Mid City DC Magazine October 2014 by Capital Community News

An Urban Lifestyle Magazine

MIDCITY OCTOBER 2014

How to Open a Small Business in DC Interested in opening a small business in the District of Columbia? Then make sure you attend this training session! At this training session, DCRA staff will walk you through everything you need to do to open a new business: • Benefits of incorporating or creating an LLC • Types of business licenses and how much they cost • How to apply for a business license • Zoning requirements for types of businesses • Obtaining a Certificate of Occupancy • What building permits are needed to do renovations • How to apply for a building permit Date: Wednesday, October 15, 2014 Time: 9:00 am – 10:30 am Location: Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Small Business Resource Center 1100 4th Street SW, 2nd Floor (Room E-200), Washington, D.C. 20024 To Register: http://bizdc.ecenterdirect.com/ConferenceDetail.action?ID=39081

Small Business Brief Advice Legal Clinic: Meet One-on-One with a Lawyer for Free! If you are an existing or an aspiring small business owner, come and meet one-on-one with attorneys at this brief advice clinic. You can get information on business formation, contracts, leases, taxes or any other questions you may have related to small business legal issues. Or, if you do not have specific questions, come and tell the attorneys about your business—they can help you spot legal issues or give you general advice. Date: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 Time: 5:00 pm – 7:30 pm Location: Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Small Business Resource Center 1100 4th Street SW, 2nd Floor (Room E-200), Washington, D.C. 20024 To Register: http://bizdc.ecenterdirect.com/ConferenceDetail.action?ID=38417

Africa’s Markets of Opportunity: Small Business Training Workshops on Exporting to Africa In the wake of the African Leaders Summit in August, which focused, among other topics, on greater trade between the US and Africa, the Small Business Development Center Network of Washington DC, an outreach program of Howard University, working in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration, will hold a training workshop for small businesses and entrepreneurs focused on African markets. Specifically, businesses and entrepreneurs who are currently exporting or are considering selling their products and services to African markets will have the opportunity to learn from experts in international trade and Africa some of the successful strategies, top industries and markets, and best practices. Exporting can offer your company major growth opportunities in markets outside the United States. Today it’s easier than ever for a company, regardless of size, to sell goods and services across the globe. Africa offers dozens of diverse markets and a favorable trading climate for U.S. products and services. • Hear from companies successfully exporting products and services to Africa • Meet with representatives from U.S. government trade agencies • Network with like-minded small businesses and entrepreneurs active in or considering African markets. Inquiries: Ian Oliver, ian.oliver@verizon.net Date: Thursday, November 13, 2014 Time: 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm Location: Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Small Business Resource Center 1100 4th Street SW, 4th Floor (Room E-4302), Washington, D.C. 20024 To Register: http://bizdc.ecenterdirect.com/ConferenceDetail.action?ID=39080

SBRC One-on-One Session: Basic Steps to Obtaining a Business License Date: Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursdays Time: By appointment only between 10:00 am – 2:00 pm Location: Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs Small Business Resource Center 1100 4th Street SW, 2nd Floor (Room E-268), Washington, D.C. 20024 To Register: http://bizdc.ecenterdirect.com

Tim Krepp is a former Naval officer and author who is intimately familiar with the District and our history. As a parent of two children in our public schools, he is well prepared to bring his firsthand experience to Congress to improve our schools, and fight for DC statehood. He lives with his family on the east end of Capitol Hill and has been a DC resident since 1993.

? y l s u o i r Se

. y l s u o i Ser

or twelve elections, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve sent the same person to Congress with the same results. What makes us think the thirteenth time will be different? We need to harness the recent energy on Statehood, and not let it waste away as we have in the past. We just celebrated our first Congressional hearing in twenty years; however, we need to ask ourselves WHY it was the first one in twenty years? We must ensure we grow the movement in a cohesive and comprehensive fashion instead of lurching from reaction to reaction. Apart from Statehood, no other city in America has a closer relationship with the federal government than DC does. Without a responsive and engaged Delegate, how can we expect the feds to be good neighbors? Washington, DC is changing. We need sustained engagement and creative problem solving to protect long-term residents. At the same time, we need to be able to ensure that DC remains affordable to new residents, so we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lose the energy and vitality that contributes to our growth. To make that happen, we need close and effective representation in Congress. Our current Delegate has taken us as far as she can. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time for new leadership. Seriously.

Krepp2014.com Paid for by the Krepp for Congress Committee.

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CONTENTS OCTOBER 19

MIDCITY

08 What’s on Washington 10 Calendar out and about

19 30 32 35 36 38

Arts & Dining Special Insatiable • Jonathan Bardzik Let’s Get Physical • Jazelle Hunt Retail Therapy • Mariessa Terrell Depeche Art • Phil Hutinet Art All Night 2014 Draws Crowds Again • Pleasant Mann

your neighborhood 42 46 48 52 33 54 55

The District Beat • Andrew Lightman The Numbers • Ed Lazere and Wes Rivers Bulletin Board • Kathleen Donner Shaw Streets • Pleasant Mann Bloomingdale Bites • Jazzy Wright Logan Circles • Mark F. Johnson ANC 6E • Steve Holton

kids and family 56

Notebook • Kathleen Donner

at home 60

Changing Hands • Don Denton

62 Classifieds COVER: From Shaw Art All Night. Photo by Maxine L. Naawu. Side Hustle Stories Photography. www.sidehustlestories.net

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Hill Rag • Mid City DC • East Of The River • Fagon Community Guides Capital Community News, Inc. 224 7th Street, SE, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20003 202.543.8300 capitalcommunitynews.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Melissa Ashabranner • melissaashabranner@hillrag.com

Look for Next Issue of MCDC on November 8 Editorial Staff Managing Editor: Andrew Lightman • andrew@hillrag.com CFO & Associate Editor: Maria Carolina Lopez • carolina@hillrag.com School Notes Editor: Susan Braun Johnson • schools@hillrag.com Kids & Family Notebook Editor: Kathleen Donner • kathleendonner@gmail.com Food Editor: Annette Nielsen • annette@hillrag.com

KIDS & FAMILY Kathleen Donner • kathleendonner@gmail.com Susan Johnson • schools@hillrag.com

Arts, Dining & Entertainment Art: Jim Magner • jjmagner@aol.com Dining: Emily Clark • clapol47@gmail.com Celeste McCall • celeste@us.net Jonathan Bardzik • jonathan.bardzik@gmail.com General Assignment: Maggie Hall • whitby@aol.com Literature: Karen Lyon • klyon@folger.edu Movies: Mike Canning • mjcanning@verizon.net Music: Jean-Keith Fagon • fagon@hillrag.com Stephen Monroe • samonroe2004@yahoo.com Retail Therapy: Marissa Terrell • mterrell@sbclawgroup.com Theater: Barbara Wells • barchardwells@aol.com The Wine Guys: Jon Genderson • jon@cellar.com

Homes & Gardens Derek Thomas • derek@thomaslandscapes.com Catherine Plume • caplume@yahoo.com

Calendar & Bulletin Board Calendar Editor: Kathleen Donner • calendar@hillrag.com, bulletinboard@hillrag.com General Assignment Martin Austermuhle • martin.austermuhle@gmail.com Maggy Baccinelli • mbaccinelli@gmail.com Dana Bell • dana@hillrag.com Elise Bernard • elise.bernard@gmail.com Stephanie Deutsch • scd@his.com Kathleen Donner • kathleendonner@gmail.com Michelle Phipps-Evans • invisiblecolours@yahoo.com Mark Johnson • mark@hillrag.com Stephen Lilienthal • stephen_lilienthal@yahoo.com Pleasant Mann • pmann1995@gmail.com Celeste McCall • celeste@hillrag.com Charnice Milton • charnicem@hotmail.com John H. Muller • jmuller.washingtonsyndicate@gmail.com Will Rich • will.janks@gmail.com Linda Samuel • lindabsamuel@yahoo.com Heather Schoell • schoell@verizon.net Virginia Avniel Spatz • virginia@hillrag.com Michael G. Stevens • michael@capitolriverfront.org Peter J. Waldron • peter@hillrag.com Roberta Weiner • rweiner_us@yahoo.com Jazzy Wright • wright.jazzy@gmail.com Jennifer Zatkowski • jenn@hillrag.com

Society & Events Mickey Thompson • socialsightings@aol.com

COMMENTARY Ethelbert Miller • emiller698@aol.com The Nose • thenose@hillrag.com Production/Graphic/web Design Art Director: Jason Yen • jay@hillrag.com Graphic Designer: Lee Kyungmin • lee@hillrag.com Web Master: Andrew Lightman • andrew@hillrag.com Advertising & Sales Account Executive: Kira Means, 202.543.8300 X16 • kira@hillrag.com Classified Advertising: Maria Carolina Lopez, 202.543.8300 X12 • carolina@hillrag.com Billing: Sara Walder, 202.400.3511 • sara@hillrag.com Distribution Distribution Manager: Andrew Lightman Distributors: MediaPoint, LLC Distribution Information: distribution@hillrag.com Deadlines & CONTACTS Advertising: sales@hillrag.com Display Ads: 15th of each month Classified Ads: 10th of each month Editorial: 15th of each month; submissions@hillrag.com Bulletin Board & Calendar: 15th of each month; calendar@hillrag.com, bulletinboard@hillrag.com

BEAUTY, Health& Fitness Patricia Cinelli • fitmiss44@aol.com Candace Y.A. Montague • writeoncm@gmail.com

We welcome suggestions for stories. Send queries to andrew@hillrag.com. We are also interested in your views on community issues which are published in the Last Word. Please limit your comments to 250 words. Letters may be edited for space. Please include your name, address and phone number. Send Last Word submissions to lastword@hillrag.com. For employment opportunities email jobs@ hillrag.com. 6 u midcitydcnews.com

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Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park

Skyline Drive runs 105 miles north and south along the crest of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Shenandoah National Park and is the only public road through the park. You can enter Shenandoah at four places: Front Royal near Rt. 66 and 340, Thornton Gap at Rt. 211, Swift Run Gap at Rt. 33, and Rockfish Gap at Rt. 64 and Rt. 250 (also the northern entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway). It takes about three hours to travel the entire length of the park--the speed limit is 35 mph. There are 75 overlooks that offer stunning views of the Shenandoah Valley to the west or the rolling Piedmont to the east. nps.gov/shen

“Out of Many, One” Large-Scale Landscape Portrait on the National Mall

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has commissioned a grand landscape portrait from Cuban American urban artist, Jorge Rodríguez-Gerada to be placed on the National Mall through Oct. 31. For the work titled “Out of Many, One,” the English translation of E pluribus unum, Rodríguez-Gerada used dozens of images of people photographed in Washington, DC, to create a composite portrait that is an interactive walk-through experience for visitors and is also viewable from the newly reopened Washington Monument. The project covers six acres and falls midway between the World War II and Lincoln memorials along the south side of the Reflecting Pool. npg.si.edu

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Emilie Brzezinski: The Lure of the Forest

Through Dec. 27, the Kreeger Museum presents an exhibition of monumental wood sculptures by Emilie Brzezinski. The Lure of the Forest expresses Brzezinski’s fascination with trees and her love and respect for the environment. The Museum pays homage to this masterful sculptor, who for over thirty years has chain sawed and hand-chiseled tree trunks into majestic forms. Each work exhibits beauty, grace, sensuousness, and strength. Her imposing installations are awe-inspiring and express the passion Brzezinski has for her trees. The Kreeger Museum is at 2401 Foxhall Rd. NW. 202-337-3050. kreegermuseum.org LEFT: Lament, 2013, Red Oak. Photo: Helen Wilson Chason

New York Avenue Sculpture Project

The larger-than-life sculptures by artist Magdalena Abakanowicz are on view through Sept. 27, 2015 in the median of New York Ave. NW between 12th and 13th Sts. They are part of the New York Avenue Sculpture Project, the only public art space featuring changing installations of contemporary works by women artists in Washington, DC. Abakanowicz’s monumentally-scaled sculptures of grouped human figures and birds in flight exemplify issues universal to humankind: the power of nature, the force of destruction and the resiliency of hope. Her art is often inspired by her experiences and observations during World War II and its repressive postwar climate. nmwa.org

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Walking Figures (group of 10), 2009; Bronze, each approximately 106 1⁄4 x 35 3⁄8 x 55 1⁄8 in.; All images © Magdalena Abakanowicz, Courtesy of Marlborough Gallery, New York.

Washington Craft Show

The Washington Craft Show at the Convention Center presents 185 of the nation’s top contemporary craft artists in a premier showcase that is nationally recognized for presenting masterful work. The artists invited to participate must first submit their work to a professional panel of jurors and all work is required to be designed and made in artists’ studios across America. Show hours are Friday, Oct. 31, 10 a.m.-8 p.m.; Saturday, Nov. 1, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Sunday, Nov. 2, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Admission is $15 ($14, seniors). craftsamericashows.com

LEFT: “A Glory of Feathers” brooch by Marianne Hunter, Ranchos Palos Verdes, CA. One-of-a-kind.

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★ ★ ★

calendar

OCTOBER

Image: Courtesy of the National Building Museum

HALLOWEEN

National Building Museum Creepy New Acquisition Tours

The Ghost Story Tour of Washington. Fridays and Saturdays in Oct, 8:00 PM. Tour meets at 16th and H Sts., NW (near St. John’s Church). $12, $6 for those under 16 (babes in strollers or carriers, free). Military ID holders are half price on all tours. 301-588-9255. historicstrolls.com

Oct 12, 17, 19 and 28, 8:00 PM and 9:00 PM. The National Building Museum is terriﬁed to announce the recent discovery of a set of documents belonging to a builder who, records show, died in 1886 while assisting with the construction of their historic building. Interestingly, the letters date years after he was reported dead and buried. $25. For ages 10, up. National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW. 202-272-2448. nbm.org

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The Ghost of DC Past: All-Star Spoken Word Reunion. Oct 25, 8:00 PM and Oct 26, 7:00 PM. Oct 25, features Kenneth Carroll, Joel Dias-Porter (aka DJ Renegade), Brian Gilmore, Jeffrey McDaniel, Jose Padua and Silvana Straw. Oct 26, Features Quique Aviles, Reuben Jackson, Ernesto Mercer, Michelle Parkerson, Silvana Straw and Patrick Washington. $15-$25. Dance Place, 3225 8th St. NE. 202-269-1600. danceplace.org Annual Del Ray Halloween Parade. Oct 26, 2:00 PM. Participants meet on Mount Vernon Ave. south of Bellefonte Ave. prior to 2:00 PM. Adults, children and dogs are all welcome to join. visitdelray.com Halloween Changes Its Disguise-Has the Witching Season Grown Up? Oct 27, 6:45-8:15 PM. Holiday scholar Daniel Gifford transports us back 100 years to reveal a surprisingly tricky side to Halloween. Drawing on a variety of imag-

...because I keep my prenatal appointments. My name is Brittney and Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m 6 months pregnant. I keep all my prenatal appointments to help make sure I have a healthy pregnancy. When Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m healthy, my baby is healthy! To see the I am healthySM series and get tips on ways to stay healthy, visit www.amerihealthdc.com/iamhealthy.

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Craig Wallace as Hoke and Nancy Robinette as Daisy in the Ford’s Theatre production of “Driving Miss Daisy,” directed by Jennifer L. Nelson. Photo: Scott Suchman

Driving Miss Daisy at Fords

Through Oct 26. When Daisy Werthan causes a car wreck, her son hires hardworking chauffeur Hoke Colburn to look after her. What begins as a hostile clashing of wills between a stubborn Jewish matriarch and a proud black man evolves into a decades-long friendship as the two navigate Civil Rights-era Atlanta. Ford’s Theatre, 511 10th St. NW. 202-347-4833. fords.org

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es, including now-forgotten Halloween postcards, he conjures up a picture of a very different holiday. $25. S. Dillon Ripley Center, 1100 Jefferson Dr. SW. 202-633-3030. smithsonianassociates.org Drag Queen High Heel Race. Tuesday, Oct 28, 9:00 PM. Always fun, always outrageous and always held on the Tuesday before Halloween, this annual event features elaborately costumed drag queens racing down 17th St. NW from R to Church St. It attracts large crowds to cheer them on so don’t expect to park in the area. The race begins at 9:00 PM but come early because the real fun begins before the race. An informal block party follows.

