Even at His Final Resting Place, Ben Bradlee Still Makes Waves

Robert Devaney • November 9, 2015

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The family of Ben Bradlee and a small circle of friends and guests gathered Oct. 21 to attend the remains of the legend of American journalism. Bradlee was interred at noon in a bright, new mausoleum at historic Oak Hill Cemetery on a bright, autumn day—a year to the day of his death in 2014.

All of that moved gracefully, but it is Bradlee’s final resting place that is getting some critical notice.

The landscape “is significantly altered with the addition of this mausoleum,” said Charles Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation, according to WTOP, which added, “The D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs decided Wednesday that the family needs a permit for the mausoleum.”

The story was first reported by Kriston Capps, a writer for the Atlantic’s City Lab on Oct. 20.

“We will comply with whatever the city requires,” David Jackson, superintendent of Oak Hill Cemetery, told The Georgetowner Oct. 22.

The larger-than-life Bradlee’s final resting place is front and center—not unlike the man himself in life—at Oak Hill Cemetery on R Street and can be seen from the sidewalk. Until Oct. 21, Bradlee’s remain lay in a crypt in the nearby historic Renwick Chapel also on the front grounds of the cemetery.

The Bradlee mausoleum’s inside wall is emblazoned with a bas-relief of the American flag. Its floor is etched with a stanza from Maya Angelou’s “When Great Trees Fall.” It contains space for more family members.

A slate walkway—which leads to the Bradlee vault—bisects the cemetery’s front ellipse but will likely be changed, according to Jackson of Oak Hill Cemetery. The fountain that was at the center of the ellipse has been temporarily removed but will be reinstalled. There are plans for a row of other vaults to run along the rear of the ellipse, as approved by the cemetery board five years ago.

George Hill, president of Oak Hill Cemetery Company, responded to Birnbaum’s concerns in an Oct. 13 letter. In part, Hill wrote: “We see our role as the stewards of Oak Hill on many levels and aim to be guardians of its many sacred places. It is also a working cemetery, and citizens continue to need a place be interred in Georgetown. … Oak Hill does not and cannot survive on charity alone. We have survived for 166 years by being a working cemetery, and we hope to continue. Eventually, we may need to end sales of interment spaces and become a museum, but not quite yet. …”

Born on Aug. 26, 1921, Benjamin Crowninshield Bradlee died last year at the age of 93 at his N Street home, which he shared with his wife Sally Quinn and son Quinn Bradlee. The revered and feared editor of the Washington Post was best known for the Post’s winning coverage of the Watergate scandal which led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Open to the pubic at certain hours, the 22-acre Oak Hill Cemetery, founded in 1849, contains monuments and mausoleums and includes such famous figures as Dean Acheson, William Corcoran, Uriah Forrest, Herman Hollerith, Philip Barton Key, John Howard Payne and Albert Pike. For a time, Willie Lincoln, President Abraham Lincoln’s son, was buried there. It has nearly 20,000 burial sites.
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Bowling for—and Hope for Henry

Robert Devaney •

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Hope for Henry—a non-profit set up to offer children with cancer a more normal living situation (with fun and games, too) at Children’s National Medical Center and MedStar Georgetown University Hospital—held a Oct. 27 bowling benefit at Pinstripes on Wisconsin Avenue. Along with VIPs and the Georgetown Cupcake sisters, newcomer Sid Mashburn pitched in, too—and everyone had fun and great food. [gallery ids="102339,125582,125599,125606,125589,125594" nav="thumbs"]

CAG’s ‘Georgetown After Dark’ Shimmers

Robert Devaney • November 4, 2015

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The Citizens Association of Georgetown held its annual gala, “Bar 1878: Georgetown After Dark,” Oct. 23 at the Four Seasons Hotel. With neighbors and friends in the hundreds, food, drink and dancing ruled the night to the music of the BroadSide Sound band.

Spin through the photo carousel below (click to enlarge) and view more photos from the Georgetown Gala.

