Georgetown Rabbi Sentenced to 6 1/2 Years for Voyeurism
• May 21, 2015

Barry Freundel, former rabbi of Kesher Israel Congregation at 28th and N Streets NW, was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for voyeurism by Senior Judge Geoffrey Alprin of D.C. Superior Court May 15, according to media reports.

Over a period of years, Freundel secretly videotaped dozens women during a ritual bath at the Georgetown synagogue.

The 63-year-old Freundel received 45 days in jail for each of the 52 counts of voyeurism. Prosecutors had asked for a sentence of 17 years in prison. The former religious leader also received $2,000 in fines and taken into custody upon his sentencing.

Freundel once led Kesher Israel, a modern Orthodox synagogue, at 2801 N St. NW, five blocks from his former home, owned by the congregation. He was arrested at the O Street house on Oct. 14, 2014, by the Metropolitan Police Department.

Since 1987, before being fired last year, Freundel had been with the synagogue, which counts among its members former Sen. Joe Lieberman and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew.

Police Seek Person of Interest in Quadruple Homicide in Woodley Park
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The May 14 murder of Savvas Savopoulus, 46, and his wife, Amy Savopoulos, 47, as well as their 10-year-old son, Philip, who attended St. Alban’s School, and a housekeeper, Veralicia Figueroa, 57, has shocked relatives and friends of the family, which lived blocks away from Washington National Cathedral and the Vice President’s Residence. After the attacks, the Savopoulus house — valued at $4.5 million — on Woodland Drive NW was set on fire. The couple’s two teenage daughters were at boarding school at the time of the murder and are safe. Savvas Savopoulos was the president and CEO of American Iron Works. He and his wife Amy were known around town and were involved with school and other social benefits.

D.C. police issued the following video — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh8egOuX4rc&feature — as well as request over the weekend.

“Detectives from the Metropolitan Police Department’s Homicide Branch are investigating a quadruple homicide. Investigators seek the public’s assistance in identifying and locating a person of interest in a quadruple Homicide which occurred on Thursday, May 14, 2015, in the 3200 block of Woodland Drive, NW. The subject was subsequently captured by a surveillance camera.

??”The subject was possibly operating a blue 2008 Porsche 911 sports car which was located abandoned in the 8000 block of Annapolis Road in New Carrollton, Md. Anyone with information about the vehicle or who saw it being operated between Wednesday, May 13, and Thursday, May 14, 2015, is asked to contact police.??

“Do your part to help prevent and solve crime. The Metropolitan Police Department currently offers a reward of up to $25,000 to anyone that provides information which leads to the arrest and conviction of the person or persons wanted for any homicide committed in the District of Columbia. Your assistance is appreciated by your community. Ref. CCN #15-069-981.

??”Anyone who can identify these individuals or who has knowledge of this incident should take no action but call police at 202-727-9099 or text your tip to the Department’s TEXT TIP LINE to 50411.

??”To learn more about the MPD Rewards program, please visit www.mpdc.dc.gov/rewards.”

Fire Shutters Good Stuff Eatery
• May 18, 2015

A kitchen fire at 8 a.m. Saturday, May 2, shut down Good Stuff Eatery at 3291 M St. NW. The hamburger restaurant will be closed for several days. The fire was quickly contained. There were no injuries and minimal damage. During the fire, traffic in the 3100 and 3300 block of M Street NW was diverted.

Owner and chef Spike Mendelsohn tweeted, “#GoodStuffEatery Gtown will be closed for several days due to a small fire. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

S&R Foundation to Buy Fillmore School Property
• May 11, 2015

S&R Foundation has signed a contract with George Washington University to purchase the Fillmore School property on 35th Street. 

Formed in 2000 by Dr. Sachiko Kuno and Dr. Ryuji Ueno, the foundation also operates from Evermay Estate and Halcyon House in Georgetown.

