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IN THIS ISSUE APRIL 2021
20
28
59 60 Lessons From Ward 8: Helping The Healing With Nature by Bill Matuszeski
62 Letting the Sunshine In: New Programs to Cover Upfront Costs of Solar Energy by Catherine Plume 64 Craft Optimism: Artwork in Harmony with the Environment by Phil Hutinet
Cherry Blossom Season on Capitol Hill
Federal Control Complicates DC Justice
by Rindy O’Brien
by Gavrielle Jacobovitz
67
DC Mushroom Lovers on the Hunt by Michelle LaFrance
91
A Walking Meditation
14
WHAT’S ON WASHINGTON
20
Cherry Blossom Season on Capitol Hill by Rindy O’Brien
24
Volunteers Make the Village And CHV Celebrates Them at a Virtual Event April 22 by Karen Stuck
capitol streets 27
Commentary: Open Capitol Grounds Symbolize Our Open Democracy by Sarah Cymrot
28
Federal Control Complicates DC Justice: Courts and Supervisory Agencies Face Pandemic Challenges by Gavrielle Jacobovitz
40
Keller Grants Help Meet Urgent Demands: Everyone Home DC and Serve Your City Step Up to the Challenge by Barbara Wells
42
Residents Ask ANC for More Community Grants: ANC 6A Report by Nick L. Alberti
44
ANC 6B Supports Special Exception for Chipotle: ANC 6B Report by Elizabeth O’Gorek
47
Capitol Fence Safety Concerns: ANC 6C Report by Sarah Payne
48
Air Quality Concerns at Buzzard Point: ANC 6D Report by Andrew Lightman
52
Bulletin Board by Kathleen Donner
by Pattie Cinelli
homes and gardens 67
DC Mushroom Lovers on the Hunt: Enticed by the Outdoors, Social Interaction, Mindfulness, and Mushrooms by Michelle LaFrance
72
Do You Yearn To “Urn” - An Open Invitation to Capitol Hill Gardeners by Rindy O’Brien
73
Dear Garden Problem Lady by Wendy Blair
74
Changing Hands by Don Denton
arts and dining 79
At the Movies by Mike Canning
82
Capitol Cuisine by Celeste McCall
86
Art and The City by Jim Magner
88
Literary Hill by Karen Lyon
89
Poetic Hill by Karen Lyon
family life 91
A Walking Meditation: It’s Not the Destination, it’s the Journey by Pattie Cinelli
94
The District Vet: Cicadas Are Back by Dan Teich
96
Kids and Family Notebook by Kathleen Donner
102
CLASSIFIEDS
106
CROSSWORD
on the cover: “Can you hear me now” by Rosemary Luckett Graphite image transfer, ink, colored pencil, 12 x 12 inches “My image of a Red Eyed Tree Frog (Agalychnis callidryas) shows this 2.5 inch long colorful creature amongst the names of other amphibians that have gone extinct due to human encroachment of their waters, land and air. I put those names inside microphones hoping that they could amplify the song of the Red Eyed Tree Frog, projecting it loud and clear to all of humankind. We, who take so much from this beautiful Earth that sustains us, are dependent on even tiny creatures like this to make our planet liveable for everyone, even humans. Endangered amphibians are today’s proverbial canaries in the coal mines. They show us we must change our consumption habits in order for all life to survive.” – Rosemary Luckett Available from Touchstone Gallery – Touchstone Gallery’s physical space is temporarily closed, but the gallery has been hosting virtual exhibits and Zoom openings online. Visit www.touchstonegallery.com or email info@touchstonegallery.com
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ARTECHOUSE’S RENEWAL 2121
WHAT’S ON W A S H I N G T O N
Through Sept. 6, ARTECHOUSE DC, 1238 Maryland Ave. SW, presents its cherry blossom inspired installation, Renewal 2121. This original ARTECHOUSE production utilizes the power of creative technology to transport visitors into an imagined future 100 years from now where nature’s resilience takes center stage among an overdeveloped metropolis, empowering visitors to interact to help the blooms of our future continue to renew. Renewal 2121 is open to all ages, daily, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Admission for adults, $24; kids, four to fourteen, $17; students, military and seniors, $20. After 7 p.m., adult price, but all ages. artechouse.com.
A SPRING WALK ON THEODORE ROOSEVELT ISLAND
ANACOSTIA WATERSHED SOCIETY’S EARTH DAY CLEANUP Registration has opened for the Saturday, April 24, Anacostia Watershed Society Earth Day Cleanup--AWS’s largest annual volunteer event. Typically, on the Saturday following Earth Day, thousands of volunteers come out to dozens of different sites around the watershed to pick-up trash, serve their communities, and enjoy the Anacostia. AWS’s mission is to protect and restore the Anacostia River by bringing partners and communities together to achieve a clean and safe Anacostia River for the benefit of all living in its watershed and for future generations. anacostiaws.org. Photo: Courtesy of the Anacostia Watershed Society
On April 21, 22 or 23, 8:30 to 11:30 a.m., enjoy a socially-distanced, easy-to-moderate walk on a natural oasis in the Potomac with Melanie Choukas-Bradley, the author of the new book Finding Solace at Theodore Roosevelt Island. The nearly two-mile path follows the island’s shore and moves deep into the swamp and tidal inlet along the boardwalk where willows, bald cypresses, and cattails frame views of Washington, DC. She shares an overview of landscape’s fascinating mix of trees, wildflowers, birds, and other wildlife and highlights the island’s history and the legacy of the naturalist and conservationist president it memorializes. The morning also includes pauses for moments of guided forest bathing to quietly soak up the beauty of this wild island. $75. smithsonianassociates.org.
DC FRESHFARM MARKETS OPENING FOR SEASON DC Freshfarm Markets that are open now are Dupont Circle Market, 1624 20th St. NW, Sundays (year round), 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.; Monroe Street Market, 716 Monroe St. NE, Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Mount Vernon Triangle Market, 499 I St. NW, Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; H Street NE Market, 800 13th St. NE, Saturdays, 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. DC Freshfarm Markets opening in May are Uptown Market, 5500 Colorado Ave. NW, Saturdays, starting May 1, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.; Columbia Heights Market, Park Road and 14th St. NW, Wednesdays, starting May 19, 4 to 7 p.m. More neighborhood markets will open in June. freshfarm.org. Photo: Courtesy of Freshfarm
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WHAT’S ON WASHINGTON
REVOLUTIONARY WAR WEEKEND AT MOUNT VERNON On May 1 and 2 (rain or shine), step back in time during one of the largest Revolutionary War re-enactments in the country at the estate of Gene ral Washington. Mount Vernon’s serene 12-acre field transforms into a battlefield as hundreds of Continentals, Redcoats and Hessians conduct military drills, perform cavalry demonstrations and engage in 18th-century battle reenactments. Wander through the encampment and meet the soldiers, discuss military techniques and meet General Washington. All activities are included in admission; $28 for adults, $15 for kids, five and under, free. Advance ticket purchase recommended. mountvernon.org. LEFT: Mount Vernon hosts the largest Revolutionary War re-enactment. Photo: Courtesy of George Washington’s Mount Vernon
INAUGURAL NATIONALS HOME RUN CHARITY 5K Washington Nationals Philanthropies is inviting fans and area residents to celebrate the start of the baseball season with the first-ever Nationals Home Run Charity 5K presented by Congressional Sports for Charity. Proceeds raised will support the community impact work of Washington Nationals Philanthropies, the official charitable arm of the Washington Nationals. Registration is now open for the virtual race which takes place from April 23 to 30. All participants will receive a race shirt, bib, medal, and gaiter. To ensure the health and welfare of their racers, this family-friendly event has been adapted to a virtual format to allow fans of all ages to safely participate. To learn more and register, visit nats4good.org/Events.
OUR COMMON PURPOSE: A CAMPAIGN FOR CIVIC STRENGTH A series of new events exploring ideas and actions to strengthen America’s democracy will debut in March, April and May with the launch of Our Common Purpose: A Campaign for Civic Strength at the Library of Congress. The initiative is created and hosted by Danielle Allen, who was awarded the 2020 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. This new campaign will feature public events hosted virtually on the Library’s Facebook page and its YouTube site, along with workshops for K-12 educators to help educators experiment and create new ways of making civic education come to life. The first conversation from Our Common Purpose highlighted civic media as a promising counterpoint to social media. The second event in April will explore how refinements to voting procedures have the potential to increase the responsiveness of elected officials. The third event in May will look to history and search for ways to engage with the nation’s founding documents. youtube.com/user/LibraryOfCongress. Danielle Allen. Photo: Laura Rose
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AZALEA PEAK AT THE NATIONAL ARBORETUM Peak azalea bloom can vary by two weeks or more, depending on the weather, but usually takes place around the end of April. The earliest peak date reported in the last decade was April 15; the latest was May 4. Many azaleas are in bloom long after the peak and others might bloom early--there are usually some azaleas in bloom from early April until well into June. The National Arboretum is open daily from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. usna.usda.gov Photo: Courtesy of the Friends of the National Arboretum
MOTHER TONGUE FILM FESTIVAL The Smithsonian’s annual Mother Tongue Film Festival celebrates cultural and linguistic diversity by showcasing films and filmmakers from around the world, highlighting the crucial role language plays in our daily lives. This year the festival extends through May with 45 offerings and will be hosted entirely online. This sixth annual Festival will take place via a monthly online screening series through May 2021. mothertongue. si.edu. Soori, Hakim, Akbar, and Mohammed have a collective dream: to travel from Iran to their parents’ homeland of Afghanistan and perform at their first rock concert. Working as migrant laborers during the day, the four young band members face the complicated nature of making politically minded music that reflects their lived reality as migrants from Afghanistan.
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ACTIVE HOPE PODCASTS WHAT’S ON WASHINGTON
The Apollo Theater, the Kennedy Center, and National Sawdust announce a new podcast collaboration, Active Hope, exploring how artists and arts leaders can shape this transformational, historical, and polarizing moment. Listeners are invited to join a new engaging conversation each month with a leadership trio from these national arts institutions—acclaimed theater director and Executive Producer at the Apollo Theater, Kamilah Forbes; poet, TED Global Fellow, and Kennedy Center Vice President and Artistic Director of Social Impact, Marc Bamuthi Joseph; and award-winning composer and Artistic Director & Co-Founder of National Sawdust, Paola Prestini. To receive more information as well as updates regarding future livestreams and podcast episodes, visit pages.wordfly.com/kennedycenter/pages/21SIActiveHope_GeneralSignUp. Kamilah Forbes, Marc Bamuthi Joseph and Paola Prestini
MEN OF CHANGE: TAKING IT TO THE STREETS Through May 31, Men of Change: Taking it to the Streets, an outdoor exhibition at 4800 Meade St. NE, presents a nation’s story through the profiles of revolutionary African American men and the cultural stories they illuminate. Formerly slated to open in an Anacostia Community Museum gallery, the exhibition has been creatively reimagined for outdoor installation in the DC’s Deanwood neighborhood as a safer response to LeBron James. Collection of the COVID-19. In heralding the contriSmithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, butions of notable African AmerGift of Walter Iooss, © Walter Iooss ican men from across the decades, Men of Change highlights deep parallels between the past and present. While they made their mark in a variety of disciplines— politics, sports, science, entertainment, business, religion, and more all understood the value of asserting their own agency by owning their own stories. anacostia.si.edu.
CITY OF TREES: WASHINGTON, DC Known as the “City of Trees” for more than 100 years, Washington has an arboreal history that is rich and fascinating. The city boasts a diverse native flora, augmented by tree species brought to the city from many parts of the world by its international inhabitants. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were passionate tree lovers. Trees planted by Washington still thrive at Mt. Vernon, and Jefferson designed and executed the first street tree planting on record in the capital. On Thursday, April 29, noon to 1:15 p.m., via Zoom, learn about the botanical diversity and heritage of the nation’s capital, and why its tree canopy is such an essential and historic part the city’s life. $30. smithsonianassociates.org. Western end of the National Mall. Photo: Courtesy of Smithsonian Associates
SEEING DIFFERENTLY: THE PHILLIPS COLLECTS FOR A NEW CENTURY Building on Duncan Phillips’s founding principle of inspiring others to see beautifully and drawn from the museum’s permanent collection of nearly 6,000 works, Seeing Differently highlights over 200 diverse artistic expressions by artists from the 19th century to the present, including paintings, works on paper, prints, photographs, sculptures, quilts, and videos. The exhibition explores the complexities of our ever-changing world through four themes—identity, history, place and the senses—with a special focus on recent acquisitions that showcase how the museum’s collection continues to evolve. Seeing Differently is on exhibition through Sept. 21. Museum hours are Thursday to Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., with a final entry at 5 p.m. The Phillips Collection, 1600 21st St. NW. phillipscollection.org. Paul Cezanne Self Portrait, between 1878 an 1880, oil on canvas, 23.3/4 x 18 ½ in. The Phillips Collection, acquired 1928.
INHERIT THE WINDBAG (IN EIGHT EPISODES) Washington Post humorist Alexandra Petri’s pitched battle of bloviating wits revisits the televised Republican and Democratic Conventions of 1968 and the blistering nightly free-for-all between conservative pundit William F. Buckley and liberal author Gore Vidal. What ensues is a battle for history itself, in a noholds-barred brawl about another time when American politics was spinning toward entropy. A protean cast of demons bring the likes of Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand, James Baldwin and Truman Capote back to shine bright light on these preening wordsmiths, wounded warriors on the battlefield of extreme partisanship. Available through June 30. Mosaic is making Season 6 digital programming available at no cost. Optional low-cost per-episode ticket either for yourself, $10, or your group, $25. mosaictheater.org. LEFT: John Lescault (Left) and Paul Morella (Right). Photo: Iwan Bagus
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“A Good Half Of The Art Of Living Is Resilience” -Alain De Botton
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April 2021 ★ 19
CHERRY BLOSSOM SEASON ON CAPITOL HILL article and photos by Rindy O’Brien herry blossom time in Washington cals to celebrate, according to the has been special ever since 1912 Capitol Hill BID. These efforts when Japan’s Mayor of Tokyo giftare part of the citywide City in ed 3,000 cherry trees to the United Bloom campaign. Champs, EastStates as a symbol of friendship beern Market Main Street, Labytween the two countries. This year’s peak bloom is rinth Games and Puzzles, Mischeduled from March 30th to April 3rd. It seems chael Anthony Salon, The DC the weather forecasters have honed their flower preDentist, Boxcar Tavern, and Mr. Cherry trees fully bloom five years after being planted and are an excellent tree for urban settings. diction skills (unlike their snow record), and have Henry’s will all be participating. called it right five of nine times since 2012. ry blossoms in the museum’s art collections. There The History Japanese Cherry trees are beloved for their beauty and are also a number of children’s programs planned Flower Viewing fragility. Blossoms will only hold for a week or two throughout the festival time. You can even download Fortunately for us, hanami or Japanese fl ower viewand then they are blown away like snow. We love a specially designed cherry-blossom art background ing, a 16th century Japanese tradition, has enthe cherry blossoms because of their delicacy and for your next zoom call. https://asia.si.edu/nationdured and we can learn about the history and culbecause they brightly signal the arrival of spring. al-cherry-blossom-festival/ . When asked where his ture through art, music, and poetry. Frank Feletens, This year’s celebrations and festival, of course, will favorite cherry trees are in DC, he said for this year Assistant Curator of Japanese Art at the Freer Galbe somewhat muted and different than what we’re they are only virtual. ley of Art and the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, part used to, due to the coronavirus virus. Just like the of the Smithsonian Nafences around the CapiFinding Trees on Capitol Hill tional Museum of Asian tol complex, the National One of the reasons, DC has become the country’s Art, has a scholar’s view Park Service will be limitcherry blossom mecca, is because we share a very of the ancient tradition. ing access to the tidal basimilar climate and growing conditions with Japan. Frank says it began when sin. They encourage folks In fact, the US National Arboretum has long been inJapan fi nally came out of to experience the blossoms volved in research and work to preserve the genetits war period, and people through their Cherry Blosics and germplasm of many plants and trees in Japan were happy to be able to som webcam cam (www. to ensure the future of these plants should they bebe out enjoying nature in nps.gov/subjects/cherrycome endangered in their own habitats. The work springtime. blossom/cherry-blossomwith the Tidal Basin cherry trees is an excellent ex“The diff erence becam.htm). ample of this. As far back as 1952, when the origitween how Japanese enBut cherry blosnal tree grove, the parent stock of the DC trees, fell joy cherry blossoms and som lovers do not need into decline, the US shipped bud wood to Japan to how we do in DC,” says to panic, as there is a silrestore the grove. Many similar exchanges have ocFrank, “is we tend to stroll ver lining to the festival curred since then to help ensure our trees remain around the trees, where as disruptions. More cherry healthy and part of the Washington landscape. in Japan you would grab a blossom activities are beCherry trees are wonderful urban trees to plant blue tarp and fi nd a nice ing planned for DC neighand can be found throughout the Hill in our parks, tree to settle under with borhoods, including six like Stanton and Lincoln Parks, and along many of friends. There is a lot of Capitol Hill restaurants our streets and yards. The US National Arboretum food and drink, as well.” offering “Cherry Picks” also has a good number of cherry trees, and a cell He notes the museum that feature spring themed While the tidal basin will be off limits this year, phone tour so you can learn about the trees. Casey the beauty of the trees, like these near the has put up an interactive items on their menus. OthJapanese Stone Lantern, that were dedicated in Trees, a DC nonprofi t committed to restoring, endocent tour to help peoer businesses will be deco- 1954, will be able to be seen on the National Park hancing and protecting the tree canopy of the naServices Cherry Blossom cam. ple learn about the cherrated with lighting and de20 ★ HILLRAG.COM
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tion’s capital, has produced a tremenNational Cherry Blossom Festival dous interactive web map that not only The festival is three to four weeks long, and, in non-COlets you find all these trees, but identiVID times, the festival brings up to 700,000 visitors to fies the ten or more varieties of the cherthe city, one of the biggest tourist attractions each year. ry trees. It also has an index for idenThis year’s festival organizers are encouraging city restifying and finding other trees. Put in idents to paint the city pink with a Petal Porch Parade the address you want to check out, and on Saturday, April 10th. Artists will decorate cars that a pink-shaded circle appears where the will drive through neighborhoods that produce the largtree is located. A quick look at the map est number of decorated porches, yards, and windows. showed trees exist on a number of the The event was inspired by similar ones in Portland Hill’s residential streets. https://caseyOregon last summer and, more recently, Yardi Gras in trees.org/2019/03/heres-our-updatedNew Orleans. To be included in the parade route, resd-c-cherry-blossom-map/ idents needed to register by March 15th. The website If you are thinking about planting a has a number of clever tutorials for making cherry blosflowering cherry tree, it is important to som petals using everything from egg cartons to plastic At the corner of 14th and K Streets SE, two homes have decoconsider the tree’s location. It will need shopping bags. These would be fun craft projects even rated for the Petal Porch Parade. Japanese lanterns in the tree a sunny spot, good air circulation and boxes and fluffy cherry blossoms in the windows capture the if you have missed the porch deadline. spirit of the 2021 Cherry Blossom Festival. should be placed in deep, well-drained There are so many ways to participate this year soil. The average price for a tree is bewhether you are staying at home and checking things tween $125 and $200. The good news is that the trees are fast growing and start virtually, or stepping out. Bookmark the National Cherry Blossom website https:// blooming in the first year and will be in full bloom by the fifth year. Trees tend nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/ so you can easily check what is going on and to last 15-20 years, with the Yoshino cherries living several decades. The Nadon’t miss out. Take a fun afternoon and hunt cherry trees on the Hill using Casey tional Park Service website has an excellent list of the different types of trees Trees interactive map and end up having a Cherry Moon specialty drink at Mr. with a picture of the bloom, and description of the tree. www.nps.gov/subjects/ Henry’s or one of the many restaurants on the Hill. In short, 2021 is the time to cherryblossom/ create your own hanami. Rindy O’Brien cannot imagine any spring without the Cherry trees but especially this year as we start to move past COVID. Contact: rindyobrien@gmail.com ◆
Casey Trees has created a wonderful interactive map that allows you to enter an address, click, and little pink dots appear showing where cherry trees are located throughout the city.
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April 2021 H 23
VOLUNTEERS MAKE THE VILLAGE And CHV Celebrates Them at a Virtual Event April 22 by Karen Stuck year of dealing with the COVID-19 virus upset many lives and plans— and became a real test for organizations like Capitol Hill Village, which had to devise new ways to operate, stay connected with members, and continue to provide needed services. One casualty was the Village’s annual dancing and dining, in-person Gala, replaced in 2021 with the On-Line Auction and Virtual Get-Together, opening on April 15 and concluding with a Volunteer Appreciation Event on April 22. Maygene Daniels is ready to begin assembling ThanksVolunteers are being saluted for their giving dinners for delivery to Capitol Hill Village memcritical contributions over the last year in bers. Photo: Karen Stuck helping to keep CHV programs going and delivered to Capitol Hill residents. for leading special initiatives that lessened For over four months, CHV members got the impact of the virus on Capitol Hill residents. phone calls several times a week from volunThe numbers tell the story. teers, checking in with a friendly voice and ofKeeping everyone safe, masks were both fering help when needed. That’s more than made and acquired, and more than 3,500 were 6,000 calls, and many of these turned into connections that continue today. More than 2,000 holiday cookies were made by Capitol Hill neighbors and distributed by 21 volunteers to 300 CHV member households and 60 low-income non-member households. Thanksgiving dinners were assembled and delivered by 14 volunteers to 50 Capitol Hill homes. When the COVID vaccine became available, CHV volunteers and staff helped people through the signup Kitz Cleary and Joe Kerr were among volunteers assembling packprocess, which involved comages of holiday cookies for distribution to Capitol Hill residents. Photo: Karen Stuck
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municating with more than 1,300 residents and helping more than 400 people navigate the system and get appointments. When the holidays arrived, and members were without their usual social events, volunteers helped fill the void. They mailed personalized holiday cards to more than 300 households. And one affinity group—Purls of Wisdom, composed of volunteers who are knitters—provided 20 members with hand-crafted gifts as a special “thinking of you” during the holidays. Through hundreds of Zoom calls facilitated by volunteers, the Village’s social and educational programs kept going virtually—book and movie groups, bridge games, chair yoga, poetry readers, lunches and happy hours, caregiver meetups, guest speaker programs, the chorus, and others. The CHV on-line auction will raise money to help continues these efforts and more. Auction offerings will include oriental rugs, artwork, collectible items, restaurant gift cards, and more. Also available will be popular vacation homes from Maine to Rehoboth, with exciting new additions such as a Virgin Islands paradise and a secluded Shenandoah Valley mountaintop aerie. Salon dinners will be both Zoom and COVID rules-abiding live “soirees.” Already lined up are journalist Susan Page discussing her forthcoming biography of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a trifecta of separate wine, beer and bourbon tastings, meal preparation with a noted food critic, and several outdoor adventures. More information is available at www.capitolhillvillage.org Karen Stuck is editor of the Capitol Hill Village newsletter. Information about CHV is available at 202-543-1778 or www.capitolhillvillage.org. ◆
April 2021 ★ 25
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capitol s ree s t
t
/ Commentary /
OPEN CAPITOL GROUNDS SYMBOLIZE OUR OPEN DEMOCRACY
M
by Sarah Cymrot
y small bike wobbles on the news is welcome, it is nowhere the grey cobblestones as near the ideal. I battle to keep it upright. lnstead, we are still faced with I desperately want to look the question: how do we preserve behind me, to check if my this accessibility to the center of our dad’s hand is still on my seat, keeping me government in the face of the Jangrounded and upright. But no, eyes foruary 6 insurrection. Will our chilward, one push of my feet on the pedals, dren have to peer through barbed then another. wire to catch a glimpse of the CapiIt’s a warm sunny day, tourists mintol? Are we giving up on our Foundgle, taking selfies beneath the white dome ing Fathers’ dream of a Capitol that of the US Capitol which looms above us all, is open to all? or flopping on the steps leading up to the The issue of fencing the Capihuge front door. On the grass, families pictol is not just a local issue. It’s not just nic or start an impromptu game of Frisbee. about Capitol Hill neighbors upset Slowly, over the course of the afternoon, about losing access to a greenspace. A very young Sarah on her bike. Courtesy: S. my hands stop gripping the rubber handles Cymrot On one hand, it is certainly unquite as tightly. I speed up, looping in wide derstandable that, faced with the figure eights around the benches and lampposts arranged in rows. threat that we all witnessed on Jan. 6, that the first reaction Perhaps our Founding Fathers couldn’t have imagined my would be to enclose the Capitol with high fences to keep this bike ride on the Capitol grounds, but the ride represented the heart symbol pristine and to protect all of those who work within of their dreams. The US Capitol was never intended to be Ver- those walls from further harm. sailles, a palace far away and barred off from the people, a symBut, if we truly believe this to be a symbol of democracy, bol of the separation between the government and everyone else. and the center of our government, what does it say about the It’s no accident that the Capitol is the center of a vibrant city. state of these institutions if the only way to keep them safe is In fact, the open grounds of the US Capitol are symbolic of our to encircle them with barbed wire? “open” democracy. I’m a third generation DC native, and I sincerely hope that The US Capitol is the people’s house. A place where a young the state of our democracy will be strong enough that I’ll be girl could learn to ride a bike. Where families laughed and played. able to let go of my future child’s bicycle seat as she rides for Where people new to the city could stand, breathless in awe of the the first time, eyes up towards the glistening dome. Capitol’s majesty and of their ability reach out and touch the hard, Sarah Cymrot is a 16-year-old from Capitol Hill who occasionally marble reality of the democratic ideal. Today, there were reports that the fence that currently wraps contributes to the Hill Rag. She is the co-host of My Life’s Work podcast and attends School Without Walls High School. You can reach the Capitol inside a wide four-mile perimeter will be scaled down, her at sarah@hillrag.com. ◆ reduced to a tighter line around the grounds themselves. While
April 2021 ★ 27
.capitol streets.
