Latest News

Robert Devaney • April 21, 2016

Two Georgetown Visitation Prep students were mugged around 3:30 p.m., Friday, April 15, in Pomander Walk along 3300 block of Volta Place. The two female students were grabbed by a boy and pushed into the alley of small townhouses off Volta Place and were mugged by two girls.

The assailants stole a phone and ran away when a neighbor observing the crime came on the scene. The visibly shaken students were uninjured and remained at a Volta Place corner to speak with police and be attended to by school officials, as commuter traffic idled on 34th Street.

The Metropolitan Police Department describes the suspects — two of whom were wearing Guy Fawkes masks on top of their heads — as black, 14 to 18 years old and averaging five-foot-seven or five-feet-eight with thin or medium builds.

Juliana Zovak • April 20, 2016

U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew announced today that the image of Harriet Tubman will replace that of Andrew Jackson as the face of the $20 bill.

Tubman, who was born a slave in Maryland in 1822, is famous for her abolitionist work and for helping slaves escape through the Underground Railroad, a secret network of safe houses and routes to free states and Canada.

The news diverges from the currency replacement plan originally announced by the Treasury on June 17, 2015, in which Lew said he planned to put a woman on the $10 bill — one who was “a champion for our inclusive democracy,” he commented at the time.

Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, will remain the face of the $10 bill, CNN reported, in part due to his resurgence in popularity thanks to the Broadway musical “Hamilton.” According to CNN, Lew is also expected to announce that various women will appear on the back of the $10.

Percy Metcalfe •

On April 22, Earth Day will be celebrated for the 46th time. The annual global phenomenon, started in 1970, is intended to motivate people to act to help save the planet from the forces of climate change.

The historic Paris Climate Agreement was sealed in the final days of 2015 and is scheduled to be signed on this coming Earth Day by as many as 120 countries, including both the United States and China. Combined, those two countries make up as much as 40 percent of global emissions. The treaty will be signed at the United Nations headquarters in New York City.

Celebrate this monumental human achievement and Earth Day by heading to one of these climate friendly Earth Day events in the Washington, D.C. area. There are events for environmentally conscious kids, teens and adults.

Earth Day Celebration at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo: Take time to observe the species that need protecting this Earth Day while getting gardening tips from the experts, attending special demonstrations, touring the zoo’s green facilities and participating in other climate-themed activities. The zoo encourages participants to bike to the event.

Saturday, April 23, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
3001 Connecticut Ave. NW

Earth Day at Union Station: The station will be putting on a spread of eco-friendly and interactive experiences to educate people about environmental issues and encourage sustainable practices. The event is sponsored by NASA and will feature scientists, astronauts and a number of exhibits.

Thursday and Friday, April 21 and 22, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
50 Massachusetts Ave. NE

Alexandria Earth Day: The theme of this celebration is “Choose to Reuse—Your Choices Matter.” There will be a number of exhibits, demonstrations and hands-on activities for kids. Live music will be performed by Hand Paint Swinger. A number of food trucks will be serving at the event.

Saturday, April 30, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Lenny Harris Memorial Fields at Braddock Park, 1005 Mt. Vernon Ave., Alexandria, Virginia

United State Botanic Garden Earth Day Open House: Come to the Conservancy Terrace at the Botanic Gardens to meet with representatives of regional conservancy organizations. Participate in hands-on games and activities and learn how keep our planet healthy.

Friday, April 22, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
100 Maryland Ave. SW

Broccoli City Festival: Come listen to headliner and wildly popular rapper Future at the Gateway Pavilion. A number of other musicians will be performing as well, including Californian Jhené Aiko and former Odd Future members The Internet. This one-day music festival, featuring ground-breaking artists, is committed to engaging urban millennials in issues of environmental sustainability. In addition to the music, there will be pop-up markets, live art and featured restaurants.

Tickets can be bought at ticket-resale websites or “earned” by participating in volunteer opportunities. Entrants must be 16 years or older.

Saturday, April 30, noon to 10 p.m.
St. Elizabeth East Gateway Pavillion, 1100 Alabama Ave. SE

Anacostia Watershed Cleanup: Be a hero of the Anacostia River. Join over 2,000 volunteers to clean one of D.C.’s main waterways. Be prepared to get a bit dirty. Register at the Anacostia Watershed Society website.

Saturday, April 23, 9 a.m. to noon
You can volunteer at 31 locations in Washington, D.C., and Maryland.