S&R Foundation — which holds its Overtures Series and other musical events at Evermay on 28th Street and its Halcyon Incubator, a fellowship for young social entrepreneurs, at Halcyon House on Prospect Street — will now have a third historic property in Georgetown.

As a new owner of the Fillmore property, S&R and the announcement will likely be applauded by those live nearby, as it plans to use Fillmore as an arts incubator, which will serve as “a platform to grow talented artists in the fields of fine, visual and performing arts, maintaining the educational use of the building and its place as part of the vibrant arts landscape in the nation’s capital.”

The Fillmore School property will fit with the mission of the S&R Foundation, which is to “support talented individuals has evolved to encompass broad support of individuals with great potential and high aspirations in the arts, sciences and social entrepreneurship, with a special emphasis on furthering international cultural collaboration and ensuing social benefits .”

“Through S&R’s expansion of arts education at the Fillmore School, we will continue S&R’s commitment to supporting excellence in artistry, innovation and entrepreneurship in an environment that encourages international collaboration,” said Sachiko Kuno, CEO and president of S&R Foundation. “We also are excited to expand our commitment to supporting talented artists in Washington, D.C., especially those from underserved communities.”

The Fillmore School property, located at 1801 35th St. NW, was listed for $14 million with TTR Sotheby’s International Realty by seller George Washington University. The property holds a former D.C. public school, built in 1893, and then an arts center. It was sold to the Corcoran in 1998.  

The university acquired the historic schoolhouse and its more than one acre of land last year as part of a deal with the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, when GWU took possession of all Corcoran real estate. The Fillmore space has been used by the Corcoran College of Art and Design since it purchased the former D.C. public school in 1998. Classes will be held in the Fillmore building until the end of the spring semester.

Here’s what TTR Sotheby’s International Realty wrote in its listing for the 35th Street property: “The Fillmore School is a landmark opportunity in Georgetown. Built circa 1893 and named after President Millard Fillmore, the school served as an architectural and educational anchor for the community for more than a century. The all-brick, fully detached structure encompasses nearly 23,000 square feet of finished space on four levels. Notable features include soaring ceilings, double hung windows, a modern elevator and two staircases. The existing building holds tremendous conversion potential, ranging from condominiums or apartments to office or institutional use. The 1.25-acre site offers parking for 100 cars and frontage on 34th and 35th Streets NW.”

The seller was represented by Michael Brennan, Phyllis Patterson and Brittany Patterson of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, and the buyer was represented by Mark McFadden of Washington Fine Properties.

Tom Moser, Maine’s Wizard of Wood
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“We give a second life to trees,” said Thomas Moser, founder of Thos. Moser Handmade American Furniture, whose company seems to treat every day as if it were Earth Day.

Celebrating his 80th birthday, Moser was at the opening of the company’s new store in Georgetown March 20 to say hello to Maine’s Congressional delegation and his clients and fans – and, we might add, to charm anyone talking with him.

The company’s chairs, tables and dressers of simple, timeless design are highly regarded, expensive, meant to last generations. Moser gets the attention of architects, designers and homeowners, as well as schools and libraries, even presidential ones.

Handcrafted and signed, company output is 85-percent residential. One Maryland house reportedly has more than 30 pieces. Moser has furnished parts of Georgetown University’s law library as well as that of Catholic University. The company’s products are on full display at the Park Hyatt on M Street in the West End and in its Blue Duck Tavern.

Aaron Moser, one of the founder’s sons, heads the company’s contract division, which serves offices and schools. He is as proud of the company’s 55 pieces at the George W. Bush Presidential Library as he is of Moser’s relationship with St. Timothy’s School, just outside Baltimore, and its students, who attend woodworking classes at the Maine factory.

“We’re not furniture purveyors,” the company founder says. “We’re craftsman.” His enthusiasm is infectious, and his brutal honesty and cheeriness fill a room.

The new Georgetown store on 33rd Street is “more like an art gallery,” the company’s “finest in the country,” Moser said, looking around the 5,000-square-foot space. Located a few doors north at the corner of 33rd and M Streets for 10 years, the Moser store is back after almost a three-year absence because Georgetown fits the company’s marketing demographics perfectly.