FEDERAL CONTROL COMPLICATES DC JUSTICE Courts and Supervisory Agencies Face Pandemic Challenges by Gavrielle Jacobovitz
I
n 2019, DC Council Chair Phil Mendelson (D), Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen (D) and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) urged the US Senate to fill the District’s Superior Court and Court of Appeals’ judicial vacancies in an expeditious manner. These vacancies, wrote Allen and Mendelson in a joint letter, adversely impacted residents’ rights and public safety. As a result, “there has been a growing backlog of cases facing both courts,” wrote Congresswoman Norton in a separate missive. They wrote the letters because the matter was outside of their control. The US President nominates judges serving on the DC Superior Court and Court of Appeals based on recommendations from a local commission. The US Senate, a body lacking District of Columbia voting representation, confirms the nominees. A year later, a pandemic hit. As in jurisdictions across the country, the public health emergency stalled court operations. Juries were suspended and the number of plea deals decreased. A
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year later, jury trials have not yet resumed, and when they do—on April 5 for criminal cases and in May for civil cases, according to the DC Courts—it will be on a limited basis. The DC Superior Court and the US Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia (USAO-DC), which prosecutes local felonies and misdemeanors, now face the prospect of processing both current cases and clearing the ones delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. But unlike other local courts, DC’s is partly federal. The number of defendants under the supervision of the Pretrial Services Agency of DC (PSA) increased as public health measures taken by the courts in response to the pandemic slowed the court system. The average number of days a defendant is supervised by the agency increased drastically, from 92 to 190 days, as of midFebruary, according to PSA. A federal agency funded through the congressional budget process, PSA’s current budget is not yet reflective of pandemic conditions. The vacancy rate on the Superior Court and Court of Appeals’ benches, currently hovering around 20 percent, threatens to complicate the court’s ability to make their way through the backlog of cases once courts resume normal operations, warn stakeholders. To fill these vacancies, the city relies on the federal government: The President and the US Senate. “If we’re going to have to dig our way out of a pretty sub-
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stantial backlog, it’s going to require making sure that our Court is able to operate at full capacity,” Councilman Allen told Capital Community News. Allen chairs the Council’s Committee on Judiciary and Public Safety. This article is the second in a series focused on the impact of the COVID pandemic on the semi-federal system of justice in the District of Columbia. The series is funded by SpotlightDC.org and supported by DC Witness. This installment examines the complications posed by the federal role in the appointment of DC Superior Court and Court of Appeals judges and budgeting for PSA.
How We Got Here “The [District’s justice] system that we have I think is probably the last one anyone would ever design as a high functioning system,” said Allen, in terms of “jurisdictional accountability.” The DC Superior Court and the DC Court of Appeals, the city’s local courts, were established by Congress in 1970. The 1973 Home Rule Act established the city council but limited its control over the composition and jurisdiction of the city’s courts. The 1997 Revitalization Act tweaked DC’s justice system once again. The federal government stopped its annual payment to the city in return for assuming the District’s debts. It also took over custody of people serving DC Code offenses in its Bureau of Prisons (BOP), closing the Lorton Correctional
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Complex. The Act also awarded the federal government responsibility for local pretrial supervision, probation, and parole through two federal agencies, PSA and The Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA). Lastly, the federal government took over the funding of the city’s local courts. The Courts’ judges are appointed by the US President based on recommendations submitted by the DC Judicial Nomination Commission and confirmed by the US Senate. “The District of Columbia is more intertwined with the federal government with respect to its justice system than any other jurisdiction in the country,” said Jon Bouker, a partner at Arent Fox. Bouker is on the board of the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and part of the Mayor’s legal advisory team for DC Statehood. He has been a chair of DC Vote and a member of Congresswoman Norton’s office. Beyond the courts and BOP, the USAO-DC, a federal agency, prosecutes all adult felonies and misdemeanors. PSA, which supervises defendants released pretrial, nestles as an independent entity under the larger umbrella of CSOSA, a second federal agency responsible for overseeing people on parole and probation. In contrast, the Department of Corrections, which operates DC Jail, and the Metropolitan Police Department are District agencies. The system of justice in DC “creates huge barriers
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without a pandemic,” said Allen. “Certainly, with a pandemic, it’s even more complicated and more difficult to navigate.”
An Incomplete Bench At the time of Allen and Mendelson’s letter in 2019, there were 11 vacancies in DC’s Superior Court and two in the Court of Appeals. In 2019, appointments picked up and a number of seats were filled. However, 2020 saw zero appointments. Today, there are 12 vacancies in the Superior Court and two in the Court of Appeals. The “failure to confirm our judges” is a “chronic problem,” according to Congresswoman Norton, “a systemic problem,” that has “been worsened by the pandemic.” “We’ve had vacancies at the Superior Court for a long time,” said Allen. “That does impact caseload.” The vacancies “definitely [cause] a strain on the courthouse in general and [make] it harder to spread the backlog out to additional judges who might be willing to assist,” stated Attorney Julie Swaney, who practices in the Superior Court. The court system is not processing cases at its normal rate. In 2019, 6152 defendants plead guilty. In 2020, 1822 did, less than a third of the year before, according to the DC Courts. In 2020, 66 percent (10,163) of the number of cases in 2019 (15,516) were filed. While the number of felony filings decreased only slightly, 41
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percent fewer misdemeanors were filed. Note, the drop in the number of pleas is proportionally greater than the fall in cases filed. The backlog in DC’s judicial system, said Legal Director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia Scott Michelman, is “a significant problem beyond our control.” The local courts are “notoriously slow,” he added, noting that the pandemic “further slowed down” the system. Allen hopes the city will receive from the new administration the attention needed to fill all the vacancies expeditiously with “quality people” chosen by the local commission so the Courts can “operate at full capacity.” “That’s going to be an important part of the game of catch up,” one that will be undertaken by the courts for the remainder of 2021 and very likely into 2022, said Allen. As to whether vacancies make clearing the backlog in the Superior Court more difficult, “there’s no question about it,” Attorney Chris Gowen said. It’s a busy courthouse in a densely populated city with high crime rates, added Gowen. “There’s just not enough judges right now to cover all the work,” Gowen told CCN. “From the lawyer’s perspective, it’s clear that we’re understaffed right now,” Gowen added. Asked whether judicial vacancies impact the Court’s current or future operations, the DC Courts did not respond. DC’s vacancies are at the mercy of a federal congress residents do not elect. In most localities, state governments typically fill vacancies through appointment or election, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a law and public policy institute.
Take New York City for example. Judges in the city’s criminal court are appointed by the mayor, an elected official. This is to say, city residents have an indirect say over who adjudicates their legal matters. Matters in the state Court of Appeals are decided by judges appointed by an elected governor with the advice and consent of the State Senate. In Maryland where judges are elected, a case backlog is something candidates run on, Gowen pointed out. “Confirming DC judges does not get priority in the federal system, whether we’re talking a Democratic congress or a Republican congress,” said Congresswoman Norton. “Who gets priority there are federal judges.” With the new presidential administration, though, “we will have a heck of a better chance of focusing on DC judges.” Notably, the judicial vacancy rate doesn’t tell the whole story. In addition to the 62-person Superior Court bench, DC also has senior (‘retired’) and magistrate judges who can hear cases. Still, the city’s courts have expressed feeling the strain of vacancies in recent years. In 2015, then Chief Judge Eric T. Washington of the DC Court of Appeals and Judge Frederick Weisberg of the Superior Court, wrote about the “adverse impact that judicial vacancies are having on the Court and residents of the District of Columbia” in a letter about six vacancies in the Superior Court, according to Roll Call. In 2019, Court of Appeals Chief Judge Anna BlackburneRigsby said that the vacancies were “slowing down the wheels of justice,” WAMU reported. Then Superior Court Chief Judge Robert
Morin expressed particular concern for the civil division. While 250 was the preferred caseload, some judges had close to 400 cases. “It’s that increase of caseload, it’s hard to translate how difficult that is for the court to handle,” Morin told WAMU. “I’d like to address the backlog of cases that has been building up,” said DC Superior Court Chief Judge Anita JoseyHerring in an interview with the publication D.C. Bar, just before she assumed the post. In a Feb. 11 performance oversight hearing of the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, stakeholders discussed these vacancies. President Joe Biden (D) had withdrawn pending nominees, according to Emmet Sullivan, chairperson of the Judicial Nomination Commission, not irregular during a change in administration. With vacancies up in the air, the pandemic has increased the stakes for getting these seats filled.
A Federal Budget In Feb. 2020, PSA made their 2021 budget request. Weeks later, the city announced its first presumptive case of Covid-19. As the independent federal agency charged with supervising District pretrial defendants, PSA participates in the federal budget process. First, they submit their request to the federal Office of Management and Budget (OMB), where it is incorporated into the budget submitted by the President to Congress. Then Congressional com-
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mittees create a bill passed by both houses and signed by the President. Before the advent of the pandemic, the federal budgetary process had already allocated resources to PSA for FY 2020 and 2021. Only with its 2022 request will PSA be able to factor in the challenges created by the pandemic. “In some ways, the pandemic really just challenged us because of timing,” said PSA Director Leslie Cooper. This isn’t unique to PSA, it is how the federal budget process works, Cooper added. “We didn’t have an opportunity to get our bearings straight in order to be able to do anything really with respect to 2021.” In contrast, local justice agencies in the District are funded by the city’s budgetary process, one that is malleable, according to Allen. DC’s progressive pretrial system releases the vast majority of its pretrial defendants into the community under PSA’s supervision. However, with the suspension of trials and decreases in pleas, the court system was not processing defendants at the same rate. As a result, the population of felony defendants under supervision increased in 2020. During the pandemic, the average number of days a defendant was supervised by PSA increased by 107 percent, as of mid-February. The pandemic has prompted PSA to rethink its approach and adapt. “A key piece for us is really
figuring out how to best allocate our somewhat limited resources,” said Cooper. The agency worked to find the right “dosage of supervision” for defendants depending on their level of risk for re-arrest or not appearing in court, tailoring frequency of contact in this regard. It began to supervise defendants through a combination of virtual and in person reporting, depending on need. The agency’s reported outcomes mirrored those of years past, even with the pandemic. The percent of defendants not rearrested increased from 87 (2019) to 88 percent (2020). In 2020, 91 percent of defendants made all scheduled court appearances compared to 88 percent in 2019. Finally, the percentage of defendants called in for non-compliance decreased by just two percent. Still, had she known about the pandemic, Cooper would have included a section dedicated to the pandemic in the budget request, she told Capital Community News. This would have included a request for resources that PSA spent additional money on to ensure the health and safety of her agency’s workforce and supervisees: Supplies for disinfection and protection from the virus in larger volumes, weekly deep cleaning, and architectural barriers. The agency, Cooper stated, would also have requested resources for its GPS monitoring services. The agency’s formula for budget calculations for GPS services factors in the
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Come Home for Easter Holy Comforter-Saint Cyprian Roman Catholic Church Reverend Monsignor Charles Pope, Pastor
HOLY WEEK SCHEDULE Palm Sunday – March 28th
Mass at 8:00 am, 11:00 am & 7:00 pm (Saturday Vigil Mass at 4:30 pm on 3/27)
Holy Thursday – April 1st Mass of the Last Supper att 7:00 pm
Good Friday – April 2nd • Neighborhood Stations of the Cross at 12 noon (outside) • Stations of the Cross at 3:00 pm • Celebration of the Lord’s Passion at 7:00 pm
Holy Saturday – April 3rd Easter Vigil Mass at 8:00 pm
Easter Sunday – April 4th
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amount of time that each defendant typically uses a device. “The average length of stay is ticking up and there’s obviously a cost to that, so we would probably ask for money in that regard,” said Cooper. In an interview last November, Capital Community News asked Cooper about a backlog in PSA, in reference to an increase in the average time a defendant has been under supervision discussed in a September public meeting in the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. Did she foresee a backlog, and was there already one? Did she foresee this overwhelming or straining PSA’s resources? Has it already? “Yes, yes and yes,” Cooper responded. “There’s a higher number of people under supervision, but it’s not because more people are coming [into supervision],” Cooper later added. “It’s because more people are staying.” PSA’s resources are calculated based on an average over a number of years and on the assumption that cases will cycle through the justice system at a steady rate. Now, with the “slow-down” in case processing, PSA is “feeling the effect,” Cooper said. Pretrial Services Officers (PSOs) now supervise defendants for longer as cases are divided among current staff. Cooper considers this strain caused by the pandemic a “situational factor” rather than a ‘backlog’, she explained, because the latter term suggests the circumstances are “within our control exclusively,” while the agency is working hard to rectify the situation. The DC Courts navigate a similar budgetary process to PSA. “The DC Courts’ budget has adequately
addressed our pandemic related expenses to date,” the DC Courts said in a statement. So does CSOSA. In a statement, Bill Miller, Supervisory Public Affairs Specialist at CSOSA said the agency has “ample resources” to fulfill its responsibilities. “CSOSA has worked within its budget to accomplish its objectives in a safe and effective manner and the federal Office of Management and Budget has been a close, responsive supporter of ours during the pandemic,” wrote Miller. “We have kept OMB informed of the extra costs we have incurred as a result of the pandemic but have not requested additional funds as of yet. Our continuing dialogue with them has been very helpful,” he later added. In contrast, local justice agencies in the city have distinct budget processes. According to Allen, if DOC came to the council asking for equipment or investment for court appearance infrastructure, they can help, unlike with PSA. In fact, Allen said he’s in touch with the head of DOC regularly and feels they know to ask for resources if they need them, from the council or the Office of the Mayor. DOC did not respond to a request for an interview. “The system is malleable,” said Allen. Agencies can make mid-year adjustments. A million dollars is the line in the sand, explained Allen—if a request is less than a million dollars, agencies can make changes internally without council approval. If it’s more than one million dollars, the council would need to approve the contract, though they can meet urgent needs through their oversight. However, if federal agencies need funding, they must look to the
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KELLER GRANTS HELP MEET URGENT DEMANDS
Everyone Home DC and Serve Your City Step Up to the Challenge by Barbara Wells
Maurice Cook, Executive Director, Serve Your City. Photo: Elizabeth Dranitzke
Serve Your City/Ward 6 Mutual Aid food distribution at Ellen Wilson Photo: Elizabeth Dranitzke
T
wo pillars of Capitol Hill’s nonprofit community, both at the forefront of tackling the coronavirus pandemic’s enormous challenges, have each received a $20,000 Arnold F. Keller Jr. Grant from the Capitol Hill Community Foundation (CHCF). The grants were awarded to Everyone Home DC in 2020 and to Serve Your City this year to support their extraordinary response to the growing needs of at-risk and unhoused Capitol Hill residents. “We chose these organizations because they are the most active on the ground in addressing our community’s most urgent pandemic issues,” said Mark Weinheimer, chair of the CHCF Keller Grant Committee. “Everyone Home DC is all about securing permanent housing and providing other vital services for our neighbors who are experiencing homelessness, while Serve Your City has created a hub for gathering and delivering donations of goods and financial support to the people who need them the most.” In March 2020, when the pandemic’s implications were only just coming into focus, chronic homelessness was already one of CHCF’s top concerns. In
Everyone Home DC Street Outreach Team member with supplies. Photo: Everyone Home DC
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the past year, the pandemic has increased both the size of the unhoused population and the scope of its needs. In some tent encampments across the city, the number of people living unsheltered has doubled. Some of those residents are newly unhoused, while others have left shelters to avoid the risk of contracting COVID-19. And the pandemic has forced the closure or curtailed the hours of many places frequented by people experiencing homelessness — including libraries, meal programs, and day centers. As the effects of the economic crisis took an even greater toll on people without housing, the Keller Grant Committee looked to Everyone Home DC as a key resource. The organization’s Street Outreach Team meets people living without shelter wherever they are to provide necessities that promote their basic dignity, well-being and even survival. “This global health crisis has exposed now more than ever that housing truly is health care,” said Karen Cunningham, executive director of Everyone Home DC. “People experiencing homelessness are at high risk of COVID-19 exposure. Our unhoused neighbors are particularly vulnerable to exposure and
Everyone Home DC Street Outreach Team member with client Photo Credit: Everyone Home DC
complications, due to comorbidities and their inability to take even the most basic safety precautions, like washing their hands regularly, maintaining distance from other people and staying home if they don’t feel well.” Those risks have created an even more acute need for an expanded range of supplies among people who have limited access to showers, bathrooms and laundry services. The Keller Grant helps the Street Outreach Team provide items like travel-sized hand sanitizer so that people can keep their hands clean, extra undergarments for people who are unable to do their laundry, body wipes to replace showers, face masks to help stop the spread of the virus, and blankets and outerwear for keeping people warm outdoors. For some Street Outreach clients, the snacks and water that the program provides are their only food source beyond the breakfasts served by Our Daily Bread at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church. The program is using Keller Grant funds to improve the variety and nutritional value of its snacks, in some cases even accommodating special dietary restrictions. Most important, through the Street
Everyone Home DC Street Outreach Team on Barracks Row. Photo: Everyone Home DC
Outreach Team’s face-to-face engagements, Everyone Home DC has been able to continue assisting unhoused neighbors through the process of obtaining permanent housing, including paying for vital documents, apartment application fees and transportation to appointments. “We will continue our work until every one of them has a safe, affordable and comfortable home,” Cunningham said.
Serve Your City Beyond the people who are experiencing homelessness, many who have managed to maintain their housing in the wake of the pandemic still have urgent needs. That spurred Maurice Cook, executive director of Serve Your City, to mobilize Momma’s Safe Haven, the TraRon Center, ONE DC, Training Grounds Inc., the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, local churches and ultimately more than 75 other community groups to form Ward 6 Mutual Aid. This network not only rallies volunteers to donate supplies, but also identifies the people who need them through its relationships in the community. “There is enough love from the people to take care of everyone in this city,” Cook said. “Our work is to capture that and bring it together. We are building the world that we deserve.” For more than a century, mutual aid networks have formed to help redistribute local resources to fill unmet needs, based on a fundamental belief that everyone in the community has something to contribute. Following Serve Your City’s motto of “solidarity, not charity,” Ward 6 Mutual Aid brings together individuals and organizations that have something to offer for the good of the entire community. As the Ward 6 Mutual Aid convenor, Serve Your City identifies specific needs, determines who is experiencing those needs, and figures out who has the expertise, resources and connections to deliver the necessary (Continued on pg. 51)
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Residents Ask ANC for More Community Grants ANC6A REPORT by Nick L. Alberti Chair Amber Gove (6A04) convened the March 11, 2021 meeting of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6A via Zoom with Commissioners Keya Chatterjee (6A01), Phil Toomajian (6A02), Mike Soderman (6A03), Laura Gentile (6A05), Robb Dooling (6A06), Sondra Phillips-Gilbert (6A07) and Brian Alcorn (6A08) all in attendance.
Grant Funding Confusion During last October’s ANC6A meeting, the Commissioners approved a proposed budget for the coming fiscal year that included $5000 for community grants. By the March 2021 ANC 6A meeting, this money had already been allocated to community organizations, but ANC6A had failed to communicate to the broader public, or even to the members of their own Community Outreach Committee who continued to field grant applications despite the lack of available funds. This breakdown in communication lead to an application being considered for a local non-profit, Serve Your City, that, due to the zero balance in grant funding, had to be rejected, or at least tabled until further funds become available. During the ensuing conversation between Commissioners and the public, some referenced the relatively healthy sav42 ★ HILLRAG.COM
ings of ANC6A with an outstanding balance north of $23,500 and questioned why more of this money has not been offered to community causes, especially in light of the overwhelming negative effects the pandemic has had on many 6A residents. Commissioner Alcorn, treasurer for 6A explained that the DC government has not yet released this year’s funding and has not, as of yet, confirmed when the ANC’s can expect to receive their respective allotments. Because of this, ANC6A must currently fund all of its monthly expenses out of its savings and given the current budgetary delays within the DC government, Commissioner Alcorn suggested preparing for a worst-case scenario in which the ANC must pay for all expenses without additional funding for another 12 months. Multiple meeting attendees argued, however, that even if the ANC does end up paying its bills out of pocket for the next 12 months, it will still have many thousands of dollars that could be made available to the community during a time when residents need every bit of assistance they can find. In response, Commissioner Gove committed the Commissioners to reexamining the ANC’s budget and grant allocations for the future and to readdress this issue soon.
Alcohol Beverage Licensing (ABL) Committee •
The Commissioners voted, unanimously, to send a letter to ANC 6A ABRA licensees via mail to physical addresses and/or e-mail regarding recent amendments to ANC 6A’s template settlement agreements as well as ANC 6A’s intent to cease enforcement of anti-loitering provisions in existing settlement agreements. The Alcohol and Beverage Licensing Committee meets at 7:00 pm on the third Tuesday of each month.
Transportation and Public Space (TPS) Committee •
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The Commissioners voted, unanimously to send a joint letter with ANC6C to the District Department of Transportation, (DDOT) requesting a comprehensive review of safety and traffic concerns on H Street NE from North Capitol to 15th Street NE. The Commissioners voted, unanimously, to cosign a letter with ANC 6C to Mayor Bowser, the DC Council, DDOT, and the District of Columbia Office of Planning (DCOP) regarding solutions for H Street NE. The Commissioners voted to designate ANC 6A Chair Amber Gove, or another Commissioner authorized by the Chair, to provide testimony on be-
ADVISORY NEIGHBORHOOD COMMISSION 6A AMBER GOVE, CHAIR, AMBERANC6A@GMAIL.COM Serving the Near Northeast, North Lincoln Park, Rosedale, and H Street communities ANC 6A generally meets the second Thursday of the month, at Miner Elementary School, 601 15th Street, NE.
www.anc6a.org
ALL ARE WELCOME half of ANC 6A at the March 23, 2021 roundtable “Transportation in the District After the Pandemic,” sponsored by the DC Council. The vote was six in favor with Commissioner Phillips-Gilbert in opposition and Commissioner Gove abstaining. Commissioner Phillips-Gilbert voiced her concern that allowing any one Commissioner to speak on behalf of them all may lead to a misrepresentation of individual opinions. In response, Commissioner Gove committed to sharing her proposed talking points via e-mail in the week before the roundtable discussion. • The Commissioners voted, unanimously, to send a letter to DDOT requesting an extension on the review date for Public Space Permit Application #361713 for 424 11th Street NE, replacement of retaining wall, until after the April 8, 2021 ANC meeting, to provide adequate time for public notice and review. The Transportation and Public Space Committee meets at 7:00 pm on the third Monday of each month.
Economic Development and Zoning Committee •
•
The Commissioners voted not send a letter to the Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) opposing the Application for a special exception from the rear addition requirements to construct a twostory with basement addition to an existing, nonconforming, twostory with basement, principal dwelling unit at 1637 D Street, NE (BZA Case #20414) in the RF-1 Zone. Commissioners Chatterjee, Dooling and Toomajian voted in favor, Commissioners Soderman, Alcorn, Gentile and Phillips-Gilbert voted against and Commissioner Gove abstained. The Commissioners voted, unan-
imously, to send a letter of conditional support to BZA for a special exception for constructing a second dwelling unit at 135 13th Street, NE (BZA Case #20471) in the RF-1 Zone with the caveat that the owners make best efforts to get a letter of support from 1326 North Carolina Avenue NE. • The Commissioners voted to send a letter of conditional support to BZA for a special exception under the new building development requirements and an area variance from the loading berth requirements to permit the construction of a new mixed-use residential building at 1101 H Street, NE (BZA Case #20455) in the NC-17 zone with the caveat that the trash management and traffic management plan be provided before the March 2021 ANC 6A meeting; the trash management plan is responsive to the neighborhood’s concerns; that there be Resident Parking Permit (RPP) restrictions added to the condo bylaws and sales documents; and that the plans include 39 indoor bike parking spaces and the eight outdoor bike parking spaces. The vote was six in favor with Commissioners Chatterjee and Dooling in opposition. The Economic Development and Zoning Committee meets at 7:00 pm on the third Wednesday of each month.
The Next meeting is 2nd Thursday, April 8, 7:00 p.m. Economic Development and Zoning Committee meeting 3rd Wednesday, April 21, 7:00 p.m. Virtual Meeting via WebEx Community Outreach Committee meeting 4th Monday, April 26, 7:00 p.m. Virtual Meeting via WebEx Transportation & Public Space Committee meeting 3rd Monday, April 19, 7:00 p.m. Virtual Meeting via WebEx Alcohol Beverage Licensing Committee meeting 4th Tuesday, April 27, 7:00 p.m. Virtual Meeting via WebEx Instructions for accessing the meeting via WebEx have been posted under Hot Topics at anc6a.org. Call in information will be posted under Community Calendar at anc6a.org 24 hours prior to the meeting. You will be able to enter the meeting no earlier than 15 minutes prior to its scheduled start time.
Advisory Neighborhood Commission 6C P.O. Box 77876 • Washington, D.C. 20013-7787 www.anc6c.org • (202) 547-7168
Next meeting Wednesday, April 14. Information will be posted on the ANC 6C website.
ANC 6C COMMISSIONERS ANC 6C01 Christine Healey 6C01@anc.dc.gov
ANC 6C04 Mark Eckenwiler 6C04@anc.dc.gov
ANC 6C02 Karen Wirt 6C02@anc.dc.gov
ANC 6C05 Joel Kelty 6C05@anc.dc.gov
ANC 6C03 Jay Adelstein 6C03@anc.dc.gov
ANC 6C06 Drew Courtney drewcourtney.anc @gmail.com
ANC usually meets the second Wednesday of each month at 7:00 pm, 214 Massachusetts Ave, N.E. Please check the ANC 6C website for dates.
