Latest News

Georgetowner • January 11, 2016

Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy Lanier announced Thursday that her department would conduct new searches around the city for Relisha Rudd, a little girl who was eight years old when she went missing in March 2014.

“There’s nothing more important than trying to locate a missing child, and we want to make sure that we haven’t missed anything,” said Lanier, announcing that her department would search a construction site at New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road in Northeast and other areas that Lanier declined to provide details about. “We don’t want to leave any stone unturned here. This is our highest priority,” she said. According to MPD, the new searches were not prompted by tip from the public.

Relisha lived at a homeless shelter with her mother and siblings in SE D.C., and was last seen with Khalil Tatum, a janitor that worked at the shelter. After Relisha was reported missing, Tatum was found dead of a self-inflicted gun wound in a park in Northeast. In addition, police found Tatum’s wife’s body in a suburban Maryland motel shortly.

At time of print, Relisha, who would’ve turned 10 on Oct. 29, had not been found.

Georgetowner •

Sinatra’s Night at Living Room Live

December 10th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | Free | info@artsoiree.com | Tel: 202-470-2642 | Event Website

Celebrate 100th Birthday of Frank Sinatra with a one-night-only performance – Sinatra’s Centennial by Friends of Frank.

From “New York, New York” to “That’s Life”, Friends of Frank will perform Sinatra classics and audience favorites!

Seating is on the first come basis. Doors open 7pm. Live Performance start 8pm.

Address

The Ritz-Carlton, Georgetown; 3100 South Street NW

Hoppy Holidays presented by Drink The District

December 11th, 2015 at 06:00 PM | $35-$50 | tickets@drinkthedistrict.com | Tel: 202-618-3663 | Event Website

‘Tis the season to celebrate good friends and good fun with a bevy of beverages and live music. Keep warm with savory and sweet treats while you sample stouts, lagers and ales and ponder who’s been naughty or nice. Enjoy 3 hours of unlimited tastings of over 30 beers and unlimited full pours of 2 beers.

Session 1: FRIDAY, Dec 11th, 7pm-10pm

Session 2: SATURDAY, Dec 12th, 2pm–5pm

Session 3: SATURDAY, Dec 12th, 7pm-10pm

Address

The Ring Building; 1200 18th Street NW

Gas Station Horror

December 11th, 2015 at 10:00 PM

From NYC, Gas Station Horror is a high-energy improv show that turns terrible horror movies into excellent comedy. For this special edition they are bringing horror to the Holiday with films like Silent Night, Zombie Night.

Address

Source, 1835 14th St. NW

Age-Friendly DC Info Session

December 11th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | FREE | rebekah.smith@dc.gov | Tel: 202-727-0232 | Event Website

D.C. is on the way to becoming an age-friendly city. Come learn about the city’s Age-Friendly DC 2015 Progress Report and what you can do to help transform D.C. into an easier city to grow up and older.

The Age-Friendly D.C. plan includes 75 strategies that District agencies are implementing with support from community partners to make life easier for residents of all ages. For more information please visit the Age-Friendly D.C. website: http://agefriendly.dc.gov/

Address

Georgetown Neighborhood Library; 3260 R St NW

National Building Museum’s 35th Birthday!

December 12th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | Free

Thirty-five years ago today, an Act of Congress established the nation’s only museum dedicated to the history and impact of the built environment. To celebrate our birthday, we’re throwing open our doors and offering free admission to all, as well as birthday festivities throughout the day. Learn more at go.nbm.org/35years.

Address

401 F St NW

Christmas Mart

December 12th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | – | dumbartonpastor@yahoo.com | Tel: 202-333-7212 | Event Website

You can find holiday gifts and help with world peace and understanding by shopping at Dumbarton’s Christmas Mart on Saturday, December 12, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The Dumbarton United Methodist Church Youth group will be selling global, hand-made, fair trade items from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Local artists will offer a variety of their art, jewelry, and crafts. A portion of all sales goes to fund the 2016 youth work trip. The church is at 3133 Dumbarton St. NW, just off of Wisconsin Avenue.