It is a little out of the way for Moser – the C&O Canal is down the street – but he loves its ambiance and is curious about the history of the building at 1028 33rd St. NW.

The building’s solid stone (from the Aqueduct Bridge which was replaced by Key Bridge in 1923) and brickwork lines up well with a Moser mantra, a reworded Shakerism: “Build an object as though it were to last a thousand years and as if you were to die tomorrow.”

“I learned woodworking from dead people,” said Moser, not skipping a beat in retelling how he became part of the handicraft revival of the 1970s.

Originally from Chicago, an Air Force veteran, he was a college professor teaching language and speech pathology. He taught in Saudi Arabia for a few years, setting up language labs at the College of Petroleum and Minerals.

After years of pursuing woodworking as a hobby – beginning with antique-hunting and making missing drawers for pieces: “We bought 26 grandfather clocks in parts.” He called the learning process a case of reverse engineering. “Parts of things show continuity.”

Soon enough, Moser was all in, starting his business in 1972 in New Gloucester, Maine, which, as of 2010, still holds a Shaker community of four. With his wife Mary’s support – they met when he was 14 years old and she was 12 – a career reinvention from academic to woodworker took place. Married for 58 years, the couple has four sons: Matthew, Andrew, Aaron and David.

“I wanted to recapture the craft of the early-19th-century artisans,” Moser said. “I venerate the 19th century.” He liked what Americans produced before factories began to dot the nation in the second half of the 1800s. He said he is “fascinated by Shaker design, the honesty of material, the economy of labor. The Shakers prayed to God with their hands.”

Other influences on Moser include Stickley, the Arts and Crafts movement and Bauhaus design. “My work is derivative,” he said. As for the classic Windsor chair, “the best ones are in America.”

“We are the antithesis of Ikea,” says Moser CEO Bill McGonagle. “We like to say our furniture lasts as long as the time it took the tree to grow.” He joined the company in 2012 after working for another Maine Tom: natural products maker Tom’s of Maine.

As for the Moser company’s environmental soundness, McGonagle noted, “We have a small footprint.” There are about 200 employees.

“It’s how we source the wood,” which grows no more than 600 miles from the factory and office in Auburn, Maine, he said. “We don’t throw any wood away. We use half of what we buy. The remainder craftsmen buy for their art. Scraps move on to being firewood or sawdust used as bedding.”

The company uses domestic hardwoods only: no teak, no mahogany.

And Moser’s favorite kind of wood? “Cherry,” he said. “It reveals what God put there.”

Hillary Clinton Finishes April Fundraisers in D.C.
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Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton visited the home of Elizabeth Frawley Bagley on 29th Street in Georgetown for an afternoon fund-raising luncheon April 30.

Previously in New York City for three receptions, Clinton visited the homes of Milly and Arne Glimcher, of Lisa Perry and of Doug Teitelbaum, according to the New York Times.

Bagley, a former ambassador, and her late husband Smith Bagley have supported both Bill and Hillary Clinton and their national campaigns. The Bagleys are known to have given more than $1 million to the Clinton Foundation, the Times reported.

Clinton also paid a visit to Frank White Jr., who was a member of Barack Obama’s 2008 national finance committee.

The ticket price for the Clinton fundraising receptions is $2,700. The money raised is to used for the Democratic primary campaign.

Watergate Evacuated After Parking Garage Collapse
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Updated 5:30 p.m.

A three-story, partial collapse of a parking garage occurred around 10 a.m. Friday, May 1, at the Watergate complex, prompting evacuation of buildings and a large D.C. Fire Department response, shutting down Virginia Avenue from 25th Street to Rock Creek Parkway.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser held a 4 p.m. press briefing after visiting the site of the accident and said that rescue dogs indicated no human activity at the three levels affected by the collapse but that a cadaver dog made “a possible hit.”