ANC 6C COMMITTEES Alcoholic Beverage Licensing First Monday, 7 pm Contact: anc6c.abl.committee@gmail.com Grants Last Thursday, 7 pm Contact: torylord@gmail.com Twitter: @ANC_6C_Grants Environment, Parks, and Events First Tuesday, 7 pm Contact: 6C06@anc.dc.gov
Transportation and Public Space First Thursday, 7 pm Contact: anc6c.tps@gmail.com Planning, Zoning, and Economic Development First Wednesday, 6:30 pm Contact: 6C04@anc.dc.gov Twitter: @6C_PZE
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Other Business •
The Commissioners voted, unanimously, to send a letter to WMATA expressing support for the continued operation of bus transit, particularly lines used by transit-dependent neighbors and residents of 6A and Ward 6.
Visit www.anc6a.org for a calendar of meeting times, meeting agendas and other information. ◆
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All 10 commissioners were present at the March 9th meeting of Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6B: Jennifer Samolyk (6B01), Gerald Sroufe (secretary, 6B02), Brian Ready (chair, 6B03), Kirsten Oldenburg (parliamentarian, 6B04), Steve Holtzman (vice chair, 6B05), Corey Holman (treasurer, 6B06), Edward Ryder (6B07), Peter Wright (6B08), Alison Horn (6B09) and Denise Krepp (6B10). he commission voted unanimously to support a Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) from Chipotle (413 Eighth St. SE) for a 12-year special exception to zoning requirements in order to allow the fastfood restaurant to continue operation at their current address. The support was conditional on Chipotle incorporating conditions agreed upon with neighbors. Neighbors said that while there had been many concerns with Chipotle over the years, they were all essentially addressed by the agreement made with the applicant in community discussions over the previous months. The applicant requested a 12-year term for the special exception, hoping to ensure they can complete the entirety of their upcoming 10-year lease. The applicant has worked with neighbors to address concerns with noise, upkeep, rodents and trash and has agreed to rebuild the back yard of the restaurant to include interior trash storage. Neighbors expressed gratitude for the proprietor’s extensive communication with the community and the effort they put into finding a solution. ANC
Photo by Gayle Krughoff
Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Committee Chair Corey Holman (6B06) also thanked the applicant, his representation and neighbors who negotiated terms that everyone appeared to be pleased with. “This was very productive, and these kinds of relationships are what we would like to see all around the community,” Holman said.
DCRA Allegedly Granted Permits Against Code The commission voted 9-0 with one abstention to file an appeal to permits issued for construction at 207 Third St. SE. The Office of Tax and Revenue (OTR) recognizes the address as a single-family dwelling, resident Brian Wise told the ANC. Wise said that in May 2020, the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) first issued permits allowing the property to be converted from a single-family dwelling into a sixunit apartment. According to zoning regulations, the latter is a non-conforming use. The permits were later rescinded and then reissued and revised. There are two permits currently issued, Wise said, and the last was revised on Feb. 23, 2021. “For some reason, DCRA is contending that this does not constitute a change of use, and that they have the discretion to determine what the use of the building is or was,” Wise said, citing past documentation for the address with DCRA showing it as a single-family dwelling. ”DCRA does not have the authority to change the use for the last nine years in order to enable a developer to obtain permits that are not allowed by the code.” Wise said that neighbors had reached out to DCRA. The agency said the permits were issued in error, Wise told commissioners, but the agency refuses to revoke them. Construction on the property began in February 2021, prompting neighbors to bring the matter to the ANC, Wise added. Holman said the next step would be for the ANC to file an appeal with the
Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA), laying out facts and evidence in the case. Holman said the issue was not the apartment building itself, but the fact that District agencies did not appear to have followed regulations. “Almost regardless of the merits of the project, there are regulations that need to be followed,” Holman said. “If not here, then where?”
Presentations Alvin Jones from District Department of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) presented on the Solar For All program. DC government will cover the cost of installation for qualified homeowners, who can expect to save $500 a year in energy bills. Interested parties can apply at http://doee.dc.gov/solarforall. Email solarforall@doee.dc.gov with questions. Income qualifications apply. Andrew DeFrank presented on District Department of Transportation (DDOT) programs and services. Commissioners expressed concern about delays in Traffic Safety Assessments (TSA). DeFrank said that although the support of an affected commissioner should be sufficient to initiate a TSA, a resolution from the ANC is necessary for certain proposed solutions. Commissioner Denise Krepp (6B10) pressed him on concerns voiced about Burke Street near RFK, especially in light of development at Reservation 13. Commissioner Alison Horn (6B09) asked the representative about minimum requirements for traffic calming on 17th Street SE and Potomac Avenue SE in her Single Member District (SMD).
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Special Exception on A Street SE Commissioners voted unanimously to support an application for special exception to zoning regulations in order to construct a third story and a three-story rear addition at 1819 A St. SE. Plans also include the conversion of an existing two-story, detached, principal dwelling unit to a three-story, semi-detached, April 2021 ★ 45
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Image: Chipotle will completely redo the back of their restaurant at 413 Eighth St. SE to address neighbor concerns with rodents and trash. Improvements include interior trash storage. Screenshot: ANC 6B/Webex
three-unit residential building. The property is on a corner lot, and Commissioner Krepp asked that the case be brought to the ANC with the hope of additional conversation with the adjacent neighbor, who declined when the applicant asked to schedule a conversation. In supporting the application, the ANC noted the applicant has revised the front window pattern at the request of the ANC P&Z Committee, and has letters in support from neighbors to the west and across the street of the residence. The Commissioner unanimously supported: • a letter proposed by Commissioner Horn in regard to funding for public transportation. The letter states opposition to cuts in the FY 2022 budget that would lead to reductions in Metrorail and Metro bus service. It also details the impacts the cuts would have on residents, students, workers, and businesses in 6B, citing in particular the ability of essential workers to travel to work and for students to travel to and from school. It also notes reductions to the B2 route, serving Eastern High School (1700 East Capitol St. NE), and to D6 which links ANC 6B to both downtown and Sibley Hospital as well as five bus lines serving the commercial cor46 ★ HILLRAG.COM
•
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ridor on and around Pennsylvania Avenue SE. a letter in support of the installation of a temporary sculpture at Eastern Market Metro Plaza Park. The sculpture is part of the Art in Bloom exhibit in connection with The National Cherry Blossom Festival. ANC 6B recommended the sculpture be placed in the splash pad section of Parcel 1, which has been unused due to COVID restrictions. The sculpture was placed on March 18 and will remain for ten weeks. a request to delay the Protest Petition Deadline for an application from The Ugly Mug Dining Saloon and Valor Brew (723 Eighth Street, SE) to add sports wagering and games of skill endorsements. The request includes sports wagering through mobile app and offer physical consoles for the electronic game of skill Dragon’s Ascent.
NOTE: The next meeting of ANC 6B has been rescheduled to avoid conflict with a holiday or religious day. It takes place at 7 p.m., Wednesday, April 14. For information on meetings and how to join a virtual meeting via Webex, visit www.anc6b.org. Learn more by visiting www.anc6b.org or connect with the commission via email at 6b@anc.dc.gov or Twitter @ANC6B. ◆
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ing opposition to the fence and to suggest a modification to prevent sidewalk closures.
DCPS Reopening Plans Councilmember Allen also discussed DCPS and the eventual return to in-person learning for students, staff and teachers. He stated that outdoor learning, especially in the presence of many parks around the District, should be considered. With social distancing requirements, Allen said classroom capacity is being cut nearly in half and he believes that outdoor learning has a role in the reopening of the schools. Allen also emphasized that there will not likely be a pediatric vaccine readily available by the end of the summer and that some families may wish to continue remote learning next school year. He discussed the importance of creating opportunities for both inperson and remote learning and equity for all in the upcoming school year.
New NE Sidewalk Cafe Transportation and Public Space Committee Chair Christy Kwan spoke about the proposed development of a new sidewalk cafe for the restaurant Som Tam (111 K St. NE) which hopes to open in May. The Thai street food establishment has submitted an unenclosed sidewalk cafe application for outdoor tables to operate between 11 a.m. and 10 p.m. seven days a week. The TPS Committee made the recommendation that the ANC support this application if the restaurant updated and submitted pertinent information including their proposed hours of operation and the layout of their outdoor seating in the Transportation Online Permitting System (TOPS). The Committee also pressed the restaurant on their plan for individuals experiencing homelessness around the area of their proposed seating area. The restaurant owners responded and said they would work with the building owners on this issue. The ANC voted unanimously to support this application.
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A Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) representative spoke about the recent spike in carjackings and stolen vehicles in the District and encouraged residents to not leave cars unattended while running or unlocked at any time. Allen and Commissioner Kelty spoke about creating a “compassionate” solution to homeless encampments around the District. Allen empha-
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sized the effectiveness of a permanent supportive housing approach that that tries to treat the whole person rather than a single issue as a potential solution to this ongoing situation. Retro Wines (22 M St. NE) is applying for a liquor license and ABL committee voted to protest on all three grounds in pursuit of a Settlement Agreement (SA). Councilmember Allen recognized and thanked those involved with changing the conversation around development projects at Union Station. Commissioner Drew Courtney (6C06) acknowledged the work of DC Council that has gone into reframing the conversation about the structural changes to Union Station and thanked Allen and council for their work and leadership on the issue. The ANC unanimously supported a Board of Zoning Adjustment (BZA) application for a special exemption to add a one-story rear addition at 307 A Street NE. The initial plan for a two-story addition was modified with unanimous support from all adjacent neighbors. After a joint meeting with ANC 6A earlier in the month regarding safety on H Street NE, the commissions established a subcommittee with three members from ANC 6A and ANC 6C to draft a letter to public officials including the Office of the Mayor, DDOT and the Office of Planning to express concerns around traffic safety and fatalities on the street. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) removed access to public database Civic Insight which allowed public access to construction permits. The Planning, Zoning and Development committee send a letter to DCRA stating “strong criticism” of the decision to remove this platform. The motion to send this letter to DCRA was approved unanimously through the commission.
All six ANC commissioners: Christine Healey (6C01), Karen Wirt (6C02), Jay Adelstein (6C03), Mark Eckenwiler (6C04), Joel Kelty (6C05) and Drew Courtney (6C06) were in attendance. The next meeting of ANC 6C is scheduled for 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 14 via Webex. Visit anc6c.org for details on how to join. Sarah Payne is a History and Neuroscience student at The University of Michigan interning with HillRag. She writes for and serves as an assistant news editor for Michigan’s student newspaper, The Michigan Daily. You can reach her at sarahp@hillrag.com. ◆
Air Quality Concerns at Buzzard Point ANC 6D REPORT by Andrew Lightman Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6D met March 8 over WebEx. Commissioners Andrew Bossi (6D01), Jared Weiss (6D02, Secretary), Ronald Collins (6D03, Treasurer), Andy Litsky (6D04), Fredrica (Rikki) Kramer (6D05, Vice Chair), Rhonda Hamilton (6D06) and Edward Daniels (6D07, Chair) were in attendance.
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C Dept. of Energy and the Environment (DOEE) Deputy Director of Monitoring & Assessment Kelly Crawford briefed the commission on the renewal of the Vulcan Concrete Plant license on Buzzard Point. The process, she stated, will take months. In response to questioning by Commissioner Hamilton about the frequency of agency inspection of the plant, Crawford declined to comment on matters of ongoing enforcement as a matter of agency policy, although she did state that the agency had open actions on Buzzard Point. Denying the renewal of Vulcan’s license would not survive a court challenge, Crawford stated. DOEE therefore is working to negotiate voluntary measures with the company that can be incorporated into the future permit. She did not enumerate what the conditions were. The best way for residents to report concerns is either to email air. quality@dc.gov or call the agency at 202-535-2600 and leave a message. Hamilton displayed a photo of a dust cloud at the Vulcan Plant. “We are breathing this every single day. How are you going to save our lives?” she asked. DOEE is not able to do “hyperlocal monitoring,” Crawford stated. The agency uses local health information to proxy air quality. Hamilton and other commissioners expressed their fear that Vulcan’s operations would impact the newly opened, nearby branch of Eagle Public Charter School located at 1900 Half St. SW. DOEE has reached out to the school, stated Crawford. Commission voted unanimously to send letter to the mayor and DOEE expressing their concerns over air quality at Buzzard Point in general and their opposition to the renewal of the Vulcan contract.
BUILDING WITH MOSAICS PRESERVATION CAFE WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 6:30 PM
DC Prep campuses now accepting applications for the 21-22 school year in ward 5, 7 & 8. We’re the highest performing public charter schools serving PK3 – 8th grade.
A virtual chat with Jim Miller, local artist, historian, and renovator, who has transformed his Capitol Hill home into an elaborate oasis of mosaic design — a stunning tribute to time spent studying in Ravenna and Venice, Italy. Free. Visit chrs.org/ mosaic-design-pc/ for details and a 3D scan of Jim’s home.
CALLING ALL ARTISTS! RESPONSES DUE SUNDAY, APRIL 16 The Mother’s Day Tour of Tours (May 8 & 9) will include an “Artists at Home” gallery. Local artists are invited to display their work on their porches or in a tented front yard. If you’d like to participate, please email HouseTourCHRS@gmail.com. For Tour of Tours details and registration information, visit chrs.org/2021-mothers-day-tour-of-tours/
Call 202-780-5126 for more information or visit:
dcprep.org
CONNECT WITH US! Visit www.chrs.org Email CapHRS420@gmail.com or call 543-0425 Follow us on @CapHRS @CHRSDC CapitolHillRestorationDC
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echoed Kramer’s concerns. Commissioner Litsky objected to Kramer’s and Hamilton’s attempt to conduct last minute negotiations from the dais. “You never have an open negotiation at an ANC meeting! It is just not done,” he stated. Litsky proposed a motion of support contingent on a letter from the developer outlining their commitments to the commission. It passed with one abstention and one vote against. The commission unanimously authorized Chair Daniels to testify at the Zoning Commission’s hearing on the project. A dust cloud rises over the Vulcan Concrete plan. Photo: Rhonda Hamilton.
The Cotton Annex Drew Turner, a representative of Douglas Development, requested commission support for a special zoning exemption for their Cotton Annex project at 300 12th St. SW. The 610-unit development includes 50 units of affordable housing. The developer was open to adding an additional affordable unit, joining the Southwest Business Improvement District, making a $100,000 to a local community organization to secure commission support, he stated. However, Douglas was prepared to move forward without commission approval if necessary, Turner stated. “The problem isn’t with you, it is with the system,” stated Commissioner Weiss, acknowledging the developer had negotiated in good faith. The commission agreeing to a project that only includes the minimum affordable housing required under Inclusionary Zoning (IZ), sets bad precedent, he stated. Commissioner Litsky suggested authoring a letter offering support for the project contingent on the developer providing a letter spelling out its promises. In particular, he wanted fifty percent of the community contribution made at the time of the zoning order and the remainder tendered when the projected is awarded a certificate of occupancy. Lastly, Litsky asked for a guarantee that the affordable units would have finishes and fixtures identical to those in the market rate apartments. “IZ requirements are a starting point and not an ending. We have come a long way in the last several weeks and I appreciate the applicant’s efforts,” said Commissioner Bossi. Vice Chair Kramer asked whether three bedroom units could be included in the project’s IZ. Turner refused to entertain any changes, refusing to commit to specific unit mix. Commissioner Hamilton 50 ★ HILLRAG.COM
The Last Portals Parcel Jessica Bloomfield and George Dove of Republic Properties requested commission support for the final parcel of the company’s Portal Development. They are building the 15-story residential development at 1331 Maryland Ave. SW as a “matter of right.” However, Republic requires a special exception from the Board of Zoning Adjustment in order to incorporate a 2,500 sq. ft., rooftop restaurant and bar. Republic, Commissioner Bossi pointed out, still owed $1 million for a community benefit agreement from the first Portals section. Moreover, he pointed out, the project contains no affordable housing. He stated his complete opposition. Secretary Weiss and Treasurer Collins joined him in his condemnation of Republic. The commission voted unanimously to oppose the project.
“No” to 45 Q Street SW Representatives of D.B. Development requested the commission’s support for their 4,000 sq. ft. development at 45 Q St. SW. The project combines 60 residential units on four floors above a 190-key hotel. 19 percent of the residential units will be affordable, including many larger units with dens. Half of the units are two bedrooms. 63 parking spaces will be provided, all valet parking, unbundled from both the hotel rentals and residential leasing. A rooftop dog run is envisaged. A ground floor retail food market is planned incorporating fresh food vendors. The developer acceded to a community agreement pledging low-key signage, neighborhood project updates, preconstruction property surveys, environmental remediation and monitoring, rat control, site cleanliness, local school support, repair of the sidewalk in front of the neighboring U Haul, additional public art installations, support for affordable food programs and community meeting space. Commission Bossi opposed the project saying
it incorporated too much parking. Commissioner Hamilton joined him stating the community agreement needed more work. The commission voted with two abstentions to oppose the development and authorized Hamilton to testify at the Zoning Commission hearing.
I Street Bike Lanes DC Dept. of Transportation (DDOT) Community Engagement Specialist Andrew DeFrank spent a half an hour outlining DDOT’s 2020 achievements, explaining DDOT services, and detailing DDOT response to COVID. Then he briefed the commission on plans for the I Street Bike Lane. His agency has changed its thinking about the project. After re-measuring the street, DDOT engineers discovered there was sufficient roadway to situate protected bike lanes between the curb and parked cars. So, the bike lanes are now planned for both sides of the street. Parking will be preserved from Third Street west to Seventh Street SW on both sides of the street. 48 spaces will be removed between South Capitol and Third Street SW. 20 of these are residential spaces and another 28 are currently metered parking. The bike lane will run through the pickup/ drop-off zone for Amidon School. Commissioners were concerned about the safety impact on students. Bumps, signage and marking will be used to make the bike lane safe, stated DeFrank. Commissions Litsky and Kramer also pointed out that there were four major developments beginning construction fronting I Street SW in the next year. The construction traffic could potentially damage the bike infrastructure just as it has on the Southeast side of I St. DeFrank promised to return with more detailed plans. Commissioners voted unanimously to send DDOT a letter expressing their concerns.
Charles Allen “The Hunger Games are over!” stated “Ward 6 Councilmember Charles Allen (D), describing the city’s new COVID-19 preregistration website. Allen touted the new system as a better way “to reach vulnerable communities.” The city will be employing a combination of phone calls, texts and emails to inform registrants that their turn for vaccination has come. “There is an implicit bias when some folks can have four devices open while others have to go to work,” Allen said. He argued the city’s use of zip code targeting was too broad. He believes the registration system can be further targeted. Allen used the example
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of the 20003 zip code; one section of which has four times of vaccinated residents as the other. Senior population is in 20024 was particularly lagging, he stated. Southwest Library is about to reopen. The new library has been one of his major priorities since assuming office, he stated. He commended the President of Friends of the Southwest Library Georgine Wallace (https://www.facebook.com/Friends-of-SouthwestLibrary-133460770058384) and Commissioner Collins for their contributions to the library’s renovation. Allen described the security fencing around the Capitol as “ludicrous.” “It impacts everyone in Ward 6,” he added, due to road closures and the severe loss of access to public space. Allen has been working with Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) to pressure Congressional leaders to remove the barrier. Allen promised a follow up on to the recent February SW Safety Meeting. Amidon-Bowen is likely to take a budget cut, Allen informed the commission. “This is the absolute last time anyone should be thinking about cutting the schools,” he added. Allen promised to push back against the reduction. The Mayor’s Budget has been delayed until April 22 to give the administration time to incorporate coming federal relief, Allen said. He estimated the federal funds would total $2.2 billion. Allen bemoaned last year’s $500 million surplus. That money should have gone to families and small businesses, he stated. Observing that the pandemic had hit city residents unequally, Allen will push to raise taxes on upper wage earners. Commissioned Litsky complained to Allen about DC Housing Authority Director Tyrone Garrett’s lack of engagement with the commission in relation to the redevelopment of the Greenleaf Gardens public housing complex. He described director’s meetings as “Balkanized.” In a similar vein, Litsky advised Allen to solicit commissioners’ advice on redistricting. The redistricting timeline has undergone dramatic changes, responded Allen. Census data will not be available before the end of September. At that time, a DC Council committee chaired by At-Large Councilmember Elissa Silverman (I) will have 90 days to redraw the ward boundaries. The ANC/SMD boundaries will be redrawn by a committee appointed by Allen between the first of the year and March 1. In response to commissioner concerns over the impact of dedicated, protected bike lanes on the Amidon Bowen pickup/drop-off zone on the northbound side of the 400 block of I Street SW, Allen assured commissioners that there would be better commu-
nication in future between the Amidon Bowen PTA and DDOT.
Other Matters MPD Captains Jonathan Dorrough and Michael Pulliam briefed the commission on public safety. Stolen autos have driven the crime rate recently, they stated. Most have involved either delivery drivers or residents picking up takeout. The police had also close a series of cases this past month, Dorrough stated. DOEE Energy Program Specialist Jennifer Johnston gave a presentation on energy assistance programs. Elizabeth Godesky, vice president of Lowe Enterprises, the developer of the Randall School, gave a briefing on the firm’s Museum Place Pre-Apprenticeship program. A major element of the community agreement with the developer, this program provides trade apprenticeships to Southwest residents. Litsky commended Lowe for honoring the agreement originally done under chairmanship of the late Ron McBee. Other commissioners applauded the program. The ANC unanimously voted to: • support a Class A liquor license and community agreement (CA) with tasting endorsement for retailer Vitas Vinos, 1100 2nd Place SE, Retailer Class A license; • support stipulated and permanent Tavern liquor licenses for Basebowl, 1201 Half Street SE, a noodle house with 74 inside and 30 patio seats with an entertainment endorsement limited to recorded music; • appoint Michael Keen the 6D05 representative to the commissioner’s ABC committee; • send a letter objecting to the potential budget cuts at Amidon-Bowen Elementary School; • send a letter to DC Dept. of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) requesting the agency inspect Greenleaf Gardens Public Housing complex for health and safety violations; • agree to a future meeting on development at Westminster Church and Greenleaf Gardens; • appoint commissioners Bossi, Kramer and Litsky to a negotiate with Westminster Church; • send a letter to Buzzard Point property owners asking them to support the retention of WMATA’s 74 bus route. There were no reports from the Treasurer’s or Chair. ANC 6D meets at 7 p.m. on the second Monday of every month. The next meeting of ANC 6D is for April 12 via WebEx. For more information and links to join ANC meetings, visit anc6d.org. ◆
funding and support. For example, the People for Fairness Coalition has long-standing relationships with people living in D.C.’s encampments and lends a crucial understanding of their culture to facilitate outreach. Kajeet is an internet provider with well-established capabilities for providing wi fi hotspots. And the TraRon Center already works with students, providing connections with youths who can benefit from extracurricular activities. In just one year, Ward 6 Mutual Aid delivered $50,000 worth of food and 50,000 masks to thousands of families, including weekly distributions to 250 people living in tent encampments across the city. The program also has distributed 500 digital devices and refurbished laptops and purchased 50 hotspot devices for students who were suddenly attending school at home. That internet access is also vital to people searching for jobs online and seniors attempting to schedule appointments for COVID-19 vaccinations. In addition, Ward 6 Mutual Aid augments Serve Your City’s programs, which for more than a decade have provided life-changing experiences for Black and Brown children from under-resourced families. “We focus especially on our young people,” said Cook, “because, unfortunately, it has been accepted as a status quo that there are some young people born into this world with nothing, and other young people have everything. That’s just a world we can’t accept.” Last year, Serve Your City organized a virtual tutoring program to help about 80 D.C. students with online learning. By the fall, the program had grown to 260 tutors working with 130 students, spending nearly 1,300 hours on video calls. In addition, Serve Your City places students into the Ward 6 Mutual Aid network’s high-quality, virtual and socially distant enrichment programs. Last fall, 68 students participated in 15 classes — at no cost to them — through Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Indivisible Arts Collective, Black Girls Code, Circle Yoga, Trapeze School, Sprout Therapeutic Riding and Education Center and other programs. CHCF grants, including the Keller Grant, total from $400,000 to $500,000 a year and are entirely funded through the contributions of residents, businesses and friends of Capitol Hill. Every dollar raised is donated to organizations that enhance the community’s educational programming for children and youths; social services; arts, culture and recreation; and neighborhood beautification. To learn more about the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, visit www.capitolhillcommunityfoundation.com. To get involved with the Keller grantees, visit Everyone Home DC at https://everyonehomedc.org and Serve Your City at www.serveyourcitydc.org Barbara Wells is a writer and editor for Reingold, a social marketing communications firm. She and her husband live on Capitol Hill. ◆
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BULLETIN BOARD Living Earth Virtual Festival: The Business of Agriculture in Indian Country In celebration of Earth Day, the National Museum of the American Indian’s annual Living Earth Festival will be available on demand over four days, April 22 to 25. The festival will open with a message from Notah Begay III (Navajo/Isleta Pueblo), four-time PGA Tour champion, sportscaster and founder of the Notah Begay III Foundation, which provides health and wellness education to Native youth. Living Earth brings together Native innovators and practitioners dedicated to using Indigenous knowledge to protect and sustain the environment. Through cooking demonstrations, conversations and film screenings, this year’s festival explores agriculture trends, innovations and sustainability in Indigenous communities and Native-owned businesses. americanindian.si.edu/online-programs.
National Arboretum Eagle Updates
and safety measures that allow Nationals Park to host 5,000 fans on Opening Day. Discussions have begun with officials from the District about increasing capacity for the second homestand, which begins April 15. The complete 2021 Nationals schedule is available at nationals.com/Schedule.