“eARTh Day” Art Night: Exclusive Multi-Artist Exhibition: An exhibit of environmentally themed art about our planet as seen through the eyes of local artists. Admission is free but all proceeds from sales directly benefit artists.

Friday, April 22, 8 p.m.
The Ritz-Carlton Georgetown, 3100 South St. NW

“Made in Arlington” pop-up shop: A retail experience dedicated to all things beautiful, wearable and edible provided they’re made in Arlington. Browse for gifts or curiosities at the stands while admiring the ongoing photo exhibit Lighting Diversity, which will be shown in the same space. The event is free.

Saturday, April 23, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Arlington Mill Community Center Gallery, 909 S Dinwiddie Street, Arlington, Virginia

Georgetowner •

A body found floating in the C&O Canal near 31st Street NW Tuesday morning, April 12, has been identified, according to D.C. police.

Osbaldo Lemus Bernal, 51, of Arlington, Virginia, was found in the canal around 7:30 a.m. by construction workers, who took a photo from the canal towpath near Sea Catch Restaurant of the backpack floating above the man’s body.

The Metropolitan Police Department indicated that the death might not be suspicious, although homicide units were on the scene the morning the body was discovered. Parts of 31st Street NW and South Street NW were blocked off for a time.

Georgetowner • April 18, 2016

From April 2 through November 2016, the Georgetown Business Improvement District reports that it “will implement sidewalk widenings each weekend on the 3200 block of M Street, NW, and offer free D.C. Circulator bus rides in Georgetown along Wisconsin Avenue. … Visitors and residents will enjoy eight more feet of space for an improved pedestrian experience.”  

Sidewalks are temporarily expanded by eliminating parking spaces and placing pedestrian railings on the street along the 3200 block of M Street, just west of the major intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and M Street. Vehicular traffic will continue unimpeded.

According to the Georgetown BID, the sidewalk widening will occur “Saturdays, starting at 6 a.m., through Sundays at 6 p.m., weather permitting, April 2 to early November 2016, weather permitting.”

There will also be discounted parking — $6, all day — at the PMI Garage at 3307 M St. NW on Saturdays and Sundays during the sidewalk widenings. 

In addition, the BID will sponsor free, northbound D.C. Circulator rides on the Union Station-Georgetown route along Wisconsin Avenue, NW, from K Street stops in Georgetown to the top of Book Hill (30th/K, Wisconsin/K, Wisconsin/M, Wisconsin/N, Wisconsin/Q, and Wisconsin/R). 

Gary Tischler •

An upbeat District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser, proclaiming herself leader of “a city that is built not for the past, but one that is building for the future,” delivered her second State of the District Address on March 22 before a large audience at Arena Stage in Southwest, right across from a waterfront area being rebuilt on a massive scale.

While touting her achievements during her tenure as mayor so far, Bowser promised a major school-spending increase, a raise in the minimum wage to $15 an hour and an investment in infrastructure. She said she would attack last year’s huge rise in homicides with a big increase in the use of body-worn cameras. And she defended her plans to close D.C. General and launch shelter projects in every ward of the city.

While she noted that sometimes criticism or interference from politicians and government officials can be a hindrance, she said that “every morning when I wake up, I am laser-focused on what I can do to create opportunity that is equal and fair, and blind to age, gender, zip code, race or religion.”

She promised to make sure “that no one is left behind and that there will be opportunities to a path to the middle class for everyone.”

Bowser said that the city must move forward, stating that we have three choices: to reject growth, to grow without regard to our roots and risk losing what makes D.C. great or to balance change with preservation and with growth, doing it together across all eight wards. “I choose the third way,” she said.

“Some people say change and school reform hasn’t moved fast enough,” she continued. “That isn’t true. We’ve done a lot. We’ve put a plan for $6.5 billion in modernizing DCPS schools, with $2.5 billion to come. … We’ve created the best conditions for charter schools in the country.”

Given the expected 20-percent increase in students next year, Bowser promised a $75-million increase over the previous year in school spending.

She praised the 10-year tenure of Cathy Lanier as chief of police and said that she would make sure that the city would implement the most progressive and transparent body-worn camera program in the country. She promised that there would be 650 more police officers equipped with the cameras by the end of this month and that by the end of the year every single patrol officer would be wearing one.

The mayor also promised a substantial increase in ambulances and 911 call-takers and dispatchers.

