and neighborhood churches. All Shuster’s markets
will also begin accepting Electronic
Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards next
year.
The star of the show for all the
market patrons is the just-picked
local produce. Shuster has attracted
several of the region’s most established producers to Bloomingdale.
Most also sell their dizzying arrays of
fruits, vegetables, preserves, honeys
and natural meats at other farmers
markets throughout the area. Like at
all Shuster’s markets, producers can
sell only what they grow themselves.
Bloomingdale farmers and shoppers alike say the strong sense of
bono guidance.
community and high-quality tasty produce
As the responsibilities of simultaneously will keep them coming back. “Most of our
launching both a café and a market proved friends are here on Sundays, so we know
overwhelming, the couple turned the man- we’re going to see them,” said resident
agement of the market over to Shuster this Rudy McGann. McGann and wife Natalie
spring. Shuster runs the Mt. Pleasant farmers Hopkinson moved to Bloomingdale to attend
market, as well as the new U Street market, Howard University in 2003.
which opened in June on the Reeves Center
“Since we’ve been in DC the biggest thing
plaza at 14th and U Streets, NW.
for me is the quality of produce. What we get
After its June 17 launch, the Bloomingdale [elsewhere] is just sub-par,” Hopkinson said
market quickly became a source of commu- as she selected ripe peaches. “So we support
nity pride. When a recent visitor remarked it every Sunday to help it grow.”
on the neighborhood listserv that she “wasn’t
Nearby LeDroit Park resident Allai Samuels
very impressed” with the market’s small scale, recently stopped for peaches after passing by
the response was impassioned. One resident several times on his way to church. “These
noted that the visitor “has no idea what a peaches aren’t like at the store,” he said, samHUGE thing this is for those of us who pling a juicy bite. “Those are imposters.”
have been here for years.” Another said the
Several of the farmers credit Shuster’s
nascent market needed nurturing, not criti- enthusiasm and marketing skills for convinccism. “It’s our baby,” she wrote. “And if you ing them to take a risk on such a new market.
live here, it’s your baby too. So do whatever “Some people think you just start a farmers
you can to make it better.”
market and people will just come. But Robin
Local support is widespread, says Shuster, really believes in it — she’s dedicated to what
in large part due to the efforts of market man- she’s doing,” said Susan Lewis of Dragonfly
ager Ted McGinn. A Bloomingdale resident Farm, which produces specialty blackcurrant
for more than 20 years, McGinn chairs the vinegars, fresh blackcurrants and fresh cut
Emery Elementary School Local School flowers.
Restructuring Team (which works in liaison
“We have hit Mecca here,” said farmer
with the school principal), and is president of Maggie Reid of Reid’s Orchard, a familythe parent-teacher association and founder of run farm near Gettysburg. She praised how
the school’s student garden. McGinn made quickly the market has become a community
presentations at ANC meetings and civic gathering place. “It has a lot of promise.”
associations to spread the word and to invite
Carlos Viquez of Sunnyside Farms, an
neighborhood businesspeople and organiza- organic Virginia producer, agrees. While the
tions to share materials at the community market is still small, Sunnyside is doing well
table, a fixture at every Markets and More in Bloomingdale. “It’s never good to be at
market.
a market for just one season,” Viquez said.
“Every stripe is represented here,” McGinn “You have to be there at least two years to
said. “Young, old, black, white. You see really see how it’s going to do.
babies, you see dogs…People have discovAnd the little market is growing. To the
delight of the regulars, Shuster and McGinn
just lured local bakery Breadline to begin
selling fresh breads. They are also working
to secure a cheese vendor — a challenge for
a Sunday market when most local cheese
producers are Amish, says McGinn.
Shoppers and passers-by on two recent
Sundays offered no complaints about the
market. One ongoing concern for some
residents, however, is the time conflict with
many neighborhood church services. While a
vocal cheerleader for the market, Edgewood
Civic Association’s Henderson suggests that
the market time be adjusted to accommodate
churchgoers, even just once per month.
McGinn says the market is looking for a
suitable compromise. “We’ll make adjustments to meet [local] needs. We’re here to
serve the community, and what’s best going
to serve the community is also going to best
serve the market.”
As chain stores take root around the city,
Labermeier and Davenport hope that their
café will encourage more independentlyowned businesses in the Bloomingdale area.
ANC Commissioner Hammond also hopes
to see more local dollars reinvested in the
neighborhood.
Henderson thinks the neighborhood is
already on its way. “I think the market is a
symbol of the rebirth and the growth of this
area,” said Henderson. “It’s very local. You
can feel it.” n
*An Adams Morgan resident since moving to DC five
years ago to direct a women’s rights program at American
University’s Washington College of Law, April Fehling is
now working toward her Masters in Journalism degree at
the University of Maryland’s Phillip Merrill College of
Journalism. Prior to moving here, she worked as a reproductive health researcher for the Guttmacher Institute in New
York City following having obtained a B.A. in International
Studies at The University of Washington in 1999.
SELECTED STREET CRIMES: Reported, July 2 – 23, 2007
Following is a sampling of reported crimes in the expanded 3rd Police District and the
Bloomingdale neighborhood portion of the 5th District. Times shown are when reports
recorded by police; actual incidents will have occurred earlier. Occasionally we include
reports not recorded by the MPD. Emphasis here is placed, for the most part, on listing
crimes against persons occurring in or adjacent to public space. Not generally reported are
the extraordinary numbers of burglaries, auto heists, and “smash and grab” from parked
cars. These crimes appear to be consistently a problem from Rock Creek eastward and from
downtown north, spread fairly evenly throughout affluent, transitioning, and low-income
neighborhoods. Also not reported, for reasons of space, are most assaults stemming from
verbal altercations nor most of the numerous, random purse & other snatchings that can
occur anywhere and at any hour.
*Note: Only three weeks of reports were available at press time due to vacation
schedules in the MPD office responsible for preparing the crime summaries.
• Adams Mill, 2800 blk.: man accosted by 3 others who punched him in his face,
causing him to fall, whereupon he was punched several more times in his face & then
robbed [8:30pm, Tue., 7/3]
• Belmont, 1400 blk.: 2 persons accosted by another demanding their property & when
refused, pulled a gun, whereupon the 2 fled and the would-be robber fired the gun at
them as they made their escape [12:30am, Thu., 7/5]
• Chapin, 1400 blk.: woman forcibly robbed of purse at gunpoint as she was getting
out of car by 2 men who grabbed her by her hair & forced her to the ground [11:30am,
Fri., 7/13]
• Columbia, 1600 blk.: man accosted from behind by another who struck him on his
back & robbed him [11:30pm, Mon., 7/16]
• Columbia, 1800 blk.: man grabbed from behind by 3 others who knocked him to the
ground & forcibly robbed him [12:30am, Mon., 7/2]
• Georgia, 2300 blk.: woman’s property snatched from her hand by man who came
from behind [4:30pm, Mon., 7/2]
• Harvard, 1000 blk.: man returning to his truck following making a delivery accosted
by another who had followed him who pulled a gun, forced him to li on the floor of the
truck and robbed him while pointing the gun at his head [2:15pm, Mon., 7/16]
• Harvard, 1400 blk.: woman’s purse snatched by man out of her baby’s stroller which
she was pushing along [2pm, Sun., 7/15]
• Harvard, 1500 blk.: 2 persons robbed of wallets & credit cards by 2 others [2:45am,
Sun., 7/22]
• Hobart, 1700 blk.: pizza delivery man returning to his car following making a delivery confronted by 3 men demanding his money while one of them brandished a gun,
then pushed him to the ground & robbed him [10pm, Wed., 7/18]
• Holmead, 3300 blk.: man accosted by another who attempted to take bag from off his
shoulder & as man held on to his bag he was punched about his face & body then fell
to the ground, whereupon another man joined in punching him until they succeeded
in getting the bag [11:45pm, Mon., 7/16]
• Princeton, 800 blk.: man robbed at gunpoint by another wearing a ski mask who
came from behind [11:30pm, Fri., 7/20]
• S, 1700 blk.: 2 persons robbed by man who first stated, “I need a $1.25 for a beer”
and then further stated, “I am serious, I have a gun,” whereupon he placed his hands