East City April Book Talks East City Bookshop (virtual) Book Talks in April are JoAnne Tompkins, What Comes After in conversation with Angie Kim, April 15, 7 p.m.; Jon Grinspan, The Age of Acrimony, April 27, 7 p.m. Store hours are Wednesday to Friday and Sunday, 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. East City Bookshop is at 645 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. eastcitybookshop.com.
Photo: Courtesy of Diverse Markets Management
Farmers Market SW Opens for Season Farmers Market SW, corner of Fourth and M Streets SW, the popular Saturday morning farmers market in Southwest DC kicks off the spring season April 3, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. They welcome back a full lot of producers, small businesses, and community organizations. COVID-19 health and safety protocols remain a critical part of the market environment. A destination for community-support: Zero Waste and Compost Cab will return with their food waste and compost site, as well as a food collection point for Mutual Aid Ward 6 Food Bank. In June, DC Greens and DC Health will restart the Produce Plus food program, providing fresh food from the market for vulnerable and disenfranchised residents in the neighborhood (Sign ups begin in April). marketswdc.com.
This spring’s bald eagle mating season at the National Arboretum is turning into a season of The Bachelor. A new female eagle is making a play for the nest by visiting the nest frequently. Although the resident female has divebombed and tried chasing the visitor away, the new female keeps returning. Since the resident pair have not produced an egg together for the past two years, it is not unusual for pairs to part ways and find new partners. The next few days will determine which female wins the male’s “rose” and claims the nest. Watch the action on naeaglecam.org. 52 H HILLRAG.COM
Hill Center April Online Classes
Fans Return to Nat’s Park for 2021 Season The Washington Nationals will welcome fans back to the ballpark for the 2021 season. In accordance with CDC recommendations and MLB protocols, the Nationals will implement appropriate social distancing
Hill Center Online classes this month are: April 16, 11L30 a.m., Long Lunch: Ravioli & Tortellini; April 17, 11 a.m., Flower Arranging with Olga Berman. These online classes are $20. hillcenterdc.org.
DC Vaccination Help
The pre-registration system can now be accessed through vaccinate. dc.gov as well as the District’s call center at 1-855-363-0333. With this system, there is no need to scramble to be online or to call at a specific time. The order in which eligible individuals register will not affect the order in which they are selected. Register online at any time on any day via vaccinate.dc.gov, or register by phone Monday to Friday from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. or on Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. The pre-
DCHFA, Your Homeownership Resource in the District. DC Open Doors DC Open Doors is your key to homeownership in the city. This program offers competitive interest rates and lower mortgage insurance costs on first trust homebuyer or a D.C. resident , be purchasing a home in the District of Columbia. HPAP provides interest free deferred loans for down serves as a co-administrator of this DC Department of Housing and Community Development’s (DHCD) first-time home buyer program.
years or older who have fallen behind on insurance and tax payments as a result of their reverse mortgage. Qualified District homeowners can receive up to
DC4ME provides mortgage assistance with optional down payment assistance to D.C. government employees. DC4ME is offered to current full-time District government employees, including employees of District government-based instrumentalities, independent agencies, D.C. Public Charter Schools, and organizations, provided the applicant/borrower's employer falls under the oversight of the Council of the District of Columbia. COVID-19 DC MAP COVID-19 provides financial assistance to those affected by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualified borrowers can receive a loan of up to $5,000 per month to put toward their mortgage for up to six months. HomeSaver HomeSaver is a foreclosure prevention program that assists unemployed and underemployed homeowners who may have fallen behind on their mortgage payments. The program offers lump sum or ongoing monthly assistance with a maximum assistance of $60,000 per household. The deadline to apply for HomeSaver is May 14, 2021.
Visit www.DCHFA.org how to apply to any of DCHFA’s homeownership programs. 815 FLORIDA AVENUE, NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20001 • 202.777.1600 • WWW.DCHFA.ORG April 2021 ★ 53
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registration questionnaire now includes a question about an individual’s vaccine preference. Your response will not impact whether or when you are selected for a vaccination appointment. At the time of booking, individuals will continue to see which vaccine is available at each available appointment. DC Health continues to urge Washingtonians to take the first vaccine available to them.
Find Flowering Trees Near You Looking for blooms close to home this spring? DC has an incredible diversity of flowering trees and Casey Trees has mapped them all. Check out their interactive Flowering Tree Map and enjoy the flowering trees your local neighborhood has to offer. caseytrees.org/resources/?search=&resource_ category=maps.
Arena Riffs Arena Riffs is a three-part commissioned musical series that features three different composer and lyricist teams with musical selections infused with sounds of folk, indie and hip-hop. Themes in the musical
series include the grief and void created by the pandemic, the nationwide reckoning on racial injustice, finding joy in difficult times and the exploration of one’s relationship to the country. The self-produced original finished pieces presented by Arena Stage are 20 to 30 minutes long and are available to stream on Arena’s website. Arena Riffs is free and open to the public to watch, but reservations are encouraged. arenastage.org.
The Kennedy Center’s free digital series, Arts Across America, continues this spring with a focus on cultural leadership and public healing, exploring racial sensitivity, economic equity, mental and physical health, land and water protection, and more. Each installment features performances and dialogue aiming to heal our country, communities, and selves. Free new episodes will air every other Saturday (from March 6) at 6 p.m. and can be viewed on Facebook Live, YouTube, and the Kennedy Center website. The first two episodes will spotlight Infinity Song and Emily Johnson. kennedy-center.org/digitalstage/arts-across-america.
Hire Contractors with Confidence Using the DCRA Rating System To help District residents and businesses hire contractors and building professionals with more confidence, the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA) is introducing the new DCRA Contractor Rating System. The system arms residents with information to hire contractors who possess a proven track record of proper licensing, construction and inspections. It also provides free access to an inventory of contractors, architects, and other building professionals. The DCRA Contractor Rating System uses objec-
Capitol Hill Alphabet Animal Art Project The CHAAAP story began when Capitol Hill resident Stephen Young was walking around the neighborhood with his two daughters. As they passed the lettered street signs, he pointed them out and said, “E St. E is for Elephant! K St...K is for Kangaroo.” And in that moment, a creative idea was born: why not share that fun, educational experience with all Hill residents by installing animal sculptures on the street signs? In 2014, CHAW received a grant from DDOT and sent out a call for artists. With the artistic direction of Bruce McKaig and a panel of experienced jurors, they selected an initial 10 artists to create fantastical, whimsical, unique, and artistic representations of animals for each of ten streets in the SE quadrant of DC. Ten more have been installed since then. Their goal is to help create a more vibrant, livable, walkable community for all our neighbors. Read more and find a map at chaw.org/ capitol-hill-alphabet-animal-art-project. 54 ★ HILLRAG.COM
Arts Across America Returns
Homeschooled academically and musically by parents who founded the Boys & Girls Choir of Detroit, Abraham (27), Victory (26), Angel (24), Israel (22) and Momo, (21) have performed in front of audiences since pre-K and make up the group Infinity Song.
On C Street and 9th SE, one of 10 animal signs by Davide Prete.
tive data to assign a rating using between one and five stars to building professionals doing business in the District. govservices.dcra.dc.gov/contractorratingsystem.
Talking to Our Time: Hirshhorn Highlights (At Home) Unwind in a new way with today’s leading artists every Wednesday. They’ll give their perspectives on conversations you care about in real time. The new season of Talking to Our Time has started. Here’s the lineup: April 7, 7 p.m., On Art and Representation: Artist Talk with Riva Lehrer; Artist Talk with Danh Vo, April 14, noon; On Art and Representation-Artist Talk with with Riva Lehrer, April 21, noon; Art and Eco-Trauma-Artist Talk with Teresi-
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AARP Tax Preparation Help for DC Residents DC residents can send a text to or leave a message at 202642-9037 or email the Help Desk at DCTaxAide.Help@ gmail.com if you have questions or need help with your federal or DC tax return. One of their counselors will get in touch with you by email or return your call using the number 617-675-4444. For contact free help, you can send your scanned documents to them and they will prepare your return. All contact is by video chat or phone. A copy of your completed return is then emailed to you. You sign and they eFile your return. To get started, go to aarpfoundation. org/taxaide or email the Help Desk. If you were unable to complete your 2019 tax return, they may be able to help.
2021 Anacostia River Festival Scott Price in a photo submitted to the Hill Rag’s contest for face masks last year.
A Mask-Message from Capitol Hill Village “The vast majority of residents of Capitol Hill continue to wear facial coverings when outdoors to prevent the spread of Covid virus. Thank you. CapitolHillVIllage.org (CHV) has observed a steady increase in masking from a low of 70% in July 2020 to a high above 90% in January 2021 in the few residential areas and parks where we observed. Masking has always been the highest in areas of heavy foot traffic, but it can dip below 70% in less busy areas. Women usually wear masks more often than men, sometimes by as much as 15% of the people we see on sidewalks. Since it is not yet clear if vaccinated people can spread Covid, CHV urges everyone to continue to wear masks, particularly to protect people who cannot get vaccinated.” ta Fernandez, April 28, 7 p.m.; On Art and Other Senses-Artist Talk with Anicka Yi, May 5, 7 p.m. hirshhorn.si.edu/art-artists.
DPR Summer Camp Registration is Open DC residents can now sign up for DPRs traditional summer camps, modified to include social distancing and safety guidelines. Sessions are June 28 to July 9; July 12 to 23; July 26 to Aug. 6; and Aug. 9 to 20. dprsummercamp.com. 56 ★ HILLRAG.COM
founded last year by Jafe Cycling Owner, Matt Onojafe to promote health and wellness in the African-American community.$45.thetrailsdmv.com.
Free Help with Swarms of Honeybees Now that it’s spring, some healthy honeybees may run out of hive space and go out looking for a new place to call home—swarming. Bee swarms contain thousands of harmless, homeless honeybees. These are local, sustainable bees and many beekeepers would love to give them a new hive. If you see a swarm, to ensure that it’s collected in a safe and timely manner, snap a picture, call/text the DC Beekeeper Alliance Swarm Squad at 202-255-4318. For more information visit, dcbeekeepers.org/have-swarm-bees.
Mosaic Design, April 21
This year’s Anacostia River Festival will be celebrated, virtually, on April 10 and 11, from 1 to 3 p.m. Tune in to bridgepark.org to enjoy a word from community leaders and partners, oral histories from residents, musical performances and much more.
Mosaic Design, a Preservation Cafe sponsored by the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, Wednesday, April 21, 6:30 pm. A virtual chat with Jim Miller, local artist, historian, and renovator, who has transformed his Capitol Hill home into an elaborate oasis of mosaic design - a stunning tribute to time spent studying in Ravenna and Venice, Italy. Free. Visit chrs.org/ mosaic-design-pc/ for details and a 3D scan of Jim’s home.
DC Schools Parking Enforcement Returns
Mother’s Day “Tour of Tours”
DPW has started parking enforcement in District School Zones with $25 fines. dpw.dc.gov.
The Capitol Hill Restoration Society (CHRS) will stage its annual Mother’s Day weekend (May 8 & 9) event
CHRS Call to Artists The Capitol Hill Restorations Society’s Mother’s Day Tour of Tours (May 8 & 9) will include an “Artists at Home” component. Local artists are invited to display their work on their porches or in a tented front yard. If you’d like to participate, email HouseTourCHRS@gmail.com. For Tour of Tours details and registration information, visit chrs.org/2021mothers-day-tour-of-tours/. Deadline is April 16. chrs.org.
Bike Tour through DMV In honor of National Bike Month, the second annual DMV Trails Tour hosted by Jafe Cycling will be held on Saturday, May 1, at 7 a.m. The tour will consist of four trails throughout DC, Maryland and Virginia. The event has partnered with the micromobility mapping navigation app, ScootRoute, to provide guided routes to get riders from start to finish safely. A percentage of the proceeds will be donated to the nonprofit AWANA, a nonprofit boys and girls club. The 2020 ride had more than 127 participants. The DMV Trails Tour was
Congressional Cemetery Sunday Strolls and Saturday Guided Tours Resume Beginning in April, Sunday Strolls, at 1 p.m., at Congressional Cemetery will resume. Docents may pick their favorite stories or give a specialized tour, rather than giving a standard broad look at the cemetery’s history. Join them for a grab bag of history and lore. Tours are limited to nine people. Pre-registration is required (no walk-ups). $5 donation. Also, beginning on Saturdays in April, at 11 a.m., guided tours resume. Among the 65,000 burials at Congressional are scores of noteworthy citizens who left their mark on the city and the nation. Find out more about their amazing stories. Tours are limited to nine people. Pre-registration is required (no walk-ups). $5 donation. congressionalcemetery.org. Congressional Cemetery’s annual Day of the Dog Festival, originally scheduled for April 17, has been postponed until 2022.
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VISIT JAMESJOHNMAGNER.COM FOR MORE INFORMATION.
as a series of outdoor, guided walking tours. Themes include “Hollywood on the Hill”, “The Resistance”, “Notable People”, “Our Industrial Past”, “Parks - Treasures of Capitol Hill”, “Community Evolution” near Logan School, and, for younger neighbors, “Whimsy of Capitol Hill”. CHRS is also organizing an “Artists at Home” gallery, inviting local artists to display their work on their porches or in a tented front yard. For details and registration information, visit chrs.org/2021-mothers-day-tour-of-tours/. Email HouseTourCHRS@gmail.com by Friday, April 16, to participate in the art show.
The Life and Murder of Sister Dorothy Stang On Monday April 12, 7 p.m., the life and murder of Sister Dorothy Stang will be explored in a lecture presented by Michele Murdock, author of A Journey of Courage–The Amazing Story of Sister Dorothy Stang. Sister Dorothy was a fearless advocate for the poor, the indigenous peoples and the environment of the Amazon Basin. She was murdered in 2005. This Village Voices lecture is free and open to the public. To register, visit CapitolHillVillage.org.
Meet the Ambassador: Her Excellency Kirsten Hillman, Canada’s Ambassador to the US Tuesday, April 20, 7 pm, Cost: $10 suggested donation. Meet the Ambassador is a new program hosted by Hill Center with former Michigan Governor and Ambassador Jim Blanchard that showcases the diplomatic community in Washington. We are delighted to launch the first Meet the Ambassador program with an engaging interview with Ambassador Kirsten Hillman who was appointed Canada’s envoy to the U.S. in March 2020. She is the first woman to hold this critical post for her country in Washington. Prior to her appointment, she served as
Acting Ambassador and Deputy Ambassador, bringing a strong portfolio to her current role.
Graffiti and Aerosol Mural Artists Sought The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities seeks graffiti and aerosol mural artists and artist teams to design, create and install aerosol murals as part of the MuralsDC program. Selected artists will be expected to engage in a guided component of the program with designated youth (ages 14 to 18) to help them understand the art of aerosol graffiti mural painting and provide them with opportunities to assist in activities such as site preparation and mural outlining. Submission deadline is Friday, April 23. Staff contact is Alissa Maru, Public Art Program Coordinator, alissa.maru@dc.gov. For more information and to apply, visit dcarts.dc.gov/page/grant-programs.
DC Volunteer Water Quality Monitoring Funded by the District Department of Energy and Environment, and in partnership with Audubon Naturalist Society, Rock Creek Conservancy, and Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay, Anacostia Riverkeeper volunteers will monitor 22 sites in the District across the Anacostia, Rock Creek, and Potomac watersheds. Monitoring will occur weekly, for E. coli, turbidity, water temperature, air temperature, and pH. Virtual trainings are held on April 14, 21, and 24, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. All new volunteers will need to attend one training followed by a brief, socially distant, in person demo to be certified. Returning volunteers don’t need to attend a training, but will need to take a recertification test. anacostiariverkeeper.org/volunteer. Have an item for the Hill Rag Bulletin Board? Email the details to bulletinboard@hillrag.com. ◆
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/ Our River: The Anacostia /
Lessons From Ward 8 Helping The Healing With Nature by Bill Matuszeski
Ward 8 Woods Trash Pick-up. Photo: Bill Matuszeski
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that gathers along the edges of the woodlands, blowing in from the residential areas, thrown down by passersby or brought there and dumped. That and the absence of trails sends a strong message to residents that these green spaces are not welcoming. But that is about to change! Leading the effort to clean up and open up these open spaces is the Ward 8 Woods Conservancy led by Nathan Harrington and a small group of part-time staffers, including a group called the Park Stewards. They seek to engage youth groups, schools, churches and any other volunteers who wish to help clean up and open up the park areas with trails. Support for these efforts comes from a variety of places. The DC Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) funds the Park Stewards. The DC Department of
here are some interesting developments in Ward 8 that will help in the restoration of the Anacostia River and other water bodies. But first some background. Ward 8 is the part of the city east of the Anacostia and south of Pennsylvania Avenue except for the part around Branch Avenue, which is in Ward 7. Most of Ward 8 drains into the Anacostia, but the southwest portion drains to the Potomac via Oxon Run. There are over 500 acres in forests, most in designated parklands, but very few trails. While these areas have some streams, when they enter built-up areas they usually join the heavy runoff from apartment complexes and parking lots, and discharge into sewer lines that empty into the two rivers. Compared to other parts of the City, Ward 8 has had little invested in tying its neighborhoods to its open spaces. Especially at this time of the year, that is evident by the enormous amount of litter Fort Stanton Park Trail. Photo: Bill Matuszeski
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Transportation is preparing to fund the repair and building of trails. The National Park Service owns and manages much of the open space and provides gloves and bags for clean-ups. Riverkeeper analyzes water samples and provides technical support for reducing pollution. And George Washington University has an Environmental Justice Group that is preparing to study the streams of Ward 8 – taking water samples, studying erosion and providing recommendations for improvements. Many of these groups could do more if they could line up and focus funds on these emerging areas to support Ward 8 Woods and the surrounding communities that have been overlooked for many decades. Where that has happened in Ward 8 the results gain community support and use of the open spaces. Things are getting organized now by Ward 8 Woods for a lot more action along these lines. More funding from all sources will be needed. What are some of the places that call out for investment in community open space? One area where Ward 8 Woods is well along with the City is to plan a hiking trail in the tangled forests that wander along the north side of the Suitland Parkway. There is already a bike trail along the edge of the right-of–way from the Maryland line to Pomeroy Road; this would be a very different experience – an unpaved walking trail through hills and ravines well hidden back from the road. The two trails would make an almost six-mile loop. Many neighborhoods along trails would benefit and help keep the trash and debris under control; folks don’t dump where they think their neighbors want to enjoy nature. Another project under development is to place a walking trail along the Shepherd Parkway. This area, which extends for about two miles on hillsides overlooking the Naval Research Laboratory and Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, the Potomac and beyond, is not what you think of as a “Parkway.” There are no roads, no cars, not even a trail through the extended deep woods looking out to the west. Shepherd Parkway Overlook. (Continued on pg. 63) Photo: Mary Procter
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Letting the Sunshine In
New Programs to Cover Upfront Costs of Solar Energy by Catherine Plume
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f you’re a DC homeowner, chances are that you’re aware of the money saving advantages of adding solar energy to your home. While installing a solar array requires an upfront investment, most homeowners can recover this cost in four-five years while significantly reducing their electricity bills by as much as 50 percent (an average of $500 per year for a DC household) for years to come. But many people just can’t afford that upfront cost. The DC Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) Solar for All program (https://doee.dc.gov/solarforall) implemented by the DC Sustainable Energy Utility (DCSEU) is working with DC solar businesses to make solar energy installations affordable for all DC homeowners. Solar for All (SFA) was initiated in 2017 with a goal of providing 100,000 DC homes with solar energy in line with the Sustainable DC Plan and the Mayor’s commitment to a carbon neutral DC by 2050. While residents must be income-qualified to benefit in the program, the threshold is approximately $100,000 for a family of four. Ted Trabue, Director of the DCSEU notes, “This spring and summer, the DCSEU is excited to work with four local solar installers -- Ipsun Solar, Greenscape Energy, Solar Solution, and WDC Solar -- to bring solar technology and critical electricity bill savings to residents who need it most right now.” Ipsun Solar (https://www.ipsunsolar.com/) is excited to be a part of the SFA cohort. Co-founder Joe Marhamati said, “We’re thrilled to be working with DOEE and DCSEU to provide free solar installations for low and middle income District homeowners. Solar for All is in line with our company ethic. It gives us an opportunity to give back to the community and install solar for homeowners who might otherwise not have the opportunity to go solar.” Through a cost-share with DC SEU, Ipsun will install solar arrays on up to 15 DC homes. Marhamati and co-founder Herve Billiet met when they were both working at the US Department of Energy disbursing clean energy loans through the Amer-
Ipsun Solar is bringing sunshine power to DC. Photo: Ipsun Solar
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ican Recovery and Reinvestment Act. They decided to start Ipsun Solar in 2016. The name comes from the Latin Ipsum meaning “your own” or “itself,” as they wanted to build the kind of company that they would want to buy from. “Many of the early solar installers were lackluster, said Marhamati. “They used third-party contractors for their work, they were often unresponsive to their clients, and they Ipsun Solar customer David Roodman is didn’t treat their employees fairly. We pleased with the solar installation on his decided to become a part of the AmicDC rooftop. Photo: Ipsun Solar us Solar Cooperative and build a company that offers a living wage and health care for our employees.” They needed an office space, and as luck would have it, a law firm moved out of top floor of the Watergate and subleased the space to them for pennies on the dollar. Joe recalls, “We were just renting one small office, but we essentially had run of the entire top floor, with sweeping views of the Potomac River. We hosted community gatherings on the rooftop. We were fewer than five employees at the time, but when people came to see, we looked like a Fortune 500 company!” Their efforts paid off. Ipsun Solar is thriving and has installed solar arrays on over 300 homes to date, with business growing exponentially every year. But they are looking for new ways to promote clean energy. Ipsun Solar is one of the early supporters of the Clean Energy Credit Union which provides clean energy loans for solar installations as well as geothermal energy, energy efficiency appliances, electric vehicles and electric bikes. The credit union will be adding a green home mortgage in the near future as well. As a not-for-profit credit union, 100% of it’s deposits (checking accounts, CDs, etc) are invested into clean energy projects. If you want to see if your household qualifies for Solar for All, visit website www.dcseu.com/SolarForAll or call 202-479-2222. There’s even a Solar for All Community Solar program, whereby residents who live in apartments or in homes that can’t support solar can sign up to receive solar electricity bill credits. And if you want to learn more about the Clean Energy Credit Union, visit www.cleanenergycu.org. Anyone who believes in this mission can open a checking account for as little as $5. Reduce your carbon emissions and make the world a better place – all while saving yourself some cash. Let the sunshine in! Catherine Plume is a lifelong environmentalist, un urban homesteader, a writer, and blogger for the DC Recycler: www.DCRecycler.blogspot.com; Twitter: @DC_Recycler. She is also the Chair of the DC Chapter of the Sierra Club, however, perspectives expressed are her own and do not necessarily represent the positions of that organization. ◆
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(Continued from pg. 60) But plans are now in the works with Ward 8 Woods and the National Park Service to put in a trail to allow folks to enjoy the spectacular views. There are many more prospects to work on community gardens, trails, trash removal, rest and picnic areas, you name it! There are plenty of woods in Ward 8 and most of them need trails and care. Even in Oxon Run Park in the far southwest of the Ward, the spectacularly beautiful fields and picnic areas and gardens and trails cover only part of the land; there are still many acres of unused forest upstream that could be a source of pleasure for hikers and nature-lovers. Ward 8 Woods is focused on doing what is working to heal the lands and to empower the residents with the help of agencies and public donations of time and money. It is a case of healing and empowerment for the land, the forests and the people. So consider helping out with your time, your money, your ideas and your cheers! To finish with some words from National Park Service Superintendent of National Capital Parks-East, Tara Morrison: “Ward 8 Woods helps us better protect park resources and serve park neighbors and visitors. We’re grateful for Ward 8 Woods and their many committed volunteers. By cleaning up tons of trash, removing invasive species, and advocating for park improvements, their team is making a big difference and helping the National Park Service better serve the community. We look forward to continuing to work with them.” Bill Matuszeski is a member of the Mayor’s Leadership Council for a Cleaner Anacostia River, and the retired Director of the Chesapeake Bay Program. He also serves on the board of Friends of the National Arboretum and on Citizen Advisory Committees for the Chesapeake and the Anacostia. ◆
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Craft Optimism
Artwork in Harmony with the Environment by Phil Hutinet
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he change in the presidential administration has many feeling optimistic about the coming years and with good reason. With the stroke of President Biden’s pen, the US rejoined the Paris Climate Agreement which takes aim at the global climate crisis. While many Americans address environmental issues by exercising their right to vote, many wonder what else, as individuals, can they do to offset consumer waste, carbon emissions and tackle the climate crisis? Smithsonian Women’s Committee (SWC) and nonprofit Honoring the Future hope that this year’s annual SWC craft show titled “Craft Optimism” will inform, educate and offer new perspectives on how artists create award-winning, aesthetically pleasing craft that also addresses the impact of climate change. The online marketplace, which can be previewed ahead of time, will take place online at craftoptimism.si.edu from April 24-May 1 and feature over 100 juried artists from the US. Since the inception of the first craft fair in 1982, SWC has raised over $13 million to support grants that promote innovative education and research projects. For this edition of the craft fair, SWC partnered with Honoring the Future, an organization dedicated to engaging the public on climate change through educational projects.