Address

3133 Dumbarton St. NW

Tea with Santa

December 12th, 2015 at 11:00 AM | $30 | education@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 2023372288 | Event Website

Sit back, relax and let Santa’s helpers serve you during this magical holiday experience. Visit with Santa and hear a special holiday story. Families enjoy a delicious holiday tea complete with special holiday tea blends, hot apple cider, sandwiches and desserts. After taking tea, children decorate their own gingerbread cookies to take home.

Adult Member $25; Non-member $30; Children $20

Address

Dumbarton House, 2715 Q Street, NW

Cathedral Choral Society: Family Joy

December 12th, 2015 at 12:00 PM | $15-25 | lsheridan@cathedral.org | Tel: 202-537-2228 | Event Website](http://www.cathedralchoralsociety.org/)

Join us for a special Christmas concert! This one-hour program has something for all ages, including a kids-only sing-along. Bring the whole family and get swept up in the sounds of the season. Special guests: Children’s Chorus of Washington and American Youth Philharmonic Brass Ensemble.

Address

Washington National Cathedral; 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Saturday Showing – “Sylvester”

December 12th, 2015 at 01:00 PM | Tel: (540) 687-6542 | [Event Website](http://nationalsporting.org/)

We invite you to join us in the Founder’s Room for a showing of Sylvester. Admission is free and Popcorn Monkey will be on hand selling popcorn to accompany the film!

Address

National Sporting Library & Museum; 102 The Plains Road; Middleburg, VA 20117

Joy of Christmas

December 12th, 2015 at 04:00 PM | $25-77 | lsheridan@cathedral.org | Tel: 202-537-2228 | [Event Website](http://www.cathedralchoralsociety.org/)

Celebrate the warm spirit of the season in a majestic setting. A well-loved Washington, DC holiday tradition, this concert will include Christmas favorites and a festive carol sing-along. Program will feature a newly commissioned carol by British composer James Whitbourn.

Led by Music Director J. Reilly Lewis with Edward Nassor, carillon; Todd Fickley, organ; Lyric Brass Quintet; and Children’s Chorus of Washington.

Address

Washington National Cathedral; 3101 Wisconsin Ave. NW

A Celtic Christmas

December 12th, 2015 at 04:00 PM | $30-$35 | office@dumbartonconcerts.org | Tel: 2029652000, ext. 100 | [Event Website](http://www.dumbartonconcerts.org/tickets)

A Celtic Christmas. The Barnes and Hampton Consort, flutist Joseph Cunliffe, percussionist Steve Bloom, and radio celebrity Robert Aubry Davis return to Dumbarton Concerts with this annual Christmas tradition, featuring well-known pieces like “In the Bleak Midwinter”, traditional Irish music, and readings of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales” by Dylan Thomas, as well as other poems by Langston Hughes.

Address

3133 Dumbarton St. NW

A Candlelight Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols

December 13th, 2015 at 05:00 PM | FREE ADMISSION | sam@stjohnsgeorgetown.org | Tel: 202-338-1796 | [Event Website](http://www.stjohnsgeorgetown.org/)

Celebrate the season with this beloved holiday service of readings and music, in the tradition of King’s College, Cambridge. Performed in the serene and radiant beauty of candlelight, the program will feature music by Rutter and Willcocks in addition to traditional Christmas carols for all to sing.
Holiday Reception in Blake Hall following the service.

Free Admission

Early seating is advised

Childcare available

Address

St. John’s Episcopal Church; 3240 O St. NW

Washington Nationals Winterfest

Where: Walter E. Washington Convention Center 801 Mt. Vernon Place NW Washington, DC 20001

When: Saturday, December 12 and Sunday, December 13 (two days)

Time: 11:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. (time is the same for both days)

Tickets: Tickets purchased in advance at www.nationals.com/NatsWinterfest cost $30 for adults and $20 for children 12 and under, with prices increasing at the door. Tickets must be purchased separately for each individual day.