“We will continue to invest in our neighborhoods,” she said. “We will continue to invest in our transit system, to make sure that Metro is safe and reliable. And I know I can count on Jack Evans, the ‘Mayor of Metro’ to make good use of D.C. taxpayer dollars.”

She praised Arena Stage for making its commitment to the Southwest community “with this beautiful theater. Check out the signs of progress across the street, with hotels and homes and retail popping up at the Wharf. … We want to bring this kind of commitment and investment to other parts of the city, with the new DC United Stadium and at Walter Reed.”

She also engaged with the issue of the fight against homelessness, which has now become somewhat controversial. “Last year, we made unprecedented investments to end homelessness, to make it rare, brief and non-recurring.

“I promised you we would close D.C. General. … It is too old, too big and not safe enough. So we’re going to close D.C. General and open small, short-term family housing across the District. … We cannot do this alone, the Council paved the way with a vote last fall, and we need your next vote to move us forward again. Let’s not be distracted by arguments based on fear or convenience or apples-and-oranges comparisons, which falsely represent the cost of lifting families out of homelessness. If we fail to act or do not move forward with one of the sites, we will not be able to close D.C. General. Not now, not any time soon and maybe never.”

Gary Tischler •

If you look at the many pictures of the Oscar-winning actress Patty Duke, who died at the age of 69 this week, you’ll see two or three things that take her out of the classic Hollywood milieu of female stars.

First of all, there was nothing typical about Duke’s rise to prominence at a very early age, or even about her struggles thereafter, both of which she wrote about cleanly and honestly in her autobiography “Call Me Anna” in 1987. She was by any measure abused and/or abandoned by her parents, and by her agents who changed her name and robbed her of much of earnings. She also suffered from bipolarism, a clinical condition which she fought all of her life.

The record of her life photographically isn’t so much a collection of snapshots, or celebrity paparazzi records, or glamour stills that mark the resume and files of most female actresses. It’s a progression — of her profession, but also of her life. She started out in commercials and soaps on television, but then snagged a remarkable stage role on Broadway, opposite Anne Bancroft, playing the child Helen Keller in William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker,” a play which ran for almost two years.

That success was repeated in the black-and-white film version directed by Arthur Penn. Her performance won Duke an Academy Award for best supporting actress, with Bancroft winning the Best Actress Award. At 16, Duke was the youngest actress to ever win an Oscar at the time. (Tatum O’Neal, who had a far different sort of career path, would later win the Oscar for “Paper Moon” at the age of ten, acting with her father Ryan.)

When she received her award, from George Chakiris of “West Side Story,” Duke looked every bit the little teenaged lady in a grown-up gown, with tears flowing, clutching the Oscar. She simply said, “Thank you,” beating O’Neal (who said “I just want to thank my director, Peter Bogdanovich, and my father”) for brevity.

This was followed by a different sort of stardom in the TV sitcom “The Patty Duke Show,” in which she played identical twin cousins — one a classical music lover and little adult, the other a rock-and-roller — from 1963 through 1966. The show, which still has its followers and people who can sing the entire theme song, was one of those wholesome and somewhat silly antidotes to the different sort of youth culture that was raging outside the television tube in the 1960s.

Duke followed that with an over-the-top but effective appearance in “Valley of the Dolls,” in which she played a pill-popping, boozing vaudeville star on the way down.

Turned out there was quite a connection to both efforts in terms of Duke’s personal life. That ability to play two radically different personalities in the sitcom was a reflection of her real-life bipolar issues, which in turn played out in often out-of-control behavior during several marriages.

She returned to television often, including playing the Anne Bancroft role in a TV movie of “The Miracle Worker” and a number of highly praised roles in what might be called social-problem television movies. All along, she grew professionally, playing whistle-blowers, mothers, professionals and abused spouses with a kind of dignity and crisp intelligence that did not scream “Hollywood star.”

If you watched her then, you saw somebody different: the talent that was on such grand display in “The Miracle Worker” and, in lesser ways, in “The Patty Duke Show” remained, but with the addition of a kind of maturity.

That’s what you notice about the photographs of her, too. She looked different every time out, although it’s fair to say the inner talent shined through. The progression — with all the personal troubles, the four marriages, the addictions, the medical and mental issues — was nonetheless apparent. She wasn’t vying for awards, stardom, an extension of youth, none of the things that make maturity such a difficult thing for Hollywood stars. In all those television movies, her name remained the same, but her persona fleshed out into someone authentic — a rare thing in Hollywood, where everything is after all make-believe, a suspension of all belief.