Juried, Curated and Environmentally Sustainable The artist selection for Craft Optimism was based on one or both the following criteria: the artist creates craft that either helps address climate change through its use of materials or the craft addresses the impacts of climate change. According to Twig Murray, Co-Chair of Craft Optimism, to select artists that met these standards, SWC sought the help of experts in the field of American Craft. This included specialists at Smithsonian’s Cooper 64 ★ HILLRAG.COM
Thrive brooch by Sarah Murphy. Image courtesy of the artist
Fish Bowl by Shirley Gromen. Image courtesy of the artist
Hewitt, Renwick Gallery and the American Indian as well as private galleries and educators. Based on nominations made by these experts, SWC invited the selected artists to submit an application that included information about their work and process. Honoring the Future then reviewed each application to ensure that each applicant’s craft conformed to the one of the above criteria. In addition, SWC actively pursued the Smithsonian Institution’s equity and inclusion policies and actively sought works by American artists of Asian, Black, Hispanic, and Native origin. Fran Dubrowski, Director of Honoring the Future, hopes that the craft show will educate people on ways in which they can address climate change. She believes in the arts’ ability to engage audiences. “Craft Optimism celebrates the power and creativity of craft artists who call attention to an Earth in crisis and who offer inventive ideas for curtailing human impacts on the environment,” she says. The handmade objects exhibited online fall into two major categories. The first consists of mostly decorative items including artwork or household goods such as furniture. The second features “wearables” such as jewelry and clothing. SWC takes a percentage of all sales, funds which go to support innovative Smithsonian educational and research projects across 19 museums, research labs and the National Zoo.
Participating Artists
Colin Selig bench made from repurposed propane tanks. Image courtesy of the artist
Over 100 artists will participate in Craft Optimism including many from the DC region. Of note, three national artists, including Colin Selig, Sarah Murphy and Rowland Rickets have unique processes that illustrate the fair’s spirit of environmental sustainability. Colin Selig’s demonstrates that reused materials can produce both aesthetically pleasing and functional objects. He cleverly repurposes old propane tanks into fun, comfortable chairs simply by reassem-
Additions & Basement Experts BUFFALO COMPANY, LLC www.buffalocompanyusa.com For all your Construction Needs recent art school graduate, Murphy now uses the skills she developed to create jewelry from the remnant plastic pieces. Their colorful brilliance mimics the sparkle of jewels. Rowland Ricketts and his wife Chinami grow their own indigo which they use to dye hand-made fabric. Rowland then uses the large blueish-hued runners as backdrops for installations at museums around the world. For Craft Optimism, he and his wife have, as Rowland puts it, “completed a sustainable circle of life” for the textiles by refashioning them into table runners and other useable objects. Lastly, several local artists will be participating in the craft fair including Jessica Beels who uses found natural materials, ceramicist Shirley Gromen whose work raises awareness about the Chesapeake Bay, Jenae Michelle who creates handbags out of old coats and fabric from the 1950s, Fiber artist Kim Schalk who fashions clothes from reused fiber and discarded plastic, and Topaz Terry who creates accessories out of bicycle waste. Craft Optimism takes place April 24 through May 1, 2021 online at craftoptimism.si.edu. Social Media handles : Facebook: Smithsonian Craft Show Twitter: @craftshowswc IG: smithsoniancraftshowsswc
Hand-dyed fabric by Rowland Ricketts. Image courtesy of the artist
bling the metal components from one form to the next. Selig hopes his technique will “inspire others to consider new possibilities for reusing materials.” Since childhood, Sarah Murphy had always held a fascination for the colorful plastic pieces discarded during the production of steel cables at her family’s factory in Ohio. A
Other Websites: Honoring the Future: www.honoringthefuture.org SWC Craft Show (general): smithsoniancraftshow.org Smithsonian Women’s Committee: swcmembers.si.edu
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home and garden DC MUSHROOM LOVERS ON THE HUNT Enticed by the Outdoors, Social Interaction, Mindfulness, and Mushrooms
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ever mind the cherry blossoms, DC is a city of mushrooms. Neighborhood trees, root boxes, gardens, planters and parks often shelter common and sometimes unexpected mushroom species to hunt, identify, and appreciate. When temperatures and rains are favorable, a few easy-to-spot edible mushrooms—oyster, wood ear, and chicken of the wood—appear throughout the year. Once temperatures rise and spring rains fall, the first morels are certain to pop. Shortly after that, wine caps. Another month or two yet, chantarelles, meadow mushrooms, puffballs and boletes. Late summer and fall see hen of the wood, honey, lion’s mane, blewits, enoki, and many others. For those who like to spot, but not eat what they find, jacko-lanterns, bleeding tooth, devil’s fingers, and an
by Michelle LaFrance array of green, purple, and red mushrooms populate wooded lots (and sometimes backyards) through the summer months. For DC mushroom hunters, the first days of spring are filled with an anticipation of the season to come.
In Search of Mushrooms “I’ve been known to stop my car because I saw one,” says Tara Geiger, who lives in Brightwood and has taught wild mushroom hunting and identification with Drew Drozynski for the DC Urban Gardner’s Network. A few years ago, she spotted a lions mane mushroom in the branches of an oak in Northwest. “It was up, 30 feet off the ground,” Drozynski confirms. “And huge!” Geiger adds. “In the spring, I tell people that I’ll go online and just pull up pictures of morels, just to kind of get my brain used to recognizing that pattern—so, when I go in the woods, they pop a little better,” says Mitch Fournet, who leads mushroom forays with DC’s Mycological Association of Washing- Drew Drozynski. ton (MAW). John Harper, the curto learn about local ecosystems. Anne Hiller, of Resrent culinary chair of MAW keeps ton, began mushrooming in spring 2020 as a way to a small model of a morel on his desk to learn more about local ecology. “My son really loved help him with pattern-recognition on forit,” she said, as they took walks together. “We just ays. The tan morel replica bears distincpicked things and took them back home and looked tive, squiggly ridges on its long cap. them up in our book.” For those itching for a new focus on Soon after Hiller took up spotting local funpandemic walks, mushroom hunting can gi, her mother also developed “mushroom eyes,” a provide a fascinating lens through which
Umbrella Polyphre
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. home and garden .
nickname for the gaze that discerns mushrooms from undergrowth. Hiller recounts showing a picture of black trumpets to her mother and son. “Two hours later, they came back from their walk with a huge bag, asking ‘are these black trumpets?’” They’d found so many, Hiller was able to dehydrate the black trumpets they’d picked for later use. Other mushroom hunters admit that they faced some skepticism when beginning to mushroom hunt. “My friends and family—they’re like— you are completely insane!” Pamela Arya, McLean, remembers. She took up foraging after finding a huge chicken of the woods when hiking in Catoctin Park. She now hunts around the DMV with other enthusiasts she has met via Facebook forums. Geiger confides that she regularly hears similar worries about disturbing and picking mushrooms. Many people are squeamish about touching or eating something toxic or eating fungi that have not come from a grocery store. “Don’t be afraid to pick them or smell them or touch what you find,” Geiger says. “It’s like rock climbing,” Drozynski says. “If you follow the protocols and you learn how to do it, it’s a quite a safe activity.” Herndon resident Rahima Shafiq Ullah appreciates “connecting” and gaining “a different sense or understanding of the natural world, rediscovering knowledge people used to have.” She first learned more about mushroom foraging through a nature program near Charlottesville, VA called The
Mushrooming class. Photo: Drew Drozynski.
Living Earth School. Also, Ullah says, “It’s just fun to notice the mushrooms. What do they look like? Where do they grow? What’s happening to the area around them?” Drozynski and Geiger acknowledge the mindfulness benefits of mushroom hunting. They say hunting for mushrooms slows them down and requires them to be more “tuned in” to the environments they visit. “We used to hike nine or 10 miles when we’d go out,” Drozynski notes. “Now we hike
one, but we are thorough.” “You know when you’re close to mycelium,” Geiger says. She describes a subtle change in humidity that is often her first tell she may be onto a find. Serious mycologists also know that learning to find mushrooms requires a broad knowledge of the ecosystems and conditions particular species prefer. Some species only grow on dead wood, others from soil. Morels grow near ash, elm, and oak. Oyster mushrooms thrive in shady areas and on fall-
Lions Mane Mushroom Morel mushrooms.
Chicken and Hen
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Oyster mushrooms. Photo: Ryan Franks
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en deciduous hardwoods, especially tulip poplars. Chicken and hen are most often found on dead oak. One species that is reported to grow in the region, but which has eluded the MAW foray leaders: Umbrella Polypore. “Others have found it in this area,” says Fournet, who has 20 years of experience hunting and identifying the region’s mushrooms. “I think I found one in the fall on top of a log, but it was so buggy and messed up. If you touched it, it crumbled.”
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The Mycological Association of Washington (http://mawdc.org/) is just one of the many resources available to those learning to hunt mushrooms in DC and the greater DMV. Its 600 members include amateur mushroom hunters and professional mycologists who study and educate, forage, photograph, and cook wild fungi they have found. The organization has moved its monthly meetings onto Zoom for the pandemic, but Fournet is preparing to host the first in-person forays in coming months (with all of the necessary precautions and restrictions). In the meantime, MAW’s monthly meetings are open to the public, bringing guest experts to those who want a deeper dive into the ways of mycelium. Geiger and Drozynski suggest starting with five mushrooms that you know you can identify 100 percent and building a knowledge base from there. The MAW field experts recommend collecting in baskets or mesh bags as this allows spores to spread. It is also important to cut the stalk of a mushroom with a knife when collecting, because that leaves the mycelium hyphae, which spread like roots, in the soil or the wood, allowing the mushroom to fruit once more. Before you pick, always be sure that you are allowed to harvest from an area. Rock Creek Park, for instance, allows no foraging or picking and will ticket/fine rule breakers. Regulations in MD and VA differ between parks and jurisdictions—so it is always best to check the website of the location you are visiting.
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Never eat a raw wild mushroom. Identification of any mushroom you find is crucial be-
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fore eating it. Mushrooms near roadways or potentially contaminated soils should be avoided because the mushrooms may absorb and accumulate harmful chemical compounds and contaminants. Mushroom hunters should also know how to properly cook what they’ve found. Some common species need to be cooked thoroughly to avoid gastric distress. Experts recommend tasting only a small portion if you haven’t eaten that variety before. Even mushrooms that are generally considered safe to eat may cause mild digestive upsets or other reactions due to individual sensitivity. Harper notes a few people having had issues with wild mushrooms that others have no problem eating, such as Honey Mushrooms, Chanterelles, Morels, Chicken of the Woods and Wine Caps. Just in case, it’s important to keep the information for the DC’s National Poison Control Center or the North American Mycological Association’s “next steps and remedial actions” at hand (see side bar). MAW also reminds mushroom hunters to take serious precautions against ticks, all year round, and offers information about identifying ticks should you find one on you. Raking leaf litter or using a leaf blower to clear the forest can dry out and kill mycelium under the soil. Leaving an area bare after disturbing leaves is also very bad for mushrooms and their habitat. “Pick-shaming,” the belief that picking a species may be detrimental to populations or an ecosystem, is also unnecessary. Unlike picking a wild flower, which keeps a native variety from re-seeding its population, picking a mushroom distributes spores, making it more likely that the species will spread and thrive. “It’s like picking an apple from an apple tree,” Drozynski notes. Michelle LaFrance is an English Professor at George Mason University who lives in SW. You can read her piece on making dandelion wine here (https://www.hillrag.com/2020/05/18/in-searchof-dandelions/ ). She thanks John Harper of the Mycological Association of Washington, Tara Geiger and Drew Drozynski of the DUG Network for their knowledgeable feedback on this article. ◆
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More on Mushroom Hunting Field Guides The National Audubon Society’s Field Guide to North American Mushrooms (Lincoff 1988), Mushrooms of the Northeast: A Simple Guide to Common Mushrooms (Maroone 2016), Mushrooms of the Southeast (Elliot and Stephenson 2018)
Facebook Groups Northern Virginia Mushroom Hunters www.facebook.com/ groups/459881097545606 Mushroom Identification Northeastern U.S www.facebook.com/ groups/1284410591679612
Just in Case DC’s National Poison Control Center, www.poison.org
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The North American Mycological Association’s “Next Steps and Remedial Actions” https://namyco.org/poisonings.php
Seasonal Classes, Workshops, and Plant Walks DC’s Urban Gardening Network dugnetwork.org DC’s Department of Parks and Recreation, dpr.dc.gov Matt’s Habitats, mattshabitats.com Little Red Bird Botanicals littleredbirdbotanicals.com King Mushroom Farms (Barclay, MD) kingmushroomfarms.com Wild Mushrooms CSA April 2021 ★ 71
. home and garden .
DO YOU YEARN TO “URN” An open invitation to Capitol Hill Gardeners by Rindy O’Brien
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ere is a great opportunity we’re sure many Capitol Hill gardeners will want to embrace. The urns that line the lower section of Lincoln Park need planting this spring and summer and there are several openings for volunteers. What a chance to give back to your community by adopting one of the urns. It gives you a chance for kinship with other neighbors who are helping out, lets you get out and enjoy nature, and makes the Hill a little lovelier.
In 1974, the large statue of Mary McLeod Bethune was placed directly across from that of Lincoln and the two historical figures now are bookends for the urns. Over the past four years, many neighbors have taken part in the Adopt An Urn project. In 2021, the volunteer-run project is looking for new volunteers to participate, especially as some folks have left the area during Covid-19 and with the sad passing of one of the project’s beloved gardeners, Bill Holleman.
The Urn Project
Many Capitol Hill residents will immediately remember Bill, if not by name, then by seeing him and his constant canine companion, always a Weimaraner. Weimaraners are known as the gray ghost and became very popular with the art of William Wegman and his dog Man-Ray. Bill’s latest dog, Michah, was his fourth. He was hard to miss at Lincoln Park with his dog, especially because he and Michah were always fashionably dressed and Bill stood over six feet four inches tall. Lucky for us, Michah, adopted by a neighbor, now lives a block from where Bill lived, and his impressive wardrobe of coats, collars, and beds remain. Bill moved to Capitol Hill in 1974 and started his interior design company, Nutshell Interiors. Every Friday night, Bill would band friends together for a community dinner at Mr. Henry’s on Pennsylvania Avenue, SE. Mr. Henry’s was the first place Bill dined when he arrived on the Hill, and in the ear-
For decades, the 17 urns that stand about three feet tall in Lincoln Park had not been planted. Then in 2017, Karen Cohen, a Hill gardener, decided to do something about it. Karen and her husband had relocated to Capitol Hill from Charlotte, North Carolina, a city that prides itself on its flowers and natural beauty. Karen learned that the National Park Service owns and manages Lincoln Park, the largest park on Capitol Hill. But NPS did not have the federal resources to plant the urns or maintain the flowers. The park, which was originally designated by Congress in 1867 and was dedicated by Frederick Douglass, draws hundreds of Hill residents every sunny day. People have picnics or practice yoga. Young children hold soccer practice. Nannies use the park as a gathering place and, of course, the dogs of the Hill love the park as well.
Bill Holleman passed in mid-January, 2021, and will be missed by the “urn” community, and many others on Capitol Hill. Photo: Diana Allen
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Remembering Bill
Bill Holleman’s urn was one of the most vibrant in 2020, sitting at the Mary McLeod Bethune end of Lincoln Park. Photo: Diana Allen
Peter Rothschild a member of Mary McFaran’s urn team has perfected his watering technique using a yoke style approach. Photo: Rindy o’Brien
ly days he used it as his home office. His friend Diana Allen says, “He was an amazing cook and his Thanksgiving table always was resplendent with flower arrangements, candles, customized place settings and sparking tableware.” Bill had started his life of design at age eight. As a birthday present to his favorite aunt, he singled-handedly painted her room, made new curtains, and pulled up old linoleum to reveal eight-inch-wide chestnut planks. Fittingly, Bill’s urn was always the most beautiful in the park. His sense of style carried through to flower arranging featuring splashes of color that seemed to make the Mary Bethune end of the park Michah posing as Michah in Pantone just light up. Bill’s spirit will like the famous Weimaraner’s of William be always be with us espeWegman. Michah continues to run with Diana in Lincoln Park. Photo: Diana Allen
The Capitol Hill Garden Club presents
Dear Garden Problem Lady, by Wendy Blair
There are 17 urns that surround the area used by dogs in the park, and the flowers are a way to brighten up the largest urban park on Capitol Hill. Photo: Rindy O’Brien
cially as we prepare the urns for a new season. Diana encourages those that knew Bill to raise a glass of his favorite Jack Daniels to toast his life.
New Season Over the past fall months, the National Park Service helped ready the urns for this new season. As in any urban settings, rodents, including rats, have a way of finding their way into containers like urns. The rat population was especially challenging last summer. It turns out that the ever-popular sweet potato vine that grows quickly and makes for a lovely hanging plant in urns was part of the problem. NPS took out all the old soil in the urns and placed metal mesh inside the urn, which should help solve the issue. Fresh new potting soil has been added as well. The other challenge is water. The National Park Service is continuing to explore ways to provide water for the park, but so far there is none available. Volunteers must bring their own water to the park. You may have seen gardeners pulling red wagons loaded with gallon water containers. One gardener, Peter Rothschild, has mastered a method of creating a yoke with two water bottles hanging off his shoulders. Many of the urn volunteers multi-task by watering as they let their dogs run with the 7:30 early morning crew.
Part of the fun of gardening is the chance to try different plants and plant combinations. This year, the organizers of the urn project have arranged for a Zoom virtual class on April 24th at 1:00 p.m. The class will be taught by certified professional horticulturist Heather Wheatley. She is the education coordinator for the Homestead Gardens of Davidsonville, Maryland. The class is free and open to the public. Heather is an expert in sustainable horticulture and will have great tips on native and non-invasive plants. It will be a great way to start your urn adventure. Are you ready? Two Hill residents, James Grimaldi with backup from Elizabeth Nelson, are heading up the Urn Project this year. As Elizabeth says, “I love that each urn is a highly-individual reflection of the tender’s affection for Lincoln Park. So much more interesting than a bland, institutional mass-planting.” One can sign up for an urn or the zoom class by emailing, friendsofcapitolhillparks@gmail.com. Rindy O’Brien has volunteered with the Urban Project for three years, and finds it one of the best experiences one can have on the Hill. Contact Rindy at rindyobrien@gmail.com. ◆
While it is still spring and the start of the gardening year, can you help me achieve what people call “continuous bloom” in our garden? By this I mean no bleak spots that resemble a wasteland by September. You are on the right track. To achieve continuous blooming it is best to be one season ahead of where you want to end up. There’s time to find perennials that will make your garden glorious in July, August, September and beyond. First decide where they will go in your garden, how small or tall you need them to be, how much sun or shade exists there, and what other flowers go with them. Avoid options too far outside our Zone 7 climate. Plants have optimal planting times – often earlier than bloom time. If local stores can’t carry them yet, specialty nurseries online or by mail order can. To begin research you would normally do in January, try Pam Duthie’s brilliantly illustrated treasure, Continuous Bloom, a Month-to-Month Guide to Nonstop Color in the Perennial Garden (Ball Publishing, 2000). It has photos, ideas and resource lists galore Pictured is October-blooming, sweet smelling shade-loving Cimicifuga White Pearl, five feet tall. In March I finally pruned our neglected New Dawn rose, which has
climbed happily along the garden fence for years. I chopped off some vigorous shoots that had grown into the neighbor’s yard. I had to remove a side stalk that was too strong to be trained laterally. Now I fear that I either killed so much of the growing part of this old friend, that it could die – or else that I pruned at the wrong time, and killed it that way. I should have asked you before I chopped. Maybe not. You picked the correct time for rose pruning, early spring before buds have formed. Also you realized that New Dawn will climb where you want it to go only with firm assistance – being tied to strong support and instructed, with ties, on where to climb. Climbing roses have two stalks, called “canes.” Main canes come from the base; lateral canes emerge from main canes. Start by removing dead wood – any that is not green. You can prune lateral canes any time of year to keep the climber in shape. When, if ever, is the right time to prune a Knock Out rose? Pruning for Knock Outs is the same as for other roses, early spring when buds begin to form. Knock Outs bloom on new growth. You can cut back by one-third of their height. During Covid the Capitol Hill Garden Club continues Zoom meetings at 7 pm on the second Tuesday of the month – next is on April 10, 2021. Please contact capitolhillgardenclub.org for details. Feeling beset by gardening problems? Your problem might prove instructive to others, and help them feel superior to you. Send them to the Problem Lady c/o dearproblemlady@gmail.com. Complete anonymity is assured. ◆
April 2021 ★ 73
. home & garden.