Night of the Living Zoo. Oct 30, 6:30-10:00 PM. It’s Baaaaack. With a live band, costume contest, and mindboggling performance art—including fortune tellers, fire eaters, and illusionists, it is a Halloween party you won’t want to miss. $50-$110. nationalzoo. si.edu Dia de los Muertos. Nov 1 and 2, 10:30 AM-4:30 PM. View several ofrendas (altars), and special programming that includes food demonstrations of traditional foods for the dead around the outdoor firepit, (weather permitting); music and dance performances. National Museum of the American Indian, on the National Mall between Air & Space and US Capitol. nmai.si.edu Find a Nearby Pumpkin Patch. pumpkinpatchesandmore.org

SPECIAL EVENTS Memorial Tribute to Legendary DC Jazz Pianist Dick Morgan. Oct 15, 6:00 PM. Washington Performing Arts and the Kennedy Center present a Memorial Concert to honor the life and musical legacy of renowned DC-based jazz pianist Richard Lewis (Dick) Morgan, who passed away on Oct. 20, 2013. Free. Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. washingtonperformingarts.org Grass Roots Grand Opening at the Arboretum. Oct 18 and 19, noon-4:00 PM (both days). Enjoy outdoor activities for all ages including kids’ games, putting practice on the new green, meeting with turf experts including golf course managers, guided tours of the exhibit, and more. Located adjacent to the R St. parking lot and the Visitor Center, near the National Herb Garden. There are two entrances: 3501 New York Ave. NE, and 24th and R Sts. NE, off of Bladensburg Road. usna.usda.gov National Capital Area Flower Show. Oct 18, 1:00-4:00 PM and Oct 19, 9:00 AM-4:00 PM. Attend free educational talks and browse creative exhibits on horticulture, photography, art, and design presented by members of District

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at the Shirlington exit (#6). signaturetheatre.org

Washington International Horse Show. Oct 21-26. This event hosts leading horses and riders from around the nation and the world and is a highlight of the equestrian calendar. Verizon Center. wihs.org

Music at the Lincoln. Oct 13, Flying Lotus; Oct 15, Adti Inspriational Choir and Moroccan Ensemble; Oct 18, Cafe Tacuba; Oct 24, The Milk Carton Kids and Sarah Jarosz; Oct 25, SBTRKT; Nov 4-5, The String Cheese Incident; Nov 6, The Best of Jethro Tull performed by Ian Anderson; Nov 7, Chrissie Hynde; Nov 8, James Vincent McMorrow. Lincoln Theatre, 1215 U St. NW. 202-328-6000. thelincolntheatre.org

MUSIC

Music at Sixth and I. Oct 28, David Bazan + Passenger String Quartet; Nov 1, Cécile McLorin Salvant; Nov 2, An Evening with Pete Yorn; Nov 6, Eric Hutchinson; Nov 8, Maya Beiser; Nov 9, Suzanne Vega. Sixth & I Historic Synagogue, 600 I St. NW. 202408-3100. sixthandi.org

Visible Language at Gallaudet. Oct 21Nov 16. Right here in Washington, DC, in the volatile 1890s, two powerful and egotistical men clashed over how the deaf should be taught to communicate-a contest that was to impact every deaf person thereafter. Gallaudet University Eastman Studio Theatre. facebook.com/WSCAvantBard

Garden Clubs and National Arboretum staff. There are two entrances: 3501 New York Ave. NE, and 24th and R Sts. NE, off of Bladensburg Road. usna.usda.gov

Music at 9:30. Oct 11, Yelle; Oct 12, Citizen Cope; Oct 13, Porter Robinson; Oct 14, New Politics; Oct 15, Jimmy Eat World; Oct 16, St. Paul & the Broken Bones; Oct 17, Julian Casablances & the Voidz; Oct 21, STS9; Oct 24, The Jayhawks; Oct 25, Dan + Shay: Where It All Began Tour; Oct 26, RAC; Oct 28, Temples; Oct 30, Lettuce; Oct 31, Smallpools & Magic Man; Nov 1, Capital Cities; Nov 2, The Presets; Nov 4, Hozier; Nov 5, Kodaline; Nov 6, FKA twigs; Nov 7, London Grammar; Nov 9, Johnny Marr. 9:30, 815 V St. NW. 877-435-9849. 930.com Music at Black Cat. Oct 12, Mirah; Oct 13, Landlady; Oct 14, The Orwells; Oct 15, Fat White Family; Oct 17, Stranger in the Alps; Oct 18, Right Round; Oct 18-19, San Ferman & Courtney Barnett; Oct 19, Mike Watt; Oct 20, Agent Orange; Oct 21, Daniel Ellsworth & the Great Lakes; Oct 22, Marchandise; Oct 25, Twin Shadow; Oct 26, The Damned; Oct 27, The Flatliners; Oct 29, Roomrunners; Oct 20, Spirits in Black; Oct 31, Jonny Grave and the Tombstones; Nov 1, Dum Dum Girls; Nov 2, Cass McCombs; Nov 4, Screaming Females; Nov 5, Laura Stevenson; Nov 7, Kill Lincoln. Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW. blackcatdc.com Music at The Howard. Oct 12, Cassandra Wilson; Oct 13, Ed Motta; Oct 15, Electron; Oct 19, Gregory Porter; Oct 21, Mali Music; Oct 23, The Asteroids Galaxy Tour; Oct 24, Keith Sweat; Oct 25, Kina Grannis; Oct 26, “Hot Hot Gypsy Jazz”: Django Festival Allstars; Nov 1, Robin Trower; Nov 2, Watsky; Nov 5, Syleena Johnson; Nov 6, Trentemøller; Nov 7, Loose Ends; Nov 8, Waxahatchee. Howard Theatre, 620 T St. NW. 202-803-2899. thehowardtheatre.com

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Sunday Gospel Brunch Featuring the Harlem Gospel Choir. Every Sunday, 12:30-2:00 PM. $30-$45. The Howard Theatre, 620 T St. NW. 202-803-2899. thehowardtheatre.com Church of the Epiphany Weekly Concerts. Every Tuesday, 12:10 PM. Free but a free will offering taken. 1317 G ST. NW. 202-347-2635. epiphanydc.org

THEATER Belleville at Studio. Through Oct 12. Belleville unmasks the seemingly perfect marriage and Parisian life of expats Abby and Zack, anatomizing the consequences of deceptions small and large and the terrifying, profound unknowability of our closest relationships. Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. 202-332-3300. studiotheatre.org Marie Antoinette at Woolly. Through Oct 12. Cake enthusiast and infamous onepercenter Marie Antoinette opens Woolly’s 35th season with a burst of high fashion and shaky morals. Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St. NW. 202-3933939. woollymammoth.net Elmer Gantry at Signature. Through Nov 9. The charismatic, but completely broke, salesman Elmer Gantry stumbles upon a struggling religious tour, led by pious evangelist Sister Sharon Falconer. Signature Theatre, 4200 Campbell Ave. off I-395

The Wolfe Twins at Studio. Oct 15-Nov 2. Lewis invites his estranged sister on an Italian vacation to reconnect, but when he befriends a beautiful stranger, old wounds fester and intimate secrets are revealed. Studio Theatre, 1501 14th St. NW. 202332-3300. studiotheatre.org

As You Like It at Shakespeare. Oct 28Dec 7. All the world’s a stage in As You Like It, one of Shakespeare’s fullest comedies, where poetry, mistaken identities and true love lost and found abound. Lansburgh Theatre, 450 7th St. NW. 202547-1122. shakespearetheatre.org Julius Caesar at the Folger. Oct 28-Dec 7. In the shadow of the nearby Capitol building, Shakespeare’s searing commentary on power, ambition, and democratic responsibility smolders just in time for midterm elections. Folger Shakespeare Theater, 201 E. Capitol St. SE. 202-544-7077. folger.edu Fiddler on the Roof at Arena. Oct 31-Jan 4. More than just a poor milkman, Tevye is a humble Jewish father who finds his devotion to God severely tested by his headstrong daughters, who want to be their own matchmakers, and the increasingly ruthless government forcing him from his land. Arena Stage, 1101 6th St. SW. 202488-3300. arenastage.org

Capitals practices are at Kettler Capitals Iceplex, 627 No. Glebe Rd., Suite 800, Arlington, VA. They are free and open to the public. kettlercapitalsiceplex.com Washington Wizards Basketball. Oct 12, 15, 17, 20; Nov 1. Verizon Center. nba. com/wizards Public Ice Skating at Fort Dupont Ice Arena. Fridays, noon-1:50 PM and Saturdays, noon-1:00 PM. $5, adults; kids 2-12 and seniors, $4. Skate Rental, $3. Fort Dupont Ice Arena, 3779 Ely Pl. 202-5845007. fdia.org Closest indoor public pools. Turkey Thicket, 1100 Michigan Ave. NE. Open Monday through Friday, 6:30 AM-8:00 PM; Saturday, noon-5:00 PM; closed, Sunday. 202576-9236. Rumsey Pool, 635 No. Carolina Ave. SE. Open Monday through Friday, 6:30 AM-9:00 AM and noon-9:00 PM; Saturday, 1:00-5:00 PM; Sunday, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM. 202-724-4495. The pools are heated and free for DC residents. Have ID with you. dpr.dc.gov Nearby public tennis courts. Banneker Community Center (8 outdoor tennis courts), 2500 Georgia Ave. NW. 202-6736861. Kennedy Recreation Center (1 outdoor tennis court), 1401 7th St. NW. 202671-4794. All courts are open daily, dawn to dusk. Some are lighted for extended evening play. Courts are available on a first-come, first-served basis for one hour intervals; extended use of tennis courts requires a permit. Proper shoes and attire is required. 202-671-0314. dpr.dc.gov

SALES AND MARKETS SPORTS AND FITNESS Washington Capitals Ice Hockey. Oct 14, 18 and 25. Verizon Center. capitals.nhl.com Washington Capitals Practice Schedule. Non-game day, 10:30 AM; game day, 10:00 AM; and day after game, 11:00 AM. All

Bloomingdale Farmers Market. Sundays, 9:00 AM-1:00 PM. First and Sts. NW. CityCenter DC Farmers Market. Tuesdays through Oct 28, 11:00 AM-2:30 PM. Located at The Park at CityCenter at the corner of 10th and I Sts. NW. Grant Avenue (flea) Market in Takoma Park. Oct 12, 10:00 AM-3:00 PM. The market is at the intersection of Grant Ave. and

Carroll Ave. in Takoma Park, MD with antiques, collectibles and funky finds. grantavenuemarket.com Alexandria Art Market. 2nd Saturday of the month (rain or shine), through Oct, 10:00 AM-4:00 PM in the Nicholas A. Colasanto Park, adjoining the Del Ray Artisans gallery at 2704 Mount Vernon Ave., Alexandria, VA (corner of Commonwealth Ave. and Mount Vernon Ave.). The variety of original artwork from over 25+ artists will be displayed for sale including, painting, photography, pottery, jewelry, and glasswork. 703-627-7656. TheDelRayArtisans.org U Street Flea. Saturdays and Sundays, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM. The market is in the parking lot, next to Nellie’s Sports Bar (three blocks east of U Street Metro), at 912 U St. NW. ustreetflea.com Clarendon Night Market. Alternate Saturdays, through Oct 25, 3:00-9:00 PM. It features a diverse mix of art, crafts, fashion, jewelry, imports, antiques, collectibles, furniture, and more. It is in the Wells Fargo Bank parking lot, 3140 N. Washington Blvd. at the intersection of Washington, Wilson and Clarendon Blvds in North Arlington, VA. ClarendonMarket.com Branch Avenue Pawn Parking Lot Flea Market. Saturdays, year-round (weather permitting). Set up after 10:00 AM. 3128 Branch Ave., Temple Hills, MD Union Market. Tuesday-Friday, 11:00 AM-8:00 PM; Saturday-Sunday, 8:00 AM-8:00 PM. Union Market is an artisanal, curated, yearround food market featuring over 40 local vendors. 1309 5th St. NE. 301-652-7400. unionmarketdc.com Eastern Market. Daily except Mondays and important holidays. Weekdays, 7:00 AM-7:00 PM; Saturdays, 7:00 AM-5:00 PM; Sundays, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. Flea market and arts and crafts market open Saturdays and Sundays, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM. Eastern Market is Washington’s last continually operated “old world” market. 200 block of 7th St. SE. 202-698-5253. easternmarketdc.com

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MIDCITY FEBRUARY 2013

FIND US AT THESE LOCATIONS! 14U Cafe

1939 U ST NW

Andrene’s Carribean

308 Kennedy ST NW

Azi’s Cafe

1336 9th ST NW

Ben’s Chilli Bowl

1213 U ST NW

Bicycle Space

1019 7th Street, NW

Big Bad Woof

117 Carroll ST NW

Big Bear

1700 1st ST NW

Bioscript Pharmacy

1325 14th ST NW

Brookland Metro

801 Michigan Avenue NE

Bus Boys & Poets

1025 5th ST NW 2021 14th ST NW

Caribou Coffee

1400 14th ST NW

Carls barber shop

1406 P St MW

Chatman’s Bakery

1239 9th ST NW

Chester Arthur House

23 Logan Circle NW

Chinatown Coffee

475 H ST NW

City First Bank

1432 U ST NW

CNN Office

224 7th ST SE

Coldwell Banker

1606 17th ST NW

Columbia Hts. Coffee

3416 11 ST NW

CVS

DC Child & Family Services Agency

200 I Street SE

Drafting Table

1529 14th ST NW

Dunkin Donuts

1739 New Jersey Ave NW

Emery Recreation Ctr.

5701 Georgia Avenue, NW

Emmaus Services for the Aging

1426 9th Street, NW

Enviro. Working Group

1436 U ST NW

First Cup Coffee

900 M ST NW

Foster House Apts.

801 Rhode Is. Ave, NW

Giant

1050 Brentwood RD NE 1345 Park RD NW

Habesha market

1919 9th st

Harris Teeter

1201 First St, NE 1631 Kalorama RD NW

Petworth Metro

3700 Georgia AVE NW

Phyllis Wheatly YWCA

901 Rhode Island Ave NW

Providence Hospital

1150 Varnum St NE

Reeves Center

2000 14th ST NW

Safeway

1045 5th ST NW 1701 Corcoran ST NW 1747 Columbia RD NW 6501 Piney Branch RD NW

Senior Wellness Center

3531 Georgia Avenue, NW

Shaw Library

945 Rhode Island AVE NW

Shaw Mainstreet

875 N Street, NW

Shaw metro

1800 7th st NW

Shephard Park Library

7420 Georgia Avenue, NW

Starbucks

1600 U ST NW 2225 Georgia AVE NW

Heller’s Bakery

3221 Mt. Pleasant ST NW

Howard University

2225 6th ST NW

Java House

1645 Q ST NW

Kennedy Rec Center

1401 7th ST NW

LAYC

1419 Columbia RD NW

1000 U ST NW

Lincoln Westmoreland Apts.