under his shirt as if he did in fact have a gun [9pm, Wed., 7/11]
• Swann, 1500 blk.: woman accosted by 2 men from behind who first attempted to
snatch her purse & when she resisted they pulled a gun, demanded her money 7 when
she refused, they robbed her [12:30am, Sat., 7/21]
• T, 300 blk.: pedestrian robbed by man who pulled alongside, brandished a machine
gun & demanded “all your money” [2pm, Wed., 7/4]
• V, 1200 blk.: 3 persons approached by 2 others, one of whom had a gun & used it to
strike one of the victims before robbing all of their wallets 7 then departing the scene in
a waiting car [8pm, Mon., 7/2]
• Vermont, 1800 blk.: man accosted by 2 others, one of whom, while brandishing a
gun, warned him, “Don’t run and give me everything,” & then robbed him [11:45pm,
Tue., 7/17]
• 5th & Q: (carjacking) while sitting in his car man accosted by 5 others demanding both it and also asking if he had drugs, whereupon he was removed from the car,
struck in his face with a gun wielded by one of the men, whereupon they stole the car
[7:30pm, Mon., 7/16]
• 7th, 1200 blk.: man accosted by 2 others who struck him about his face & body &
then robbed him [10:30pm, Wed., 7/4]
• 7th, 1200 blk.: person accosted by 2 others from behind, hit, knocked down & robbed
[11:45pm, Fri., 7/6]
• 8th & R: woman’s purse snatched by 2 men coming out of Metro station, whereupon
she chased them into the 1500 block of 7th Street where they threw her purse to the
ground [9:30am, Thu., 7/12]
• 9th, 1700 blk.: woman’s purse snatched by man who came from behind [11:45pm,
Tue., 7/17]
• 10th, 2100 blk.: 2 persons robbed at gunpoint by another of cell phone & wallet
[11:45pm, Mon., 7/2]
• 14th & Columbia: man accosted by 2 others who jumped out of car as he was walking
by, pushed him to the ground & robbed [5:30am, Mon., 7/23]
• 14th & P: man accosted by 2 others who knocked him to the ground & forcibly
robbed him [3:45am, Fri. 7/13]
• 14th & Perry: man accosted by 2 others, punched in the face causing him to fall to
the ground & robbed at knifepoint [8:45am, Sat., 7/21]
• 16th & Belmont: (carjacking) 4 persons about to get into car accosted by 3 others,
one of whom had a gun, who ordered them to “give it up,” took the car keys & then
stole the car [4am, Sun., 7/8]
• Irving, 1400 blk.: 2 persons robbed by 2 others who approached on bikes & demanded their wallets & cash [
• 16th & Church: woman approached rom behind by man who snatched her bag from
her shoulder then jumped into a waiting SUV [12noon, Wed., 7/11]
• M, 1100 blk.: man tackled to the ground by 2 others & robbed [12mid, Sat., 7/14]
• 16th & Euclid: man approached by another who asked for $5 & while he was reaching into his pocket to pull out some to give him, the man struck him in the chest &
grabbed the money [3:45am, Sun., 7/8]
• M, 1900 blk.: man accosted from behind by unknown assailants(s), choked, passed
out & when woke up discovered that he had been robbed [2am, Sat., 7/21]
• Monroe, 1300 blk.: man accosted by 4 teenage males who began beating & kicking
him, knocking him to the ground & then robbing him of $130 cash [1:45am, Sun.,
7/22]
• Morton, 600 blk.: man robbed at gunpoint by 2 others & when one of them found
keys for the man’s car that was next to him he unlocked it and stole from inside a
Samurai sword & a DVD player [2:45am, Sat., 7/21]
• 16th, 1800 blk.: woman, while talking on phone, accosted by man brandishing a gun
who demanded, “Get off the phone; where is the cash?” & then robbed her
• 18th & Florida: man approached by another who asked for a cigarette & when he
reached into his pocket for one to give he was punched in the head, causing him to fall
to the ground and was then robbed by the man who punched him and 2 accomplices
[3am, Sat., 7/14]
• Newton (Pl.), 700 blk.: woman’s purse taken from hert by man who accosted her and
pointed a “shiny object” at her [8:45am, Mon., 7/23]
• 18th, 1300 blk.: woman approached by 2 men who snatch bag off her arm but in so
doing caused it to open spilling its contents on the ground, whereupon one of them
grabbed some items from the gound & jumped into waiting car [4am, Sat., 7/21]
• O, 900 blk.: man accosted from behind by 2 others who grabbed him around his
neck, demanded “what you got,” then began punching him about his body & head,
went through his pockets & then fled when he screamed for help [11pm, Thu., 7/12]
• 18th, 2300 blk.: man holding his cell phone while walking to his car approached by
3 others, one of whom demanded to “let me see your phone” & then snatched it from
him [3:15am, Sun., 7/15]
• Otis, 1300 blk.: man accosted by another demanding money & when told he had
none, was punched in his face & robbed [6:15am, Sat., 7/21]
• 18th, 2400 blk.: man accosted by another who punched him in his face & lip,
knocked him to the ground & robbed him [1:45am, Sat., 7/21]
• P, 100 blk.: woman robbed at gunpoint by 3 men of money & cell phone [9pm, Tue.,
7/17]
• 19th, 3200 blk.: woman’s backpack snatched from offher back by 2 men who came
from behind [7:30am, Fri., 7/20]
• P, 400 blk.: man accosted by 2 others who he first noticed following behind him &
when he began walking faster they jogged toward him, confronted him & robbed him
at gunpoint [2:15am, Sun., 7/15]
• 22nd, 1400 blk.: man’s property snatched from his hand by another who had
approached him [1:30am, Fri., 7/20]
• Park (Pl.), 3600 blk: 2 persons robbed at gunpoint by another [12:15am, Sat., 7/21]
Copyright (c) 2007 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or
in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 (“fair use”).
Alcoholic Beverage Control Board
Recent Actions/Decisions Entered
Dupont North
• 7/18: Approved 7/12 Voluntary Agreement between Class CR (restaurant) licensee
Plum Blossom (1915 18th St.) and ANC 2B, the Dupont Circle Citizens Association
(DCCA), and individual protestants by which licensee stipulated the following: (1)
no trash storage will be allowed in the area of the sidewalk café; (2) not to dispose of
recycling and refuse in the outside trash dumpsters or recycling containers between the
hours of 9 p.m. and 9 a.m.; (3) to hose down areas in front of, in the rear, and the alley
alongside the premises daily to remove food and other debris; (4) to operate the sidewalk
café only between April 1 and November 30; (5) not to have more than four seats and
two umbrellas on the sidewalk café; (6) that patrons will not use the rear door except in
an emergency; and (7) not to promote or participate in pub crawls or tours.
Dupont West
• 7/11: Decided that placards should be placed at Class CR licensee Marrakesh
Palace/Pasha Lounge (2147 P St.) to allow for community input on licensee’s application for a summer garden in the rear with a seating capacity of 20.
Logan Circle
• 7/25: Approved 6/13 Voluntary Agreement between Class CR licensee Lalibela
Ethiopian Restaurant (1414 14th St.) and the Rockingham Condominium Association
and the Rhode Island Avenue West Neighborhood Association by which licensee
stipulated the following: (1) no alcoholic beverage service to be permitted Sun.-Thurs.
nights on the sidewalk café after 11 p.m. and the sidewalk café shall be fully closed at 12
midnight; (2) on Fri. & Sat. nights no alcoholic beverage service will be is permitted on
the sidewalk café after 12 midnight and the sidewalk café will be fully closed at 1 a.m.;
(3) no music will be permitted on the sidewalk café; (4) dancing will not be permitted;(
5) live music will be limited to small combo-like groups; (6) the sidewalk (up to and
including the curb), tree boxes, and alley will be kept clean and free of litter, bottles,
and other debris; (6) not to dispose of trash and recyclable material into the outside
dumpster between the hours of 11 p.m. and 8:30 a.m.; and (7) not to permit patrons to
block the sidewalk.
• 7/11: Decided that placards should be placed at Class CR licensee Mar De Plata
(1410 14th S.) to allow for community input on licensee’s application for a sidewalk café
endorsement with a seating capacity for 10.
U Street/Shaw
• 7/25: Decided that placards should be placed at Class CX (multi-purpose facility)
license 930 Club (815 V St.) to allow for community input on licensee’s application to
increase its hours to allow for 22 hours of operation, between 8 a.m. & 6 a.m., 7 days a
week, with hours of alcohol service to be Mon.-Thurs., 8 a.m.-2 a.m., to 3 a.m. Fri. &
Sat. & on Sun., 10 a.m.-2 a.m.
• 7/18: Approved 7/6 Voluntary Agreement between Class CR licensee applicant
Flamingo Restaurant & Café (1119 V St.) and ANC 1B by which applicant stipulated
the following: (1) no music will be played or amplified to any outdoor area; (2) the hours
of operation will be Mon.-Wed., 7 a.m.-11 p.m.; Thurs. to 12 midnight and Fri. & Sat. to
1 a.m.; (3) the summer garden will be closed and patrons cleared by 9 p.m.. Sun.-Thurs.
and by 11 p.m., Fri. & Sat.; (4) to post a conspicuous signs at each exit advising patrons
of the residential neighborhood and the necessity of quiet departure; and (5) there will
be no alcohol advertisements visible through the windows of the premises.