CHANGING HANDS Changing Hands is a list of residential sales in Capitol Hill and contiguous neighborhoods from the previous month. A feature of every issue, this list, based on the MRIS, is provided courtesy of Don Denton, manager of the Coldwell Banker office on Capitol Hill. The list includes address, sales price and number of bedrooms. H STREET CORRIDOR 1336 G St NE 718 10th St NE 931 8th St NE
HILL EAST 1717 A St SE 465 Duvall Ct SE #A 469-C Duvall Ct SE #C 467 Duvall Ct SE #C
KINGMAN PARK 232 14th Pl NE 329 18th St NE 314 17th Pl NE 560 23rd Pl NE 552 23rd Pl NE
LEDROIT PARK 1850 5th St NW
LOGAN CIRCLE NEIGHBORHOOD PRICE BR FEE SIMPLE ANACOSTIA 1608 V St SE 2524 West St SE 1465 Ridge Pl SE 2236 Nicholson St SE 2208 SE Hunter Pl SE 1727 16th St SE 1417 Bangor St SE 1911 Fairlawn Ave SE
BLOOMINGDALE 57 R St NW 2210 Flagler Pl NW 13 V St NW 2034 1st St NW 61 Rhode Island Ave NW 37 Seaton Pl NW 44 U St NW 138 Seaton Pl NW 29 Seaton Pl NW
CAPITOL HILL 316 A St NE 426 C Street NE 112 4th St NE 237 12th St NE 212 10th St NE 2 6th St NE 203 12th St NE 645 Lexington Pl NE 1008 E Capitol St NE 1 D Street SE 1325 D St SE 1620 E St SE 216 12th St SE 600 Massachusetts Ave NE 613 E St SE 423 4th St NE 631 C St NE
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$663,000 $569,000 $536,000 $525,000 $484,000 $475,000 $473,660 $430,000
3 4 4 3 3 4 3 4
$1,435,000 $1,400,000 $1,335,000 $1,310,000 $1,249,000 $999,000 $960,000 $920,000 $800,000
4 4 4 6 6 4 5 3 3
$4,995,000 $2,550,000 $2,098,500 $2,048,000 $1,950,000 $1,850,000 $1,805,203 $1,780,000 $1,762,500 $1,649,000 $1,625,000 $1,560,000 $1,550,000 $1,525,000 $1,440,000 $1,430,000 $1,410,000
7 5 4 4 4 5 4 5 5 2 4 4 5 6 2 4 5
618 9th St NE 123 15th St NE 206 11th St NE 614 4th St NE 311 E St NE 1402 E St SE 702 F St NE 250 9th St SE 328 13th St SE 316 South Carolina Ave SE 651 E St SE 1326 South Carolina Ave SE 1015 Independence Ave SE 601 F St NE 325 F St NE 417 Independence Ave SE 120 Duddington Pl SE 153 Duddington Pl SE 1326 Corbin Pl NE 1537 E St SE 121 18th St SE 707 7th St SE 1362 Emerald St NE 314 C St SE 1370 E St NE 1208 G St SE 533 9th St NE 512 F Street Ter SE 1202 D St SE
ECKINGTON 136 R St NE 1733 N Capitol St NE 142 R St NE 1926 2nd St NE 1935 1st St NE
$1,380,000 $1,377,000 $1,350,000 $1,326,000 $1,265,000 $1,250,000 $1,237,000 $1,205,000 $1,155,000 $1,150,000 $1,150,000 $1,120,000 $1,105,000 $1,099,900 $1,060,000 $1,015,500 $948,500 $947,500 $926,000 $925,000 $907,500 $880,000 $867,000 $840,000 $815,000 $730,000 $645,000 $605,512 $460,000
4 3 3 4 3 3 4 2 3 3 2 3 3 4 3 2 2 2 4 2 3 2 3 2 3 2 2 1 1
$1,150,000 $1,100,000 $785,000 $680,000 $623,000
3 4 4 4 4
FORT DUPONT PARK 1506 41st St SE 707 46th St SE 3945 Alabama Ave SE 4523 Alabama Ave SE 3223 D St SE
$455,000 $453,000 $440,000 $390,000 $302,000
2 3 3 3 3
1714 10th St NW 1322 10th St NW 1633 Vermont Ave NW
NAVY YARD 302 L St SE
NOMA
702 K St NE 1113 4th St NE
OLD CITY #1 117 15th St NE 533 Tennessee Ave NE 1334 E St NE 1222 Half St SW 625 12th St NE 636 E St NE 1014 13th St SE 531 Tennessee Ave NE 1532 E St SE 1119 3rd St NE 235 14th Pl NE 1312 D St SE 562 Oklahoma Ave NE 2019 Gales St NE 1417 Maryland Ave NE
RANDLE HEIGHTS 3526 19th St SE 1510 Tobias Dr SE 2429 Irving St SE 2332 Elvans Rd SE 3012 24th Pl SE
SHAW
1531 8th St NW 900 French St NW 431 Q St NW 1517 6th St NW 1725 5th St NW 37 Q St NW
TRINIDAD 1147 Morse St NE
$1,038,000 4 $849,000 3 $680,000 2 $1,150,000 $775,000 $770,000 $770,000
4 3 2 2
$1,089,000 $1,010,000 $1,002,000 $805,000 $755,000
5 4 4 4 4
1269 Owen Pl NE 1227 Staples St NE 1513 Oates St NE 1220 Oates St NE 1274 Oates St NE 1181 Neal St NE 1717 M St NE 1702 Montello Ave NE 1022 18th St NE 1119 16th St NE
TRUXTON CIRCLE
$1,275,000 3
1512 3rd St NW
2125 14th St NW #108W 919 Florida Ave NW #704 2125 14th St NW #512
$808,500
BARRY FARMS
$980,000 $950,000 $905,000 $899,900 $875,000 $870,000 $830,000 $820,000 $750,000 $695,000 $692,385 $667,000 $450,000 $450,000 $400,000
3 3 3 4 3 5 3 3 4 2 2 3 3 2 2
$435,000 $425,000 $400,000 $395,000 $349,900
3 3 2 3 2
$1,995,500 $1,580,000 $1,125,000 $1,060,000 $965,000 $900,000
3 3 3 3 3 5
$915,000
4
$760,000
2
14TH STREET CORRIDOR
ANACOSTIA
$1,029,300 4 $1,005,000 3
4 4 5 4 3 3 4 3 3 2
CONDO
$1,995,000 4 $1,457,000 4 $1,400,000 6 2
$835,000 $810,000 $799,000 $780,000 $770,000 $745,000 $730,000 $724,900 $634,000 $630,099
1384 Talbert Ct SE #A 1308-1308 Talbert Ct SE #7A 2301 Pitts Pl SE #204 2636 Wade Rd SE #12
BLOOMINGDALE 1922 1st St NW #B 1824 N Capitol St NW #2 33 Bryant St NW #1 1420 North Capitol St NW #302 125 T St NW #2 150 V St NW #V405 52 Quincy Pl NW #102
CAPITOL HILL
700 6th St NE 300 8th St NE #103 819 D St NE #18 1401 K St SE #3 819 D St NE #32 301 H St NE #302 1343 Pennsylvania Ave SE #3 310 East Capitol St NE #E 1301 South Carolina Ave SE #2 732 15th St SE #2 909 E St SE #2 637 3rd St NE #101 101 North Carolina Ave SE #404 18 9th St NE #204 601 A St NE #1
$779,900 $620,000 $570,000
2 2 1
$440,000 $375,000
3 2
$149,000 $115,000
3 2
$1,061,000 $815,000 $785,000 $675,000 $647,500 $545,000 $380,000
3 3 3 2 2 2 1
$1,295,000 $944,444 $930,000 $719,500 $685,000 $667,000 $600,000 $585,000 $575,000 $410,000 $359,000 $348,500 $289,900 $260,000 $260,000
3 2 3 2 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 0 0 0
CAPITOL HILL EAST 245 15th St SE #205 1613 Isherwood St NE #1
$399,000 $355,000
CAPITOL RIVERFRONT 1211 Van St SE #1106 1211 Van St SE #1301 1211 Van St SE #1201 1211 Van St SE #911 1211 Van St SE #1207 1211 Van St SE #507
$910,900 $884,900 $844,900 $729,900 $651,900 $564,900
1 1 2 2 2 2 1 1
LET US SPRING INTO ACTION FOR YOU! 1211 Van St SE #414 1211 Van St SE #503 1211 Van St SE #1112 1211 Van St SE #609 1211 Van St SE #510 1211 Van St SE #410
CENTRAL
2201 K St NW #6 1150 K St NW #505 1318 22nd St NW #501 915 E St NW #514 701 Pennsylvania Ave NW #1102 1330 New Hampshire Ave NW #607 777 7th St NW #1108
CHINATOWN 777 7th St NW #508
DOWNTOWN
1314 Massachusetts Ave NW #807
ECKINGTON 1927 N Capitol St NE #2 25 T St NE #UNIT A 25 T St NE #UNIT B 14 S St NE #203
$479,900 $469,900 $449,900 $405,900 $399,900 $389,900 $1,000,000 $635,000 $505,900 $450,000 $395,000 $363,000 $440,000
4 2 1 1 1 1 1
$425,000
1
$258,000
0
$912,500 $900,000 $738,000 $400,000
3 3 3 2
FORT DUPONT PARK 3960-3960 Pennsylvania Ave SE #208
$220,000
H STREET CORRIDOR 628 I St NE #3 812 13th St NE #A 1230 I St NE #1 810 13th St NE #A 812 13th St NE #B 1011 18th St NE #PH7 913 12th St NE #1 1350 Maryland Ave NE #313 714 11th St NE #UNIT 103
HILL EAST
1711 D St SE #2 1345 K St SE #302 1391 Pennsylvania Ave SE #503 1391 Pennsylvania Ave SE #205
KINGMAN PARK 222 20th St NE #2 1836 Independence Ave SE #3
LEDROIT PARK 1844 3rd St NW #201 1718 1st St NW #3
NAVY YARD 1051 5th St SE 1025 1st St SE #411 1025 1st St SE #912 1211 Van St SE #511
NOMA
812 4th St NE #B
OLD CITY #1 815 7th St NE #2
! EW G N IN T S LI
2 2 3 2 2 3 2 1 1
$837,500 $740,000 $592,000 $510,000
3 2 2 1
$435,000 $355,000
2 1
$980,000 $548,500
3 2
$520,000 $485,000 $479,900 $930,000 $699,000 $499,000 $476,000 $360,000
1 1 1 2 2 1 1 1
$785,000 $705,000 $700,000 $685,900
3 2 1 2
$774,000
2
$1,200,000 3
1240 Wylie St NE 4BD/3BA $1,575,000
! EW G N IN T S LI
FIFTY FEET OF FRONTAGE HIDDEN AT HEART OF H ST / ATLAS DISTRICT! Originally 3 historic homes separated by a breezeway, this reimagined property now delivers nearly 2600 finished sq ft across 2 above grade levels, plus serene sculpted side and rear gardens, all basking in southern sunshine! Exposed brick boundary walls, raw structural steel, and rough-cut timbers visibly tell the story of the buildings’ life chapters, & countless renovation details pay homage to timeless textures with salvaged doors, hardware, and case moulding in 9 rooms & 3 finished baths. HUGE BONUS: rear sculpted patio + side covered pavilion w/ room for 2-car parking. Don’t miss this ONE-OF-A-KIND WONDER on Wylie Street!
E BL A IL W! A O AV N
515 7th St SE 9BR/5BA (Multi-Family) $2,499,000
ER T! D C N RA U T N CO
638 C St NE 3BR/2.5BA $1,375,000
210 9th St NE 2BD/2BA $799,500 Just 3 blocks to Lincoln and Stanton Parks & 5 blocks to Eastern Market! Step up the wrought-iron stairs into this delightful brick front Colonial facade, featuring gleaming hardwood floors, exposed brick hearth w/ fireplace, & lower level renovated kitchen w/ walk-out to patio. The entire upper level is dedicated to the owner’s bedroom, closet, bath & laundry, including a wonderful porthole window! Enjoy every amenity for city living in this 3-level 2-bedroom home, walkable and bikable to the best of Capitol Hill at a price that’s hard to beat!
ER T! D C N A U TR N CO
FAMILY COMPOUND AT HEART OF THE HILL - MILES FROM ORDINARY! Nestled between Barracks Row and Eastern Market - walk or bike everywhere from this GRAND 1851 Historic porchfront with multiple units + 3 level carriage house, standing proudly in a row of striking wood frame houses! Unique investment opportunity with bountiful square footage in an incredible locale- a lovely tree-lined block at Eastern Market Metro.
3
$915,000 $775,000 $740,000 $729,900 $679,900 $650,000 $532,900 $421,250 $364,999
MT VERNON SQUARE 437 New York Ave NW #318 910 M St NW #306 811 4th St NW #1201 1232 4th St NW #1 301 Massachusetts Ave NW #801 440 L St NW #609 1010 Massachusetts Ave NW #1112 811 4th St NW #222
1 1 1 1 1 1
1817 Independence Ave SE 3BR/3BA $875,000 DECLARE YOUR INDEPENDENCE FROM SHADY SPACES! On this bright and broad one-way Avenue, a proud porch-front row overlooks sculpted front gardens and basks at the back in southern sunshine. With 3 bedrooms and 3 full baths over 3 levels, this home boasts a spacious floor plan that flows gracefully from room to room. There’s no place like home at a price you can still afford on Independence Avenue!
SO
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!
RARE REAL BROWNSTONE AT THE HEART OF THE HILL! This semi-detached home welcomes light from three sides and features 100% abovegrade living space – a dramatic reimagining of row house space that stretches more than 50 FEET from front to rear and 35 soaring feet from ground up the central stair atrium to two bright skylights above! Perfect for entertaining, the renovated kitchen flows to a large rear dining space seamlessly connected to the intimate patio. Just steps from the hustle of the Capitol complex, own a rare piece of DC architectural history transformed for modern living!
1827 Mass. Avenue SE 4BD/3.5BA $1,050,000 CUSTOM RENOVATION INSIDE CLASSIC PORCHFRONT! Angled on the Avenue, deep front yard setback and raised porch welcome you to gracious dimensions and historic architectural details, with conveniences like proximity to Metro and off street parking. Distinctively renovated by Quest Builders in 2011 with a recent complete refresh throughout, this home offers custom casework, modern kitchen + baths and front owners’ suite with vaulted clerestory!
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255 14th St SE #A 405 17th St NE #A 815 7th St NE #1 1100 7th St NE #6 218 20th St NE #2 1025 1st SE #1314 334 14th Pl NE #4
PENN QUARTER 400 Massachusetts Ave NW #919 801 Pennsylvania Ave NW #1122 715 6th St NW #602 631 D St NW #644 616 E St NW #622 631 D St NW #838
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SHAW
1504 6th St NW #2 1906 Vermont Ave NW #C 436 Q St NW #1 810 O St NW NW #707 801 N St NW #306 810 O St NW #207 440 Rhode Island Ave NW #303 440 Rhode Island Ave NW #202 1215 10th St NW #41 801 N St NW #304 801 N NW #204
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210 7th Street, SE, Suite 100
355 I St SW #502S 350 G St SW #N619 800 4th St SW #S822 1250 4th St SW #W306 800 4th St SW #N114
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TRINIDAD
765 18th St NE #3 1016 17th Pl NE #501 1267 Penn St NE #A 1711 M St NE #B 1654 K St NE #8 1016 17th Pl NE #202 1040 Bladensburg Rd NE #2B 1040 Bladensburg Rd NE #2A 2109 M St NE #4 1304 Holbrook St NE #2 1654 K St NE #1 1363 Childress St NE #1 1016 17th Pl NE #306 2221 M St NE #102 1220 Holbrook Ter NE #102 1220 Holbrook Ter NE #101 1016 17th Pl NE #5
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57 N St NW #435 1420 North Capitol St NW #301 1523 3rd St NW #1 1532 North Capitol St NW #401 1420 North Capitol St NW #102 57 N St NW #102
$860,000 $730,000 $692,500 $600,000 $550,000 $525,000 $334,000
3 3 2 2 2 1 1
$925,275 $818,000 $720,000 $677,500 $505,000 $340,000
2 1 3 2 1 0
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1
$1,150,000 $1,138,000 $935,000 $860,000 $799,000 $789,900 $607,500 $605,000 $569,000 $500,000 $499,900
2 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1
$605,000 $427,700 $379,900 $342,000 $316,000
2 1 1 1 1
$651,500 $605,000 $599,000 $585,000 $519,900 $470,000 $450,000 $435,000 $399,900 $399,900 $395,000 $375,000 $344,900 $338,000 $295,000 $290,000 $284,900
4 2 3 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1
$740,000 $715,000 $675,000 $644,000 $567,500 $549,000
2 2 2 2 2 1
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arts ining d and
AT THE MOVIES Two Great Brit Actors, One at the Peak of His Career, One Near His Swansong, Come Up Aces by Mike Canning
The Father
not because it is showy, but because it is so precisely controlled. Sir Anthony is now over 80 and has made over 100 movies and television productions since his breakthrough Hollywood role as Prince Richard in “The Lion in Winter” in 1968. Seen as an intelligent man losing it, he is utterly crushing; seen as a decent fellow drifting from reality, he is heartbreakingly believable.
A much-acclaimed drama of 2012, “The Father,” examining the world of dementia, has been lauded in theaters around the world, and has now made it intact to the big screen with its writer and director, Frenchman Florian Zeller. The transfer, with piercing and poignant dialogue, is clearly marked for year-end awards (the film runs 97 minutes and is rated “PG-13” for language). The Courier We find ourselves in a comfortable, “The Courier” is a true-life spy story, a well-appointed London flat, appropriate moody return to the Cold War thriller of for a prosperous widower of 80. Anthothe 1960’s, recalling, most recently, Steny (Anthony Hopkins), a retired engiven Spielberg’s “Bridge of Spies” (2015). neer of considerable self-confidence, is Left to Right: Olivia Colman as Anne, Anthony Hopkins as Anthony in a calm mood Here the protagonist is an unassuming used to getting what he wants. He has during “The Father.” Photo: Sean Gleason, courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics British businessman, Greville Wynne just gotten rid of a caregiver, whom he (Benedict Cumberbatch), recruited into accuses of stealing, and asks his daughPoots), yet insists he doesn’t want her and needs no one of the greatest international conflicts in history ter, Anne (Olivia Coleman), to recruit another. She help. It ends in a muddle. (The film runs 151 mins, is rated “PG-13” and is now goes out shopping, and Anthony wanders to anothMisdirection and confusion continue to cloud on available on screens and streaming). er room. Wait a minute: who is this strange man?, Anthony’s mind. But soon it’s worse than that: he is At the invitation of the British MI-6, in the perAnthony wonders. He introduces himself as “Paul,” in a strange, new place. The comforts and patterns of sons of Dickie Franks (Angus Wright) and a CIA opAnne’s husband, who notes that this is not Anthothe comfy flat disappear, replaced by a more neutral, erative Emma Donovan (Rachel Brosnahan), Wynne ny’s flat, but his. Befuddled, Anthony hears Anne clinical space. He is disoriented and fearful, calling out forms a covert partnership with top-rank Soviet intelcoming back...but it isn’t his Anne; it’s another one, for Anne. But he only encounters the figures he saw ligence officer Colonel Oleg Penkovsky (Merab Ninidyounger (Olivia Williams.). What is she doing here, earlier in the drama as the second Anne (Williams) ze) who, though deemed fully loyal by Russian authorin his flat? and his first Paul (Gattis), in new roles with which he ities, has become totally disaffected from the Soviet We are, it seems, in Anthony’s brain, a brain is unfamiliar.... regime and seeks to defect by providing Soviet nucleawry with dementia. When Anne now tells him that This re-cap sounds like a walking nightmare— ar secrets that could prevent a nuclear confrontation she is going to move to Paris, he senses he will be left which it is—but it is mitigated on screen by the utwith the West (This is during the U.S.-Soviet Cuban alone and consigned to a “home,” his worst fear. She ter, bland normality of the scenes, the staid scenery, Missile Crisis with a pugnacious Nikita Khrushchev assures him that she will find a good person to look and the actors that tentatively float through them. And in charge). after him, but he will have none of it and gets furious. what makes the actors and scenes work is they are beWynne, though a very buttoned-down businessThe scenes flashback to another Paul (Rufus Sewell) ing contrasted with the frustrated, fulminating Anthoman, sports a hail-fellow-well-met style that just suits who is urging Anne to commit her father to some fany. Nothing is real for him, on screen or off, as he tries his job as a companionable broker of trade and excility and leave behind the old man’s bristly manner to make sense of a life’s mosaic in shards. changes between British tradesmen and their Soviet and acrid questions. Anthony goes along with the inThis is, of course, Hopkin’s movie, one of his counterparts. Years of such schmoozing have given terview with the new caregiver, sweet Laura (Imogen most vivid and fervent performances in years, and April 2021 ★ 79
Left to Right: Merab Ninidze as Soviet defector Oleg Penkovsky and Benedict Cumberbatch as accidental spy Greville Wynne in The Courier. Photo: Liam Daniel, courtesy of Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions
him an ability to move into and within Russian business circles which Western officialdom (and intelligence) cannot penetrate. Both the English MI-6 Franks (and the CIA’s Donovan) suggest him for a “simple” job of linking up with a top USSR source in Moscow: Col. Penkovsky in Moscow. The first collection of material from the Soviets goes swimmingly. And as promised, Greville just has to smile a lot, listen to Penkovsky, and whisk some valued envelopes back to London. The relationship blossoms for each man, to the point where Wynne invites—and Moscow agrees—to bring Penkovsky to the English capital for briefings. The film’s kicker that this gambit might really work is when Greville takes Oleg to the Royal Ballet to see a Russian company perform “Swan Lake” at Covent Garden. At the finale, the men burst into applause and tears, with Penkovsky realizing he might still taste Russian glories even in his new found land. Wynne’s sweet wife, Sheila, (Jesse Buckley) is devoted to her husband and their young son, but he has kept her totally in the dark about his spy work, insisting he is just keeping up with his usual trade business, only at a new level. After transferring hundreds of classified documents, the plan has proved a tremendous success, but Pen80 ★ HILLRAG.COM
kovsky finally gets trapped in the KGB’s web and can no longer be contacted by London. Learning of this, Wynne, who has built up such trust for his Russian counterpart that he insists he must return to the USSR himself to find and rescue him. He has now passed from being a mere courier to a true agent. but the Soviet espionage machine also looks to track him down. The two men—traitor and spy— perform very effectively in their two roles. Cumberbatch must transition from a genial, open British citizen to a tight-lipped, determined enemy of the Soviet Republic. Ninidze embraces the role of a defector, a man of surface power who must maintain a complete poker face to the world so to as not reveal a life of secrets. The real Wynne proved, even as an amateur, a most effective spy, and he also wrote two books about his experiences, but, over his last 30 years, he never returned to that profession. Hill resident Mike Canning has written on movies for the Hill Rag since 1993 and is a member of the Washington Area Film Critics Association. He is the author of “Hollywood on the Potomac: How the Movies View Washington, DC.” His reviews and writings on film can be found online at www.mikesflix.com. ◆
April 2021 ★ 81
. arts and dining .
CAPITOL CUISINE
W
by Celeste McCall
ith the Washington Nationals Opening Day slated for April 1, a lot is happening in the Capitol Riverfront/Navy Yard. Several restaurants have opened. During our ongoing partial shutdown, hours may change, so be sure to check details before venturing out. Conveniently situated near Nats Park is Basebowl Ramen & Grill, 1201 Half St. SE. This cleverly named newcomer slings all kinds of ramen—spiced with coconut green curry, ground pork, and tomato beef broth. You can also munch on pink salt edamame, fries with mozzarella and garlic, takoyaki (octopus with scallions). Bento boxes contain rice paired with teriyaki chicken, smoked eel, pork chops and rice. Feeding two hungry sports fans is the “Super Bowl,” chock full of jumbo
shrimp, an 8-ounce ribeye steak crowned with a fried egg. There’s also weekend brunch. Call 202-975-1066 or visit www.basebowldc.com.
Noodles and Beer Baseball remains popular in Japan, so why not slurp noodles and quaff sake or Sapporo beer at Hatoba, 300 Tingey St. SE. Tucked inside the historic Boilermaker Shops, Hatoba (“dock”) specializes in Sapporo-style ramen and Japanese-inspired sweet and savory small bites. Traditional noodle soups are spiked with garlic shoyu, red miso clam, spicy red miso. Hatoba is the District’s fourth restaurant created by the award-winning Daikaya Group. Call 202-488-4800 or visit www.hatobadc.com. Next door is Stadium Sports Bar+Smokehouse in the soaring space
Chef Mark Eason’s shrimp and grits is a brunch favorite at Valor Brewpub, on Barracks Row. Photo: Celeste McCall
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formerly housing Willie’s Brew & Que. Located at 300 Tingey St. SE, Stadium Sports is part of the Hill Restaurant Group (Hawk ‘n Dove, Tortuga Caribbean Bar & Grille, Ophelia’s Fish House and other favorites). Stadium serves Saturday and Sunday brunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Heading the weekend menu are “stadium breakfast” with eggs, bacon (or sausage), potatoes; “outfield” spinach omelette; “national classic” eggs Benedict. Flowing from the bar is a wide selection of beers, wines and cocktails. Call 202-651-6375 or visit www.stadiumsportsbardc.com.
Spring has sprung! Come enjoy it all at Mr Henry’s ... patio, annex and indoor seating available! check out all of our happenings at www.Mrhenrysdc.com 601 Pennsylvania Ave. SE Mon-Fri Noon – Midnight, Sat & Sun 10:30am – Midnight
New Chef On Barracks Row, Valor Brewpub, 723 Eighth St. SE, welcomes a new chef: Mark Eason. Eason, 58, wielded his whisk in top-notch restaurants in Brussels, where he learned the restaurant business from the ground up, washing dishes and even cleaning restrooms. In his new gig, the personable Eason will preside over Lola’s and Ugly Mug’s kitchens as well as Valor’s. His menu (still a work in progress), will tweak existing dishes, adding French flair while focusing on down-home family. “It’s all about family, he emphasized, fondly recalling dinners with relatives in North Carolina. “I also have fun in my kitchen,” he added. “I play Frank Sinatra while I cook.” Valor’s Smash burgers will get a facelift. He’s also upgrading the weekend brunch menu with breakfast pizza, crab cake Benedict, shrimp and grits. Valor is open daily; call 202-547-8459 or visit www. valorbrewpub.com.
Mellow Yellow We’ve visited Yellow Café, 1346 Fourth St. SE, a bakery/cafe tucked inside Albi. The café dispenses a taste of the Levant (Eastern Mediterranean region). Chef
Urban Farm to Table Spring Salad Share Launches April 21 Little Wild Things Farm’s Salad Share features weekly deliveries of locally-grown microgreens, salad blends, and other delightful surprises. Home delivery and pick-up options available in D.C., MD, & VA.
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Your purchase supports sustainable urban farming. We donate one share for every 20 shares sold. Visit littlewildthingsfarm.com/salad-share and use code “HillRag21” for $20 off your salad share order. 906 Bladensburg Rd, NE Washington, D.C. | (202) 750-0695 | @littlewildthingsfarm April 2021 ★ 83
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On Barracks Row, Valor Brewpub welcomes new chef, Mark Eason, who is revamping the menus at Valor, Lola’s and Ugly Mug. Photo: Celeste McCall
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Gregory Baumgartner, who oversees pastry making at Albi, merges classic French techniques with Middle Eastern flavors: sweet and savory croissants, mezze and pita sandwiches. Creamy hummus is a star attraction with plain, smoked beet and “Beiruti style” with shawarma and cauliflower. House-baked pita is stuffed with grilled cauliflower, coal-fired chicken or smoked lamb. I ordered the latter, a generous portion of succulent shredded meat laced with harissa sauce and a few grilled red onion strips. Crispy falafel is paired with feta and pickled turnips. Complementing these victuals are exotic coffees, teas, beer, wine and cocktails. Yes, the interior is bright yellow with bright yellow tiles. Even the menu is yellow. The Café is not cheap, especially for a quick-service bakery. Lunch for two—including the smoked lamb pita, hummus, ice tea, a glass of white wine, tip and a 3 percent “health and Safety” fee, came to $59. Visit www.yellowthecafe.com.
Yet More Pizza They keep coming: Pizzas and more pizzas. Due to debut soon--if not already--is Della Barba Pizza, a local outpost of a national chain. Della has moved from Union Kitchen (Ivy City) to 1382 East Capitol, NE. If that address sounds familiar, it’s the site of the long-gone Al’s Pizza, where Peter and I used to order pies when the Hill had few pizza options. How times have changed. Other pizza newcomers are Mozzeria, a Neapolitan-style pizzeria operated by employees who are fluent in American Sign Language. Located at 1300 H St. NE (in the Baldwin apartment complex) , the 94-seat pie palace was specially designed by CORE Architecture +Design. The menu offers 12-inch wood-fired pies, spinach salad, eggplant parmesan, cocktails, beer and wine. Call 202886-4424 or visit www.mozzeria.com. And…Extreme Pizza arrived recently at 520 Eighth St. SE (Barracks Row), where Senart’s Oyster Bar &
PETE’S DINER Chophouse used to be. Along with three sizes of pizzas with assorted toppings (or you can design your own), Extreme’s kitchen turns out subs, wings, salads and sides. Call 202-798-1222 or visit www.extremepizza.com.
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Market Watch If you’re into Asian cooking --or any kind of cooking--you’ve gotta check out Charlie’s produce stand at Eastern Market’s Farmers Row. You’ll find him at his spot Saturdays, Sundays and Tuesdays. You name it, Charlie probably sells it: lemon grass, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, baby bok choy (we bought some) several kinds of squash, bean sprouts, Persian cucumbers, skinny Asian eggplants, fresh herbs, eggs, sweet potatoes, sweet potato noodles.
Twins Born Near Union Market The latest enterprise from the talented team behind Espita Mezcaleria and Ghostburger is a twoin-one Mexican restaurant, Las Gemelas (“twin girls” in Spanish). Situated in the Latin market La Cosecha, the dual concepts feature a “fast-fancy” taqueria with a walkup takeout window, and a full-service seafood restaurant serving daily brunch and evening margaritas. Closed Mondays, La Cosecha is at 1280 Fourth St. NE. Visit www. lacosechadc.com.
Gone Finn McCool’s (formerly Molly Malone’s), the Irish pub at 713 Eighth St. SE (Barracks Row), and Santa Rosa Taqueria, 315 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. Hank’s Oyster Bar has shuttered its 633 Pennsylvania Ave. SE outpost “until it’s safe to reopen.” For updates visit www. hanksoysterbar.com. ◆
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. arts and dining .