1730 7th Street, NW

7th ST & Rhode Is. Ave, NW

110 Carroll ST NW

Long & Foster

1401 14th ST NW

1501 14th ST NW

1117 10th ST NW

Love Cafe

1501 14th ST NW

128 Kennedy ST NW

Marie Reed Rec Center

2200 Champlain ST NW

Takoma Metro

327 Cedar ST NW

1418 P ST NW

MLK Library

901 G ST NW

Takoma Park Library

312 Cedar Street, NW 1620 V ST NW

State Farm

3327 12th ST NE

Street Boxes

925 Monroe ST NE 2022 14th ST NW 8th & R Streets., NW 1400 Block P Street, NW

1501 U ST NW

1637 P Street, NW

Modern Liquors

1200 9th ST NW

Third District MPD

1700 Columbia RD NW

Mt. Vernon Sq. Metro

700 M ST NW

Trilogy NoMa

151 Q Street, NE

1900 7th ST NW

Mt. Pleasant Library

3162 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

Tryst

2459 18th ST NW 1100 Michigan Avenue, NE

2129 14th ST NW

Northwest One Library

155 L ST NW

Turkey Thickett Rec Ctr.

3031 14th ST NW

Off Road Cycling

905 U Street, NW

U Street metro

900 U st

3601 12th ST NE

Paul Laurence Dunbar Sr. Apartments

Wilson Building

1350 Pennsylvania AVE NW

400 Mass. AVE NW

2001 15th Street NW

Windows Cafe

101 Rhode Island AVE NW

6514 Georgia Ave, NW

Petworth Library

4200 Kansas AVE NW

Yoga District

1830 1st ST NW

MIDCITY YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER

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I WILL WORK FOR YOU WARD 1 WARD 2 WARD 3 WARD 4 WARD 5 WARD 6 WARD 7 WARD 8

Dupont Circle Farmers Market. Sundays (rain or shine), year round, 9:00 AM-1:00 PM. 20th St. and Mass. Ave. NW, 1500 block of 20th St. NW (between Mass. Ave. and Q St. in the adjacent parking lot of PNC Bank). 202-362-8889. freshfarmmarket.org

building, 635 Edgewood St. NE, 9th floor. theedgewoodcivicassociationdc.org

Maine Avenue Fish Market. Open 365 days a year. 7:00 AM-9:00 PM. 1100 Maine Ave. SW. 202-484-2722.

Mount Vernon Square Neighborhood Association. Third Tuesday, 7:30-9:30 PM. Yale Steam Laundry, 437 New York Ave. NW. lifein.mvsna.org

Logan Circle Citizens Association. Please contact Jennifer Trock at jennifer. trock@logancircle.org for meeting dates and times. logancircle.org

U Street Neighborhood Association. Second Thursday, 7:00-8:30 PM. Source (second floor classroom), 1835 14th St. NW.

CIVIC LIFE Congresswoman Norton’s NW District Office. Open weekdays, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM. 529 14th St. NW, suite 900. 202-7835065. norton.house.gov All-Ways Mount Pleasant. First Saturday, noon-2:00 PM. LaCasa. All -Ways is a citizen’s association primarily for the tenants of the larger apartment buildings of Mount Pleasant. 3166 Mt. Pleasant St. NW. aa-ss.org Chinatown Revitalization Council. Fourth Monday, 7:00-8:00 PM. 510 I St. NW. Chinatown Revitalization Council (CRC) promoting the Chinatown renewal and the preservation of its cultural heritage. The public is welcome. Convention Center Community Association. Last Tuesday, 7:00-8:30 PM. Kennedy Rec Center, 1401 7th St. NW. Downtown Neighborhood Association. Second Tuesday, 7:00-9:00 PM. US Naval Memorial Center, 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. miles@dcdna.org. dcdna.org East Central Civic Association of Shaw. First Monday, 7:00 PM. Third Baptist Church, 1546 Fifth St. NW. Contact: Al Hajj Mahdi Leroy J Thorpe Jr, 202-3871596. Eckington Civic Association. First Monday, 7:00-8:30 PM. Harry Thomas Recreation Center, 1743 Lincoln Rd. NE. eckingtondc.org Edgewood Civic Association. Last Monday, 7:00-9:00 PM. Edgewood senior

ANC 1A. Second Wednesday, 7:00 PM. Harriet Tubman Elementary School, 3101 13th St. NW. 202-588-7278. anc1a.org

JOHN CHEEKS CHAIRMAN FOR D.C. COUNCIL See 15 point agenda on www.electcheeks.com

Email us: dcnewleadership@yahoo.com

INDEPENDENT

Report on file with the Office of Campaign Finance. Paid for by: Elect Cheeks for Chairman, Ron Bonifilo Treasurer

ANC 1B. First Thursday, 7:00 PM. Reeves Center, 2000 14th St. NW (second floor). 202-870-4202. anc1b.org ANC 1B11. Second Monday, 7:00 PM. LeDroit Senior Building (basement community room), 2125 Fourth St. NW. 202481-3462. anc1b.org ANC 1C. First Wednesday, 7:00 PM. Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Health, 2355 Ontario Rd. NW. 202-332-2630. anc1c.org ANC 1D. Third Tuesday, 7:00 PM. 3166 Mount Pleasant St. NW. 202-462-8692. anc1d.org ANC 2C. First Wednesday, 6:30-8:30 PM. Watha T. Daniel Library, 1630 Seventh St. NW. 202-682-1633. anc2C.org ANC 6E. First-Tuesday, 6:30 PM. NW One Library, 155 L St. NW. anc6E.org u

THEY SERVED OUR COUNTRY TO PROTECT US. LET’S SUPPORT THEM! This CFC season consider giving back to a veteran who has given so much to us. We have been a place of transition for hundreds of chronically homeless veterans. Providing veterans with a new home and a new beginning. Proudly celebrating 11 years of service. #

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202.561.VETS (8387)

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 17

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ARTS& DINING AUTUMN IN WASHINGTON, DC

n 1956, when Jacob Javits was elected to the U.S. Senate from New York, his wife didn’t move with him to Washington, DC which she considered a backwater and she wasn’t shy about telling anybody who’d listen. She may have had a point. DC really was men in gray suits and women in sensible shoes shuffling in and out of government buildings to a time-clock. Have things ever changed! The U District, Adams Morgan and the H Street corridor are now on everyone’s list of the hippest places in the country. We’ve also got art in alleys, music in courtyards, in-town major league sports, a thriving theater scene, restaurants popping up everywhere, trolleys and Barack and Michelle (not Ike and Mamie). As the days grow shorter and the evenings longer, here are some suggestions to help you enjoy autumn and the approaching winter months with style. u

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Dance ! Dance! ! Dance! Dance

olf Trap isn’t just for summer outdoor concerts. You’d be surprised at the variety and sophistication of the entertainment offered at the Barns year-round. On Saturday, Oct. 18, 7:30 p.m., you can enjoy An Evening of Indian Dance at the Barns a rich cultural experience of beautiful and emotionally-engaging classical and folk Indian dance and music. Vibrant costumes, lively music, and elaborate choreography will adorn the stage when the professional dancers from IDEA (Indian Dance Educators Association) perform. This performance will feature six popular, classical dance styles— Bharathanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Mohiniattam and Manipuri, representing var-

ious regions of India. $20-$25. wolftrap.org/barns The Washington Ballet presents The Nutcracker at the Warner Theater every holiday season--this year, Dec. 4-28. The audience will be full of families, but the ballet itself is thoroughly appropriate for an entirely adult audience. Set in Georgetown and replete with swirling snowflakes, cherry blossoms and historical characters, including George Washington as the heroic nutcracker, The Nutcracker has become a tradition for generations of family and friends to celebrate the holidays. On Nov. 29 and 30, there are also performances of The Nutcracker at THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE with discounted tickets for east of the river patrons. thearcdc.org

Courtesy of Wolf Trap

On Saturday, Oct. 25, 7:30 p.m., East Meets West at the Atlas Performing Arts Center on H Street. This special evening will premier the Gin Dance Company Artistic Director Shu-Chen Cuff’s newest works “Face to Face”, which explores how technology has changed the way we all interact and connect with each other in and “That’s Mozart,” a fun and light hearted piece in which Shu-Chen creates and shapes the movements into Mozart’s humorous and playful music notes. This work delivers an awakening message for people to take charge and tell their own story. The Atlas is becoming the performing arts venue for new music, experimental dance, off-beat humor and performance art. Tickets are $28. East Meets West is performed by the Gin Dance Company of Northern Virginia. Read more at gindance.org.

Courtesy of the National Gallery of Art

Courtesy of The Washington Ballet

Photo: Laine Shakerdge.

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Part fact, part fiction, and set in the harsh backstage world of the Paris Opera Ballet, Little Dancer at the Kennedy Center is Courtesy of the Gin Dance Company a musical inspired by the story of Marie van Goethem, a young ballerina who posed for Edgar Degas and became, inadvertently, the most famous dancer in the world. Torn by her family’s poverty, her debt to the artist, and the lure of wealthy men, she struggles to keep her place in the corps de ballet--a girl on the verge of womanhood, caught between the conflicting demands of life and art. Little Dancer is at the Kennedy Center, Oct. 25-Nov. 30. In conjuncation with Little Dancer, the National Gallery of art presents Degas’s Little Dancer, Oct. 5-Jan. 11. One of the Gallery’s most popular works of art, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen will be presented with 14 additional works from the Gallery’s collection. nga.gov The Cuban Dance Social with DC Casineros at Dance Place in Brookland is an opportunity to dance--not just watch other people. On Friday nights Oct. 17, Nov. 7, Dec. 19 and Jan. 16, 8 p.m.-midnight, enjoy all levels of Latin dancing. This is Brookland’s great new chance to dance, meet new people and appreciate the richness of Cuban dance and art. Join the DC Casineros’ company of community DJs and dancers for an evening of Son, Songo, Timba, Guaguanco, Salsa, Cha Cha Cha, Guaracha, and Rumba. The dance lesson is 8-8:30 p.m. and the remainder of the evening is open dancing. $12 includes appetizers and beverages. Book online at danceplace.org, call 202-269-1600 or pay at the door. Dance Place is at 3225 8th St. NE. dccasineros.org u

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 21

Dining ! Dining! ! g n i n ! i g D n i n i D

ashington DC has become quite the theater town, and thankfully many restaurants have stepped up with pre-theater (or pre-event, as some now call it) menus that offer three courses for a discounted price, along with a guarantee to get you out the door in time for the show. Here are some choices grouped by area of the city.

Penn Quarter: Theaters: Shakespeare Theatre Company, Woolly Mammoth, Ford’s, Warner, National 701 – 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 202-393-0701. This upscale restaurant has a $32 pre-theater menu with such selections as beef carpaccio or red pepper risotto to start, flatiron steak or sake-miso glazed salmon as an entrée and dessert. The menu is available Monday-Saturday 5:30 - 6:45 p.m., Sunday 5:00- 9:30 p.m. Valet park for $8/car at 701 until after the show! Rasika – 633 D St. NW, 202-637-1222. Going early for a pre-event dinner may be your best chance of snagging a meal at this ultra-popular Indian-influenced eatery. Named among the top 20 restaurants across America in Zagat’s 2014 America’s Top Restaurants Survey, you need to make reservations weeks in advance. Rasika offers a $35 threecourse menu until 6:30. Closed on Sunday. Valet parking available. 14th Street / Logan Circle: Theaters: Studio Theatre, Source Theatre, Theater J, Howard Theater B Too – 1324 14th Street NW, 202-627-2800. In a fun, eclectic space, celebrity chef Bart Vandaele showcases the cooking of Belgium. Yes, the mussels are delicious, but there is so much more. And they offer a Belgian vanilla waffle for the table when you present your Studio Theatre ticket. Posto – 1515 14th Street NW, 202-332-8613. Posto serves both classic and modern Italian dishes. The kitchen works with local farms for organic vegetables and imports only the finest Italian ingredients. There is a three-course pre-theater menu available nightly from opening to 6:30 for $29. SW Waterfront: Theater: Arena Stage Station Four – 1104 4th St. SW, 202-488-0987. American, bistro-style restaurant gets excellent reviews and is the most convenient place to eat if you are going to the Arena Stage. They offer a $35 three-course dinner which includes valet parking on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Or take 10% off the bill from regular menu with tickets.

Photos: Andrew Lightman

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Capitol Hill: Theaters: Folger Theater, Atlas Performing Arts Bistro Cacao – 320 Mass. Ave, NE, 202-546-4737. This charming French restaurant offers a three course pre-theater menu for $29.95 per person. Every day from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. There are classics such as Coquilles St. Jacques, bouillabaisse, Onglet de Boeuf aux Echalottes. If you come at 5:30 you should have time for a relaxing dinner in this romantic, European-style setting before strolling through historic Capitol Hill on the way to the theater. Cafe Berlin – 322 Massachusetts Ave NE, 202-543-7656. Located a few blocks from Union Station, this Capitol Hill mainstay of almost 30 years serves classic and modern German cuisine. Though there is no pre-theater menu, it is close to the Folger. The restaurant feels authentically German and the food backs that up. You could make a meal off the small plates with home-made pork terrine, sausages, pickles and the like. The entrees include sauerbraten and cordon bleu. Desserts are strudels, Black Forest cake and cream tortes. Red Rocks – 1348 H St NE, 202-621-7300. Red Rocks is an upscale neighborhood pizzeria with four locations in the DC area. Thin Crust Neopolitan pizzas, pastas and more. Craft beer and designer cocktails. No pre-theater special but close to the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

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Midcity DC | October 2014 u 23

Theat e r ! Theater ! ! r e t a e ! r h e T t a e Th

he DC premier of “Sex With Strangers” is at Signature Theater from Oct 14-Dec 7. A raging snowstorm traps strangers Olivia, an unsuccessful, yet gifted, thirty-nine-year-old writer, and Ethan, a tech-addicted and wildly successful young blogger, in a secluded cabin. Opposites instantly attract, undeniable chemistry ignites and sex is imminent. As the dawn rises, however, what could have just been a one-night-stand transforms into something more complicated when online exploits interfere with their real-life connection. In this two actor drama, Holly Twyford plays Olivia and Luigi Sottile, Ethan. Three-time Helen Hayes Award winner Aaron Posner directs. Pride Night is Nov. 7 and 21. signature-theatre.org

Holly Twyford in Sex with Strangers at Signature Theatre. Photo: Christopher Mueller

“Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare is at the Folger Shakespeare Theatre from Oct. 28-Dec. 7. Julius Caesar returns home victorious, securing both unparalleled power and popularity. Fearful for the Republic and driven by their own ambition, several senators conspire to assassinate the Roman dictator in the Capitol. Michael Sharon plays Julius Caesar, Maurice Jones plays Mark Antony and Brutus and Cassius are played by Anthony Cochrane and Louis Butelli. Robert Richmond directs. In the shadow of the nearby Capitol building, Shakespeare’s commentary on power, ambition, and democratic responsibility smolders just in time for midterm elections. The Folger Shakespear Library is at 201 E. Capitol St. SE. folger.edu

Image Courtesy of Arena Stage

Maurice Jones as Mark Antony. Photo: James Kegley

By popular demand, the Theater Alliance at the Anacostia Playhouse is bringing back the “Black Nativity” after a two year hiaCourtesy of C. Stanley Photography tus from Dec. 8-Jan. 4. “Black Nativity” is the retelling of the Christmas story from an Afro-centric perspective, infused with rich gospel, blues, funk, jazz music and dance with griot-style storytelling from an ensemble cast. Originally written by Langston Hughes, the show was first performed Off-Broadway on December 1961, and was one of the first plays written by an African-American to be staged there. Eric Ruffin directs. The Anacostia Playhouse is located in the heart of Historical Anacostia at 2020 Shannon Pl. SE. Street parking is available on Shannon Place. theateralliance.com

Photo: Joseph Stand Photography

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Every year during the long holiday season, Arena Stage comes up with a family-friendly production for their theater in the round. This year it’s the Molly Smith directed “Fiddler on the Roof” which runs from Oct. 31 to Jan. 4. Tony nominee Jonathan Hadary plays Tevye, a humble Jewish father who finds his devotion to God severely tested by his headstrong daughters, who want to be their own matchmakers, and the increasingly ruthless government forcing him from his land. Everyone will know “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Sunrise, Sunset,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” and “Tradition.” Arena Stage offers a family fun pack--four tickets for $125. Arena is at 1101 6th St., SW. arenastage.org