Description: The Nationals’ event of the offseason is now two-days. Open to fans of all ages, guests can enjoy holiday and baseball themed activities and interactive events, meet and greet their favorite Nationals players, take a photo with Santa, donate a toy to a child in need, enjoy their favorite ballpark concessions and much more.

More information can be found at www.nationals.com/NatsWinterfest

Robert Devaney •

Ri Ra Irish Pub at 3123 M St. NW has been shut down by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board Jan. 4 through Jan. 12 for “Sale to Minor Violation, Failed to Take Steps Necessary to Ascertain Legal Drinking Age.”

During the Nov. 18 hearing that meted out the punishment, the ABC Board “accepted an Offer In Compromise: $4,000 fine to be paid within 30 days. Charge I-$4,000 and Charge II -dismissed. Suspension of the license for 15 days, 9 days served and 6 days stayed. The suspension days are January 4-12, 2016. Indefinite suspension of the license if the fine is not paid by December 18, 2015, 5-0.”

Aside from the obligatory ABC placard taped to the Ri Ra window this week, the Ri Ra management also offered its own apology letter on its front door window—promising its customers and the community that such a violation would never happen again.

Georgetown Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Bill Starrels, who heads the group’s alcoholic beverage committee and in whose single-member district Ri Ra operates, commented on the restaurant’s temporary closure: “According to my constituents that usually frequent the pub, it seems to have changed since its first year and has a different clientele. On its opening day, the Ri Ra owners appeared to be a first-class act.”

The ABC Board is part of D.C.’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. Board members are Donovan Anderson (chair), Nick Alberti, Mike Silverstein, Ruthanne Miller and James Short.

Peter Murray •

The District Department of Transportation announced Friday that the prices for tickets related to traffic violations are going way up. Under the new proposal, exceeding the speed limit by 25 mph or over could cost you $1,000 while turning right on red without stopping could cost as much as $200.

Other newly proposed fines include $500 for drivers who fail to slow down or move out of the way for emergency vehicles and $100 for going over the speed limit near recreation and senior centers. There’s also a new $500 fine for failing to yield for buses reentering traffic.

The new proposal also includes fine increases for a number of violations regarding car-bike and car-pedestrian interactions. For example, the fine for hitting a bicyclist will increase from $50 to $500, parking in a bike lane will go from $65 to $200, hitting a pedestrian will cost $500 instead of $50, and failing to yield to a pedestrian before turning right on red will run $200 rather than $50.

DDOT proposed the new changes without the District Council’s input, a development that auto club AAA Mid-Atlantic questions. “DDOT is doing this through the regulator process,” said AAA’s John B. Townsend II. “Why not do it through the legislative process, where you can have public hearings?”

DDOT Director Leif Dormsjo told the Washington Post that there is no formal vote required by the Council on the changes, which are part of Mayor Bowser’s Vision Zero plans, but members can ask to amend or reject the proposed rules through the legislative process.

Bicycle and pedestrian advocate groups supported the proposal as a part of the larger Vision Zero initiative. They argue that stricter penalties will make D.C.’s roads safer for all users, whether they are pedestrians, bicyclists or drivers.

Under D.C. law, regulations can be changed after they are published in the D.C. Register twice, with a comment period of 30 days in between publications. So, while these rules are not final, they are currently in effect.

Robert Devaney • January 10, 2016

That fellow at Dog Tag Bakery just might be a veteran who has quite the story to tell. Some are more intense than others.
Lizandro Mateo-Ortiz and his wife Milena were part of the inaugural class of Dog Tag fellows. Army veteran Mateo-Ortiz barely survived being pulled under a Humvee in Iraq in 2007 and required many surgeries. He still walks with a brace and works with his wife of nearly 25 years. They have been in stories about the bakery.