• 7/25: Approved 2/20 Voluntary Agreement between Class CR (with entertainment
endorsement) licensee Local 16 (1600 U St.) and ANC 2B by which applicant stipulated the following: (1) to have no more than one disc jockey; (2) the disc jockey will be
located on the 2nd floor only & no disc jockey on the 1st floor;(3) disc jockey speakers
will be allowed only on the 2nd floor; (4) the hours for the disc jockey will be 7 p.m.-12
midnight, Sun.-Thurs. & to 1 a.m., Fri. & Sat.; (5) not to have live band music; and (6)
not to impose a cover charge.
Copyright (c) 2007 InTowner Publishing Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in
part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 (“fair use”).
Scenes from
the Past . . .
photo—The Book of Washington (Washington Post, 1903).
The F.G. Piano Company, 1225 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, as seen in 1903.
Reading for Late Summer
Reviewd by Paul K. Williams*
A
T
he well-respected Bradbury piano is familiar to generations of pianists and musicians beginning with its unveiling in 1854 in
New York. The influence of the company and
its profitability spread rapidly, and a showroom
for the many varieties and models of Bradbury’s
opened in Washington in 1877. Located at
1225 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW and owned
by Freeborn G. Smith, the building featured
a plethora of advertising signs, and was
managed for decades
by a Dupont Circle
resident who lived
a couple of blocks
east of the Circle by
the name of William
Perrine Van Wickle.
The
Bradbury
piano was the brainchild of noted hymn
singer and church
music
composer
photo—courtesy,
William Batchelder
cyberhymnal.org.
Bradbury,
who
William B. Bradbury,
1816-1868, inventor of
strived to combine
the famed Bradbury
the traditional tone
Piano.
of the organ with the
mechanics of a standard piano. His vision became a reality with
the production of the Bradbury piano in 1854.
And, like any good businessman of today,
Bradbury cashed in and sold the business
shortly thereafter, in 1867, to investor Freeborn
Garrettson Smith, but died just a year later.
Smith’s Washington showroom opened just 10
years later, in 1877. By 1903, Bradbury pianos
were being mass-produced with impressive
quality, and sold in showrooms that Smith
owned in 18 cities nationwide.
The
longtime manager
of Washington’s
F.G. Smith Piano
Company was
William
Van
Wickle,
who
resided at 1757 Q
Street, NW. Van
Wickle was born
in November of
1856 in Lyons,
New York, and
received his education at Palmyra
(NY) Classical
photo—The Book of Washington
(Washington Post, 1903).
School, and at
the Troy New Freeborn G. Smith, founder
of F.G. Smith Pianos.
York Academy.
He went to New
York City in 1876 and worked for the Bradbury
Piano Factory as a shipping clerk and later in
the repairs department and general offices. In
1878, he opened a branch piano warehouse in
Brooklyn and another in Jersey City, in August
1879.
He moved to Washington in 1879 to
take charge of Bradbury Warerooms, which
Freeborn G. Smith had purchased that year
from Harry Sanders and Dr. J.A. Stayman,
intending to stay for only a short time. It was
then located at 1103 Pennsylvania Avenue,
NW, but in 1887 moved into larger quarters
that Smith had constructed
that year at 1225 Pennsylvania
Avenue, seen here. The site
had earlier been home to
Barlow’s Art Gallery.
The 1903 Book of
Washington, published by the
Washington Post, states that
“the successful sale of the well
respected Bradbury pianos in
Washington was largely due
to William’s personal acquaintance with public men and
high officials from the chief
executive on down.” The fivestory showroom allowed space
for 75 Bradbury piano models
to be seen, and older pianos
to be stored that had been
taken in exchange for new
Bradburys.
Van Wickle eventually
photo—The Book of Washington (Washington Post, 1903).
William Van Wickle, resident of 1757 Q Street,
NW and manager of F.G. Smith Pianos.
photo—courtesy, eBay.com.
A 1933 Bradbury Baby Grand Piano.
established the Van Wickle Piano Company,
also handling the Bradbury line. In 1888,
he married Albenia Gibson King, who was
well-connected to an old and established
Washington family. She had been born in
Washington in September of 1867.
William was director and treasurer of the
Washington Board of Trade, a member of
the Columbia Historical Society, as it was
then known, and of the National Geographic
Society. He was a leader in the Free and
Accepted Masons, member of Lafayette
Lodge #19, Royal Arch Masons, Washington
Commandery, and the Knights Templar. He
was secretary of the reception committee that
welcomed Admiral Dewey to Washington
and was appointed secretary of the National
Capital Centennial Commission, which commemorated, on December 12, 1900, the 100th
anniversary of the establishment of the seat of
government in the District of Columbia.
Van Wickle was also chairman of a committee charged with identifying over 200 points
of historical interest in Washington during
the 36th National Encampment of the Grand
Army of the Republic in 1902, nearly 100
years before the city witnessed the creation
of the first of a series of Heritage Trails. Van
Wickle died on October 25, 1926.
Bradbury pianos continue to be manufactured today, under several subsequent changes
in business names. Today’s Bradbury models
follow the trend toward less expensive, smaller
and more compact instruments and are made
in a variety of designs.
—Paul Kelsey Williams
Historic Preservation Specialist
Kelsey & Associates, Washington, DC
photo—The InTowner.
William Perrine Van Wickle’s original house, No. 1757 Q Street, NW was one of several that had been
razed in the mid-20th century and on which lot was erected the end house of a new row during the 1970s,
the one shown here. The original house matched the surviving one of the period, at No. 1759 (shown to
the left of the new house), according to the 1887 Hopkins map, which reveals those two as the only stone
fronted ones in the row now long gone.
& Paul Kelsey Williams. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17
U.S.C. §107 (“fair use”).
uthor Mara Cherkasky’s book is a very
welcome and extremely successful
addition to Arcadia Publishing’s Images of
America series that has focused on myriad
Washington, DC neighborhoods in recent
years. It joins about 15 other titles in the
series that serve to highlight and explore the
city’s historic neighborhoods and citywide
themes with literally thousands of vintage
photographs and captions included in the
complete set.
What is immediately distinctive about
Cherkasky’s book is her extensive use of vintage photographs from private collections
that are very difficult for an author to locate
and obtain permission for publication. Their
human component contributes greatly to
understanding the past occupants and racial
changes that the Mount Pleasant community has witnessed over 150 years. These
interesting and rare pictures are paired with
vintage images of buildings, churches, and
houses, some that survived but many that
have been since altered or razed.
It is also obvious that Cherasky has done
extensive research into each and every
image in the book. Captions were not just
reproduced from what was found in public archives, but added onto to provide an
amount of detail that the reader yearns for,
and is sadly left out of some of the other
titles in the series. A picture of the wood
frame house at 1886 Newton Street, NW,
for example, tells us that the house had
not only been moved to the site in 1903
when 16th Street was extended, but that
the inspector’s notes from the moving permit complained that the house sat in the
middle of Monroe Street for five days due to
inclement weather.
The book is composed of five chronological chapters that begin with the early history
of Pleasant Plains and its country-like setting that eventually evolved into the Mount
Pleasant Village and a street car suburb.
The chapters continue into two difficult
areas to research and to illustrate: growing
up in Mount Pleasant and the evolution of
today’s urban village. Cherasky triumphs in
all regards.
Some of the book’s covered subjects will
be familiar to avid readers of history, but
most will come as a delightful and quirky
surprise, such as Merv Conn’s accordion
school on 14th Street, Jimmie Dean’s rental
on 18th Street, the “Back Alley” garage
theater for children, Helen Hayes’ school
picture, and the house of Presidential chauffeur John E. White. And for community
Images of America:
Mount Pleasant
By Mara Cherkasky
Arcadia Publishing, 2007
$19.99
127 pages,
200 b&w photographs
residents who think their house was built
by Wardman, as most do, they might be
surprised to find their house pictured with
information on the hundreds of other builders who were more likely the ones responsible, such as Breuninger, Stone & Fairfax,
and Charles Wire.
The only disappointment to be found in
the book was not the fault of the author,
but the publisher, whose restrictive controls
on the layout result in a rather uncreative image presentation on the page. And,
unfortunately, since Arcadia Publishing also
chooses the cover picture and because they
are located in South Carolina, they often
fail to select an easily recognizable picture
that is representative of the neighborhood
so well chronicled on the inside by the
■
author.
provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 ( fair use ).