Two persons were hurt, and earlier Bowser said, “Not everyone is accounted for,” according to NBC News.

“The building shook a little bit and we saw a sinkhole growing in the courtyard,” said Tom Wall of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which is headquartered on the 10th and 11th floors of the Watergate office building at 2600 Virginia Ave., NW. A tree and foliage fell down into the hole, as water sprayed up from broken pipes, the witness said.

A main part of the collapse was at the underground pathway to the public garage and between the office building and Watergate East. “Thank God it happened at 10 a.m.,” Wall said, “and not around lunchtime,” when the area would be more traveled by office workers and visitors. “With rubble spilling out,” the area “looked like footage from a war zone,” he said.

Office workers and residents are used to noise and construction activity, as the Watergate Hotel is undergoing a $125-milllion renovation, due for completion by the end of summer. The garage was also under construction at the time. All construction workers have been accounted for.

“Rescue crews are using dogs to search the rubble of the garage,” NBC News reported. “Special Ops and a local collapse team are searching the garage in the 2600 block of Virginia Avenue NW for any other possible victims. The D.C. Fire & EMS Department’s only search dog has been deployed to Nepal to help in the aftermath of the earthquake there. Montgomery County Fire & Rescue sent their dogs to aid at the Watergate.”

The cause of the collapse is undetermined at this time.

The Watergate complex, known for the 1972 burglary that led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, lies along the banks of the Potomac River next to another Washington landmark, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

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Hops, Cask & Barrel Replaces Wagner’s
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Hops, Cask & Barrel, associated with Sherry’s Liquor of Woodley Park, 2627 Connecticut Ave. NW, is set to take over the closed Wagner’s liquor store at 1717 Wisconsin Ave. NW, as first reported by the Georgetown Metropolitan.

Bank of Georgetown Celebrates 10 Years
• May 10, 2015

Founded in 2005, Bank of Georgetown is celebrating 10 years in business. Chartered in D.C., the bank was cofounded by the late Curtin Winsor III and Mike Fitzgerald, chairman, president and CEO.

“When Curt Winsor III and I conceived of Bank of Georgetown, we envisioned it as an integral part of the Washington metropolitan area,” Fitzgerald says. “Our mission was, and is, for our customers to experience the true meaning of a community bank. Locally owned. Locally run. Locally involved.”

Bank of Georgetown has 11 branches in Washington, D.C., Montgomery County and Northern Virginia. It has more than $1 billion in assets and 108 employees.

In his column in December, John Girouard observed, “Community banks include Bank of Georgetown . . . which provide services to small businesses, including construction loans, and contribute to local charities. They are known in the community, and they know us, too.”

The bank’s corporate headquarters at 1115 30th St. NW includes its 11th branch, named after Winsor, who died in December 2012.

Happy 10th to a hometown favorite.

Board Votes No to Historic Status for Heating Plant
• May 6, 2015

In a 4 to 3 vote, the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board voted April 23 not to grant the West Heating Plant on 29th Street extra landmark status.

The D.C. Preservation League had nominated the building for landmark status within the Historic District of Georgetown, arguing that the 1940s heating plant deserved such protection. League representatives made a presentation to the Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commission in March. The commission disagreed with the league and said it believed that the building at 1051-1055 29th St. NW did not warrant landmark status. Even, the Citizens Association of Georgetown — known for its advocacy of historic preservation — held that the building was undeserving of special protection.

While Georgetown is a federally protected neighborhood in terms of historic preservation, the board vote makes its easier for the owners of the one-time government property to alter it, including partial demolition. (Most residents of 29th Street agree with this approach.) There are many more reviews and approvals the owners must obtain for the project.

The developers of the heating plant property, the Levy Group, the Four Season Hotel and the Georgetown Company of New York plan to make the structure into Four Seasons condominiums and dedicate some of the land as public space. The property is due south of the Four Seasons and adjacent to the C&O Canal and Rock Creek.