“Famous Puppet Death Scenes” is at Woolley Mammoth, Dec. 9-Jan 4. It was created and is performed by the Canadian Old Trout Puppet Workshop. The Old Trouts promise to cure your fear of death; no more anxiety about difficult choices, no more dreading birthdays, no more desperate pleas for immortality through fame, art, or progeny. Curated and narrated by puppet Nathan Tweak, it is a collection of twenty-two infamous and theatrical end-of-life sequences, spanning a vast array of styles and genres. Woolly Mammoth is always ready to take a chance. They flop and they succeed, they’re fresh and they’re ridiculous, but you always come away with something. Watch for their pay-what-you-can previews. Woolly is at 641 D St. NW. woollymammoth.net u

Second Hand Rose October 10 The Dickens Campaign and Ryan Keberleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Catharsis October 11 Wake Up, Brother Bear October 9-13. Ages 1-5 Capital City Symphony October 12 Library of Congress: Intelligence in the Human-Machine October 16

Second Hand Rose

Rorschach Theatre Klecksography: Monsters & Mayhem October 24 Gin Dance Company: East Meets West October 25 The Welders: Not Enuf Lifetimes October 29â&#x20AC;&#x201C;November 16

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 25

Music! Music! Music! Music!

he Howard Theatre at 620 T St. NW first opened in 1910 in the area known as “Black Broadway.” It provided a place where color barriers blurred and music unified. From 1980 to 2012, the theater sat vacant in what we now call the U Street District. After a $29 million renovation and a 32-year hiatus, the Howard Theatre is once again a hub of creativity and artistic expression in the modern world. It offers a dizzying array of performers, celebrations, gospel and comedy. They have become famous for their Sunday Gospel Brunch with a southern buffet and live music ($35, $45, day-of). thehowardtheatre.com Every Sunday at 12:30 p.m. the National Cathedral’s peal bells are rung for about a half hour by musicians pulling ropes attached to the bells. They are best appreciated from the Bishop’s Garden just to the right of the Cathedral. Peal bell rehearsals are Tuesday evenings, 7-9 p.m. The 10bell peal set was cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry of London in the 1960s and installed in 1963. The bells vary in weight from 608 to 3,588 pounds. Peal bells play mathematical patterns, not melodic music, because peal bells cannot play a rhythm. nationalcathedral.org

Robin Trower appears at the Howard on Nov. 11. Photo: Courtesy of the Howard Theatre

Here are some of the performers and performance groups coming up at the Birchmere a legendary venue in the music world: Judy Collins, Three Dog Night, Herb Alpert, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Herman’s Hermits and Paula Poundstone. The Birchmere schedules a mix of old timers, country, jazz, folk and rock. It’s just across the river in Alexandria. Your ticket pays for your seat and parking, but not your food and beverage. Go to their website, birchmere.com for featured artists over the fall season. The Kennedy Center Millennium Stage was created to make the performing arts accessible to everyone in fulfillment of the Kennedy Center’s mission to the community and the nation. It is a free, live performance every night of the year at 6 p.m. in the Grand Hall, Concert Hall or Theater Lab. In the past 16 years, more than 3 million visitors have seen 6,000 groups perform jazz, ballet, storytelling, popular music, contemporary dance, opera, choral music, tap dance, theater, chamber music, symphonic music, puppetry, stand-up comedy, and cabaret. No tickets are required. Just show up. There’s a free shuttle service from the Foggy Bottom Metro Station to the Kennedy Center every 15 minutes. Enjoy. kennedy-center.org

Photo: Kathleen Donner

This season the Library of Congress presents five new works commissioned by the Library. Thursday, Oct. 30, George Lewis performed by Ensemble Dal Niente; Friday, Dec. 5, Jefferson Friedman/ Chiara Quartet with Simone Dinnerstein; Friday, Jan. 23, John Adams/St. Lawrence String Quartet; Saturday, Mar. 7, Jennifer Higdon/Roberto Díaz and the Curtis Chamber Orchestra; and Friday, May 22, Kaija Saariaho/Jennifer Koh, Anssi Karttunen & Benjamin Hochman. All concerts are free but require tickets available from TicketMaster (there is a small service charge associated with each ticket order). There is a limit of two tickets per patron. 8 p.m. in the Coolidge Auditorium, Thomas Jefferson Building. loc.gov u Ensemble Dal Niente performs on Oct. 30. Photo: Courtesy of the Library of Congress

Robert Earl Keen. Courtesy of the Birchmere

Gerdan – Courtesy of the Kennedy Center.

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m u e s Museum s! um ! s m u e s u m

t over 50’ long, 20’ high and weighing 6 tons, Spinosaurus is the largest discovered predatory dinosaur to roam the Earth. This dino’s extraordinary features include a crocodile-shaped skull and 7’ spines forming a sail along its back. Through Apr. 12, 2015, encounter this bizarre predator for the first time at “Spinosaurus: Lost Giant of the Cretaceous” at the National Georgraphic Museum, 1145 17th St. NW. In this exhibition, you explore a full-sized skeletal model as well as genuine dinosaur fossils and learn about the latest technologies modern paleontologists use. $7-$11. nationalgeographic.com The Hirshhorn has to be the most under-appreciated art museum in the city. But inside it is one of the most contemplative places you’ll ever encounter. In a world conditioned by the frantic, 24/7 flow of information and the ephemerality of digital media, many moving-image artists are countering these tendencies with works that emphasize slower, more meditative forms of perception. Days of Endless Time, Oct. 12-Apr 14, 2015, presents fourteen installations that offer prismatic vantage points into the suspension and attenuation of time or that create a sense of timelessness. Themes include escape, solitude, enchantment, and the thrall of nature. hirshhorn.si.edu

Photo: Mark Thiessen, National Geographic

The John Paul II National Shrine has undergone a renovation. It officially reopens on Oct. 22 and features an array of documents, relics and bits and pieces from the life of this extraordinary man. It is a glimpse into the life of a man who, along with Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Mikhail Gorbechev, and Lech Walesa, is most responsible for the end of the Soviet Empire and, therefore, the end the cold war. Admission is free and visiting hours are Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. 3900 Harewood Rd. NE. Harewood Road is between the National Shrine and the parking lot. 202635-5400. jp2shrine.org

“Face Value: Portraiture in the Age of Abstraction” features 50 paintings, drawings, prints and sculpture from approximately 1945 to 1975, by artists who were reinventing portraiture at a moment when most agreed that figuration was dead as a progressive art form. Artists such as Alice Neel, Elaine de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Beauford Delaney, Alex Katz, Romare Bearden, Fairfield Porter, Jamie Wyeth and Andy Warhol, along with lesser-known artists, pushed the boundaries of portrait traditions, reinterpreting human portrayal, reinventing portraiture for the next generation. On view through Jan. 11, 2015 at the National Portrait Gallery, 8th and F Sts. NW. npg.si.edu u

photo: Kathleen Donner Courtesy: Widener Collection

On the 400th anniversary of El Greco’s death, the National Gallery of Art presents an exhibition of his paintings, Nov. 2-Feb. 16. The exhibition includes 11 paintings from the Gallery and other Washington area collections. A selection of devotional works illustrates El Greco’s role as artist of the Counter-Reformation. El Greco was born in Crete and any visit to that island will have locals urging you to view the remains of his stone and brick home after which you can peruse El Greco relics and then order a moussaka lunch with a glass of retsina. nga.gov

Image courtesy and © Sigalit Landau

“Face Value” at National Portrait Gallery

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 27

potter y ! pottery! ! y r e t t o p tery! on the hill

TOP: Mark Shapiro “salting” during the ﬁring process. Photo courtesy of the artist. BELOW: Mark Shapiro. Rope Bowl. Detail. Photo courtesy of the artist.

Bob Briscoe

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Matthew Metz

n what has grown into an annual fall tradition, Hill Center will host the third annual Pottery on the Hill October 31 through November 2 with a “Pottery Jam” at District Clay on October 30. This year, sixteen nationally recognized ceramic artists will display and sell a wide array of work to the public. Participating potters are: Bob Briscoe, Kevin Crowe, Naomi Dalglish, Dan Finnegan, Warren Frederick, Ryan Greenheck, Michael Hunt, Michael Kline, Jenny Mendes, Matthew Metz, Donna Polseno, Ken Sedberry, Mark Shapiro, Stacy Snyder, Sam Taylor and Julie Wiggins. While visitors to the last two expos will recognize the work of several returning potters, this year’s roster includes many first-timers who have travelled as far away as California to display their wares. Unlike traditional craft fairs, Pottery on the Hill organizers carefully hand-pick critically acclaimed artists and professionally curate the exhibition setting in an indoor expo-like setting. Potter Mark Shapiro compares Pottery on the Hill to the “farm to table movement” since people will have direct access to the potters’ finished products as well as the artists themselves. In addition, Pottery on the Hill puts the ceramic art in context. Last year, the expo had a florist make arrangements in the artists’ vases to demonstrate the utilitarian nature of the artwork sold. This year, Pottery on the Hill will partner with recently opened District Clay in the Brookland-Woodridge neighborhood to provide interactive demonstrations of how potters practice their craft. “Pottery Slam,” which will take place on October 30 at District Clay, promises more than interactivity between the audience members, the pottery wheel and the clay; participants will also have the opportunity to work directly with several professional ceramic artists from Pottery on the Hill. Who knows where the improvisational format will lead and what both novice and seasoned potter alike will create jointly or individually in this novel format! Potter Mark Shapiro has participat-

ed in all three Pottery on the Hill events. He will also participate in the first Pottery Slam and eagerly looks forward to seeing what both his peers and the audience will create during this first of its kind improvisational session. He hopes that this format will encourage a younger generation to engage with the age old craft of throwing clay and creating pottery. Shapiro recalls making pots as early as 11 but stopping around the age of 16. With an affinity for the feel of materials such as metal and wood, Shapiro shifted away from throwing clay, spending most of his twenties working as a fine arts sculptor in lower Manhattan. However by age 28, he grew dissatisfied with his practice as a sculptor, finding the end product limited and ultimately undemocratic. “I was interested in making something accessible to everyone,” Shapiro explains. “Pottery is more complex than sculpture. It has to be able to sit on a gallery shelf. It can’t chip. It has to feel good on people’s lips.” Unlike sculpture which ends up in a museum or in a wealthy person’s private collection, Shapiro appreciates pottery’s utilitarian nature. So, for three decades, Shapiro has created thousands of vessels that have found a use in countless homes fulfilling his desire to create something new every day. Shapiro left the bustle of lower Manhattan and relocated to a sylvan setting in Western Massachusetts between the Berkshire Mountains and Pioneer Valley. In this rural setting, he founded Stonepool Pottery where he still practices his craft today. Over the years, Stonepool has partnered with a large number of artists and has trained several generations of practicing potters. Visitors can tour the working studio and browse the retail gallery. On the grounds of Stonepool’s estate stands a large wood burning kiln which Shapiro uses twice a year to fire his ceramic creations. The two-chambered kiln uses approximately 1,000 pieces of scrap wood, mostly pine, purchased from local mills. The meticulous process of loading the kiln takes three full days, with help from a crew of five people, which Shapiro likens to put-

ting together “parts of a puzzle.” As part of the firing process, Shapiro introduces salt into the kiln on boards. The salting process takes place five times at 20 minute intervals. With its alkaline properties, salt creates the patina one finds on Shapiro’s work generating pleasing variations in the ceramic’s surface patterns. German potters first discovered this technique in the fifteenth century and its effects still please ceramic artists and users five hundred years later! Despite the skill needed to create earthenware and the laborious process required to fire it, for Shapiro, a ceramic piece remains unfinished until it falls into the hands of a user. The cup, plate, bowl or pitcher comes alive once it is used and washed in the sink. Shapiro describes this final process as the “intimacy” which develops between the end user and the object which takes place the moment a user connects with the ceramic object transcending its aesthetic and functional roles. At Pottery on the Hill, the 16 invited artists belong to a close knit-artistic community. Shapiro speaks highly of this community praising its openness and generosity, lauding the artists’ “big tent” philosophy not often found in other crafts or Donna Polseno Naomi Dalglish & Michael Hunt art forms. To illustrate his point, Shapiro Jenny Mendes discusses how potters make glaze formulas openly available to all and in fact, few keep skilled information proprietary. In this same spirit of inclusiveness, Shapiro sees Pottery on the Hill as a coming together and celebration of the ceramics community as a whole with laymen, students and industry professionals convening, interacting and learning from one another. What brings Shapiro back to the expo for a third year in a row is both the quality of the experience and more importantly that “Pottery on the Hill expresses the values that we [as an artistic community] embody.” Stonepool pottery is located Pottery on the Hill’s Events are as follows: at 42 Conwell Road Worthing• Pottery Slam at District Clay-- Thursday, October 30. ton, MA or visit them online at Time TBD. District Clay is Located at 2414 Douglas www.stonepoolpottery.com Michael Kline

Avenue NE • Preview Reception-- Friday, October 31 at 6:30 pm. The cost is $30 • Show and Sale-- Saturday November 1 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. & Sunday, November. 2 from noon to 5 p.m. The Show and Sale is free of charge. Hill Center is located at 921 Pennsylvania Avenue SE

Phil Hutinet is the publisher of East City Art, a publication dedicated to DC’s visual arts. He has been covering Pottery on the Hill since its inception in 2011. For more information visit www. eastcityart.com u

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 29

out and about

+ Dining

DINING IN

eptember is insane. Though Labor Day may no longer mark your return to school, the month is still somehow packed with more work, social events, and beach-weekends-are-over-so-lets-get-togethers than you can handle. In the end, your firm resolve to hit a new restaurant every week and cook farm-fresh food from the local market caves to dialing for takeout. Heck, even that phone call has given way to the ease of ordering online. Living in Eckington, I have grown tired of the great divide, across which no one wants to deliver, marked by Florida Avenue and North Capitol streets. In desperation my husband Jason and I have searched out great delivery available here in the hinterlands. Here’s what we’ve discovered:

It’s Not Delivery. Oh Wait, Yes It Is: Pizza Parts and Service

Pizza is the foundation of any good delivery list, and it is exactly where DC is the weakest. No longer. H Street’s Pizza Parts and Service (202-388-6880, PizzaPartsandService.com) delivers fresh pizza with a toothy crust. Brought to you by the Taylor Gourmet team, the cured meats are worthy of any Italian antipasti, the herbs are fresh, and the mozzarella is made in house. The dough and sauce are homemade as well. Our favorites (so far)? The #1, whose sliced meatballs have just the right density (not too heavy, but not airy with too many bread crumbs) and sweetness to the meat, rich with mozzarella and ricotta, sharpened with pecorino Romano, the heat of red chili flakes cutting through the mild fats. #3, loaded with salami, soppresetta, and bacon, could just as easily appear on a grinder roll next door at Taylor. Mushrooms offer earthy balance with creamy, fresh mozzarella melted over the marinara-sauced crust. I am a home delivery 30 u midcitydcnews.com

by Jonathan Bardzik traditionalist and like my pizza with red sauce, but thanks to Jason’s insistence I have fallen in love with #8, a white pie with mushrooms, tangy-funky truffle oil, mild Fontina cheese, and fresh, licoricey Genovese basil. As for sides: far from the usual chunks of iceberg and hot-house tomatoes, Pizza Parts and Service delivers fresh, peppery arugula and tomatoes, with hand-made dressing worthy of any farm-to-table restaurant in town. While the garlic knots, slick with butter and garlic, may stop your heart, they are worth every delicious bite. Pizza Parts and Service is open until 3:30 a.m.,Friday and Saturday, to satisfy your late-night cravings.