Another story recalls the days of “Shock and Awe.” The newest Dog Tag fellow is 32-year-old Ayad Ahmed, who got swept up during the Battle of Baghdad in April 2003 . . . actually and harshly. His life changed forever. A bunker-busting bomb hit his street in the Mansour district, looking for Saddam Hussein on incorrect intelligence. The shock bombing killed his girlfriend and left his mother bleeding and grandfather in a coma. Eleven were killed. Ahmed was the only local who could speak English. Tough special operations soldiers grabbed Ahmed, tossed him in a Bradley fighting vehicle, threw a bullet-proof vest at him and told him to translate. None of the Americans spoke Arabic. Ahmed thought to himself: “You came all this way with no translator? What is Saddam doing in my garden, dude?”

His language skills saved the lives of some of his neighbors, whom he never saw again. “Everyone in the neighborhood hated me,” he said. There remains a bounty on his head, and he has never returned to Iraq. He lived with U.S. forces from 2003 until June 2009, when he left for Fort Riley, Kansas, for five years. “I was stuck with them.”

Ahmed became a U.S. citizen in November and wanted something more, he said, perhaps in Washington, D.C. While visiting the Pentagon, he stood in first of the office of Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, pondering his future. In a moment, Ahmed’s life would change again, when he was urged to contact Dog Tag, Inc. He began working at the bakery last week.

Georgetowner •

Dog Tag Bakery’s Can-Do Spirit Provides Jobs for Disabled Veterans, Along With Sweet and Savory Treats for All

“True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence.”—President Franklin Delano Roosevelt

FDR could have been speaking about Dog Tag Bakery, located on the perfectly named Grace Street, just past the C&O Canal below Wisconsin Avenue and M Street.

It’s an airy place, busy, with room enough to sit in style and ponder the world, take in really good cup of coffee, order up sandwiches, scones, sweets and soups, all while supporting veterans. You can see the bakers, the cooks, the people manning the cash register, the kitchen itself.

Here, the baguettes are exceptional, the chocolate cake great, the ginger pear torte exquisite and the soups super. This place is among the best in the city.

Yet this is more than your neighborhood coffee shop. When you step into Dog Tag Bakery — with its wide entrance for easy wheelchair access — you become a part of something larger than the time of the day, the aroma of coffee, the pleasantries, and stories shared around a table. Becoming a customer at Dog Tag Bakery lets you see the results of a unique program in action.
One of its slogans is “Baking a Difference.”

Dog Tag Bakery is part of Dog Tag Inc., which operates a six-month training program aimed squarely at “driven, entrepreneurial-minded wounded veterans and their spouses.” The program, through Georgetown University’s School of Continuing Studies, concludes with a group of fellows — all wounded veterans, or their spouses, and other professionals who have served in combat zones — well on their way to perhaps owning their own businesses or finding sustainable slots in the workplace. Its inaugural group of fellows has already graduated, and a second group started last month.

Dog Tag Bakery is a kind of physical, practical and workaday manifestation of the program, where veterans put their new business skills into practice: managing, keeping the kitchen running, preparing food, handling the counter. A chandelier of 3,456 dog tags is both a reminder of purpose and an additional way for customers to get involved. A $125 donation lets you hang one there too.
The program — which also features a lecture series and opportunities for wounded veterans to tell their own stories — is the first of its kind, a pilot program which its founders and operators hope to see duplicated in other cities.

Dog Tag has gotten a lot of attention from media, local and national, from the get-go. Its goals and the stories of the veterans are compelling. Retired Army Ranger Sedrick Banks, who had his neck broken in Iraq, told CBS News: “Dog Tag was my first major step back into the working mindset. Before the program, I didn’t have confidence. I didn’t feel like I had the ability. Now, I’m confident in myself, you know?”

The mission of Dog Tag has also earned the confidence and support from the likes of Mark and Sally Ein, Steve and Jean Case, Tammy Haddad, Roy and Kelley Schwartz, just to name a few.

Among the many human ingredients that go into Dog Tag’s operation are co-founders Rev. Richard Curry, S.J., and Constance Milstein; Chief Operating Officer Meghan Ogilvie; General Manager Justin Ford; Head Baker Rebecca Clerget; and Director of Development Simone Borisov.