ARTandtheCITY by Jim Magner
ARTIST PORTRAIT: SHEILA BLAKE
Y
ou think it is just a house. An ordinary house with trees. Bushes. Clouds. But wait. There is an undeniable vibration. A quivering. For Sheila Blake, “strangeness permeates the reality.” This is a “different kind of consciousness.” A consciousness that emanates from the flat surface. From the paint itself. Sheila walks in her Tacoma Park neighborhood and the sights become visions that consort with her memories of growing up—of being alive. Houses change and shake off the ordinary. They grow and turn colors and take different shapes. She begins with charcoal drawings, then pastels, and then goes back to the studio for the big paintings and “endless revisions.” “For years until each painting is a visual poem. It’s a mysterious process that can unfold over time.” Take “Bolinas.” It moves. Glowing clouds dance with the grand trees while the golden bush in front does the rumba. The demure house peeks over the
fence. “Angel” stretches to new heights behind a truncated tree to look with apprehension at the planted signs…especially the red one. With “Peggy in the Clouds,” the red-trimmed house sits quietly while life explodes around it and spirits reach for the heavens. Sheila attended Cooper Union Art School in New York and taught art at Duke. She taught painting and drawing at the Corcoran College of Art and Design, where she “developed a curriculum that weaves color theory and composition into the practice of painting.” Sheila Blake has a radio show: Art as Experience on WOWD LP FM. She and her radio partner talk about art and ideas arising from museum exhibits, movies, articles, books and life itself. Sheila Blake believes in Art. “Give it as much as you can,” she says. And she does. See more of her work at: sheilablake.com. She is featured in a one-woman show at the Foundry Gallery in May.
Jim Magner’s Thoughts on Art
Sheila Blake’s houses are painted with the precision of imagination. Insignificant matters are charged with meaning and are elevated to “strangeness,” a state of wonderment. Each work is a creation of color value and composition and the whole range of traditional art elements to achieve final denotation, the appearance of reality, but it has built-in connotations as well—all sorts of meanings and inferences. That’s what real art is. There is an art to it. All of the 230 or so artists I have profiled for this column have put their hearts and souls, and skills and dedication, into their work. So do the thousands of other artists in the area. Sheila Blake’s large neighborhood paintings can take Bolinas. 40” x 50”, Oil on Linen. It’s based on an old photo and memories I have of living there in Northern California with my husband, his brother and years of exploring. They are not my two little kids.
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Angel. 54” x 40”, Oil on Linen I used to drive by this house and it’s at a really busy intersection; it was terrific but I couldn’t figure where I could stand to draw it and one day at the stop light I took a picture from my car window. It was enough to go on. I changed the proportions of the house and put a truck in the driveway and while I was working on it they cut down the tree, painted the house a gentrified blue and sold it. The angel from its past is hovering behind.
just homes full of people, but the very idea of a home. She sees all the living and non-living things that contribute to the neighborhood. And paints. It is a mysterious, magical process. If she sells a wonderful painting like “Bolinas” or “Angel,” how much will she get for it? I don’t know but it will not be $69.4 million. That’s how much a “digital collage” by a guy who calls himself Beeple sold for at Christie’s. It is a “digital-only” artwork with a “non-fungible token (NFT) as a guarantee of its authenticity.” It is proclaimed that we are beginning the next chapter in art history…digital art. Well, it may be something new in the billionaire game called the Art Market, but it has nothing to do with art—this is about AFTs. The CEO of Twitter released a one-line tweet with an NFT and it sold for $2.5 million. So much for art. Sorry, Sheila and all of you genuine artists. Just
It is only online through April 30, so hurry, Ellen’s work sells out in a flash. www.hillcenter.org
Katherine Blakeslee Foundry Gallery 2008 - 8th St., N.W. April 2–25
Peggy in the Clouds. 40” x 50”, Oil on Linen
create a digital simile of anything with an NFT and you can toss your paints away…along with your heart and soul.
At the Galleries
Katherine Blakeslee paints pensive, insightful watercolor landscapes and seascapes. They reflect a “lifelong fascination with the sea and that sometimes invisible, but ever magical line between sky and sea.” She grew up in Maryland and loves how water, land and sky interact, “sometimes playfully and sometimes not.” She lets the transparency and translucence of the watercolor medium capture the moods of the land and sea and explore the interaction of accident and intent. foundrygallery.org On a personal note: I am launching a new historical fiction novel, The Dead Man on the Corner. The date is May 2, at the Literary Hill Bookfest, which will be virtual this year. For more information: www.literaryhillbookfest.org .
Multiple Exposures Gallery Torpedo Factory Art Center 105 N. Union St. #312 Alexandria, VA Fri-Sun, 11-5 –May 15 This is a big all-member show. Each artist exhibits two signature pieces. All pieces are for sale. www. multipleexposuresgallery.com
A Capitol Hill artist and writer, Jim can be reached at Artandthecity05@aol.com ◆
Ellen Cornett Hill Center At the Old Naval Hospital “The Hill Center Spotlight Series” begins with Ellen Cornett. There is no better artist to begin anything with, especially this “Once Upon a Time” virtual exhibition. Wow. Ellen draws visual questions. They emerge from the familiar—fairy tales, old novels, poems… They are mystical and magical, with a story within a story within a story. Ellen says, “I build unsettling scenes that gain energy from unresolved endings. In uncanny depictions of humans and animals, absurd possibilities lurk behind everyday moments. People and animals wear masks, discover supernatural powers, and interact in ways that may delight viewers or upend expectations.”
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Alys Cornett, Ellen Cornett, carbon pencil and ink, 19x22
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April 2021 ★ 87
. arts and dining .
Truthiness
the LITERARY HILL
Truth is an elusive commodity these days. But we don’t expect equivocation from scholarly A Compendium of Readers, Writers, Books, & Events disciplines that are supposed to traffic in hard facts. And we certainly don’t expect it from the by Karen Lyon hallowed halls of Harvard. In “Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” Hill journalist Ariel Sabar is thrust into the midst of a mystery in 2012 when he takes on an assignment to write about the “discovery” of an ancient papyrus, inscribed in Coptic, that appears to show that Jesus had a wife. The fragment has fallen into the hands of Dr. Karen King, a distinguished professor at the Harvard School of Divinity. King is a specialist in interpreting Gnostic scripture, which was sidelined by traditional Christianity, and hopes that her work will lead to a reexamination of the role of women in the early Christian church. When she announces the disLocal photographer Cindy Vasko explores the deserted side of the nation’s capital in “Abandoned Washington, D.C.” covery of what she dubs “The Gospel of Jesus’s Wife,” skeptics immediately pounce. trump the evidence? In a masterful piece of journalistic sleuthAriel Sabar is an award-winning journalist whose ing that involved years of travel, research, and interwork has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York views with more than 450 sources, Sabar eventually Times, The Washington Post, and many other pubtraces the papyrus to “a sycophant with a salesman’s lications. He is the author of “My Father’s Paradise: silver tongue” and a life-long urge “to needle authoriA Son’s Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq,” ty figures.” But the reporter doesn’t stop there. Sabar which won the National Book Critics Circle Award. examines every aspect of the case, probing the lives www.arielsabar.com of Dr. King, the alleged forger, their supporters and detractors in a search for motivations. Deserted DC “Veritas” is not only an incredibly engaging Remember last spring when the pandemic left downstrange-but-true thriller, but thanks to Sabar, it is also town DC deserted? Cindy Vasko does. A photograa thought-provoking meditation on the nature of truth. pher intrigued by abandoned places, she took advanIs it in the eye of the beholder? How fungible are histage of the empty streets to shoot pictures “at high torical facts? And can a quest for moral good ever noon” from a stopped car in the middle of a sixlane boulevard. Her “unsettling, unnatural” photos of the Capitol, Union Station, and other sites comprise an eerie chapter in her new book, “Abandoned, Washington, D.C.: Evanescent Chronicles.” Vasko notes that DC is not “an ideal backdrop” for her form of “urban exploration.” Given the value of local real estate, shuttered buildings are generally either torn down and replaced or renovated and repurposed. She nonetheless found a variety of subjects for her lens, from an abandoned amphitheater and a derelict brick factory to the DuPont Underground and a forsaken and vandalized school. In addition to photographs, Vasko provides brief histories of the sites she documents, such as Local journalist Ariel Sabar uncovers the mystery of an ancient papyrus purporting to show that Jesus was married the McMillan Sand Filtration Site, which was inin “Veritas.” Photo: Mary Beth Meehan
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strumental in stemming a 1905 typhoid outbreak. She also homes in on Congressional Cemetery, which survived years of neglect to re-emerge as a “thriving, active” historical landmark. It takes an artist to see the inherent beauty or poignancy in abandoned sites. Cindy Vasko is just such an artist and, in “Abandoned Washington, D.C.,” she gives us a rare and beautiful glimpse into her unique perspective on our nation’s capital. Cindy Vasko is an award-winning photographer with works featured in gallery exhibitions from New York to Paris. She has published seven previous books in her Abandoned Union series, with five more in the works. https://cindyvasko.com
School Days Here’s something we’ve been missing: pictures of smiling schoolchildren. In “Back to School,” Maya Ajmera and John D. Ivanko have teamed up to produce a beautiful story book of photographs showing kids from all over the world absorbing knowledge in a variety of ways. Here’s a cheerful classroom in Cuba, a homeschool session in the Australian
Maya Ajmera and John D. Ivanko show happy children from all over the world going “Back to School.”
THE POETIC HILL by Karen Lyon
solve problems. Dickie, with his ability to “help folk figure shit,” is “a celebrity among the emaciated and the infected.” In “Scavenger,” Christopher Chambers brings to life not only an unforgettable character but also the gritty DC streets he inhabits. As Dickie emerges from the tent on the National Mall Christopher Chambers has created a memorable homeless detective in the noir mystery novel “Scavenger.” where he lives, he faces “another day of petty cruelty,” queuing up for Outback, and rows of students learning a job on a junk crew that cleans out the their numbers in Rwanda. homes of people who have been evicted. The book explores the various venues He is on a job in a creepy apartwhere children are taught and how they ment whose walls are covered in get to them (including, in Mongolia, on strange Mayan glyphs when he discova camel). It illustrates lessons in reading, ers a stash of gold Mexican coins and math, languages, and science, as well as an embossed card with a cryptic mesemphasizing how schools can help stusage on the back—in handwriting he dents develop their artistic and musithinks he recognizes. Then he finds cal skills, participate in sports, and make two of his closest friends brutally murnew friends. And, perhaps its most imdered and himself jailed as a suspect. portant message: “You learn how to be Rescue arrives in the form of a man in a a good citizen in your community, nagray suit who offers him a proposition: tion and world.” money and freedom in return for find“Back to School” is intended as ing a woman. Dickie is, as he whispers a read-to book for preschoolers or for to himself, “between the devil and the children 4-8 years old to read on their deep blue sea.” own. Part of the proceeds from sale of In “Scavenger,” Chambers has crethe book will be donated to the Globated a deeply realistic noir mystery with al Fund for Children. www.globalfunda social conscience. He not only delivforchildren.org ers a punch-filled plot but also delves Maya Ajmera (www.mayaajmera. beneath the tattered surface of a broken com) is the president and CEO of Soman to reveal his thoughts, his feelings, ciety for Science & the Public and and his soul. Dickie Cornish may well the publisher of Science News Mehaunt your dreams. dia Group. She is the author of more Christopher Chambers is a prothan twenty books. John D. Ivanko is an fessor of Media Studies whose previaward-winning photographer and auous works include “A Prayer for Delivthor of fifteen books. erance” and “Sympathy for the Devil” (an NAACP Image Award nominee), as Devil and the Deep well as a graphic anthology and stories. Blue Sea He is also a regular commentator/conDickie Cornish is the most unlikely of tributor on media and cultural issues on detectives. He’s a big, shambling man SiriusXM Radio, ABC News, and Huffwith a stutter. He’s also homeless and Post. On Twitter@ProfChris. u a drug abuser. But he has a gift: “a jig-
T
he poems in Teri Ellen Cross Davis’s new book, “a more perfect Union,” run a splendid gamut. She juxtaposes her grandmother’s oral history with the Preamble to the Constitution, riffs on album covers and Prince songs, and explores the sacred mysteries of blood. She examines her grief at revisiting her childhood home, makes astute observations while traveling in Ireland, and expresses her primal fear, “as a Black mother in America,” at sending her children out into a racist world (“let my love / be a note safety-pinned to his chest”). Writing honestly of lust and rage, love and hope, she provides a template for navigating through a life filled with the dangers of both heartbreak and joy. Davis is also the author of “Haint: poems,” winner of the 2017 Ohioana Book Award for Poetry. She is a Cave Canem fellow and serves as the Poetry Coordinator for the Folger Shakespeare Library. In her poem below, she recounts an experience sadly familiar to many of us, but, with her poetic vision, elevates it to a moment of ultimate beauty.
Don’t Act Like A On the train from Baltimore a woman ignores her young son until his boredom makes mischief fun and her unengaged gaze narrows, sharpens, before we all hear the slap followed by words meant to bruise: Don’t act like a faggot. Maybe years later he will kiss a man and taste despair, maybe years later he will kick a man to hide his own fear. Maybe none of these things will happen. But my own silence is cultivated by years of attempted interventions met with blistering invectives, my own verbal fumbles trying not to judge, while judging. I wonder how long it will take to embrace a masculinity not drenched in cowardice, its stench as strong as semen. I wonder how many years until we learn not disgust, the instant flippant rebuke, but the joy of a boy dancing in his sister’s princess dress, how the frills flounce as he runs down the hall. The pink spaghetti straps framing square shoulders waiting to broaden and fill.
Excerpt from Teri Ellen Cross Davis’s “a more perfect Union,” used by permission of Mad Creek Books, an imprint of The Ohio State University Press.
If you would like to have your poem considered for publication, please send it to klyon@literaryhillbookfest.org. (There is no remuneration.) u
saw puzzle brain” that enables him to April 2021 H 89
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A WALKING MEDITATION It’s Not the Destination. It’s the Journey.
S
itting crossed legged on the floor and chanting ‘Ohm’ has never been a practice I could make a habit. Instead of focusing on my breath and staying calm, I couldn’t help focusing on the discomfort I felt while trying to sit up straight. But I love the feeling of alignment, clarity and freedom that often envelopes me after finishing a meditation. That is why, when I began walking my dog Marcello in Congressional Cemetery 16 years ago every morning, I started practicing a walking meditation. I embraced and cherished our time together noticing our surroundings. One day I might listen to the sounds of birds, leaves rustling or pebbles crunching under my feet. Another walk I might think about my breathing, maybe counting the seconds in, holding and breathing out. Another day I might focus on feeling the elements of the outdoors on my body – how the ground under my feet feels, how the sun feels on my skin. Walking in the cemetery became my daily meditation. Walking meditation is more than just a simple stroll around a park. It is usually done slower than normal walks and involves a specific focusing prac-
by Pattie Cinelli tice. Because the body is moving and not seated in meditation, it is easier for some to be aware of body sensations and remain focused in the present moment.
What is Walking Meditation?
meditation combined with walking allows a person to reduce anxiety, develop a deeper connection to the environment, help with depression, and improve concentration. I think the biggest benefit of walking meditation for me has been the awareness the practice has given me. I can discern what truly resonates with me, apart from what may resonate with another. It has made me able to better hear and listen to my inner voice, true self, inner guide, my gut or the God in me--whatever you call the little voice deep inside that is always there for you when needed.
Meditating when you are walking is about concentrating on where you are, not on where you are going. Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best, “It’s not the destination. It’s the journey.” Or as Victor Davich states in his book The Best Guide to Meditation, “You are not trying to get to a particular place, but rather to be totally aware of the place Jana Lerbach resting during a meditative walk. where you are.” The “How” of Meditation is the ability to foWalking Meditation cus on one thing only, allowing thoughts and inner Where and how you choose to practice is your choice. chatter to fall away and create a deep feeling of stillThere is no wrong or right way to do a walking medness and peace. It can be a gateway to connecting with itation. It can be as individual as you are. It evolves your true self. Many philosophies such as Buddhism, as you do. Taoism and yoga use med“For me, the best ways to do a meditative walk itation as an integral part of is alone and outside so I can be in touch with nature– their faith. smell the flowers, trees, grass and hear the birds and the wind and see the sky and the clouds,” said KarBenefits of a in Edgett, an artist and nutritional cook who has been Walking Meditation meditating regularly for about 10 years. “My meditaWalking meditation may be tion style changes as I change” she said. “One of the one of the most efficacious things I enjoy about a walking meditation (she also enof exercises. Not only does joys horizontal meditations daily) is the variety. I can walking help your body stay notice nature, I can listen to a guided meditation or I healthy, but it also contribcan use my steps to measure breath: breathe in over 10 utes to a calm state of mind steps, hold for 10 steps and breathe out for 10 steps.” which helps your immune “Whenever you are outside you can get a powsystem function optimalerful meditation when you are connecting with the ly. The walking part helps earth,” she said. “Sometimes places of decision makthe health of your heart, iming and to-do lists house creates energy that can inproves circulation and conterfere with your meditation. But when you are outtributes to overall health side, you can connect with the energy of nature. All and wellness physically. The things of nature have a purer energetic quality than Meditative walk at Westminster Church. Photo: Andrew Lightman
April 2021 ★ 91
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Karin Edgett on a meditative walk.
man-made things.” Marilyn Goldberg, Hill resident and retired college professor who is a Buddhist and has meditated for years, walks about 3.6 miles a day average. She’s been walking since 2014. During the pandemic she’s been walking even more. A meditative walk is often the kind of walk I choose to do,” said Marilyn. “Walking meditation is much better for some than sitting One-on-One Local Tutoring Service meditation. It’s easier.” Nicolas Frank, an experienced tutor, near-perfect scorer, and Marilyn suggests one way of doUCLA student will help your child improve and meet their goals. ing a walking meditation is while being aware of your surroundings, you pay Nico Will: attention to the actual walking. “Focus Teach your student strategies Additional subjects offered what you are doing physically. It’s a to fully understand exam grades 5-12: support for meditation. Another way is questions and SAT logic for you to pay attention to your breathMath English ing. Or, you can also combine both.” Analyze and target your students weaknesses to She said the point is be focused on Calculus Spanish efficiently increase their score what you are actually doing so that you Algebra History are paying attention. After you’ve got Provide ample practice material, Physics Chemistry your focus down and you are relaxed, indepth questionanalysis, and then you can expand your awareness useful tips and walk with that. “For example, if you Rates start at $35 hour Rates start at $60 hour pay attention to steps and have been repetitive for a while, you can then expand your awareness. All of sudden you’ve got a big open sky.” www.franktutoring.com “Even in the city you are outside or TEXT (202)-417-5240 I nico.frank8@gmail.com ALL CALL or TEXT (202)-417-5240 nico.frank8@gmail.co in nature. The benefits include becomCALL or TEXT (202)-417-5240 I nico.frank8@gmail.com
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ing calm and more relaxed. You can focus on sound of birds chirping or colors of flowers. The walking is great for improving lower body bone density. Mine has improved since 2017.” Jana Lerbach, health/wellness coach in the Washington metro area uses walking meditation with some of her clients. “I use several techniques that include focusing on a particular color then finding everything of that color. Then I ask what emotion if any, does it bring up. Walking meditation is also good to use with little children. Ask them to pick a shape. Then find objects that shape as we walk. Another technique is searching for something such as leaves as you walk. The point is to focus on giving attention to something that’s present. Usually we are walking very slowly.” An Insight meditation teacher describes walking meditation as a metaphor for how we want to live our daily life – making each step count. Learning to walk without a purpose or compulsion in a controllable and relaxed way, enhances the happiness we can experience. To learn more about coaching with Jana: jana@janalerbach.com or www. janalerbach.com. To learn more about Karin check out her recipes and art work at: www:karinedgett.art. Pattie Cinelli is a health and fitness professional and journalist who has been writing her column for more than 20 years. She focuses on non-traditional ways to stay healthy and get well. Please email her with questions or column suggestions at: fitmiss44@aol.com. ◆
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/ The District Vet /
CICADAS ARE BACK
C
icadas are stout-bodied insects with broad heads, clear-membraned wings, and prominent compound eyes. The species which inhabit the DC Metro Area are greenish in color and are about two inches long. Larval cicadas develop underground in burrows adjacent to tree roots, where they live for 2 to 17 years. Adults do not bite and do not eat leaves, but suck the sap from trees and shrubs, so unlike locusts, they usually do not cause significant damage to trees and plants. There are in excess of 3,000 species of cicadas, sorted into two main categories: annual and periodical. The annual cicadas are present every year, while the periodicals spend most of their time underground, emerging once every decade or two. Every summer there are cicadas, but this particular May there will be an inundation. Periodical cicadas are grouped according to their emergence pattern, with the groupings called broods. The Northeast is about to experience the emergence of Brood
X ,
whose individuals have been slowly growing in their burrows for 17 years. There are other broods in our area, but X is by far the largest concentration.
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by Dan Teich When they emerge, adult cicadas have one mission: breed. Female cicadas may deposit over 400 eggs on twigs and branches in trees, and these eggs in turn hatch into small nymphs in about 10 weeks. Falling from their perch, the nymphs burrow into the soil around the tree where they will mature over another 17 years. When that time comes and the soil temperature reaches 64 degrees, they emerge en masse, molt their shells, and begin the cycle once again. Adult cicadas don’t hang around too long they have a life expectancy of four to six weeks. Brood X will produce trillions of cicadas. Their sheer numbers may be a survival advantage: there are so many insects that it is impossible for predators to eat them all. Entomologists estimate that in some areas, the density of cicadas can reach 1.5 million per acre. To put this in perspective, the grounds of the White House could host over 27 million cicadas! Their molted shells, being light brown in color, can coat entire grassy areas. What most people recall from 2004 was the sound produced by the Brood X males. They produce a clicking sound via vibrating membranes on their abdomen. Like singers in a choir, their calls are amplified by the sheer number of calling cicadas, with the resultant sound being akin to a car alarm, which can reach an incredible 100 decibels. The spectacle of Brood X is more likely one of annoyance due to the copious numbers of shells and the drone of the mating calls, and less of danger. Cicadas themselves are not toxic. Some people even cook them.
Birds find cicadas to be a high protein addition to their diet, along with small mammals and lizards. Ingestion of a few cicadas by a dog will not cause any adverse affects--there is no need to panic if they are eaten. But ingestion of many cicadas may lead to upset stomach or potentially intestinal blockage as their outer shells are not readily digestible. If possible it is best to curb dogs from eating too many. Signs of over indulgence may include vomiting, diarrhea (possibly with blood), the inability to defecate, painful defecation, or general illness. Seek veterinary care as soon as possible if you have concerns. Periodical cicadas are a marvel of our natural world. Although they may keep you awake at night, or provide your dog or cat a crunchy treat, recall that these insects spent 17 years underground awaiting this opportunity to emerge into the daylight. Let them do their thing. Dan Teich, DVM, Medical Director, District Veterinary Hospital. www.districtvet.com ◆
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kids&family
NOTEBOOK by Kathleen Donner
We Stand Together, Just Six Feet Apart (100% of Profits to UNICEF) We Stand Together, Just Six Feet Apart is a children’s book written by three pediatricians and illustrated by artist Catherine Wilson. The book is meant to explain the changes secondary to the pandemic for kids ages three to eight and to encourage positive ongoing conversations for how we can stay healthy, happy, and kind during this time. Using sing-song rhymes and accessible language, this book gives young children a basic understanding of why these changes have happened and how we hope that, over time, life will slowly begin to get back to normal. 100% of profits are donated to UNICEF and their Covax fund (unicef.org/coronavirus/covax). We Stand Together, Just Six Feet Apart is available on Amazon.com and Blurb.com for $11.99 and $24.99 (hard cover). Image: Catherine Wilson
Sixth through 12th Grade Photography Contest The Kiwanis Club of Capitol Hill is sponsoring its second annual photography contest open to all sixth through twelfth graders in DC public and charter schools. Students are asked to “celebrate the beauty of springtime” through photographs they take between April 10 and 20. The final submission date is April 21. There is no registration fee. Prizes include: First, $125; Second, $100 and Third, $75. Email photos to jmjanmb2@gmail.com. Include your name, age and school. Any questions may be addressed to that email as well. Last year’s first prize winner was De Sean Jones, a student at Capitol Hill Montessori.
Atlas Youth Summit On May 7, 5 p.m., the Atlas Performing Arts Center hosts their annual Atlas Youth Summit. The online event will be a facilitated conversation with area youth arts organizations and their participating young artists discussing events of the past year and the impact it has had on young people’s lives and the creation of their art. Each participating organization will share a short clip of their work in the areas of theatre, dance, and music. The 96 ★ HILLRAG.COM
group discussion will be led and hosted by the Atlas’ City at Peace Director Sandra Holloway. City at Peace is the Atlas’ social justice youth development program. atlasarts.org/events/youth-summit.
“Read Like A Champion” This Summer The Washington Nationals have announced their eighth annual “Read Like A Champion” summer reading program. For the last seven years, the Nationals have partnered with area libraries to address the summer-slide-the loss of learning that children and teens experience when they do not read during summer vacation. This year, the Nationals are supporting the efforts of their library partners through nationals.com/SummerReading. Participants in the program will have a chance to win exciting Nationals prizes. The Nationals invite all interested library systems to work together to make the Nationals and their fans the “Team that Reads!” nationals.com/ SummerReading.
Better Grades in Less Time On April 11, 4 to 5 p.m., in this small-group (virtual)
Image: Courtesy of the National Air and Space Museum
Mo the Mars Man Gather your little ones for story time with the National Air and Space Museum. Museum educator Ann Caspari will read the original story Mo the Mars Man, a story celebrating the landing of the Perseverance rover on Mars. After the story time, educators will lead an activity to make a mini sandbox and oobleck—a substance made of cornstarch and water—for sensory play. This story can be watched anytime and is on the Museum’s website, along with other “Flights of Fancy” story time productions, at airandspace.si.edu/events/flightsfancy-story-time-mo-mars-man.
introduction to time management and study skills, middle school and high school students and parents will learn the same skills that the most successful students at the best colleges use. These skills are ideal for students whose grades don’t reflect how cool and smart they are, students with learning differences, serious athletes, and STEM superstars. Smith Rivas director Paul Rivas will help students develop fun strategies to improve their time management, reading, note taking, tests, and papers. Class size is limited to 10. $20. hillcenterdc.org.