Satisfying the Asian Cravin’: Sticky Rice

Since DC’s highly praised Chinese purveyors like Great Wall Szechuan House don’t reach the great wastelands of Eckington, we’ve looked elsewhere to satisfy our Asian delivery yen (pun unintended, but I’ll take it). While delighted to discover that Sticky Rice (202-397-7655, ILoveStickyRice.com) offers front-door service, I was dubious that their signature tater-tots would arrive crispy and hot and their sushi fresh and cool. They passed with flying colors. The tots arrived, enough to serve an army, or six of your partied-out friends, as if they were fresh from the fryer, along with their signature spicy (is it mayo and sriracha? They’ll never tell) sauce. Home delivery may be the perfect solution for ordering our favorite roll, the Godzirra. Ordering it out loud in Sticky Rice’s H Street NE dining room always makes us look guiltily over our shoulder. A more exciting take on the ubiquitous California roll, it pairs shrimp with creamy avocado, cream cheese, and cucumbers, adding the crunch of tempura and salty tobiko roe. So, our tots arrived crisp, my sweetly sauced Mongolian beef with udon noodles hot, and our spicy tuna and Godzirra rolls cool and fresh. How did they do it? The simple yet brilliant solution of

packaging the hot items separately from the cold ones. Why hasn’t every other sushi/Asian restaurant in DC thought of that? Go you with your bad self, Sticky Rice! To satisfy your Sticky Rice craving from the comfort of home, order by 10:30 p.m. during the week and 11:00 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Delivery Diversity: Red Toque Cafe

When you’ve had enough pizza and Asian food it’s time for, well, more Asian food. Just look a little farther south. While Red Toque Cafe (202588-5516, RedToqueCafeDC.com) sounds like fussy, fine dining, the full menu promised a delightful break for our delivery-weary palates, with a northern Indian and Pakistani menu including samosas and baba ghanouge, biryani and butter chicken, and, of course, kebobs. We ordered online and the food arrived, 30-40 minutes later at our door. “There is no way,” I said to Jason, “that they delivered beef samosas, still hot and crispy.” I was dead wrong. The samosas are perfect, the dough crisp, the peas and onions sweet and rich with spicy seasoned beef. Even the corners, which often have too much folded over crust, were just the right thickness. Butter chicken is a complete indulgence, and Red Toque delivered. Rich, sweet tomato and cardamom sauce thickly coated the tender chunks of chicken, served on floral basmati rice. Karahi, a traditional northern Indian or Pakistani dish, simmers chicken in a complex sauce of ginger, chiles, and tomatoes with a spice blend including coriander, cumin, and turmeric. The result was tender and complex, and, using our hands, we nibbled every bite of chicken from the bones. The one disappointment was our garlic naan, perhaps a little to Americanized with an overabundance of butter. For Red Toque, you’ll have to make dinner plans a bit earlier and get your order in by 10:00 p.m.

A M A

S m h a d r B Th A o y s s c i c t m p t a a t f w Th

t t g g t e p i o e y s g i t n

And a Little More Asian: Aroi Thai

Sometimes I can’t make it out of the house to Thai X-ing, and Beau-Thai, though delicious, is not always reliable for delivery. Bloomingdale’s Aroi Thai (202-652-0642, AroiThaiDC.com) is our go-to. The tom yum perfectly balances sweet, spicy, sour, and salty in my favorite chicken soup. It cools in the summer and comforts in the winter. From the healthy menu the spicy eggplant is sweetly sauced, the eggplant tender and mild, without a hint of bitterness, the tofu perfectly fried and airy, all cut with the freshness of Thai basil. While we have yet to order anything from the spicy, citrusy larb gai to Jason’s favorite TOP: Red Toque Café’s northern Indian and Pakistani menu adds nice diversity to our regular delivery orders of pizza, Chinese, and Thai. green curry (which Left: Sweet, spicy, salty, and sour, Aroi Thai’s tom yum is Thai chicken – or shrimp – soup, clean and light, cooling in summer and comforting in winter. they deliver without Right: Every Thai restaurant needs a good Pad Thai, and Aroi Thai’s is my new favorite in the District. eggplant or red pepper, just for him), that is not rock solid. One at Eastern Market (Saturdays from March to NovemA Seat at the Table of their dishes, however, is our new “best of.” Evber), Jonathan loves cooking fresh ingredients as much as No need to worry, I’m ready to get back out there ery good Thai restaurant needs a great pad Thai, seeking them out in DC’s growing restaurant scene. His with my head freshly shaved, my beard trimmed, yet few have one. They are typically too heavily first cookbook, “Simple Summer: A Recipe for Cooking and my good jeans washed, and my mobile phone sauced, unbalanced toward sweetness, heavy, and Entertaining with Ease,” is available now (and would charged. We’re already making dinner reservations greasy. Eye Street NW’s Café Asia was our reignmake a wonderful gift!). Grab a copy and find out what for the month. Now if I can just get Jason out of ing favorite until its closing, but Aroi Thai has Jonathan is cooking at www.jonathanbardzik.com or his those sweats… thankfully replaced it. Order by 10:00 p.m. weekFacebook page, “What I Haven’t Cooked Yet.” Need some nights and 10:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday. foodporn? Follow @JonathanBardzik on Twitter and InJonathan Bardzik is a cook, storyteller, and author living stagram. u in Eckington. Known for his weekly live cooking demos Midcity DC | October 2014 u 31

out and about

+ Fitness

Let’s Get Physical

Slipping Into a Fitness Trance by Jazelle Hunt

Dance Trance is like a choreographed party with friends. Photo: Dance Trance DC

Keeping up with a brand new routine keeps us on our toes. Photo: Jazelle Hunt 32 u midcitydcnews.com

Our energetic instructors lead the high-cardio Dance Trance session (Eileen Pascucci, background, Megan Mielnik, foreground). Photo: Jazelle Hunt

his one goes out to my old dance sneakers. They died in service at Dance Trance, hosted at Balance Gym Thomas Circle. Why did I think my 10-year-old footwear, unearthed from the back of my closet, could handle 20 or so backto-back dance routines amounting to two hours of choreography? Rest in peace, Capezios. Anyway, Dance Trance is a dance fitness system designed to provide a good workout through a long string of short choreographed routines. It’s meant to feel like being at a club with friends. It doesn’t quite feel like that on the first try; but it does fall squarely in the gray area between fitness routine and dance class, both of which demand that the moves are done correctly. With Dance Trace that’s not the case, but the desire to do it right or at least keep up is contagious. And that’s where the workout comes in. The beginner Breakdown & Advanced High Cardio session is a snapshot of the full range of Dance Trance. The first half of class is for newcomers, who learn a few staple moves, Dance Trance hand-signal cues, and a new routine. Four other first-timers and I joined two cheery instructors, Megan Mielnik and Eileen Pascucci, for the Saturday morning class. The dancing started immediately. The warm-up was a short, steady, easy routine to Timbaland and Justin Timberlake’s “Carry Out.” The meat of the beginner’s session was a breakdown of the newest pop routine that was going to be put into class rotation. It wasn’t difficult, but some of the moves required serious coordination. It took about 30 minutes to learn and put it to music. By that point, blood was pumping and foreheads were glowing. We had reached the halfway point of class, and as the beginners took a water break, things got real. The lights went off. Club lights flashed on.

The sound system boomed Selena Gomez’s “Love Song,” and Dance Trance regulars trickled in, some wearing fresh and dance sneakers. The beginners glanced sidelong at each other. Class went from 0 to 60 when we regrouped, as a whole country line-dance routine materialized from thin air. Of course, that’s how it seemed, except that the regulars already knew the routine. Ten minutes later it was an aggressive hip-hop number to Kanye and Jay Z’s “N— in Paris,” straight into Bollywood hit “Jai Ho” (the track from “Slumdog Millionaire”), and immediately followed by sexy moves to Chris Brown’s “Love More.” I’ve taken dance classes on and off all my life. Still, it was all I could do to keep up with our energetic instructors as they powered through routine after routine. Dance Trance works by breaking the sections of each song – verse, chorus, and bridge – and linking them to a particular block of choreography. Knowing the song helps with keeping up with the routine, and the instructor directs the class with hand signals, such as tapping the top of the head to indicate the chorus. It’s feasible to catch on to a routine somewhere along the way because each song is simply a repetitive combination of choreography building blocks. However, every song brings its own dance genre and singular set of choreography blocks. I was bewildered at times, in sync at others, and having a great time all the way through. Full mind-body connection was necessary for keeping pace. No one seemed to be paying attention to me, which was great for obvious reasons, but also because at some point I noticed bits and crumbs of my sneakers scattered all around, and my left sole hanging on Midcity DC | October 2014 u 33

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for dear life. Bare feet are not allowed in Dance Trance, so I took it down a notch for the rest of class. There was a jazzy little number to Sean Kingston’s “Got No Shorty” and a requisite foray into Flo-Rida’s “Low.” A quick water break was set to Montel Jordan’s 90’s hit, “This Is How We Do It” (which kept me bopping on the dance floor as I drank my water, because that song is the jam). The routine from the beginner’s lesson also made an appearance. After an hour, class ended with Britney Spears’ “Work B—,” and a calm, flowery routine to Mariah Carey and Miguel’s “Beautiful” served as our cool-down. “Dance Trance is a total body workout,” says Sarah Sands, instructor and owner of Dance Trance DC. “It will make you lean, tone your arms, legs, butt, back and abs. I’ve lost 15 pounds since I started it, and at our location four women have lost more than 40 pounds since we started in 2012, so we had to bring in stylists and nutritionists to consult.” Sands compares the method to crossfit, in that the different styles of dance in rapid-fire sequence confuse the muscles. Although it’s all dancing, Dance Trance is fitness because the point is two hours of high cardio, not proper form and excellently executed moves. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have moves. What does matter though, here and as in dance class, is attitude. “Learning the routine is the hardest part. I felt like I had two left feet,” says first-timer Rosemary Morales, DuPont Circle resident who runs and weight-trains outside of class. “I was a little nervous about it, like how terrible will I be, but that’s normal. Be nervous, but be excited!” Both Sands and instructor Pas-

cucci point out that the third time is the charm. “It takes about three classes because you’re like, okay, I know I can catch on,” says Pascucci. “I’ve stuck with this for three years because I don’t feel like I’m working out, I’m just dancing with my friends. We’re not affiliated with the gym, so everyone here is here especially for Dance Trance.” That was the great thing about Dance Trance: there’s no pressure to dance well, and the two hours spent doing high cardio are barely noticeable. “Maybe one of these days I’ll get some rhythm, but I didn’t even feel the time until the very end,” says Allison Doherty, Chinatown resident and first-time participant. “The choreography is all new so that keeps you focused, and you don’t have to feel self-conscious because everyone is having a good time just dancing.” Balance Gym Thomas Circle is located at 1111 14th St. NW. Dance Trance Breakdown & High Cardio Advanced class is on Saturdays from 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. High Cardio Advanced is on Sundays from 4:00 to 5:00 p.m.; Mondays from 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.; Tuesdays and Wednesdays 7:00 to 8:00 p.m.; and Thursdays from 8:00 to 9:00 p.m. The Breakdown beginner’s class is on Thursdays from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m., and there’s an all-levels “Dance Party” on Fridays from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. Sarah Sands recommends the trial deal: $20 for seven consecutive days of unlimited Dance Trance classes (10 classes). Otherwise, it’s $18 to drop in, $80 for five classes, $150 for 10 classes, $275 for 20 classes, or $99 per month for a contract-free unlimited membership. For more information visit http:// dancetrancefitness.com/dc or call 202-288-2268. u

out and about

Photos by James Terrell; Photo restyling by Alex McSwain

+ Fashion

Retail Therapy

Fashion Treats Are Better

dding a few more weeks of wear to your summer favorites can be challenging. But with the help of two Dupont scientists, sock purveyors all the way from Turkey, and some quiet time finding fashion Zen, recalibrating your wardrobe is a piece of cake!

Neoprene Dreams

Cooler temperatures traditionally mean trading in lightweight fabrics for bulkier ones. For fall 2014, however, designers offer up a variety of sleek yet warm fabric alternatives. A favorite option recently embraced by Alexander Wang, Tommy Hilfiger, and Proenza Schouler involves the use of neoprene, a synthetic rubber created by Dupont that is commonly used in wetsuits, car seat covers, and laptop sleeves. Neoprene-infused garments are ultra sleek, structured, and comfortable. Unlike jersey knits, they provide exceptional control without the need for elaborate shape-wear. It’s easy to dream of neoprene after perusing the Clover Canyon collection of imaginatively printed pencil dresses and trousers. The fit is exceptional, hand engineered, and completely on trend. Muleh, 1831 14th St. NW

Black Sox

One sure way to extend the wearability of summer sandals, t-straps, and clogs is to pair each with cozy

by Mariessa Terrell

socks of varying lengths. Before you cringe, recall the scene in “Chicago” where Velma Carter (Catherine Zeta Jones) visits Roxie Hart (Renée Zellweger) in hopes of entreating her to join her act. Roxie says “No!”, until she glimpses Velma’s over-the-knee black socks. While the tatters in the hosiery might have melted Renée’s heart, it was the juxtaposition of the knits against the layered silks that resonated with me. Fluttering about in a frock and hold-ups is one way to turn up the inner coquette. And when the hosiery is knitted and made in Turkey by Sweet Marcel, you get to be warm as well as beguiling. Good Wood, 1428 U St. NW

Fashion Zen

Great style, though hard to define, is easily recognized. Yet to really understand personal style it is essential to understand the personal self. Style stars like Wallis Simpson, Beyonce Knowles Carter, and design duo Joshua Kissi and Travi Gumbs share a common trait. Because they know who they are, what they want, and where they are going, they are able to cultivate and reinforce a fashion aesthetic in stark contrast to the norm. Over time I have managed to create my own fashion uniform of sorts. Even when the meeting-invite whispers board room attire, be assured that there is always a hint of whimsy and mirth dancing just below the surface. Find and express your fashion

Zen with reasonably priced Dora Landa work separates with original tags! Second Affair Consignment Shop, 1904 18th St. NW, Suite A

Treats for Now & Later

LEFT TO RIGHT: Cake and icing in a jar at Cake Love. Sweet Marcel ﬂoral printed over-the-knee socks at Good Wood. Photo: James Terrell Vintage metal tiered necklace with crystal beading at Second Affair Consignment Shop. Photo: James Terrell Clover Canyon faux-fur-faced neoprene trousers at Muleh. Photo: James Terrell Dora Landa silk black blouse with cutout detailing at Second Affair Consignment Shop. Photo: James Terrell

When Warren Brown declared his love for baked goods large and small, cupcakes were hardly de rigueur. Today you can barely swing a fork from Georgetown to Barracks Row without hitting a mini frosted cake. To most, cupcakes are the perfect indulgence when purchased individually and savored slowly. But what if you want to nibble now and save some for later? Thanks to Brown’s pioneering efforts, Cake Love offers individual cakes in a cup for $3.99. Small enough to fit in your pocket, these treats remain moist and delicious for up to four weeks when refrigerated. Cake Love, 1506 U St. NW Fashion attorney Mariessa Terrell, aka Simone Butterfly, Fashion Investigator, does her sleuthing at www. simonebutterfly.com and @SimoneBtrfly. Special thanks to photographer James Terrell, stylist Zsudayka Nzinga, and Alexander McSwain of Reachaven for their assistance. u Midcity DC | October 2014 u 35

out and about

+ Art

Depeche

October Shows at Mid-City Galleries

by Phil Hutinet

n October, when September’s crowded festival schedule dissipates while the days and nights grow equal, MidCity’s galleries continue to offer an exceptional selection of openings with mostly local artists taking center stage. Offerings include retrospective work by Washington Color School titan Alma “Woodsey” Thomas at Hemphill Fine Arts, a group exhibition reinterpreting urban landscapes at gallery plan b, and recent paintings by contemporary Capitol Hill-based artist Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann at Project 4. Several galleries also are displaying work that you can visit during regular gallery hours. These exhibitions include works at Transformer by Israeli artist Tamar Ettun, focusing on the effects of war and post-traumatic stress disorder; vibrant work from Japanese-American artist Takefui Hori at Long View Gallery, and two concurrent exhibitions at Touchstone Gallery.