*Paul Kelsey Williams, an historic preservation specialist,
researches and writes this newspaper’s monthly “Scenes
from the Past” feature. He has previously authored several
Arcadia books covering Washington, DC and other communities in other states, among his numerous publication
credits. His Kelsey & Associates house and building history
research services specialize in Washington, Baltimore, and
New York properties.
SMITHSONIAN NATIONAL
MUSEUM OF AFRICAN ART
Independ. Ave. at 10th St., SW
info, 357-2700 / Daily, 10am-5:30pm
At the Museums
ivory salt cellars and religious and devotional settings, terracotta statues, paintings, and
wood carved and painted sacred objects,
plus ingenious navigational and astronomical instruments presented to the Imperial
Chinese court by the Jesuits who made the
works.
My favorite objects in this glorious exhibition are the charmingly decorated and
speculatively drawn early maps of the world,
combining as they do both observed phenomena and coastal outlines with imagined
interior land masses and almost dreamlike depictions of fauna and flora. I would
include in these maps the astonishingly
woven wool and silk tapestry from the
Tournai Workshops depicting and celebrating the Discovery of India. My second
category of favorites would be the many
carved ivory pieces, of which the two most
beautiful are the intricately detailed, multilevel, stupa-like presentation of Christ Jesus
as the Good Shepherd from Goa, India and
a stunningly designed Salt Cellar with Boat
from Nigeria.
By Anthony L. Harvey*
I
n this fascinating show, titled “Inscribing
Meaning: Writing + Graphic Systems in
African Art,” which remains on view only
through August 26, scholar and curator
Christine Mullen Kreamer, together with
a team of fellow experts, has produced a
thought-provoking exploration of several
ingenious themes using beautiful art that
depicts — and responds to — ideas and
observations regarding both fundamental
concerns about life and the sacred and those
eliciting topical commentary on contemporary political and cultural life as it occurs
throughout the African continent.
The vocabulary used by the artists assembled for this exposition, ranging in time and
geography from ancient Egypt to 21st century South Africa, is that of signs, symbols,
ideograms and inventions, and signatures
which produce languages of the mind, emotions, and sensual impressions. The media
used by these artists is equally far ranging:
examples include that of hard stone to delicate rice paper; lushly colored handmade
paper pulp to collaged photographs; and
both masks and the human body — once or
CONTINUED NEXT PAGE
Kwesi Owusu-Ankomah, Off My Back (1995)
his appreciation of Chinese
and Japanese calligraphy.
The most amusing piece in
the show is a work consisting
of a pair of body suits — for
slender, androgynous bodies
— embroidered with “Ken
Loves Barbie; Barbie Loves
Ken” by Egyptian textile artist
Ghada Amer. This cross-cultural work is rich in the ambiguities of language, gender,
and personal identity. Nearby
is a work titled The Man, His
Wife and Son in the Mirror;
it is one of two extraordinary
works in the show by the
Nigerian artist Victor Ekpuk,
who now lives and works in
the Netherlands. With deftly
executed economy of abstract
form, Ekpuk stunningly summarizes the nuclear family.
In his other work on view,
the lushly detailed Good
Morning Sunrise, Ekpuk
uses signs and symbols from
Nigeria’s ideographic system
Bruce Onobrakpeya, Ibiebe ABC III (2000).
“Nsibidi” together with his
own invented script to create a richly textured, deeply
evocative piece — the sunrise over a solid
twice removed for display here!
The show’s contemporary works are the blue field being a bright, yellowish spiral
most engaging, and are all the more mean- which signifies a journey in Nsibidi.
ingful by being placed after a prefatory
context in the initial galleries of the Arabic,
Roman, and Egyptian influences on equally
powerful traditions from central, south, and
the Horn of Africa. These works vividly
display the interplay between sounds and
syllables and the ideographs, hieroglyphs,
and alphabets swirling throughout the many
diverse African cultures. And, many of these
artworks include imaginary scripts along
with symbolic inscriptions using objects
of delightful, and at times fearful, human
associations.
One of the most beautiful works in the
show, Ibiebe ABC III, is encountered early
on and is by the West-African artist Bruce
Onobrakpeya; it features the artist’s own
invented script of ideographic, geometric,
and curvilinear glyphs. Critics note that
Onobrakpeya’s work reflects his knowledge of his Urhobo heritage, rich in symbols
and the proverbs they elicit, as well as that of Kurumba peoples (Burkina Faso), Storage vessel
(mid-20th cent.)
Other jewels in this important show
include Ethiopian Wosene Worke Kosrof’s
electrifying painting The Preacher III; South
African Durant Sihali’s lushly colorful
Graffiti Signatures, which echoes scripts
found on urban walls; Rudzani Nemasetoni’s
Apartheid Scrolls and Urban Testaments;
and the astonishing script-filled works by the
Senegalese artist Abdoulaye Ndoye, which
in the wall text accompanying their display
assert, “Ndoye’s pages evoke the fragility
of narrative and confirm the creativity of
human endeavors.” They are very powerful!
SACKLER GALLERY
OF ASIAN ART
Independence Ave. at 10th St., SW;
info, 357-2700 / Daily, 10am-5:30pm
A
n unlikely combination of
courageous innocence and
rapacious greed propelled extraordinary crews of Portuguese sailors
and adventurers into uncharted
— by Western Europeans —
waters around the globe during
the turn of the 15th century and
continuing for 200 years of richly
profitable trade for both Portugal
and the entire Iberian peninsula.
260 examples of the art created
out of this fabulous wealth are on
display in a blockbuster exhibition at the Smithsonian Freer/
Sackler Galleries and the adjoining National Museum of African
Art. Reminiscent of the National
Gallery of Art’s great “1492” exhibition several years ago, this one
is aptly titled “Encompassing the
Globe: Portugal and the World in
the 16th and 17th Centuries.”
Sumptuously displayed in treasure house fashion in the dramatically lit underground galleries behind the Smithsonian
castle, “Encompassing the
Globe” draws from princely
European collections of exotic
Kunstkammer objects assembled
by the Hapsburgs, the Medici,
and other royal families, rare and
ornately decorated world maps
by Portuguese and Florentine
cartographers, exquisitely carved
Agra (India), The Drowning of Bahadur Shah (ca.
1603-1604).
Goa (India), Afonso de Albuquerque (16th cent.)
An hilarious object in the exhibition is a huge gilded silver
incense burner from
the palace museum
in the Kremlin,
left there no
doubt when the
Russian capital
was moved in
the 18th century from Moscow
to St. Petersburg.
This large object
models in miniature a mountainous looking slag
heap topped by a
structure resembling a palace fort!
Completing this
large and complex exhibition are
dramatic seascape
paintings, portraits
of
conquering
Europeans
and
native notables, and
religious saints and
martyrs which are
scattered throughout the galleries. A
huge, stylized painterly panorama of
Christian
martyrdom
in Japan
depicts the
Kongo peoples (Congo or Angola),
celebrated
Knife Case (ivory; ca. 16th-18th
26 Martyrs
cent.)
Sri Lanka, Nativity (ivory; ca. 1575-1625.) Ivory
on sale in both the Freer and Sackler gallery
■
gift shops.
Goa (India), Two Silver Filigree Vases with Covers (2nd half 17th cent.).
of Nagasaki of 1597, eerily foretelling of the
massacre occurring 350 years later when
the second atomic bomb wiped out the
Nagasaki factory town with its enclaves of
working class Japanese Roman Catholics.
This remarkably informative treasure
house of an exhibition, which continues
through September 16, is accompanied by
a richly illustrated and handsomely printed
catalog, replete with scholarly, curatorial
essays and full-color photographic reproductions of the works on display. It is available
provided by 17 U.S.C. §107 (“fair use”).
*Anthony L. Harvey is a collector of contemporary art, with
an emphasis on Washington artists. He is a founding member of the Washington Review of the Arts. For many years he
was the staff person in the United States Senate responsible
for arts and Library of Congress oversight by the Senate’s
Rules and Administration Committee and the House and
Senate’s Joint Committee on the Library.
Historical Society Featuring New Exhibit
By Anthony L. Harvey
C
apitalizing on the donation to the
Society of materials gathered by
Paul Dixon and Thomas Allen for their
recently published book The Bonus Army:
An American Epic, The Historical Society
of Washington, DC has mounted a modest show of poster boards, photographic
reproductions, and period newspapers
entitled “Wages of War: Bonus Army to
Baghdad.”
The show commemorates the 75th anniversary of the 1932 Bonus March to the
steps of the nation’s capitol by thousands
of World War I veterans from all over the
nation, whose Depression-era joblessness
propelled them to petition in person for
the payment — in advance — of their
long-promised 1945 bonus for 1917 and
1918 combat service during the so-called
“Great War.” Having moved on to the
“Great Depression” of the 1930s, veterans
found themselves increasingly fobbed off
by both Congress and the administration
of President Herbert Hoover. The dire
straits of practically everyone in the country other than the rich and the world-weary cynicism regarding President Wilson’s
“war to end all wars” and to “make the
world safe for democracy” ensured little
establishment sympathy for making the
World War I veterans — who were known
as “Doughboys” — a special case.