Yet the most critical human ingredients are the fellows, the wounded veterans themselves, seeking doorways to enter the workforce, learn new skills, become entrepreneurs, become a part of the American mainstream. And that’s where the 72-year-old Father Curry comes in.

“He is the Jesuit father, and I am the Jewish godmother,” Milstein, one of Washington’s — and the country’s — leading philanthropists, told the crowd at the bakery’s grand opening in December. The attorney and real estate developer said she considers their partnership “a match made in heaven.” She is committed to helping veterans — her involvement with Blue Star Families is one example — and has also set up nonprofit bakeries in New York.

“It is because of my father, friends I lost in Vietnam, and those who continue to defend our freedom today that I am dedicated to our military and to helping empower and care for our military families,” Milstein has said.

It is Curry — a Jesuit brother who was ordained a priest at age 66 — who brings with him just what is needed to help disabled, wounded veterans. If there were degrees and medals in empathy, affinity, the ability to listen to and tell stories, Curry would have a fistful of them.

Curry founded, and headed for three decades, the National Theatre Workshop of the Handicapped, a nonprofit theater-arts training institution for persons with physical disabilities. Reaching out to disabled combat veterans, especially amputees, he began the Writers’ Program for Wounded Warriors, which encourages wounded veterans to tell their stories.

And, not to put too fine a point on it, he is technically disabled himself, having no right forearm. “I was born this way,” he told us in an interview at Dog Tag Bakery. He laughed. “I’m still wrestling with that. It still hurts.” But it also lets him understand with deep feeling, intellect and sometimes humor the plight of wounded veterans.

“Many people faced with a loss of a limb or internal organ internalize things. They can’t let it out,” he said. “And they think they won’t be able to do anything in life, all the things they could have done, all the tools to provide for a family. And that’s not true.”

“I don’t think of myself in terms of my disability,” Curry said. “And it’s important that our wounded warriors not be defined by their disabilities. This program is about confidence.”

Curry himself is a lot about building confidence — he exudes not so much strength as a kind of viability. He has that air of Irish curiosity about him, a conviviality that comes naturally, a love of the human race and its individual spirits.

In many ways, he is the heart of the Dog Tag enterprise, or at least its warmest cheerleader. The veterans themselves are the real stories, of course, and over the years Curry has managed to get them to tell their stories, time and again, in school and on stage; the stage at Dog Tag is one of his innovations.

“That was one of the reasons I started the wounded veterans’ writing program. There is this need for them to tell and write their stories,” Curry said. “Look what happened during the course and aftermath of the Vietnam War. The veterans, many of them badly wounded and maimed, and just as much psychologically, couldn’t tell their stories. Nobody wanted to hear them.

“This is about their stories as much as learning how to run a business, how to be part of a business,” he said. “So many buried their stories in silence and they have made us realize that war has its price.”

The need is obvious. Nearly 120 veterans applied for spots in the first group of fellows. Ten were chosen.

Curry decided to enter the priesthood after many of the wounded veterans he dealt with asked him to hear their confessions.

According to one story, a veteran asked him why he wasn’t a priest and Curry said he felt he had not been called. “Well, I’m calling you,” the man said to him.

Beyond his ability to administer the sacraments, Curry has written two books, “The Secrets of Jesuit Breadmaking” and “The Secrets of Jesuit Soupmaking.”

At Dog Tag Bakery, he’s already sharing his finely tuned Jesuit gift for compassion, hitched to intellectual curiosity and empathy, linked to worldly action. [gallery ids="102126,133741,133739" nav="thumbs"]

Peter Murray • January 9, 2016

After weighing a number of redevelopment options for the Franklin School at a special meeting on Nov. 16, the Advisory Neighborhood Commission, or ANC, with jurisdiction over the area, voted unanimously to support Georgetown University and Thoron Capital’s plan to turn the old school into new academic center focusing on technology and multi-media art. Previously, the school was slated to host a contemporary art museum but Mayor Muriel Bowser shelved those plans in February shortly after coming into office.