Hemphill Fine Arts Exhibits Titan of Washington Color School

In recent years, as DC welcomes an influx of new residents, development, and profound changes to the urban fabric, numerous public and private cultural institutions have looked to DC’s past, sometimes nostalgically, in an attempt to examine its future. Exhibitions in 2012 and 2013 celebrated Go-Go and DC’s Hardcore musical movement while recent films have lionized Cool Disco Dan, DC’s infamous late 1980s-early 1990s graffiti artist who tagged his name on just about every block in the city. In 2014 attention has focused on DC’s Washington Color School as a number of exhibitions have sought to reexamine the influential movement’s impact on contemporary DC artists. Part of the larger color field painting trend of the 1950s and 1960s, the Washington Color School is considered by many to be DC’s “signature artistic movement.” The artists sought to explore the use of solid colors to create abstract forms and figures. Washington Color School artist Alma “Woodsey” Thomas, born in Columbus, Ga., in 1891, moved to DC with her family in 1907. She became the first graduate of Howard University’s Art Department and, in turn, educated hundreds of students at Shaw Junior High School for 35 years. Thomas passed away in 1978 at the peak of her career. Her recently renovated home at 1530 15th St. NW sold for close to $2 million this summer.

Operating within a movement of mostly white male artists, Thomas found a place for herself as an abstract painter in the 1960s. While many art historians have written an almost pejorative narrative of Thomas’ abstraction process, claiming that she painted randomly or by intuition, Hemphill Fine Arts’ exhibition attempts to dispel this myth by examining the depth of preparedness required to elaborate her aesthetic and the underlying ”intellectual power” behind her work.

ABOVE: Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann,“Fable,” 2014. Acrylic, silkscreen, etching, and sumi ink on watercolor paper. 50” x 100”. Photo: Courtesy Project 4 LEFT: Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann,“Dripstone,” 2014. Acrylic, collage, and sumi ink on paper. 60” x 133”. Photo: Courtesy Project 4

Reinterpreting Landscapes at Gallery Plan B’s Group Show

Gallery plan b will host a group show of at least nine artists, whose works reinterpret and reimagine the urban landscape. The works use a wide array of materials complementing the subject 36 u midcitydcnews.com

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e M C

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Alma “Woodsey” Thomas (1891-1978), untitled study for “Azaleas Sway with the Breeze,” ca. 1969. Acrylic on paper. 16” x 50”. AWT-109. Photo: Courtesy of Hemphill Fine Arts

matter, providing an “urban edge” according to the gallery. Visitors will see Kermit Berg’s multi-layered photographs of Tokyo offices after dark, Michael Sirvet’s meticulous sculptures, and Chad Andrews’ paintings which include both

which should be familiar to DC viewers; and Joey P. Mánlapaz, whose strongly representational yet graphical paintings elevate banal, quotidian scenes of downtown DC such as newspaper boxes, parking meters, or stationary vehicles to fine-art status.

DC’s Katherine Mann at Project 4

residential and industrial neighborhoods. Other exhibited artists will include Roy Barloga, with starkly contrasted black-and-white photographs; noted New York-based American artist Donna Cameron, who uses a patented process for developing her work on cinematic paper; Alexandria Art League instructor Beverly Ryan, whose spontaneous landscapes take shape with oil on wood panel; painter Kevin H. Adams, whose studio in Washington, Va., has inspired a series of Blue Ridge Mountaininfluenced landscape paintings; DC-based urban landscape artist Regina Miele, who paints Mid-City and downtown scenes from rooftops

High above H Street NE resides Capitol Hillbased Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann’s studio where she creates her multimedia dreamscape works. Mann’s paintings begin randomly with a pool of ink splattered on the surface of a large piece of paper. From that point Mann shifts from the disorderly to greater precision, often employing decoupage overlays with patterns either made by hand or created with woodblock prints. In “Feverland” Mann describes her new paintings as “utter hybrids; man-sized fields punctuated by moments of absurdity, poetry, mutation, growth and decay that I find both suffocating and fabulous. They glory in the sensuous and the rambling, but intersperse the chaos with moments of neurotic control. They explore the potentialities of growth, but also of overabundance.”

October Gallery Openings: GALLERY PLAN B 1530 14th St. NW 202-234-2711 | www.galleryplanb.com Oct. 15-Nov. 23 “Man-made” by artists Kermit Berg, Michael Sirvet, and Chad Andrews OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, Oct. 18, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.

(more listings on page 41)

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out and about

+ Event

Art All Night 2014 Draws Crowds Again by Pleasant Mann

Gregg Deal’s Redskin Installation and Performance art challenged visitors’ perceptions of Native American identity. Photo: Pleasant Mann

n September 27, Shaw Main Streets presented the Art All Night DC festival in the neighborhood for the third time. Art All Night, an overnight arts festival of visual art installations, music and performance art modeled on the Nuit Blanche celebrations held in Paris and other cities, first came to DC and Shaw in 2011. This year, the support of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the District’s Department of Small and Local Business Development allowed Art All Night DC to expand beyond Shaw to four other Main Street neighborhoods. But with 25 separate venues, Shaw offered the expanded festival’s largest amount of programming, drawing an estimated 10,000 visitors. The Watha T. Daniel/Shaw

Adult Arts and Crafts at Watha T Daniel. Photo: Alexander Padro Crowd in Front of Wonder Bread Factory During Art All Night. Photo: Pleasant Mann

Moka Performs Fire Fan Dance. Photo: Pleasant Mann

Batala Washington Drummers Perform at Marvin Gaye Mural. Photo: Pleasant Mann 38 u midcitydcnews.com

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 39

No Kings Collective Art Exhibit at Wonder Bread Factory. Photo: Alexander Padro

Silent Disco at the Carnegie Library. Photo: Alexander Padro

and performance piece that explored the current controversy over the name of Washington’s football team and the representation of Native Americans. Visitors to the Carnegie Library at Mount Vernon Square were greeted by a kinetic sculpture by architect Suman Sorg. The venue presented musical acts throughout the night, including the electric cello driven Wytold Ensemble and the popular Christylez Bacon and his Washington Sound Museum Orchestra, who at one point joined together to do unorthodox arrangements of current hit tunes. The former library was also the site for the Suman Sorg’s Air Dancer Greets Visitors to Carnegie Library served as the center of Shaw’s Art All Night, Library during Art All Night. Photo: Pleasant Mann Silent Disco, where participants wore headwhere visitors received maps and direcphones to hear their choice of two musical tions. Radio station 107.3 FM set up tracks played by DJs Braulio Agnese and a live broadcast outside the library to Todd Threats, while they danced on a huge start the festivities at 7:00 p.m. The first photo map of the District of Columbia, surfloor of the building had a Kids Art rounded by colored lights and producing Zone, with an art display, an arts and only the sound of shuffling feet and an occrafts area and a kid’s storytime seccasional whoop. tion. There was also the always popuThe old furniture store windows on the lar face and body painting station by 1000 block of Seventh Street provided a Anike Robinson and Peaky Paints, as showcase for the photo art of Rosina Teri well as an area devoted to adult games Memolo and Darren Smith. At the Wareand crafts. Downstairs, an Urban Rehouse Theater around the corner, the Emersort was set up where short films were gence Community Art Collective presented Wytold and Christylez Bacon jammed on the Main Stage at the shown and popcorn was provided, a series of music and dance performances, Carnegie Library during Art All Night. Photo: Pleasant Mann while DJ Nuff Said provided music for including a capoeira troupe. dancing among colorful abstract paintShaw’s Art All Night included a numings. The library also hosted a “Neighber of mobile performances throughout the neighborhood. Batala Washington, the borhood Portal,” where Shaw festivalgoers had a video connection to the Art women’s drumming corps, performed in front of the Watha T. Daniel Library, then All Night scene in Congress Heights. Watha T. Daniel was also the hub for a moved up the street to perform in front of the newly completed Marvin Gaye mural shuttle bus to transport visitors between the library and Mount Vernon Square, on S Street to another enthusiastic audience. Shanna Lim and her Inner Soul Projex as well as the stop for the Circulator bus conveying people to other Art All Productions multi-generational troupe of actors and dancers held mobile perforNight venues in the city. mances along Seventh Street that interacted with the corridor’s architecture. Jennifer Several Shaw restaurants and businesses provided settings for art installaStephens, also known as the Bubble Fairy, demonstrated her soap bubble art at varitions and others stayed open late to serve people attending Art All Night. Peous spots from Rhode Island Avenue to Florida Avenue. koe Acupuncture and Wellness devoted its basement to an all-night party with At Seventh and R Streets, a five-story high blank wall became the screen for a DJ. Simon Vintage brought in artists to apply their decorative skills to pieces projecting a series of award-wining short animated and live action films. At the of furniture. The design shop Swatchroom inaugurated their art galley space. empty lot there, Spark Ignite, a ceremonial fire fan dance by Moska, astounded the Taylor and York Salon served as a platform for do-it-yourself art, where atlate night crowd. The first floor of the Wonder Bread Factory on S Street was taken tendees could exercise their own painting skills. And at the old Variety Market over by No Kings Collective, who curated works in various media, along with music on Seventh Street, Gregg Deal drew crowds with “Redskin,” an art installation and dance performances throughout the eight hours of the festival. u The Watha T Daniel Shaw Library was the center of the action during Art All Night. Photo: Pleasant Mann

40 u midcitydcnews.com

(continued from page 37) HEMPHILL FINE ARTS 1515 14th St. NW 202-234-5601 | www.hemphillfinearts.com “Thirteen Studies for Paintings” by Alma Thomas Oct. 11-Dec. 20 OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, Oct. 11, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. PLEASANT PLAINS WORKSHOP 2608 Georgia Ave. NW www.pleasantplainsworkshop.com Oct. 24-Nov. 29 Group exhibition by DDAY Collective OPENING RECEPTION: Friday, Oct. 24, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. PROJECT 4 GALLERY 1353 U St. NW, Suite 302 202-232-4340 | www.project4gallery.com “Feverland” by Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann Oct. 25-Nov. 29 OPENING RECEPTION: Saturday, Oct. 25, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Current Exhibitions on View HAMILTONIAN GALLERY 1353 U St. NW 202-332-1116 | www.hamiltoniangallery.com Through Oct. 25: “new. now.” Debut group exhibition for the 2014-15 Hamiltonian Fellows LONG VIEW GALLERY 1234 9th St. NW 202-232-4788 | www.longviewgallerydc.com Through Oct. 26: Takefumi Hori TOUCHSTONE GALLERY 901 New York Ave. NW 202-347-2787 | www.touchstonegallery.com Through Nov. 2: “Near Distance” by Gale Waller and “Raw & Pure” by Georgia Nassikas TRANSFORMER 1404 P St. NW 202-483-1102 | www.transformerdc.org Through Oct. 24: “My Hands Are the Shape of my Height” by Tamar Ettun

Phil Hutinet is the publisher of East City Art, dedicated to DC’s visual arts. For more information visit www.eastcityart.com u

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 41

your neighborhood

+ District Beat

Revolution, Continuity, or Nostalgia? That Is the Election

alking to the polling station on Nov. 4, District voters face a clear choice in casting their ballots. On one side of the equation is a candidate who stands ready to continue down the city’s current path chartered by Mayors Anthony A. Williams and Adrian M. Fenty with minor course corrections. Alternatively, the electorate can choose a politician known for seeking innovation. Lastly, voters may decide to pay homage to the city’s storied past with a vote for a much beloved political icon.

Organizers of the recent Southwest Mayoral Debate leave a chair empty for Democratic Nominee Muriel Bowser, who has refused to attend any more than four debates. 42 u midcitydcnews.com

Photos and Article by Andrew Lightman “Continuity, Revolution, or Nostalgia?” is the real question on November’s ballot. The electorate is generally happy with the city’s situation. In the recent Marist Poll conducted by NBC 4 and The Washington Post, 62 percent of registered voters believed the “things in the District of Columbia are going in the right direction.” This is a substantial turnaround from the 11 percent who thought so in 1993. Many of these voters may be seeking continuity. If so, Muriel Bowser, the Democratic nominee for mayor, may be their choice.

Stay the Course with Bowser

Bowser is the candidate of the Democratic establishment. She has been endorsed by everyone from former mayors Williams and Marion S. Barry Jr. (D-Ward 8) to Tommy “Mr. Clean” Wells (DWard 6). Former At-Large Councilmember William P. Lightfoot and real estate developer Benjamin N. Soto, who put Adrian F. Fenty in office, are piloting her campaign as chair and treasurer. She has been endorsed by colleagues Anita Bonds (AtLarge D), Vincent B. Orange Sr. (At-Large D), Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), Kenyon R. McDuffie (DWard 5), and Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7). Many prominent Democratic lobbyists such as David W. Wilmot number among Bowser’s contributors. She has been endorsed by most major labor unions. During last winter’s primary Bowser focused squarely on the scandals surrounding Mayor Vincent C. Gray. Promising a “fresh start,” she convinced a plurality of Democratic voters that a vote for her was a vote to remove Gray. After unseating the incumbent, Bowser pivoted her message to one of inclusiveness. #All8Wards was her Twitter hashtag. She pointedly reached out to voters in Wards 7 and 8, holding town halls and meet-and-greets. Echoing Williams and Barry, she promised to expand opportunity and economic development to the city’s peripheries. Yet Bowser remains a careful and conservative politician. The ethics reforms that she shepherded into law are a case in point. The legislation did create a watchdog to prevent the type of lapses committed by both Barry and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1) while in office. However, it ignored the campaign finance issues at the heart of Ronald C. Machen’s federal investigation. A supporter of Fenty’s school reforms and modernization programs from their inception,

the agency responsible for minority contracting. A cabinet-level appointment position, she also believes, is necessary to facilitate economic development east of the Anacostia. None of these measures would significantly alter the course charted by Williams. A vote for Bowser is one cast for continuity.

Up the Revolution with Catania

Muriel Bowser

Bowser is committed to keeping the public education system moving along its reform trajectory, while tweaking around the edges. Bowser has publicly promised to keep DC Public Schools Chancellor Kaya Henderson. She supports increased support for, and a limited expansion of, the city’s middle schools. She hopes to use increased resources to push schools on the edge of success over the brink. Questioning the public process that resulted in the mayor’s reformulated school boundaries, she has promised to freeze or reverse Gray’s plan. Bowser steers an equally deliberate path with city finances. Opposed to general income tax increases, she favors removing the homes of lower income seniors from the city’s property tax rolls to preserve affordability. She has promised increased funds for affordable housing, the mother’s milk of District politics. Echoing a younger Barry, Bowser seeks to employ city contracts to drive the expansion of District businesses by recasting the role of

While Bowser treads wellworn highways, Catania often takes the road less traveled. His campaign is managed by distinguished ex-Councilmember Sharon Ambrose and endorsed by the DC Chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police. He is a candidate of ideas, in other words, a wonk. Catania’s penchant for innovation is best assessed on the basis of his stewardship of the Council’s committees and his shepherding of marriage equality legislation. During his seven-year chairmanship of the Committee on Health, Catania authored bills that expanded medical insurance for the working poor in the wake of the closing of DC General, the city’s public hospital. Despite the skeptics, he found funds to preserve United Medical Center, the only hospital east of the Anacostia River. Using sharp elbows, he monitored the hospital’s unsuccessful sale to a private entity, subsequent bankruptcy, and return to city control. In all these situations Catania employed a combination of new ideas and relentless oversight to achieve his aims. Marriage equality was another of Catania’s defining moments. Here, he worked with then Chairman Gray to forge a consensus among his colleagues which resulted in its near unanimous passage (11 to 2). Despite heated sparring during the vote, Catania later managed to repair a damaged relationship with Barry. In 2013 Council Chair Phil Mendelson Midcity DC | October 2014 u 43

David Catania engages a potential voter during his campaign.