“Wages of War” is not without some
general interest, and history buffs will find
several nuggets of unusual interest. But
the very ambitiousness of “Bonus Army
to Baghdad” precludes its success as a
thematic exposition of such a complex
phenomenon, and of its parallel with the
exceptional catastrophe of this country’s
present disastrous war in the Middle East
and its disgraceful treatment of returning
photo—courtesy, Martin Moulton.
Invited guests at the recent opening night reception viewing the materials displayed.
servicemen and women. And while the
show’s demonizing of its villains — from
President Hoover to General MacArthur
— may ring true to liberals and progressives, it does little to deepen anyone’s
understanding of why an elected President
like Hoover, famous for his directing of
successful, relief programs in Europe during the 1920s, and his Army Chief of Staff
exercising a straight-forward command
order, would use violent — murderous
— force to disperse an amateur army of
peaceful marchers.
And what all this has to do with the
Historical Society’s self-professed mission
of bringing to the city’s residents and visitors historical exhibitions and programs
devoted to neighborhood and community
history is not explained.
The Society has its own example of a
model: its inaugural exhibition to cele-
brate the opening of its new home in what
it then called the City Museum until it
closed down, “From Sandlot to Stadium.”
That was a marvelous history of sports in
Washington City and its immediate environs. By contrast, the two exhibit cases of
objects and artifacts in this show are truly
retrograde. One case displays local objects
featuring such artifacts as period local hotel
brochures, the telephone directory for the
Kennedy-Warren apartments, the May 26,
1931 souvenir program for the dedication
of the Titanic Memorial, and the broadside advertising the “Fireman’s National
Annual labor Day Parade.” My favorite
DC object is, ironically, in the other display case featuring the national objects -- a
1920s Washington Metropolitan Police
Department tear gas gun.
Also weak is the manner in which
wall texts presenting five recent veterans
recounting their treatment upon their
return home from the Middle East seems
to weaken any parallel the show’s curators are seeking to make with the 1932
treatment by the federal government of
the bonus marchers. Only one veteran
complains of his medical care, and his
complaints relate to a classic delay caused
by an Army paperwork snafu — serious
enough, but nothing like the horrors
recently reported by the Washington Post
and NBC News.
The show closes with a fascinating assertion that the aftermath of the 1935 hurricane in the Florida Keys, where hundreds
of veterans in a New Deal facility lost
their lives in that storm, led to the final
veto-proof passage by the US Congress of
the advance payment sought by the Bonus
Marchers. An appropriately inflammatory cover from an issue of New Masses of
the period trumpets Ernest Hemingway’s
incendiary article titled “Who Murdered
the Vets?: A First Hand Report on the
[1935] Florida Hurricane.”
No scholarly brochure or illustrated
leaflet accompanies this show nor are
there any captions for the individual items
on the walls. Both would enhance the visitors’ museum experience.
Continuing on view in the former Carnegie
Library building on Mt. Vernon Square
Tuesdays through Thursdays, 10 a.m. to
5 p.m., through Veterans Day, November
11.
Copyright (c) 2007 InTowner Publishing
Corp. All rights reserved. Reproduction in
whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C.
§107 (“fair use”).
Food in the ‘Hood
How Sweet It Is: The Sugar Saga – Part II
By Joel Denker
Editor’s Note: The writer, a former Peace Corp volunteer in Africa many
years ago, is the author of Capital Flavors: Exploring Washington’s Ethnic
Restaurants (1988, Seven Locks Press), which evolved from his series in
this newspaper over a decade ago, known then as “The Ethnic Bazaar.”
In addition, in June 2003, his The World on a Plate: A Tour Through the
History of America’s Ethnic Cuisines was published by Westview Press
(www. westviewpress.com), in which part of one chapter was drawn from
articles that originally had appeared in this space.
Queries, comments, suggestions can be sent to denker@starpower.net.
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T
he cane shoots “succeeded very well”
in the soil of Hispaniola, the voyager
reminisced. In 1493, Columbus had carried
five seedlings from the Canary Islands to
the West Indies. The journey of sugar, first
cultivated in New Guinea, grown soon after
in India, and transported from the East to
the Mediterranean by the Arabs, culminated
in the Americas.
Columbus, a Genoese captain, had family ties to the Atlantic sugar trade. Married
to the daughter of Madeira sugar planters,
he had traveled the route from Lisbon to
Madeira carrying cargoes of sugar.
The West had overtaken the Orient in the
sugar race. The Portuguese and the Spanish
set the pace. Seeking a warmer climate for
the crop, the Iberians, with the help of slave
labor, planted it in the islands of Atlantic.
By 1500, Madeira, which the Portuguese
colonized, had become the world’s largest
sugar exporter. Spain grew cane on the
Canary Islands..
The Portuguese moved the center of their
sugar operations to Brazil, which dominated
cane production in the 16th century. Later
the British and other European powers
set out to challenge the Portuguese. From
Barbados and Jamaica, the British, who
wrested control of the sugar trade in 1655,
maintained their supremacy for two centuries.
After trying tobacco, indigo, ginger, and
other crops, English planters became maniacally devoted to sugar. They converted all
the arable land on the Barbados to grow it.
They established factory-like plantations
that integrated cultivation, harvesting, grinding, boiling, and other processing. During
their reign, they shipped more than 200,000
slaves from Africa to labor in the industry.
The owners, who had invested major capital, could not afford to waste any resources.
At first, molasses, the viscous residue left
over after crystalline sugar had been produced, was discarded. The colonists soon
figured how to distill a potent drink from
it. The rough-hewn liquor was aptly named
“kill devil.” An anonymous visitor to the
Barbados, quoted by historian Richard
Curtis, called the product “hot, hellish, and
terrible liquor.”
This drink, rum, got its name from English
slang for a “brawl or violent commotion.”
New arrivals in Jamaica, writer Charles
Leslie observed, consume rum “with excessive Pleasure, get drunk, expose themselves
to noxious Dews, are seized with fever and
die.”
Rum caught on with British sailors docking in the West Indies. Seamen started
receiving a daily allotment of grog, a diluted
form of the drink, in 1740. Watering down
rum, Admiral Edward Vernon argued, would
prevent a “stupefying [of] their rational
qualities, which makes them heedless slaves
to every passion.” Later, lime or lemon juice
was added to the grog to prevent scurvy.
“Limeys” were soon lugging casks of
molasses and rum into ships bound for the
American colonies. The sugar products had
become valuable commodities. “A sugar
planter expects that the rum and molasses would defray the whole expense of his
cultivation,” the economist Adam Smith
observed.
The British colonies traded briskly with
each other. North America provided the
West Indies with vital goods in exchange for
molasses and rum. Dried cod, fed to slaves,
beef, flour, rope, and other items were
exported from New England. Farmers made
shingles and staves, which were assembled into barrels, sent to the Caribbean.
Hogsheads filled with sweet riches were
shipped back.
Distilleries that converted molasses into
rum sprang up. By 1770, 140 firms, largely
in port towns, were churning out liquor.
Americans began quaffing more rum than
beer and cider, the previous favorites. In
1770, historians Keith Stavely and Kathleen
Fitzgerald note, the average American
downed more than two-and-a-half ounces
of rum a day.
Taverns in towns like Boston were the
principal outlets for rum. Tempting pieces
of salt cod hung near rum barrels in these
gathering places. Rum was drunk “neat” as
well as in variety of creative mixtures. Milk,
sugar, and nutmeg livened up a summer
rum drink. It was “good for dysentery and
loose bowels,” the writer Israel Aurelius
said.
Flip was the most celebrated rum drink.
A pitcher or mug was filled two-thirds with
beer, five ounces of rum, and sweetened
with molasses. In the pièce de resistance,
an iron implement was plunged into the
potion. The loggerhead, historian Wayne
Curtis writes, was “a narrow piece of iron
about three feet long with a slightly bulbous
head the size of a small onion.” The instrument was “plunged red-hot into a beer-rumCont., FOOD, p. 15
Savoring Sugar
• Grill From Ipanema, 1858 Col. Rd.; tel., 966-0757. Try the caiparinha, a Brazilian
rum drink made with cachaca (a sugar cane liquor), lime, and sugar.
s7%%+%.$3!.$(/,)$!93/0%.(/523s
TH3TREET.7s
• Todito Grocery, 1813 Col. Rd.; tel., 966-5680. Dulce de panela, unrefined brown
sugar) is in stock.