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Georgetown, D.C. Honors Tennis Stars, the Peters Sisters

Robert Devaney • October 29, 2015

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Neighbors, old and new, came together at Rose Park in Georgetown Oct. 24 to dedicate its tennis courts to two black women who used it as young girls and as tennis stars, Margaret Peters and Roumania Peters Walker. The two-hour gathering of about 200 people for the unveiling of the Peters plaque was a unique and sentimental remembrance as well as affirmation of Georgetown’s African American roots. The Peters sisters grew up during a time of segregation — yet transcended it in achievement and love of their neighborhood.

The sisters won the doubles crown of the American Tennis Association for 15 years during the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s. Roumania Peters once bested Althea Gibson, America’s first black tennis star, and Margaret Peters played tennis with movie star Gene Kelly at Rose Park, which seemed to belong to the sisters as well as the neighborhood children, but is operated by D.C.’s Department of Parks and Recreation. Nicknamed “Pete and Repeat,” who lived at 2710 O St. NW, the dynamic duo now have supporters for their induction into the tennis hall of fame.

Among the new neighbors was Jeh Johnson, Secretary of Homeland Security, and his wife Susan DiMarco, who live across from the courts at 27th and O Streets NW. Among the old neighbors — those who grew up with Peters Sisters — was Daisy Peebles, who has lived her entire life in Washington, D.C.’s oldest neighborhood —along with the mother of Mayor Muriel Bowser, who grew up nearby, played in Rose Park and was baptized at Epiphany Catholic Church on Dumbarton Street.

David Dunning, president of Friends of Rose Park, led the ceremony and introduced a long line of speakers, all of whom together told a still-continuing story of black Georgetown. Dunning acknowledged the group’s board member David Abrams and Topher Matthews, one of the first to advocate the naming of the park’s tennis courts for the Peter Sisters.

Advisory neighborhood commissioner Monica Roache, who is a fifth generation Georgetowner, was also active in getting the courts named for the Peters sisters, who taught her tennis. She remembered their tennis accomplishments and said to them and to those black Georgetowners in attendance, “Welcome home.”

Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, who set up the re-naming legislation for the District government, was unable to attend because of a parents’s weekend for one of the his college-age children. At-large Councilmembers Anita Bonds and Vincent Orange were on hand to speak.

Rev. Adam Park, pastor of Epiphany Catholic Church, began with a prayer affirming the dignity of each person.

Fannie Walker Weeks and James Walker, the children of Roumania Peter Walker, spoke of their mother and aunt and how they began “to beat the boys” at the tennis courts — which used to be clay — and how they would feel “appreciated and overwhelmed today.”

Mayor Bowser took note of her family’s connection to Georgetown and also that not many streets, building or tennis courts are named after women —something she’d like to change. She saluted the Peters sisters and “this shining tennis court.”

Homeland Secretary Johnson described how he met Bowser’s mother in the White House during the visit of Pope Francis and mentioned the upcoming dedication of the tennis courts. Responding to a request for her daughter, the mayor, to attend, she succinctly responded to Johnson, “She will be there.” Johnson noted his dog uses the park, too. “Everybody knows Andy,” he said. “Andy has done more to fertilize . . . he loves to give back.” In a serious remark, Johnson said that the Walkers were married in nearby Epiphany and that Margaret Peters taught in D.C. public schools, such as Western High School, now Duke Ellington School for the Arts. The Johnson family donated the plaque.

Rose Park was one of the first integrated public parks in the city and now contains the first public tennis courts named for individuals.

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Georgetown’s TD Bank Robbed in Broad Daylight

Robert Devaney •

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Around 1 p.m, Monday, Oct. 26, a man walked into the TD Bank at 1611 Wisconsin Ave. NW and presented a note to the teller asking for money. The bank employee complied and gave him a bag of cash. The man then left the bank and opened the bag on the sidewalk near the bank, according to eyewitnesses. Ink packs in the bag —known as “funny money” — exploded, and the man ran off.

The suspect is described by the Metropolitan Police Department as a 45-year-old bald black male, who was wearing a red shirt and black baggy pants.

MPD tweeted around 2 p.m.: “Robbery of an establishment 1600 blk of Wisconsin Ave NW. lof: b/m, 45 yoa, bald, wearing red shirt, blk baggy pants.”

Police cordoned off the area around the bank, which has a parking lot and is just north of the Georgetown Exxon.

One observer at a business across Wisconsin Avenue from the bank quipped, “We’re looking for the man with purple ink.”