Four companies presented redevelopment proposals for the school, built in 1869, to the ANC. The crop of proposals included plans to turn the space into a co-working office space or a boutique hotel, with a focus on either the arts or on fine dining.

Georgetown’s plan, on the other hand, involves turning the space into “a technology, arts, and media center envisioned as the ‘Y Combinator start-up model meets Juilliard with live performance, educational activity, and a dynamic space where technologists, artists, and entrepreneurs come together,” according to the ANC. Robert Taylor, founder of Thoron Capital, explained to the Washington Post that the plan is based off “the idea of bringing different arts disciplines together and letting them play off of one another.”

Included in the plans are a performing arts hall run by the operators of Bohemian Caverns, a live music staple on U Street, an outdoor performance courtyard, and a restaurant facing 13th Street NW. According to Urban Turf, “there will also be community-based courses for Georgetown students which the public can audit, as well as a partnership with various public high schools in the city to teach and train youth and provide college students with community-based learning credits.”

Randall Bass, Georgetown vice provost for education, suggested to the Washington Post that a new university center at the Franklin School would help connect the school’s other downtown programs, like its continuing education campus near Mount Vernon Square and the Georgetown Law premises close to Union Station.

“We think that this is a really unique opportunity to be able to bring the music and film studies work to the heart of downtown,” he said to the Post.

Under the ANC’s recommended plan, Thoron would lease the old school from the city and undertake renovations, while Georgetown University would be the primary tenant. Thoron will consult with a number of experts on historic preservation for the project, but Taylor called the project a “comfortable undertaking” because it will not seek to “radically change the layout of the building.”

A panel within the Deputy Mayor of Planning & Economic Development’s office is in charge of the final decision on the building’s redevelopment. Bidders anticipate a decision by the end of the year and the Bowser administration aims to begin construction in 2017, around the same time that the National Park Service will be putting the finishing touches on its overhaul of Franklin Square Park.

Robert Devaney • January 6, 2016

Pre-parties, post-parties and brunches, as usual, surrounded the annual White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner at the Washington Hilton on Connecticut Avenue April 27. Friday night parties involved a Creative Coalition Coalition and Lanmark Technology, Inc., dinner at Neyla, a Vote Latino reception at the Hay Adams and a People-Time party at the St. Regis. On Saturday afternoon, Tammy Haddad’s brunch at Mark Ein’s place on R Street created more buzz. At the Hilton, several receptions went on before the dinner bells chimes. Afterwards, Bloomberg-Vanity Fair, Capitol File and MSNBC parties commenced. On Sunday, more brunches by Politico on Q Street and Reuters and Yahoo at the Hay Adams. Besides the parties and dinners, Georgetowners spied WHCA dinner headliner Conan O’Brien on P Street and Korean rapper Psy in front of the Four Seasons Hotel. [gallery ids="101272,148463,148457,148451,148445,148438,148431,148425,148419,148413,148475,148406,148480,148399,148485,148490,148469" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney • December 22, 2015

Cardinal Donald Wuehl, Archbishop of Washington, was the main celebrant of the Dec. 6 Mass, which formally installed the 52nd pastor of Holy Trinity Church, Rev. C. Kevin Gillespie, S.J. Founded in 1787, Holy Trinity on 36th Street NW is the oldest Catholic parish in Washington, D.C. Formerly the president of St. Joseph’s University, Gillespie also taught religious studies and coached baseball at Gonzaga College High School and Georgetown Prep.

Robert Devaney •

At the Nov. 30 meeting of the Georgetown-Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission, representatives of DC Water, also known as the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority, stood in front of a table of commissioners and were scolded like schoolboys.

What was the problem? If you live or drive along P Street on the east side of Georgetown, you have no doubt experienced the slow progress of the water work, digging and repaving.

P Street resident and commissioner Monica Roache criticized DC Water representatives, who said they were also frustrated and wanted the pace of work quickened — and put the blame on their contractors. Roache and her neighbors got the noise and parking restrictions reduced. After months of disruption, streets around 27th and P were fully paved and smooth this week.