RESERVATIONS RECOMMENDED
By Alexandra Greeley*
LA FOURCHETTE
An Adams Morgan Classic
I
f you have followed the career of superstar
Johnny Depp, then you are familiar with
his wistful expressions and piercing dark
eyes. Imagine, then, the surprise on seeing
his seemingly, though unintended, likeness
— sort of — overhead at Adams Morgan’s
reliable old-timer, La Fourchette. The
Depp look-alike is holding or pointing with
a fork — hence the name “La Fourchette,”
or “the fork.” And, of course, that’s not really
Depp at all peering down from the mural,
but at first glance — well. . . .
Despite the real Johnny Depp’s absence,
La Fourchette offers plenty of other attractions, not the least of which is its old-world
charm, its picture-perfect setting, and, its
neighborhood ambiance. Lunching recently were several groups of ladies of leisure,
whose conversations were peppered with
nostalgia and chit-chat. At another table, a
single gent brought along his reading matter
and on the far side, an older couple relaxed
over their wine, coffee, and shared dessert.
If you are looking for downtown, big-name
glitz, you won’t find it here.
Once compared to “a Parisian café of
old,” La Fourchette is run by its original
owners, Jacqueline and Pierre Chauvet; he’s
the chef, she runs the front. This French
couple maintains their kitchen vigilance,
even in the face of an onslaught of tonier,
costlier eateries around town. Perhaps that’s
why they remain while so many newcomers
and wannabes with their trendy foods slink
away in the night.
What about the cuisine? The midday
menu is short and sweet, but it offers several
well-considered appetizers, including a big
bowl of mussels Provençal that a fellow
luncher selected. Also on tap: two different
soups (one of the day), a seafood pâté with
salmon and crabmeat, and select salads.
While a mesclun salad may sound humdrum, their version of ultra-fresh greens
dressed with a delicate mustardy mix is truly
outstanding.
As for luncheon entrées, you can’t go
wrong with a classic seafood crêpe. Theirs
contains baby shrimp and scallops wrapped
in a delicate “pancake” and bathed in a
rich white cream sauce. Paired with a salad,
this makes a satisfying lunch, though not a
prescription for a dieter. Having gotten this
far, you might as well include dessert, which
are guaranteed to bring back the confectionary charms of those sweet endings enjoyed
FOOD
From p. 14
and-molasses concoction. The whole mess
would foam and hiss and send up a mighty
head.”
Rum also served more nefarious ends.
Ports, like Newport, specialized in exporting
rum to Africa where it was used to procure
slaves. Fur traders seduced Indians with the
“demon” drink.
The New Englanders’ proclivity for rum
aroused the ire of the clergy. “They that
are poor, and wicked too, can for a penny
or two-pence make themselves drunk,”
Increase Mather said.
Molasses and brown sugar gradually
replaced maple sugar or “Indian molasses,”
as New Englanders called it. In the early
days, settlers perked up their bacon and
bean pot with the flavoring they had discovered from Native Americans. As new sweet-
before high-tech dessert gadgets came into
being.
For example, how can anything replace
the elegant simplicity of the classic Floating
Island, a dessert that derives its name from
the delicate meringue afloat on a sea of
crème anglaise or a soft custard and drizzled
with a caramel sauce? Known in French as
oeufs a la neige, this dessert brings back fond
childhood memories from a certain generation, and finding it as an everyday sweet is
heartening — not every confection has
gone nouvelle. Besides, as you spoon down
into the custard, you come up with tangled
threads of a caramel that are slowly pooling
at the bottom of the dish, making this a
must-order-and-enjoy conclusion.
If you stop in for dinner, you’ll find that
the chef has ramped up your menu choices,
and you’ll be deliberating over a crab flan,
an onion tarte, or a crock of onion soup as
appetizers before the serious eating.
The seafood crêpes are also featured, but
I’d save my calories for the simple sautéed
Dover sole or the more robust steak au
poivre, one of those beef-centric dishes that
turns plain steak into a dish for the sages.
Not only that, you might consider the kitchen’s roasted rack of lamb with sautéed mushrooms, more expensive than the steak but
assuredly excellent. If you favor innards, La
Fourchette’s kitchen goes where few other
American restaurants dare: calf liver, veal
tongue, or sweetbreads with mushrooms
and cream. And then, Floating Island. n
La Fourchette • 2429 18th St., NW;
tel., (202) 337-3077. Hours: Mon.—Fri.,
11:30am-10:30pm; Sat. brunch, 11am-3pm, dinner afterwards; Sun. brunch, 10am3pm, dinner afterwards. Dinner entrée
price range: $13.95-$24. Major credit cards
accepted. (Re-opening following vacation
on August 15.)
& Alexandra Greeley. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17
U.S.C. §107 “fair use”).
Alexandra Greeley is a food writer, editor, and restaurant
reviewer. She has authored books on Asian and Mexican
cuisines published by Simon & Schuster, Doubleday, and
Macmillan. Other credits include restaurant reviews and food
articles for national and regional publications, as well as
former editor of the Vegetarian Times and former food editor/
writer for the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong.
eners became more abundant, Saturday
night dinners of molasses-laden beans and
brown bread took root wherever Yankees
migrated.
Over time, white sugar won over the
American palate. By the 1770s, 26 refineries
in New England manufactured the product.
It became pervasive in new refreshments
like tea and coffee, and infused jellies, preserves, and cakes. A century later, the victory
of inexpensive, mass-produced white sugar
over its lowly cousins was complete.
Sugar’s triumph, however, has come at a
price. Originally renowned as a “spice,” it has
lost its allure and its bite. Once prescribed as a
curative, it is now proscribed.
n
& Joel Denker. All rights reserved. Reproduction
in whole or in part without permission is prohibited, except as provided by 17 U.S.C. §107
(“fair use”).
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MOVING SERVICES
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[39-4:4]
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LIBRARIES
From p. 1
the desire to have the Benning library serve
as the focal point of a new retail, office,
and residential complex being planned
to replace the East River and J. Walker
Shopping Centers on Benning Road and
Minnesota Avenue, NE. This focal point
would, as the developer’s proposal states, be
“in exchange for the current Benning Road
library site.”
Coincidentally, on that same day four
blocks to the east of where the committee
was meeting, in DC Superior Court the
DC Attorney General’s senior civil litigator
sought on behalf of DCPL to undermine
the assertions of Benning Road ANC commissioners who, in arguing against DCPL’s
imminent demolition of its branch library
building, had expressed their need to legally protect their community’s prominent
library site. The Assistant Attorney General
responded to the effect that DCPL planned
to replace the Benning library with a new
building on that same site. Nothing conclusive occurred at either venue regarding a
resolution of this question.
So too with the next two items on the
committee agenda the West End and
Tenley branches for which two developers, EastBanc and Roadside Development,
respectively, seek to replace old facilities
with mixed-use projects that will include
condominium residences. Representatives
of both presented the facilities committee
members with fascinatingly articulated new
building scenarios, and noted the endorsement of these proposals by the council
members most directly concerned, Jack
Evans (Ward 2) and Mary Cheh (Ward 3).
Developers Armond Spikell and Susan
Linskey presented Roadside’s proposal for a
public-private partnership initiative, including the participation of the adjacent Ward
3 Janney Elementary School. The project
photo—courtesy, DC Public Library.
Mt. Pleasant neighborhood library building a viewed across Lamont Street.
or competitively bid.
With West End, certain questions have
already been answered in the form of a surprise piece of emergency legislation added
at the last minute to the City Council’s final
legislative session on July 10th immediately
prior to its summer vacation the Council
returns in mid-September. This audacious
piece of legislation was passed with only
At-large Councilmember Phil Mendelson
voting in opposition. The measure, innocuously titled the “Square 37 Excess Property
Disposition Emergency of 2007,” provides
for the sale of three city-owned land parcels
in squares 37 and 50 which are presently
“improved” with a library, fire station, and
special operations police facility. Among
the legislation’s provisions, “Eastbanc, or
an affiliate or assignee of such company
approved by the Mayor” is granted “air rights”
ownership of these sites. Further,
CS Partners, Jarvis Company,
Spectrum Management, and
RJB Construction Group, Inc.
are specifically identified as the
local minority equity participants
in this land acquisition.
This sale was presented to
the facilities committee as a fait
accompli, one which would provide a “swap” in which the city
would receive in return both a
brand new branch library and
fire station both becoming condominium owners of their new
spaces and facilities in much
larger mixed-use buildings or
building. The police department’s special operations facility
is being moved to a new location on West Virginia Avenue.
Some affordable housing would
be provided in a new, re-zoned
high-density planned unit develThe Mt. Pleasant library’s imposing main entrance beckons
opment (PUD).
users after dark.