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April 2021 ★ 97
CHOOSE EXCELLENCE
Choose Paul Public Charter School. Limited seats available for the 2021-2022 school year. Act now - apply today! Paul sets scholars on the path to and through college by offering top-ranked programs and activities that ignite the passions of all students.
Photo: Courtesy of George Washington’s Mount Vernon
WHY CHOOSE PAUL? • Performing, visual, and culinary arts programs • Study abroad opportunities • Title-holding, citywide Varsity sports teams with alumni in the NCAA • Diverse activities like astronomy, robotics, and drumline Join the Paul legacy and add Paul PCS to your My School DC post-lottery application today:
myschooldc.org/postlotto
Public Transportation Green Line and Yellow Line 62, 70, 74, 76, 80, K2, K6, E4
Animal Family Day at Mount Vernon On Saturday, April 24, 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., meet some of Mount Vernon’s animals (sheep, ox, calves, horses and a hog) and learn about their roles in the 18th century during Animal Family Day. Learn about Mount Vernon’s animals and jobs they performed in George Washington’s time. Visit the 12-acre field to learn about their heritage breeding program and the active role they play in preserving historic breeds. Enjoy fun activities such as story time, take-home crafts and Animal Passport to explore the estate. All activities are included in admission; $28 for adults, $15 for kids, five and under, free. Advance ticket purchase recommended. mountvernon.org.
Enroll in our highly-rated, Tier 1 leadership academy. Visit paulcharter.org.
5800 8th Street NW Washington, DC | (202) 291-7499
Teen’s Corner: A Blog for DC Teens, by DC Teens Check out dclibrary.org/teenscorner for movie and book reviews, interviews with local teens, interviews with cool adults, coverage of events and issues that matter to teens, and more. Posts are authored by DCPL’s Teen Council, MBSYEP employees and teen volunteers. If you are between 13 and 19 and interested in submitting a post, email Teen Services Coordinator Joanna Harris at joanna.harris@dc.gov.
98 ★ HILLRAG.COM
SUMMER CAMP 2021 In-person with COVID-19 Protocols and Virtual Camps
Signature in the Schools’ “Here’s the Deal” Signature Theatre’s flagship education program, Signature in the Schools, now in its 26th year, has released the world premiere film Here’s the Deal. Written by Caleen Sinnette Jennings and directed by Signature’s Education Director David Zobell, Here’s the Deal features a cast and crew of 32 students, alongside professional actor Felicia Curry, and explores the New Deal and its contemporary relevance. Here’s the Deal is available on Marquee TV and is streaming on demand through the end of June. Free for students and schools; $5 for the general public. SigTheatre.org. In Here’s the Deal, people are in economic ruin and there is a hot debate over the government’s role to solve the problems of an increasingly anxious American people. Is it 1929 or 2020? Stuck learning from home during the pandemic, students in Mrs. Day’s Theatre III class must think creatively to develop a play in their challenging circumstances.
Nurturing life-long learners, courageous risk-takers, and joyous peacemakers. www.friendscommunityschool.org
June 14 – August 20
10 Weekly Sessions I Ages 3.5-14
Experience the Joy of EXTRAORDINARY SUMMER CAMPS! Archery & Wilderness I Cooking & Baking I Arts & Crafts Coding I Engineering I Ultimate Frisbee and more! Open to All! Registration will open in February Questions? Contact Van Nguyen vann@friendscommunityschool.org (On 17 acres in College Park, just 15-20 minutes from Capitol Hill)
friendscommunityschool.org FOLLOWING STRICT COVID-19 STATE REGULATIONS Our schools have been successfully operating during the COVID-19 Pandemic.
Please refer to the website for the COVID-19 policies.
Youth in Action: Sustainable Agriculture On April 22 to 25, the Sustainable Agriculture panel discussion brings together young Indigenous leaders to address the role that traditional ecological knowledge plays in their work as farmers and entrepreneurs. With the onset of COVID-19 and ongoing issues of climate change, investing in sustainable agriculture and food production more important than ever. Moderated by Michaela Pavlat (Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians). Panelists include Kelsey Ducheneaux-Scott (Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe), Jack Poshano (Hopi) and Marco Ovando (Shoshone-Paiute Tribe). This panel is made possible with the support of the Native American Agriculture Fund. nmai.brand.live/c/ youthinactionapril.
A Family Game Night Calling all agents: Take your next family or friend Zoom gathering to a new level of cool with a live, action-packed game night. Does your family have what it takes to be spies? The International Spy Museum is infiltrating your home for an action-packed Family Game Night. Hosted by a Museum Educator, participants will race against the clock to complete mini missions. Can you create coded messages, slip into disguise and design a super stealthy spy gadget? Your family’s teamwork abilities and tradecraft skills will be put to the test. Family Game Night is suggested for recruits ages seven to twelve and their handlers, however ages six and up can play. It is a one-hour interactive mission led by the Museum’s professional staff. The Museum will connect with participants using our password-protected Zoom Room. Up to 20 households can par-
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April 2021 ★ 99
Shakespeare Family Fest Hear ye! Hear ye! Join the fun in a free weekend of virtual events for the whole family on Saturday and Sunday, April 10 and 11, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., both days. Explore the magic of theatre with virtual performances of A Mini-Summer Night’s Dream and The Tiny Tempest, a stage blood demonstration, interactive workshops, crafting activities, and more. Meet Shakespeare Theatre Company Engagement and Education staff and teaching artists and learn more about Classes for Youth and Teens and Camp Shakespeare. Drop in for a session or spend the whole weekend with them. Recommended for ages five, up. shakespearetheatre. org/shakespeare-family-fest/.
ticipate. $285 covers up to 20 household connections. spymuseum.org/ education-programs/kids-families/covert-couch-challenge.
A World in One Cubic Foot There is a lot of life just outside our door that we never see--in the grass, under rocks, hidden bushes or in the water. Exploring this hidden life or biodiversity is a fantastic way to connect with the natural world while practicing scientific thinking and science skills. One way to do this is to use a Biocube. A biocube is a fun, informative, and manageable way of exploring the biodiversity in the world around you by focusing on a cubic foot of space. By looking closely and documenting the life in a small area, one can get a better understanding of how different ecosystems are structured and how they function. In this activity, explorers build a Biocube out of household items, then 100 ★ HILLRAG.COM
use it to investigate nature in a small area just outside their home. This activity is intended to be done by individuals or family groups while at home. naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/life-science/biocubes-exploring-biodiversity/biocube-home.
Raising Anti-Racist Children (virtual workshops) Raising children to build a just world is a life-long process, as well as a difficult challenge for parents to navigate. Join DCJCC for a two-part series with expert educator Dr. Nabina Liebow, who will take you through the learning and practical steps necessary to raise antiracist children and help create a cohort of race conscious parents in our community. This workshop is designed for anyone who wants to understand how white supremacy and white privilege affect all parts of our lives and how to bring these ideas into conversation and action in parenting. It is meant as
a beginning, and not to be comprehensive or all-encompassing. Raising Anti-Racist Children is offered on May 4 (part 1) and 11 (part 2), 8 to 9:30 p.m. $30 per household. edcjcc.org/children-families/familyprograms.
DDOT Free and Discount Car Seats DC residents who are in need of a car seat can receive a voucher for one free seat. Vouchers are distributed at 11 locations throughout the District including the Capitol Hill Pregnancy Center Vouchers are also distributed by DDOT directly and can be picked up on the fifth floor of the DDOT main office at 55 M St. SE. DDOT also manages a Booster Seat Program in partnership with DC Metropolitan Police Department. This program provides free booster seats to children who are at least four years old and 40 lbs. “Booster Seat Tuesday” operates on Tuesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., at 501 New York Ave. NW where the seats can be picked up with no appointment. The staff from participating centers will also make sure that all seats provided are properly installed. ddot.dc.gov/page/carsafety-seat-program.
National Archives’ Virtual Pajama Party This fun educational program for kids, eight to twelve, will focus on women in sports, the Olympics, and gymnastics. Their special guest is Olympic gymnastics gold medalist and Dancing with the Stars champion Laurie Hernandez, who will read from her book, I Got This: To Gold and Beyond, and take questions from program attendees. Participants will learn about related historical records in the National Archives and create/ share their own artwork and writing. Available indefinitely on youtube.com/channel/UCnAsiniI4DF7vAAe7omWWFQ. ◆ April 2021 ★ 101
Contact Carolina at 202.400.3503 & carolina@hillrag.com to get the most for your advertising dollars.
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We Service, Repair, and Install all Major Brands
@mongraphicsdc
A Cleaning Service, Inc.
Refrigerators, Washer/Dryers, Ranges, HVAC Units, Garbage Disposals, Microwaves, Icemakers, Freezers and more Appliances Pro, Inc.
cares about the environment in which you live
“We Repair It Right The First Time!” ALL MAKES & MODELS / SERVICE & INSTALLATION
CARPET CLEANING
AIR & HEATING
WOVEN HISTORY
$55 OFF
SAME DAY SERVICE
Any Complete Repair FREE SERVICE CALL WITH
35 OFF Limit one per customer
$
ANY COMPLETE REPAIR
REPAIR! Not valid with any other offers. Must present coupon at time of purchase.
CALL NOW!
202.640.2178
LICENSED, BONDED & INSURED
We wash carpets in the traditional manner – by hand, using no chemicals or machinery. No preheated room for drying. We dry in the sun and the wind. Free pick-up and delivery for Capitol Hill residents. Call 202-543-1705. More info. at wovenhistory.com. Located at 311-315 7th St. SE. Your neighborhood carpet store on Capitol Hill since 1995. Open Tuesday- Sunday from 10 am- 6 pm.
CHIROPRACTIC Living on & serving the Hill since 1986
SUPPORT YOUR NEIGHBORS AND LOCAL BUSINESSES!
Dr. David Walls-Kaufman Chiropractor 411 East Capitol St., SE All are welcome to Dr. Walls-Kaufman's free Saturday morning Tai Chi class at 8 am in Lincoln Park
202-544-6035 Because Optimal Health is Impossible Without Optimal Posture!
102 ★ HILLRAG.COM
a clean house, a clean mind. Complete Residential Cleaning, including Laundry & Ironing CALL FOR FREE ESTIMATE
703.892.8648
acleaningserviceinc.com satisfaction guaranteed serving DC, MD & VA since 1985 licensed, bonded & insured
CONTRACTORS
DOORS & WINDOWS
John Himchak Construction Co. Inc.
Replacement Windows & Doors 1880 ON THE OUTSIDE
2021 ON THE INSIDE
SATISFYING CAPITOL HILL CUSTOMERS FOR OVER 27 YEARS
COMPUTER
ANCHOR C O M P U T E R S
On-site Service for Homes & Businesses Since 1994 Troubleshooting, Repairs & Upgrades Virus & Spyware Removal
Basement Excavation Underpinning Foundation Repair Waterproofing Concrete Masonry Tuck pointing Paver & Flagstone Installation Garages Repaired Garages Built New Demolition Additions Renovations
Historic Window & Door Replacement Specialists
alex@windowscraft.com 202.288.6660 www.windowscraft.com LICENSED, INSURED AND BONDED
ELECTRICIAN
UNCOMPROMISED QUALITY REASONABLE RATES WARRANTY ON ALL WORK LICENSED
BONDED
INSURED
MEMBER OF
New & Existing Computer Setup Network & Wireless Installation Data Recovery, Transfer & Back-up TV & Phone Configuration Webpage Development
Love Where you live… renovate
Speak Directly with Owner John Calls Preferred
202.528.2877
JohnHimchak@hotmail.com L A R RMORE Y ELPINER DO 202.543.7055 WITH anchorcomputers.com YOUR admin@anchorcomputers.com MARKETING
CONTACT GABRIEL TO DISCUSS YOUR NEXT HOME REMODEL
CAPITAL COMMUNITY NEWS
AD SOLUTIONS We believe in strong, targeted ad solutions and offer added value benefits to our advertisers! So what’s INCLUDED? Your campaign publicized across ALL available platforms.
Print | Digital Ads Web Editorial | Social Media
ASK CARO
202.543.8300 X12
Residential & Commercial Restoration & Historical Preservation Structure Specialists Renovations & Remodeling Kitchens, Baths & Basements Restoration & Repair
Call 202.965.1600 DCRA Lic 9115 • Insured • References
www.jfmeyer.com
Painting Concrete / Masonry General Repairs Renovations & More FREE ESTIMATES AFFORDABLE RATES LICENSED, INSURED & BONDED you saw them in
571.437.4696 lgmatluk@hotmail.com April 2021 ★ 103
Serving Capitol Community for over 14 years!
FITNESS
HOUSE HISTORY
LANDSCAPING
PAINTING
Redefining Beauty One Client at a Time!
HOT YOGA CAPITOL HILL Tone • Stretch • Melt
Maximize your Health! Hot Yoga (26 + 2) -plusHot Pilates HIIT • Warm Flow • Piyo Spa Yoga • Sculpt & Barre Yoga Restorative • Children’s Programs 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training Yoga Retreats & more
Do You Know the historY of Your home? Let us create a coffee table book on the history of your home.
nmhousedetectives.com nmhousedetectives@gmail.com
OVER 25 YEARS OF EXPERIENCE IN CAPITOL HILL
Full-Service Landscape Design & Maintenance Installation, arbors, retaining walls, walkways, lighting, water features Patios, roof top gardens, townhomes, single family homes Trees & shrubs, formal & informal gardens Custom Masonry, Fencing and Iron work Restoration and Enhancement
Derek Thomas / Principal
New Student Hot Deal $39 for an entire month of unlimited classes
Certified Professional Horticulturist | Member of MD Nursery Landscape and Greenhouse Association
301.642.5182 202.322.2322 (Office) thomaslandscapes.com
hotyogacapitolhill.com
202-547-1208 hotyogacapitolhill@gmail.com
Thomas Landscapes
INTERNET
FLOORS
MOVING & HAULING
BEST RATES IN DC $80 x Two Men- 2 or 3 Hours Minimum • Pickups / Deliveries
Painting Division
Interior & Exterior Custom Painting
CONTINENTAL MOVERS Professional Movers Who Really Care
Residential Floors
Owner Operated Since 1982 References – Local & Long Distance Packing Services – Pianos & Big Objects
Dedicated to Perfection • Sanding and Refinishing • Installation • Repairs • Cleaning & Waxing
7 days a week - Free Estimates DO MORE Reasonable Rates Residential & Commercial WITH (301) 990-7775 YOUR MARKETING
Call for a FREE Quote
202.438.1489 301.340.0602 www.continentalmovers.net
Family owned and operated 3 Generations of Experience
CAPITAL COMMUNITY NEWS
AD SOLUTIONS We believe in strong, targeted ad solutions and offer added value benefits to our advertisers! So what’s INCLUDED? Your campaign publicized across ALL available platforms.
Print | Digital Ads Web Editorial | Social Media
ASK CARO
202.543.8300 X12 104 ★ HILLRAG.COM
IRONWORK
Peach Moving Services When Trust Matters Most Residential, Office & Commercial
Little Peach in Training
Short Term Notice Moves Local & Up to 300 mile Radius Expert Packing & Unpacking Temporary Storage by the Day Hourly Rates
Michael Pietsch (aka Peach) Capitol Hill Resident
202.368.7492
www.peachmoving.com
Drywall & Plastering
Call 202.965.1600
DCRA Lic 9115 • Insured • References
www.jfmeyer.com
G G ROOFING
PEST CONTROL
F L K Termite, Pest &
AWARDED BEST WASHINGTON, DC CONTRACTOR OF 2012 BY ANGIE’S LIST
Rodent Control
FAM I LY OWN ED & O PERATED • “50 YEARS EXPERI EN CE”
Flat Roof Specialists Modified Bitumen • Skylights • Shingles • Slate
r th t an just ki kilillllilin ing bug ugs gs, s, More re ug w ta t ke care r of yo y ur home we re • Babies, children, pets, no worries, customized treatments • Latest environmentally sound methods and products • One time, monthly, y bimonthly, y, y, y quarterly, y yearly y,
•
•
•
10% OFF WITH THIS AD
202.425.1614 WWW.GANDGHOMEIMPROVEMENTS.NET
Licensed & Insured | All Work Managed & Inspected by Owners
LICENSED & INSURED
Free Estimates
301.273.5740 301.576.3286
Chimney Repairs Roof Coatings • Gutters & Downspouts • Preventive Maintenance • Metal Roofs
•
RADIO/MEDIA
WWW. W FLKPESTC W. T ONTROL.COM TC
WE STOP LEAKS! • Roof Repairs • Roof Coatings • Rubber • Metal • Slate
• Tiles • Chimneys • Gutters • Waterproofing • Roof Certifications
We Do Everything!
BOYD CONSTRUCTION INC.
75 years in service
LIC. BONDED. INS
BBB
Member
WOOD &
202-223-ROOF (7663)
ROOFING CONTRACTORS
SHOES
WHITACRE
30 years on the Hill Slate – Tile – Copper Specializing in all Flat Roof Systems and Leaks
PET SERVICES
FLAT ROOF SPECIALIST
FREE ESTIMATES • Work Guaranteed
JEFFREY WOOD cell
301.674.1991
www.wood-whitacre.com
Eastern Market Shoe Repair • Shoes • Boots • Purses • Luggage 645 Penn Ave., SE upstairs M-F 8:30-7 • Sat 9-6
202-543-5632
WELDING
Continental Welding
ROOFING/GUTTERS
SPECIALIZING IN IRON REPAIR WORK
4 Iron Gates & Fences 4 Railing & Stairs 4 Steel Repair Work 4 Metal Structural Support 4 Security Gates for Windows & Doors
PLUMBING
Just Say I Need A Plumber®
Dial A Plumber, LLC®
ALL TYPES OF ROOFING REPAIRS
Kenny
202-251-1479 L U M M E R
continentalwelding@hotmail.com C O N T I N E N TA LW E L D I N G . C O M
Star Roofing Company RELIABLE
Licensed Bonded Insured DC P
CALL FOR A FREE ESTIMATE
202-749-1487
• Licensed Gas Fitter • Water Heater • Boiler Work • Serving DC • References John • Drain Service • Furness Repair & Replacement
’
S
L
I C E N S E
#707
R.W. ROOFING
We offer the most competitive price in town. All Roofing & Rubber Roofs. We do everything: replacements, repairs, maintenance and coatings. See our ad under general contracting. 202-674-0300 or 301-929-0664.
Specializing in Residential & Commercial Flat Roof Systems
202-543-6383 All work done by owner • Free Estimates Insured • Licensed • Bonded
April 2021 ★ 105
www.themecrosswords.com • www.mylesmellorconcepts.com
XWORD “It’s A Dog’s Life” by Myles Mellor Across:
1. Camera brand 6. Biting 11. Rockets’ and Suns’ org. 14. Elevator pioneer 18. “The Price Is Right” announcer Johnny 19. Aborigine signal 20. Wine: Prefix 22. End of a Caesar quote 23. Tracking dogs 25. Golden dog 27. Fun house sounds 28. Bracket shapes 29. Cry of relief 31. Miss Channing 32. “Let’s Get It On” singer 33. Agt. Mulder’s employer 34. The Crimson Tide 35. Song holder 39. Accolade 42. ___stick 46. Accept an unpleasant circumstance, ___ bullet 47. Chase scene maneuver, slangily 48. Femmes fatales 51. Schedule 52. Clock std. 53. Metal spikes 54. Vegas or Palmas 55. Springer and Sussex, e.g. 59. German dog 61. Edmonton hockey player 62. Dummkopf 63. Actress Claire 64. Ductile 67. Soapmaker’s need 68. Tough position to be in 72. Buckeye sch. 73. Hot apple __ 74. Go to pieces 75. British hunting dog with a long shaggy coat 80. German ___
84. Harper Valley ___ 85. Explore 86. Personal ID 87. “Buenos ___” 89. Dash 91. Did nothing 92. Herb 95. Active sort 96. Two caddys 98. Kind of lantern 99. Symbol of enduring life 102. Sneaky laugh 103. Imitated 104. Court site, with “The” 106. Tennis great, Arthur 108. Marc Antony’s love 109. Stadium section 113. Chinese dog breed 115. Spitz types 118. Famed runner Zatopek 119. Impertinent person 120. Smallest size 121. Ready to be drawn 122. Hunger for 123. Half a proverbial exchange 124. Sgt. Bilko 125. Delicious
Down:
1. Stud site 2. Women’s magazine 3. Wasn’t hurt 4. Whispers sweet nothings 5. Besides 6. Follower 7. Grand ___ Dam 8. Seeming eternity 9. “The Hunt for __ October” movie 10. Store for the latest electronics 11. “Me neither” 12. Muscular strength 13. Organized insect 14. Ham it up 15. Show saver
Look for this months answers at labyrinthgameshop.com 16. Reykjavik is its cap. 17. Title a Knight 21. Killer whale 24. Moor 26. ‘-- the Walrus’ 30. Grissom’s first name, on “CSI” 32. Secure 33. Podiatrist’s concern 34. Already 35. Media source 36. Is sick 37. Discontinue 38. __ precedent 40. Fails to mention 41. UN agcy. 43. Seat of Montana’s Lewis and Clark County 44. Ark landing point 45. Letter closers
47. “Back in the ___” 49. Benz followers 50. “--- was saying” 52. Open delight 53. Sit for a photo 56. Rejections 57. Roman numeral 58. Right angle extension 59. Used a sci-fi gun 60. Remain 64. Overly 65. Property 66. Crazy guy 67. Prefix with type 68. Chemistry Nobelist Otto 69. Richard Bach novel 70. Waiter’s expectation 71. Coll., e.g. 73. Critical golf shots 74. “Hey you, c’mere!”
We have games and puzzles for everyone!
OFFERING ECO-FRIENDLY LOCAL DELIVERY IN DC! SAME DAY $11 I NEXT DAY $9
645 Pennsylvania Ave SE (Steps from Eastern Market Metro)
106 ★ HILLRAG.COM
• Educational, board • Jigsaw puzzles and party games • Brainteasers • LEGO and other • Marble mazes building toys • Corporate gifts • Chess & other strategy game • Much, much more Tuesday - Friday – 11am to 7pm Saturday & Sunday – 10am to 6pm
202-544-1059 • labyrinthgameshop.com
76. Has to be boosted sometimes 77. Australian hopper 78. Thumb 79. “Already under control!” 81. Heaven 82. Vex 83. Honoree’s spot 84. Doctorate 86. Obi 88. Automotive engineers’ org. 90. Delicate 91. Church tower 92. Indiana county or its seat 93. “Tommy,” e.g. 94. ___ to the bone! 97. “Zip it!” 98. Son of Mary Stuart 100. Religious lady 101. Beer barrels 104. Chrysler engine 105. Related to 106. Next to Europe 107. Aug. follower 108. “Walk Like ___” 109. Film director Wertmuller 110. They may be sown 111. Pest 112. See 113. Pizzazz 114. Tolkien creature 116. ‘’___ the ramparts ...’’ 117. “I am __ a crook!”
Capitol Hill
is infused with history, the Home District of the government of a democracy that our ancestors demanded & we inherited, and, with will and luck and our active attention, will hand down to our descendants! With access to Congress and the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress, The Folger, the Navy Yards, Union Station, and via the National Mall, Museums, Monuments and More; Eastern Market, The Navy Yards, Barracks Row, and newer venues, such as H Street, Union Market give plenty of opportunity for social interaction (with luck & vaccinations!) for “Hillites”! Well spaced and placed Parks abound, with Lincoln Park as the center and Heart of the Hill. Access to groceries, pharmacies, wine shops, delicatessens, cafes, coffee shops, diverse restaurants, pubs and bars are all within easy walking distance. For the Commuter, it provides easy access to everywhere via 6 Metro Stations, multiple local and national bus services, & the city’s only trolley! And, for long treks, there’s easy access to 4 Interstate access points, and two of the main eastern routes in and out of the city. There are other suburbs in the city; Few have the ambiance, the amenities or the attractiveness of Capitol Hill!
To
HILL
with the Suburbs!
FOR SALE & COMING SOON! 136 13th St SE
620 14th Pl NE
Lincoln Park Brick Bay, 4 BR/3.5 BA, InLaw Ste, Historic Details $1.387M
3BR/1.5BA, Steel & Stone Kit, HWF, Recess Lights, Patio, OSP $700K’s
618 5th St NE
633 S. Carolina Ave SE
Stanton Pk Bay, 2 Units, Solar Powered 4BR/3.5ba, Parking $1.389M
245 15th St SE #202 Owners Ste & Den & 2nd Bath! Stone Island Kit, Garage, More! $500K’s
Great Location, E. Mkt, METRO, 3BR/1.5BA, Deep Yards $1.000M’s
4000 Cathedral Ave NW
THE WESTCHESTER #18-19B, 1650 SF 2BR + Den, Renovated Kit + 2 BAs $500K’s
The Smith Team
TO HILL WITH SUBURBS! Licensed in DC & MD
thesmithteam.penfedrealty.com
John Smith Aaron Smith Peter Grimm Kristine Jones Peter Davis Office
202.262.6037 202.498.6794 202.270.6368 202.415.4716 301.332.1634 202.608.1887
705 North Carolina Ave, SE Washington, DC 20003
Decades of Experience – Over a thousand homes bought and sold! (We may not know everything, but, we know a lot!)
BUY HERE, BY NOW, BUY SMITH! KEEP IN TOUCH ABOUT HILL REAL ESTATE AT/ON: www.facebook.com/TheSmithTeam.DC | twitter.com/OneHillofaAgent | www.instagram.com/the_smith_team