(D) appointed Catania to the chairmanship of the Committee on Education. Over the next year Catania personally visited more than 144 of the city’s 200-plus schools. As important, he authored a set of bills known collectively as “School Reform 2.0,” designed to significantly adjust the system’s trajectory that had been piloted by Fenty and former Chancellor Michele A. Rhee. Not all were successful. However, Catania did secure passage of changes in the student funding formula that increased support for schools educating disproportionate numbers of at-risk students. Another bill ended social promotion. A third overhauled school attendance laws by reducing the number of absences triggering government intervention and increasing interagency coordination. Despite his relentless push for changes in health and education, 44 u midcitydcnews.com

Catania has been very conservative on issues related to taxation and government spending. A dogged foe of public funding for Nationals’ Stadium, he has yet to attend a game. He has consistently opposed tax increases and is usually a favorite of the business community. A vote for Catania is one cast for revolution.

Back to the Future with Schwartz

While Bowser represents continuity and Catania embodies change, the campaign of former Councilmember Carol Schwartz is largely a nod to the past. Schwartz, out of office since 2008, has had to reintroduce herself to the gentrified District electorate. The reforms of Williams and Fenty significantly cut government waste and lowered city taxes, two of Schwartz’s go-to electoral hobby

s -

, -

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horses. Seeking to preserve the DC Board of Education, she voted against Fenty’s educational reforms while on the dais. Schwartz points to the Accrued Sick and Safe Leave Act of 2008 as her finest legislation. The bill guaranteed workers the right to paid sick days. Yet her work, while costing her the support of the District’s business community, did not earn her the endorsement of labor. In a recent debate, Schwartz, raising the issue of gentrification, expressed her concern that the District was losing its “Glorious Diversity.” Burnishing her Chocolate City credentials, she proposed the creation of a tax incentive to lure former city residents back from their homes in ‘Ward 9,’ Prince George’s County. Schwartz, retains much affection among older city residents. Those unwilling to vote for “Fenty in a Skirt” or a white gay councilmember may well cast their ballots for her. A vote for Schwartz is one cast for nostalgia.

Continuity, Revolution, or Nostalgia?

In a boom town whose skyline is dotted with cranes and blessed with an expanding population, many may question the wisdom of rocking the boat. Bowser can be depended on to stay the course. To those frustrated with the existing system, Catania offers innovation. Voters looking to the past for comfort may well back Schwartz. November’s ballot, therefore, offers a clear choice among continuity, revolution, nd nostalgia. u Midcity DC | October 2014 u 45

your neighborhood

+ The Numbers

Questions for the Candidates

he District will soon have a new Mayorelect. She or he won’t take office until January, but will need to start setting priorities very soon. The District’s finances are strong, which is a great starting point, but the challenges facing the city are large. • School reform, after two mayoral terms, is not showing notable gains in high-poverty schools. • Housing costs reach new eyepopping levels every time we look around, contributing to a rise in homelessness but also creating challenges for middleincome families. • Unemployment among DC residents without a college degree – about half of all adults – has not recovered from a recession that technically ended four years ago. • The federal government is shrinking and DC needs a new economic development strategy. These issues are important to the whole city. While there are reasons to be excited about development bringing new vibrancy and retail options to many neighborhoods, there is widespread concern that rising costs of living are pushing residents out. Beyond that, businesses need workers to fill jobs at a range of skill and pay levels, and if workers have to live further and further out, that will make it harder for businesses to find the workers they need. The mayoral candidates all say these issues are important, and soon one of them will have to develop policies and shape budgets to make 46 u midcitydcnews.com

by Ed Lazere and Wes Rivers their campaign promises a reality. But wouldn’t it be great to know now what the candidates will do? Here are some questions you could pose to mayoral or council candidates to see what they really will do if they win.

Education

After years of re-building school facilities and working to improve teacher quality and pay, many schools still struggle with lagging test scores, especially among lowincome students. The District’s approach to boosting student achievement needs to go beyond improving the quality of classroom instruction to also address the challenges that poor children bring with them to school. Will you help low-income students attend high-quality schools outside their neighborhood? The recent school boundary and admissions taskforce recommended that every low-poverty school (under one in four students) create a preference for low-income students in the lottery process. DCPS would have to change its out-of-boundary policies, and new legislation governing charter school admissions would be needed. Will you fund more afterschool and summer programs? One of the clearest differences between poor children and higher-income children is their uneven access to enriching activities after school and in the summer, and research confirms that this contributes to the achievement gap. Yet DCPS puts only modest funding into afterschool programs,

and the budget for the Children and Youth Investment Trust, which supports non-profits serving youth, was cut sharply after recent DC Council scandals. Will you make sure every school has sufficient resources to meet students’ mental health needs? The District is well behind its goal to have school mental health programs in all schools by 2016. What will you do to promote better collaboration between DCPS and charter schools? DC does little to help charter schools find a home, and this at times results in instability or in schools ending up in locations that may not be ideal from citywide perspective. What will candidates do to help charter schools get the sites they need but also guide where they locate?

Housing

As million-dollar homes and $3,000 rents become the norm, it is clear the city cannot maintain an economically diverse population and workforce without more public investment to make housing accessible. Not surprisingly, the working poor and those living on fixed incomes from social security or other public assistance face the greatest challenges. Will you commit to creating 25,000 new apartments that are affordable to the low-income working or fixed-income households over the next four years? That is the about number of new low-cost units needed to meet this need, according to a study released this year by the Community Foundation.

Will you commit $100 million to DC’s Housing Trust Fund each year? One of the key tools to build or preserve low-cost housing is DC’s Housing Production Trust Fund. Every $1 of DC money from the Trust Fund generates $2.50 of other funds. Yet the Trust Fund is tied to a tax source that is volatile and it has never been enough to meet the full demand. $100 million every year would help get to the goal of 25,000 new affordable units. Will you truly address family homelessness? In the winter, homeless families languish in the dilapidated DC General shelter or in motels. And in the summer it is even worse: families seeking shelter are just turned away. Every candidate should be asked if they will allow families in need to seek shelter and services year-round, and what they will do to move families out of shelter and into stable housing.

Jobs

The other key to helping more residents afford to live in the city is better wages. Yet nearly one in nine DC adults lacks basic literacy skills, and most are not getting services to address their educational or job skill needs. Meanwhile, wages for DC’s lowest paid workers fell $1 an hour over the past four years. Will you raise wages for waiters and other tipped workers? DC’s minimum wage for waiters and other tipped workers is just $2.77 an hour, and will not go up as DC’s minimum wage rises to $11.50. Some states set the minimum wage for tipped workers at the same rate

as for everyone else, while many others are higher than DC even though their minimum wage for tipped workers is lower than for other workers. Will you support better child care? For many parents, child care is nearly as expensive as their home. DC subsidizes child care for working families, but the rates are so low that many child care centers cannot thrive on it, and others are not able to provide a high-quality educational environment. Will you improve literacy services and training? The number of adults needing literacy services is 8 times higher than the number that get help each year. And the District spends relatively little in direct support of job training, even at successful programs like DC Central Kitchen. Will candidates commit to spending more on literacy and skills training?

Economic Development

If the District is going to grow in a way that doesn’t squeeze everyone else out, new economic development strategies will be needed that create opportunity for all District residents. It also is likely that it will be a new mayor who completes a soccer stadium deal. Will you make smart investments in economic development? The best way to support new industries and job growth is to connect entrepreneurs with a highlyskilled and appropriately trained workforce, to nurture industry clusters where businesses can grow together, provide affordable workspace for emerging businesses, and support research and development. Will you avoid the ineffective tax subsidy approach? Tax incen-

tives are costly but rarely produce much, if anything, in terms of new jobs and economic growth. Cutting capital gains taxes is good for wealthy investors but doesn’t change their minds about where or how much to invest. These and other tax incentives, such as Tax Increment Financing (TIF), divert revenue from education or infrastructure that are needed to promote economic growth. Will you ask DC United to pay its fair share for the stadium? The District should offer to pay no more than half of the total stadium cost. The team stands to benefit most from a stadium and should ultimately foot most of the bill. DC United should not get costly sales and property tax breaks. Will you kill the Reeves Center “swap?” If the District sells the Reeves Center to pay for its share of the stadium costs, it should do so in a way that is transparent, gets the best value for the property, and sets conditions on its future use. Will you take the needs of SW residents into account? The District and DC United should commit to preserving affordable housing in neighborhoods adjacent to the stadium site at Buzzard Point, and provide training and job opportunities for residents in those communities. What are you waiting for? Get yourself to a forum and ask some questions! Lazere and Rivers work at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (www.dcfpi. org), which conducts research on tax and budget issues that affect lowand moderate-income DC residents. u

Midcity DC | October 2014 u 47

your neighborhood

+ Bulletin Board

Underwood property, 4002 Underwood Street, Chevy Chase, MD

Garden Conservancy’s Open Days

On Saturday, Oct. 18, the Garden Conservancy’s Open Days program will share four private gardens in Washington DC and Chevy Chase, MD, open to the public 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission to each garden is $7, the Open Days is rain or shine, and no reservations are required. Open Days gardens are featured in the 2014 Open Days Directory; a soft-cover book that includes detailed driving directions and vivid descriptions written by their owners. The directory includes garden listings in twenty-two states and costs $25.95 including shipping. Call 1-888-842-2442 or visit opendaysprogram.org.

Baked and Wired Bakery Coming to Mount Vernon Triangle

Baked & Wired, the Georgetown coffee shop and bakery, has signed a lease with the Lyric 440 K Apartments in Mount Vernon Triangle. The new store will offer handcrafted breads using slow fermentation and traditional baking methods along with hand crafted coffees from a custom Slayer espresso machine using multiple small roasters. The shop will offer a light fare menu that encourages pairings of breads with house-made spreads and toppings. The new store will have café seating and a welcoming, community atmosphere. It is scheduled to open in early 2015.

Heavy Construction on Massachusetts Ave. NW Underway

The District Department of Transportation has implemented daytime lane closures on H St. and 48 u midcitydcnews.com

Massachusetts Ave. NW, between 2nd and 4th Sts. The lane closures will continue to take place on a daily basis, from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m., Monday through Friday, and 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday. The current phase of related work—which involves upgrading and installing new underground utilities and restoring the roadway along these two corridors—is expected to last for approximately 18-24 months, weather permitting. For more information, visit 3rdsttunnel.com. For additional details, contact the project’s public outreach office at 202719-0196.

for veterans, transitioning military and spouses. Presentations will include topics such as mental readiness, confidence building, networking and presentation skills, resume writing, interviewing techniques, job searching, career planning through goal setting, translating military skills and training into civilian life and corporate experience. This event is free and open to veterans, military service members and spouses. To learn more, visit warriorstotheworkforcedc.net.

Warriors To The Workforce Hiring Event

Panorama Baking Company has opened at Union Market. The bakery brings the distingué taste and aroma of Paris to the Union Market District, as pastry chef Damien Le Tyrant offers DC-based Francophiles and bread-lovers alike fresh pastries, viennoiseries, cakes and other gourmet treats.

The Warriors To The Workforce Hiring Event at the Convention Center on Oct. 13-14, will include workshops featuring some of the top speakers in the country providing resources and information

Panorama Bakery Opens in Union Market

Is your home ready for a visit from Mother Nature? Is your home ready to withstand everything Mother Nature will throw at it between now and next Spring?

NoMa’s First Yoga Studio Opens

It’s not too late to protect your biggest investment. We are now scheduling work for this fall.

NOMA’s first yoga studio, Yoga NoMa, has opened in an unused retail space at 1200 First St. NE. Yoga NoMa is a full-service yoga and mat pilates studio. YogaNoMa.com

Library of Congress Seeks Halloween Photos

The American Folklife Center (AFC) at the Library of Congress is inviting Americans participating in holidays at the end of October and early November--Halloween, All Souls Day, All Saints Day, Dia de los Muertos--to photograph hayrides, haunted houses, parades, trick-or-treating and other celebratory and commemorative activities to contribute to a new collection documenting contemporary folk life. Between Oct. 22 and Nov. 5, AFC invites people to document in photographs how holiday celebrations are experienced by friends, family and community, then post photos to the photo-sharing site Flickr under a creative commons license with the tag #FolklifeHalloween2014. Additional information is available on the AFC blog at blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2014/10/ share-your-photos-of-halloween.

DC Circulator Semi-Annual Open House

The District Department of Transportation will host its DC Circulator Semi-Annual Open House on Monday, Oct. 20, 6-8 p.m. at Pinstripes, 1064 Wisconsin Ave. NW. At the open house, DDOT will present current operations and performance, solicit feedback from passengers, and present information related to the Draft 2014 DC Circulator Transit Development Plan Update, which was released on

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Midcity DC | October 2014 u 49

Photo: Joy Asico

Fall Drive-In Series Returns to Union Market

Union Market is bringing back its popular Drive-In series on Friday nights this fall. This classic American treat will take place in the market’s parking lot, projected on the three-story front wall. The family-friendly series is $10 per car or free for walk-ups in the picnic area. Free seating arrangements are first come, first serve. Patrons can bundle up in the comfort of their vehicle and adjust movie sounds through the car radio, with the tune-in number released at the start of the festivities. Gates open at 6 p.m. and close at 7:45 p.m. The movie begins at 8 p.m. Here’s the line-up: Oct 17, Rushmore; Oct. 24, Remember The Titans; and Oct. 31, Special People’s Choice-Holiday Edition. Union Market is at 1305 5th St. NE. unionmarketdc.com Sept. 23. You can reach the meeting by riding the DC Circulator routes: Union Station to Georgetown or Dupont Circle to Rosslyn via Georgetown. The stop is Wisconsin Ave. and M St. NW. goDCgo.com

2nd Street Utility Work Continues

Road work continues on 2nd St. NW with the installation of the new water main on 2nd St. from G St. to Massachusetts Ave. NW. Work has been scheduled to install the new water distribution system between the end of the I-395 off-ramp at 2nd St. and the intersection of 2nd St. and Massachusetts Ave. NW through Oct. 20, 2014.

Cherry Blossom Festival Seeks Local Talent

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is ac50 u midcitydcnews.com

cepting submissions for the second annual National Cherry Blossom Festival Sing Into Spring competition, a call for local talent that will highlight the region’s outstanding vocalists in the National Cherry Blossom Festival Parade on Saturday, Apr. 11, 2015. Up to four winning soloists and/or vocal groups will perform in the largest spectator event of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. Artists should submit a 30 second YouTube video for consideration through Friday, Nov. 14, 2014. The competition is open to all residents of DC, Maryland, and Virginia, age 8 and up (those under 18 require parental consent). Submissions will be accepted online only at nationalcherryblossomfestival.org/ sing-into-spring-vocal-competition. Only vocalists are eligible.

AmericAs complete restorAtion llc Disposing of HHW, E-cycling and Documents for Shredding

The DC Department of Public Works schedule for disposing of household hazard waste, e-cycling and personal documents at the Ft. Totten Transfer Station is Saturday HHW and e-cycling drop-off schedule: Oct. 11, 18 and 25, 8 a.m.-3 p.m. District residents may bring HHW items such as pesticides, batteries and cleaning fluids to Ft. Totten, along with e-cycling items such as computers, televisions and other unwanted electronic equipment. For a list of all household hazardous waste and ecyclables accepted by DPW, click on the HHW link at dpw.dc.gov.