The multi-step processes that
would be required to determine
would include below ground parking and the financing of this endeavor are stipulated
residential housing above a new library in the legislation at a very general level. In
building. This proposal is still said to be in addition, a tax revenue stream called a TIF
its formative stage. A study group, formed would be required to provide for the manby ANC 3E and chaired by Commissioner agement and maintenance of the library’s
Amy McVey, has embarked on a parallel prospective new space and facilities.
While EastBanc, the Deputy Mayor’s
study. They will report to a Ward 3 task force
office, and other city agencies may be confiformed by Councilmember Cheh.
In addition, the city’s public schools dent of the financial details and consequencand the parents and students of Janney es of this measure’s technical provisions,
Elementary are also among the high-stake members of the Foggy Bottom Association’s
players in this fast moving process, one Library Friends group, neighborhood activwhich supporters are confident has already ists generally, and the ANC have expressed
passed the first decision phase and now is outrage over not being drawn into the deciawaiting resolution of whether or not the sion-making process on this matter, and thus
project should be authorized “sole source” finding themselves left in the dark regarding
its complex provisions.
In hearing EastBanc’s proposal, the DCPL
trustees publicly ignored this extraordinary
uproar from both the immediate West End
library community and throughout the city.
Only EastBanc’s President Anthony Lanier
gave the slightest of hints, obliquely referring during his presentation to the recent
“turmoil.” Lanier, in fact, emphasized the
flexibility provided the developer under the
terms of the legislation, assuring the trustees
that “we have not made a determination as
to where to put the [West End] library.”
Lanier also presented two alternatives prepared by the project’s architect, the noted
Enrique Norton, who was described by the
developer as the architect “competitively
selected for the Brooklyn Public Library.”
The first was a massing study that provided
a courtyard space behind an enormous U
shaped building wrapping around L Street
on 23rd and 24th Streets, NW. The second
showed a dynamically drawn set of three
red, white, and blue boxes one atop the
other representing a two-story library which
would sit atop a new fire station and be
beneath six stories of residential apartments.
Library trustee Richard Levy, who chairs the
facilities committee, responded to Lanier’s
presentation with five words: “Sounds great,
let’s do it!” Left silent was the controversy
swirling around representations made by
EastBanc and Ward 2 Councilmember
Evans that the “emergency legislation” was
necessitated by concerns for tenant rights
in the adjacent Tiverton Apartments or the
movement underway by Empower DC and
Ralph Nader’s Library Renaissance Project
to pressure the City Council into rescinding
the emergency legislation.
The fourth development project presented to the committee included a proposed
Memorandum of Understanding (MOU)
between DCPL and the Office of the
Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic
Development, known as the DMPED. This
MOU memorializes the transfer of DCPL
capital planning and construction funds
of $250,000 in the library’s current capital
budget and $2 million in fiscal year 2008.
The funds would be used for a new and relocated Sursum Corda branch library which
now sits on a corner site at New York Avenue
and Kirby Street –- “as part of the New
Communities Initiative—Northwest One .
. . which will include a K through 8 school
[replacing Walker Jones and R.H. Terrell]
and public library and recreation center.”
DCPL was given one week to sign the
MOU. And at the trustee’s bi-monthly meeting the next week, the MOU was approved
and signed. No mention was made of the
other proposals nor was there any recogni-
tion by the Board of the controversies roiling residents of Wards 2, 3, and 7 regarding
these library sites, evidence of which was
facing them in the form of outbursts from
a standing-room only crowd in the newly
opened Benning interim branch library
where they were meeting.
This outrage was expressed, however, by
Robin Diener, project director of the Nader
organization’s Library Renaissance Project,
ANC commissioners from ANCs 3E, 3F,
Ward 7, and by community activists of all
ages. An angry statement from Richard
Huffine, President of the Federation of
Friends of the DCPL, included the observation, “Indeed, the circumvention of
Advisory Neighborhood Commissions and
public hearings on the disposition of public
properties is a serious offense to the role of
community input in planning decisions.”
And in a detailed and reasoned letter of
July 23, 2007 to DCPL trustees John Hill
and Richard Levy and Chief Librarian
Ginnie Cooper articulating the complexities
and controversy surrounding the proposed
Tenley/Janney Roadside development project, ANC 3E Commissioner Amy McVey
stated, “Between the fire at Georgetown,
the lawsuit involving Benning, and the
emergency legislation regarding West End,
DCPL is mired in controversies not of its
own making. Tenley-Friendship is a branch
which you are currently on schedule to
deliver. We urge you to act cautiously before
derailing the work now in progress. Do
not rely on the developer’s (or a first-term
council member’s) assessment of community support. Make your own inquiries and
ensure that, as you solicit feedback, people
are fully aware of what the trade-offs are.”
McVey concluded with an invitation to
“attend our regular ANC meeting on August
9th in which our special committee on the
Roadside project will present its report”
or at other meetings being planned for
September.
Ironically, the very next day, July 26,,
found DCPL’s public information office
announcing the selection of the “nationally
known architectural firms of Davis Brody
Bond Aedas and The Freelon Group, Inc.
in partnership with [noted] local architect
R. McGhee & Associates to lead the architectural design teams for the new Anacostia,
Benning, Tenley-Friendship and Watha T.
Daniel/Shaw Neighborhood Libraries.”
Construction of these four new library
branches is planned to begin in mid-2008
with completion and public occupancy
slated for the first quarter of 2010. Building
costs for the four are stated to be slightly over
$61 million; these costs are fully funded in
the library’s current capital budget.
DCPL further noted in its July 26th press
release that “the four new libraries will be
designed as stand-alone buildings [and] will
be designed larger than the existing branch
libraries in the range of 18,000 to 20,000
square feet.” And a very ambitious set of
additional design services were stipulated for
the architectural contracts, which are stated
to cost $6,2987,000 in separate construction
tracking documents; these costs are also
fully funded. All parties to these long-awaited developments stressed the importance of
community involvement during these critical design phases.
With such severe development pressures
on the library’s attractive real estate portfolio, how these projects go forward with (or
without) strong community involvement
will test the mettle of DCPL’s administration, the wisdom of the District’s political
establishment and the community’s activist
forces, and that of library patrons themselves.
n
! nder t
D
L
U rac
SO
t
Con
Selected Recent Real Estate Sales
For major moves . . . call
BRUCE MAJORS
Prepared for the InTowner by Jo Ricks*
Reporting Period: June 2007
SINGLE FAMILY HOUSES
3155 Adams Mill Rd..
53 Bates St.
1218 Fairmont St.
1309 Florida Ave.
1317 Florida Ave.
757 Hobart Pl.
3495 Holmead Pl.
1850 Irving St.
504 Kenyon St.
1808 Kenyon St.
1753 Kilbourne Pl.
1768 Kilbourne Pl.
1014 Lamont St.
1752 Lamont St.
3528 New Hampshire Ave.
1354 Oak St.
1830 Ontario Pl.
2248 Ontario Rd.
1935 Park Rd.
925 R St.
140 Randolph Pl.
17 Rhode Island Ave.
134 Seaton Pl.
1022 Spring Rd.
1456 T St.
2449 Tracy Pl.
45 U St.
1516 Upshur St.
134 V St.
1228 W St.
18 W St.
1209 W St.
439 Warner St.
1504 1st St.
2018 1st St.
1808 2nd St.
1522 10th St.
2022 10th St.
2114 10th St.
2111 12th Pl.
2702 13th St.
3817 13th St.
3907 13th St.
4017 14th St.