‘Exorcist’ Steps to Be Commemorated by D.C.

Robert Devaney •

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Perhaps the most famous movie about Georgetown will be commemorated Oct. 30 by a special plaque at the so-called Exorcist Steps at 36th and M Streets. The steps down to M Street from Prospect Street figured in the climatic scene of the 1973 film “The Exorcist,” when the priest sacrificed himself for the girl possessed by the devil, leaping from a window in a Prospect Street home and tumbling down the steps to his death.

Andrew Huff is coordinating the event in collaboration with the D.C. Office of Motion Picture and Television Development, the Executive Office of the Mayor, the Dupont Festival and Councilmember Jack Evans, at whose office he worked. On hand at the event, he says, will be the film’s director William Friedkin for a meet and greet (4 p.m.; top of the steps). The plaque dedication ceremony (6 p.m.; bottom of the steps) and a screening of “The Exorcist” (7:30 p.m., Georgetown AMC) will follow.

In addition, after the plaque dedication ceremony, the Georgetown Business Association will hold its monthly networking reception, this time Halloween-themed, at Malmaison starting at 6:30 p.m.

Mount Zion Kicks Off 200th Anniversary Celebrations

Robert Devaney • October 28, 2015

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As part of its 200th anniversary celebration, Mount Zion United Methodist Church, one of Georgetown’s historic black churches, held a march to Mount Zion Cemetery, next to Rock Creek Park, Oct. 18. The symbolic walk began at the “Mother Church,” Dumbarton United Methodist Church. Led by Pastor Johnsie Cogman, marchers gathered at the old cemetery for an African libation ceremony, an ancient ritual of pouring water, to honor their ancestors. The cemetery opened in 1808; interments stopped in 1950. Today, it awaits restoration work by the church and other community groups.

When ‘The Exorcist’ Came to Town

Robert Devaney •

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During October 1972, “The Exorcist” filmed on location at Georgetown University for a week, part of a stay of about 20 days in and around Washington, D.C. William Peter Blatty, author of the 1971 novel on which he based the screenplay, and a 1950 graduate of the college, who heard of a possessed boy from Mt. Rainier, Md., and of attempts at exorcism at Georgetown University Hospital and in St. Louis, Mo., that occurred in the late 1940s.

For the film, Georgetown students were recruited for various crowd scenes. Nuns in traditional habit were seen walking along 37th Street (not a common sight then as well as now) and Jesuit priests and professors were used as extras. Neighbors also got some bit parts. One 35th Street resident, Emerson Duncan, who routinely walked his two Scottish terriers nearby, was asked if his dogs could be used as extras. He himself was ruled out; he looked too much like an actor.

Along with director William Friedkin, actors and crew worked inside and in front of Healy Building, where a student protest was part of the film within a film.

Other campus locations included Healy Circle, the Quadrangle, the facade of Dahlgren Chapel, Kehoe Field and the Lauinger Library steps, which one of the priest walked down in the fog during a spooky scene.

Elsewhere, the Mule Bridge over the C&O Canal was used, as was the courtyard of Christ Church on O Street. Other shots showed actress Ellen Burstyn walking along 36th Street to her home across from 1789 Restaurant. That famous house at 3600 Prospect St. NW was given a fake addition extending east towards the now-famed Exorcist Steps so that the window from which the priest jumped would be close enough for his fatal fall.

When the shoot was being set up for the fatal tumble down the steps, between the possessed girl’s house and the Car Barn, enterprising students monitored the gate to the Car Barn rooftop and charged admission for anyone who wanted to enter and watch from above.

“The Exorcist” premiered the day after Christmas, Dec. 26, 1973 — and, yes, all hell broke out. Some moviegoers fainted, vomited or ran from the theater. Some religious leaders proclaimed that the novel and film conjured up demonic forces.

A few years later, Rev. Robert Henle, S.J., president of Georgetown University during the 1972 filming, told editors of the student newspaper, the Georgetown Voice, that he regretted allowing the production on campus.

While Henle may have disliked any negative image the film might have given of the university, the steps are now a Georgetown must-see attraction — and a favorite of walkers and runners. For those so inclined, they are also the perfect spot to meditate upon the deeper meaning of “The Exorcist.”