Anonymous Riders Enforcement Program

The DC Taxicab Commission (DCTC) Anonymous Rider Program conducted over the Labor Day Weekend yielded infractions for 20 of the 63 vehicles tested. The program ran from Aug. 28-Sept. 1 with a total of 31 tickets written; 10 for refusal to haul violations; 5 for non-functioning credit card readers; and the others were issued for operating an unsafe vehicle, seat beat violation and maintaining an improper manifest. The program is an on-going effort of DCTC to periodically place trained anonymous riders in taxicabs to make direct observation of driver behavior. The primary objective of this enforcement program is to target violations for refusal to haul and determine that the Modern Taximeter System is fully operational and able to process credit card payments. The deployment of anonymous riders includes African Americans and whites, males and females, and a range of ages, as well as, an individual in a wheelchair and a person requiring the assistance of a seeing-eye dog.

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White House Visitor Center Reopens

The White House Visitor Center has re-opened after two years of transformative renovations. The transformed space affords an outstanding stand-alone experience and provides an enhanced experience for visitors who take a self-guided White House tour. All new exhibits weave together the stories of the White House as a home, office, stage and ceremonial space, museum, and park. More than 90 White House artifacts, many of which have never been on public display, give a glimpse into life and work inside the Executive Mansion. The White House Visitor Center at 1450 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, is free and open from 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. daily. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

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Library of Congress Main Reading Room Open Columbus Day

Twice each year, the Library of Congress opens its magnificent Main Reading Room for a special public open house to share information about how the public can access the Library’s resources year-round. The fall open house is on Monday, Oct. 13, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Photography (no tripods) is allowed. The Main Reading Room is on the first floor of the Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. SE. Reference librarians will be available to demonstrate the Library’s online resources and discuss access to the Library’s vast onsite collections, including services and collections for use in family history research. No other reference services will be available and all other Library of Congress reading rooms and buildings will be closed. lov.gov u Midcity DC | October 2014 u 51

your neighborhood

he biggest event in Shaw last month, if not for the whole year, was the 2014 Art All Night DC festival, which was so big it required its own article in this month’s MCDC. Still, there was plenty else going on in Shaw recently.

Shaw Streets by Pleasant Mann

Taste of Shaw

On the afternoon of Sept. 27, prior to the start of Art All Night, Shaw Main Streets provided a glimpse of the neighborhood’s culinary offerings at A Taste of Shaw. Starting at the taqueria Shiloh Way dedication. Photo: Pleasant Mann El Rey (919 U St. NW), visitors could move to Al Crostino (1926 9th St. NW), Dino’s Grotto Thai, Dolci Gelati), and the soon to be open (Cala(1914 9th St. NW), Dunya (801 Florida Ave. bash Tea, Convivial). NW), Mockingbird Hill (1843 7th St. NW), and Shaw has just seen one loss, though. TheOld Right Proper Brewing Company (624 T St. NW) Dominion Brewhouse, for samples and food and drink specials. which had operated out of the Washington ConvenShaw Gets on the Map tion Center for almost a The October issue of Washingtonian magazine has decade, has closed. It repdedicated a two-page spread to dining in Shaw. resented the last occupied The magazine notes that “when it comes to new commercial space in the neighborhoods for dining and drinking, WashingConvention Center. With ton is booming – and nowhere is this more evident the closing of Old Dominthan in Shaw. The Northwest DC neighborhood ion, all of the Convention is quickly becoming one of the area’s most vibrant Center’s retail properties, [restaurant destinations].” Estimating that there fronting two of the hotare “16 openings expected over the next 12 months” test commercial corridors in Shaw, they offer a map that includes the just in the city, remain vacant. opened (Compass Coffee), the almost open (Beau

items such as Japanese potato salad, doublefried angel wings, and green tea creme brulee illustrate a particular dedication to the concept. I Ching’s building was completely rebuilt, with three levels for the restaurant, including a large rooftop seating area. I Ching represents the new wave of Asian restaurants opening in Shaw. After the debut of Chaplin’s Restaurant and Bar this summer, with Thai X-ing (2020 9th St. NW) just opening now and Beau Thai at Jefferson Marketplace and Chao Ku coming in a few months, Shaw will become a major go-to destination for Asian cuisine in the District.

Shiloh Way Inaugurated

Sept. 27 also saw the dedication of Shiloh Way, the alley behind Shiloh Baptist Church. The con-

I Ching Marks New Marvin Gaye mural in Shaw. Photo: Pleasant Mann Change in Shaw Culinary Scene gregation and

I Ching Restaurant ribbon-cutting. Photo: Pleasant Mann 52 u midcitydcnews.com

One Shaw restaurant that the Washingtonian missed, however, is I Ching (639 Florida Ave. NW ). On Sept. 26, Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham, along with members of the Shaw Main Streets Board, held a ceremonial ribbon-cutting to welcome this new restaurant to the neighborhood. Restaurant owner Tammy Truong describes the cuisine as Asian fusion. While that term has been thrown around a lot lately, menu

community leaders asked for the designation to commemorate the church’s spiritual and social work over the last century and a half. In a ceremony led by Shiloh Senior Pastor Rev. Wallace Charles Smith speakers reviewed the history of the church, which was organized by a group of former slaves from Fredericksburg, Va., 151 years ago. Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells congratulated the congregation on their sesquicentennial and noted how proud he was to represent the church as part of his ward. Advisory

Neighborhood Commissioner Alexander Padro noted how few institutions in the District could point to such a long history and expressed the hope that the designation of Shiloh Alley might encourage newer residents of Shaw to investigate what the church has done and has to offer. Then Phil Mendelson, chair of the DC Council, presented a resolution celebrating the alley’s inauguration. Finally, with drumroll accompaniment, the sign for Shiloh Alley was unveiled.

Marvin Gaye Mural Reborn

Many Shaw residents were disturbed recently when a prominent mural of iconic singer Marvin Gaye, near 7th and S streets NW, began to be chiseled off and covered up as part of construction of a new row house on an adjacent lot. The mural, by local artist Aniekan Udofia, had only been up for a year before it was removed. However, as part of a Shaw Main Streets façade improvement project, Aniekan got an opportunity to replace it. On the south side of S Street he has completed a new version of his tribute to DC native son Gaye. After the completion of the façade project, the Marvin Gaye mural, unlike its predecessor, will be illuminated at night. u

Bloomingdale Bites by Jazzy Wright

Washington Firehouse Restaurant Opens

Art Night Out Expands

Art All Night: Nuit Blanche DC, the annual nighttime celebration of contemporary art, took place in the Bloomingdale neighborhood this year for the first time. The late September event, which invited DC residents to reimagine public spaces, showcases the work of visual and performance artists, DJs, dancers, and musicians. The DC Arts Commission recently expanded the event to take place in five neighborhoods, including H Street NE, Dupont Circle, Congress Heights, and Shaw. Art All Night participants congregated in the open lot located at the intersection of North Capitol Street and Florida Ave. NW to view artwork, watch live performances, and taste food from local food trucks. “The North Capitol and Florida area hasn’t seen a lot of activity in years. It’s been a bit neglected,” said Demetris Cheatham, executive director of the business revitalization nonprofit North Capitol Main Street. “However, we’ve seen an increase in the numbers of properties being bought and businesses opening. But no one knows about them. This event will give the city the opportunity to see that this is an up-and-coming area that has tons of potential. We want even more people to open businesses and come live in the area.”

This month will mark the unveiling of the Washington Firehouse restaurant, a massive 10,000-square-foot, three-story eatery in the old firehouse building on North Capitol Street. The restaurant, which seats 350 people and includes a patio, basement, and outside café, will offer New American cuisine in the form of pizzas, steaks, lasagna, mussel pots, and wagyu beef brisket. With its offer of weekend brunch and live jazz and classical music performances, the new restaurant will likely add a bit of style and flair to the traffic-heavy gridlock that surrounds the North Capitol Street corridor. The new restaurant is a first on several fronts. First, it is one of the largest restaurants in the Bloomingdale neighborhood; second, it will be the first restaurant owned and operated by the Historic Restaurant Group. Bobby Sabet, a former assistant food and beverage director for the Washington Embassy Suites Hotel, will serve as the Washington Firehouse’s general manager. The restaurant plans to offer valet parking services and will employ close to 100 people when operating at full capacity. “We’re The new Washington Firehouse restaurant. Photo: Jessica Henderson breaking ground here because we want to be a part of an up-and-coming neighborhood,” said Washington Firehouse Executive Chef Peter Prime, who previously worked at Shaw’s Tavern. “We want the restaurant Police Arrest Suspects Involved in to be a fun, interactive dining experience.” 1996 Homicide The restaurant has been in the works for the past two Nearly two decades after 19-year-old Michael Davy was shot years, and Prime stated that much of the project had to be and killed in Bloomingdale, officials from the Metropolitan stalled while the owners waited for city officials to approve Police Department say they have arrested two suspects. In the structural changes the restaurant group wanted to make September detectives from the MPD Homicide Branch anto the historic site. Originally built in 1897 as the city’s Ennounced that they had arrested Curtis Farmer, 44, of Northgine Company 12, the building is still equipped with the west, and Alexander Passee, 39, of Bowie, Md., in connection original fire pole and doors. The owners worked with local with the shooting death. MPD charged Farmer with first residents, construction workers, DC librarians, and the Nadegree felony murder while armed, and charged Passee with tional Archives and Records Administration to collect hismurder I while armed. torical photos of the firehouse building. According to a police press statement, the shooting hapThe restaurant’s owners said they would like to use the pened the night of Feb. 19, 1996, in the unit block of Rhode space to host weddings, receptions, holiday parties, and birthIsland Avenue NW. Police officers of the Fifth District found day parties. According to Prime they are open to having a Davy of Northwest suffering from apparent gunshot wounds. cigar lounge in the future. He was later pronounced dead. u Midcity DC | October 2014 u 53

your neighborhood

Nightmare of West Elm on 14th?

Logan Circles

It can be frightful to walk around U/14 for those who are scared by development and transformation. And yes, there are some who are! For all those who love the new apartments and condos as well as the smorgasbord of restaurants and

by Mark F. Johnson

three-story building is completed and finishing touches are being added to the interior of the nationwide furniture and home accessories chain, making a second-coming to the District. We’ve of course talked about the arrival of West Elm before in this column. What we didn’t know then was that there has been talk of having a café in the store---similar to what Ikea has at its chains. But, according to some reports, the plans for the café have been stifled due to construction issues. Holiday entertaining is just around the corner and people’s thoughts quite naturally turn to dressing the house. This year, Room and Board , Mitchell Gold, Urban Essentials and other furniture dealers selling new and vintage pieces will have to compete with the new kid on the block. Get ready for combat season!

Go Near the Oven If You will….

The new 14th Street West Elm says they will open by the end of the month

all the new higher-end chain retailers, there are others who run away screaming and longing for the old days of small independent shops, local dives and perhaps a bit of illicit activity that once gave the colorful `hood it’s bad boy cred. This latter group should stay off the streets toward the end of October. That is when the new West Elm is to open on 14th St near S. The new 54 u midcitydcnews.com

Three Fifty Bakery is getting hot reviews

But loosen your belt as you approach! In this season of treats why not one more place to grab some buns and taste some cupcakes? The new bakery Three Fifty has finally opened at 1926 17th Street, between Willard and U Streets. This spot serves Illy coffee drinks as well as a host of baked goods including muffins, croissants, cookies, brownies and cakes. So far, no kinks in the armor apparently and reviews especially on the baked goods, have been sweet! At least while the weather permits, they offer outdoor seating. The name itself is interesting and I guess it refers to the temperature at which good things are made in the oven?

Halloween Bar Crawl

While there is no “official” Halloween party in

U/14 like the Shaw Halloween bar crawl, you can bet your last eyeball that the bars, clubs and restaurants in our neck will be packed like a cemetery on November 1 (uh…..when all the ghosts come back to rest after prowling the night before..) One of these years, and I am still waiting, there will be a costume parade up and down U Street. There kind of already is a de facto parade now and has been for years as partiers go from one bar to another or to house parties in the area, but there has not yet been an official costume party parade organized for the strip. But I know it will happen and what better venue than U Street between 18th on the west and 7th on the east?! That would mean nearly a mile long stretch to see and be seen as who or whatever you want to be for the ONE night of the year that you can really get away with it. Happy Halloween! u

September ANC 6E by Steve Holton

Frustration With City Mounts

A parcel of land located at Second and H St. NW has been awarded to Roadside Development and the commission is troubled the city decided to pick this group without their agreement. The commission feels that it has come to great lengths to engage the community by communicating their wishes and needs that were relevant to three recent development projects including the aforementioned. All three development groups in each project that had the ANC 6E backing were turned down. The commission is now looking to send a letter to the offices of Mayor Vincent Gray, Deputy Mayor Jeffrey Miller and Committee on Economic and Development Council Chairwoman Muriel Bowser to question the process under which these selections are made without granting weight to the commission’s input. “The reality is, if they really don’t want our input, then they shouldn’t go through the motions suggesting that they want the communities input. We look at community benefits associated with any development project,” said ANC 6E01 Chairman Alexander Padro. Other members of the commission voiced their frustration over the tireless hours and effort to reach out to the community and development groups to strike an agreement and reach a fair plan for everyone. “I have spent over 120 hours working with 10 different developers going through architectural plans only to find out that the city’s selection committee chose a development group from a short list of candidates which Mayor Gray later overturned and chose someone else. We have to request answers from the city as to why our weight isn’t recognized and how did this decision come to be?,” said ANC 6E05 Commissioner Marge Maceda. A city representative was on hand and Maceda requested a hearing before Chairwoman Bowser and the Committee on Economic and Development Council to express her concerns. “We put hours into communicating with residents and developers and I expect the city to at least

respect what the commission votes on. We get no explanation or nothing in writing as to why we were not considered,” said Maceda. The commission passed a motion to send a letter to the appropriate city officials expressing their concern that the ANC 6E Commission does not appear to be receiving the great weight offered in the ANC Statute in relation to proposed dispositions of district owned lands in their jurisdiction. The commission said that other ANC Commissions are experiencing the same difficulty and they are requesting a detailed response from the city in relation to the points raised in their correspondence. “Our recommendations have been ignored and we are requesting clarification on the process being utilized to request ANC input. If ANC input will not be receiving great weight, the process should be modified so that ANC’s should no longer have to be in a position to offer advice that isn’t desirable,” said Chairman Padro.

Historic Townhouse Renovation

A historic townhouse located at L and Sixth St. NW will be used for retail and office space. Red and grey bricks will be used to complement other buildings in the area. “This is in my area and residents are very happy with what you are doing to this property. The project renderings look fantastic,” said ANC 6E04 Commissioner Rachelle Nigro.

Curb Cut Request

The commission opposed a curb cut request by Portofino, LLC at 1534 Fifth St. NW for a new construction project being carried out on a three story home. ANC 6E02 Commissioner Kevin Chapple told the Portofino representative that if support can be garnered from the community then he is welcomed to reappear before the commission with another request. “Residents who have contacted me are opposed to this and feel they will have a harder time finding parking,” said Chapple.

ABC License Request

Julio O’Neill of Grand Cata Vino Barra Market appeared before the commission to request support for a Class C Restaurant ABC License. O’Neill wishes to serve wine with the food his establishment will be preparing and will have a small private room for events. He also wants to provide Latin dance classes that will require acoustic guitarists and a cover charge to pay for the lessons. The commission expressed concern with restaurants in the past that had city permission for live music that would eventually turn into a dance club after 10 p.m. and disrupt the neighborhood. “Although your establishment is on the first level of a living complex, you have to respect the people who live there and call it their home. The residents are afraid of the noise that could be coming at the end of the night,” said Maceda. The commission moved to support the license contingent on the applicant signing an agreement that specifies they will not support a dancing and cover charge endorsement and that the agreement stipulates that valet parking must be provided.