In those films, she aged, just like everyone else. And her work matured, to a kind of plainspoken articulation of the dramatic situation in which she was involved. Personally, too, there was a maturation, a surmounting of chaos. And once she started talking about her bipolar disorder, she found a cause, too, as a mental health advocate, founding a mental health foundation that bears her name.

She married her fourth husband, drill sergeant Michael Pearce, in 1986. They were still husband and wife at the time of her death at the age of 69.

In the pictures, Duke gradually, sometimes painfully, always with interest, became something you rarely see among the stars:

A grown-up at the center of a life fully lived.

Juliana Zovak •

The World Peeps Eating Championship is the headliner event for National Harbor’s Peeps Day on April 2, celebrating the opening of the first Peeps and Company retail store in 2009 at the harbor.

The contest, which begins at 1 p.m., features professional competitive eaters, including #1 ranked Matt Stonie, who recently posted a video on Youtube in which he ate 200 Peeps in just over 14 minutes. Juliet Lee, who lives in Germantown, Md., is ranked eighth in the world and will also compete.

The winner of the five-minute contest will receive a trophy and a $1,750 prize with smaller amounts being awarded to the runners-up.

At noon, there will be an amateur eating contest with the winner of the 2-minute challenge getting the chance to contend with the competitive eaters in the championship.

The event will also include a DJ, activities for kids and a movie showing.

Georgetowner •

**Warby Barker**

APRIL 1ST, 2016 AT 04:00 PM | FREE | TEL: 202-618-5605

The designer eyewear shop hosts an April Fools party for dogs, where they can “sit” for their portraits, chow down and make new best friends.

Address
3225 M St. NW

**Rethinking Modernism Today**

APRIL 1ST, 2016 AT 01:00 PM | FREE | AMERICANARTPROGRAMS@SI.EDU | TEL: (202) 633-8490 | [EVENT WEBSITE](http://americanart.si.edu/calendar/event.cfm?trumbaEmbed=eventid%3D118057401%26view%3Devent%26-childview%3D%26returnUrl%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Famericanart.si.edu%252Fcalendar%252Fevent.cfm)

Hear prominent art historians and museum curators Barbara Haskell, Valerie Fletcher, and Randall Griffey discuss major American artists featured in the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Crosscurrents exhibition, including Georgia O’Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and David Smith, and explore their immersion in modernism, including the influence of their European counterparts.

Address
800 G Street NW

**By Catch By Hand**

APRIL 1ST, 2016 AT 06:00 PM | FREE | TEL: 202-333-4868

P Street Gallerie shows three collaborative works by vegan painter Dana Ellyn and sustainable couture fashion designer Lucy Tammam, along with examples of their individual creations. Work will also be on view on Saturday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Address
3235 P St. NW

**Sneaker Mania DMV**

APRIL 2ND, 2016 AT 12:00 PM | $20

More than 50 vendors will be buying, selling and trading thousands of pairs of exclusive shoes.

Address
Walter E. Washington Convention Center, 801 Mount Vernon Place NW.

**Ethan Parker Band at Gypsy Sally’s**

APRIL 2ND, 2016 AT 08:00 PM | FREE | TEL: 202-333-7700

The rhythm and folk band from Tampa performs to support its recently released “From the Mountains to the Sea” album and Project Primavera, a nonprofit that works with orphans and at-risk youth.

Address
3401 K St. NW

**Canadian Brass**

APRIL 3RD, 2016 AT 05:00 PM | TICKETS: $40. EACH | SAM@STJOHNSGEORGETOWN.ORG | TEL: 202-338-1796 | [EVENT WEBSITE](http://www.stjohnsgeorgetown.org/concertseries/)

Beyond their virtuosic musicality and technical superiority, “the world’s most famous brass group” possesses the creativity, unbeatable humor and genuine love of performing that has become the hallmark of the Canadian Brass. In an entertaining and diverse program, experience firsthand why this quintet deserves its impressive international reputation as the brightest ambassadors of the brass repertoire for the past four decades.

Address
St. John’s Episcopal Church, 3240 O St. NW.

**Malmaison Wedding Experience**

APRIL 3RD, 2016 AT 06:00 PM | $50 FOR ONE, $90 FOR TWO | TEL: 202-817-3340

This wedding showcase is an evening of hors d’oeuvres, desserts, champagne cocktails, flash fashion, hair and makeup touch ups, flowers and photography.

Address
Malmaison, 3401 Water St. NW.