773,500
610,000
809,000
477,500
460,000
365,000
579,000
679,000
497,500
770,000
950,000
806,000
426,000
1,095,000
656,000
815,000
895,000
703,000
740,000
829,650
515,000
415,000
675,000
385,000
500,000
3,000,000
625,000
625,000
533,900
747,000
625,000
410,000
395,100
409,000
865,000
555,000
710,000
680,000
1,155,000
625,000
859,000
607,500
665,000
CONDOMINIUMS
2630 Adams Mill Rd. #206
Adams Mill House 353,000
2310 Ashmead Pl. #204
300,000
2231 Bancroft Pl. #3B
Bancroft
1,050,000
1614 Beekman Pl. #C
639,000
1618 Beekman Pl. #E
399,000
1662 Beekman Pl. #G9 (pkg.)
87,500
1451 Belmont St. #112
Fedora
630,000
1451 Belmont St. #201
Fedora
500,000
1600 Belmont St. #D
575,000
3422 Brown St. #101
479,000
1807 California St. #103
Winchester
530,000
2127 California St. #301
Le Bourget
330,000
1937 Calvert St. #B
392,500
2301 Champlain St. #204
Adams Row
580,000
Adams Row
380,000
Lofts at
Adams Morgan 790,000
1435 Chapin St. #5
Barcelona
455,000
1400 Church St. #208
Lofts 14 Two
565,000
1400 Church St. W #506
Lofts 14 Two
884,000
Lofts 14
475,000
Saxon Court
549,000
Metropolitan
782,500
1308 Clifton St. #106
399,000
1429 Clifton St. #2
Alexander Scott 569,900
1438 Columbia Rd. #104
Piedmont
385,000
Piedmont
294,000
Piedmont
379,000
Piedmont
385,000
1323 Corcoran St. #1
890,000
1624 Corcoran St. #E
559,000
1718 Corcoran St. #24
Analoston
289,000
1439 Euclid St. #201
255,000
1458 Fairmont St. #4
La Orr
470,000
1825 Florida Ave. #21
296,500
e32129 Florida Ave. #403
Farnsboro
349,000
430 Irving St. #106
McMillan
238,400
1810 Kalorama Rd. #A1
530,000
1816 Kalorama Rd. #102
Philadelphian
309,000
Philadelphian 466,000
Philadelphian
193,000
1615 Kenyon St. #51
432,500
2425 L St. #205
Columbia
Residences
787,500
2425 L St. #303
2425 L St. #702
1208 Lamont St. #2
910 M St. #323
910 M St. #622
555 Massachusetts Ave. #303
1438 Meridian Pl. #105
1867 Mintwood Pl. #3
3155 Mt. Pleasant St. #305
1300 N St. #406
1816 New Hamp. Ave. #105
1730 New Hamp. Ave. #12
1 Scott Cir. #115
1406 T St. #55
1757 T St. #B
1756 U St. #301
1390 V St. #221
1390 V St. #406
1239 Vermont Ave. #201
1812 Wyoming Ave. #303
2120 Wyoming Ave. #1
1718 1st St. #2
1718 1st St. #6
1718 1st St. #8
1708 5th St. #B
1819 6th St. #2
1811 8th St. #2
1124 10th St. #TB
1124 10th St. #5B
1408 10th St. #302
1830 11 St. #5
1229 12th St. #105
1310 12th St. #8
2020 12th St. #105
1245 13th St. #103
1245 13th St. #813
1245 13th St. #913
1300 13th St. #204
1320 13th St. #1
1320 13th St. #33
1325 13th St. #34
1709 13th St. #2
3414 13th St. #1
1133 14th St. #Ph4
2020 15th St. #Ph
2440 16th #307
3060 16th St. #710
1401 17th St. #106
1726 17th St. #102
1726 17th St. #302
1916 17th St. #108
1545 18th St. #302
1545 18th St. #412
1918 18th St. #44
2305 18th St. #405
2413 20th St. #1004
1332 21St. #402
1099 22nd St. #1005
1318 22nd St. #402
1140 23rd St. #908
1155 23rd St. #N6A
1155 23rd St. #N8l
1111 25th St. #411
1111 25th St. #514
1275 25th St. #807
Columbia
Residences
Columbia
Residences
Alexander
Whitman
Whitman
1,412,500
1,090,000
652,000
499,900
591,000
500,000
424,000
545,000
Reserve
295,000
Patrick
593,000
374,900
549,000
Concord
85,000
375,000
General Scott
225,500
415,000
Edinburgh
500,000
Element
798,000
399,900
399,999
Crescent Tower 277,000
Crescent Tower 406,000
385,000
415,000
1,380,000
Rosale
479,900
Rosale
390,000
Rosale
305,000
365,000
Crestview
634,900
Berkley
530,000
Clyde
644,900
Clyde
790,000
Apex
375,000
Logan Heights 820,000
Montgomery
549,000
Barrett
640,000
415,000
410,000
349,900
297,670
Solo Piazza
664,000
Icon
399,000
Icon
445,000
Iowa
560,000
676,000
Burrell
557,500
Alta
799,000
Brandon
710,000
Park Tower
324,500
315,000
(
Richmond
365,000
$1!
3/3
298,000
412,600
Wardman
399,000
Dupont East
258,000
Dupont East
350,000
Kirkman
337,000
Gibraltar
307,970
500,000
Addendum
405,500
West End Place 899,000
Georgetown
Overlook
487,500
340,000
Ritz Carlton 2,550,000
Ritz Carlton
962,000
Atlas
512,000
Atlas
449,000
Whitman Place
499,900
COOPERATIVES
1860 California St.#403
449,000
2122 California St.#157
Westmoreland 597,000
1801 Clydesdale Pl..#114
Saxony
149,900
1661 Crescent Pl..#205
Crescent Place 1,030,000
2853 Ontario Rd#417
Ontario
395,000
1701 16th St.#820
Chastleton
322,000
1725 17th St.#308
Rutland Court 330,000
1725 17th St.#504
Rutland Court 380,000
2100 19th St.#506
372,500
*Jo Ricks is Associate Broker at City Houses in
Washington, DC. The sales shown here were handled by
various agents from the many real estate brokerage firms
actively working in the neighborhoods reported on by
this newspaper.
For Sale
Also Available
Dupont/New U. End house w/ wraparound porch. Totally renovated with
meticulous attention to detail. Open kitchen w/ stainless steel appliances, granite countertops, Jenn Air stove. New plumbing, wiring, restored
original hardwood floors. High ceilings,
crown moulding throughout. 1 off-street
parking space. Full finished bsmnt. 3 blks.
to U Street Metro.1349 Florida Ave., NW.
$729,000.
Dupont/Adams-Morgan.
2225
Ontario Rd., NW. Beautiful 2-bedrm.,
2½ bath Adams-Morgan house. Highend stainless steel kitchen w/ Corian
counters, seperate dining area, 3
skylights, wood-burning fireplace &
hardwood floors throughout. Large
backyard perfect for relaxing or entertaining. Walk to 2 Metro lines (U
Street or Dupont), many bus lines,
myriad bars and restaurants & new
Harris-Teeter. $569,000.
Bruce Majors
ReMax/Allegiance
202-486-3127
www.BruceMajors.sell4.com
Under Contract
Cleveland Park:
Top floor, 1-bdrm.
w/ deeded parking.
2718 Ordway St., NW.
$379,000.
New U: 2-story house
w/ new central air
& off-street parking.
2223 10th St., NW.
$350,000.
%DWARD3TEWARTCOM
3810 Thornapple St., Chevy Chase, Md. 3-bdrm.,
center hall Colonial in perfect condition.
$899,000
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See pdf archive at www.intowner.com
for 4 years of past issues

OPEN BY APPOINTMENT
Located in one of Washington’s most sought
after neighborhoods, this 6-bedroom, 5½
luxurious bath home with 2-car garage is
perfectly located on one of the highest points
in the city. Elegant marble foyer flows into
a gracious light-filled living room with fireplace. Distinctive characteristics like Palladian
windows, Santos mahogany wood floors, and
custom English imported wall treatments are
ideal accents for large-scale rooms designed
for entertaining. The banquet size dining
room offers mahogany floors and a wood
burning fireplace. A very large gourmet kitchen with granite center island, custom cherry
cabinetry and Viking appliances is any cook’s
dream. The unique mahogany floors and attention to detail throughout pay homage to the interior design
work of the late Samuel Morrow and Gary Gregg. The family room offers a wet bar, wood burning fireplace,
and custom cabinetry, all overlooking a lush garden with heated pool, customized watering system, professional lighting and landscaping, all designed by noted designer Joe Wassam. Large landing with hardwood
staircase leads to spacious second level master suite. New imported wool stair runner and custom bedroom
carpets were recently installed. This luxury suite has marble bathroom flooring, spacious customized dressing room and closets. Two additional renovated baths serve three, well-appointed guest bedrooms. Dramatic
central landing area leads to large roof terrace with breathtaking panoramic view of Washington skyline and
monuments. Below is a complete 2-bedrm. / 2-bath apartment suitable for additional guest bedrooms or staff
quarters. 4609 Charleston Terrace, NW. $2,995,000.
“Dwell” in Historic Chic
Over 40 years of combined Real Estate experience!
Martin Toews
& Jeff Brier
202.471.5203
202.333.6100
www.Martin-Jeff.com
Take Virtual Tours of our Properties
#OMMITMENTs3ERVICEs2ESULTS
721 Field Street in historic Stone
Hill of Hampden in Baltimore. This
transformed 1840’s stone cottage
meets cutting edge design. Sits on a
restful .30-acre lot. All new systems
and fixtures. Come be dazzled!
$395,000. DC commuter friendly.
www.cbmove.com/BA6453954.
Margie Pacheco
(800) 989-7101, x3594.