Latest News

Chuck Baldwin • September 23, 2015

Georgetowner Andrew Kohut, co-founder and first president of the organization that would become the Pew Research Center — arguably the most accurate and unbiased polling company — died Sept. 8 following a long battle with leukemia. He was 73.

Known by his peers as uncommonly nonpartisan in the methods he used to accurately poll the public, he never belittled the opinions of his subjects. Not content with “liberal,” “conservative” and “independent,” he developed an evolving categorical system of up to 12 types of voters, based in part on how they acquire the information that informs their opinions, which he called “political typography.”

Donations in Kohut’s memory should be directed (with a notation specifying that they are made in his memory) to Friends of Rose Park, 1404 27th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20007.

Georgetowner •

Perhaps the most famous movie about Georgetown will be commemorated Oct. 30 by a special plague 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 (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.

Peter Murray •

Starting at 8:30 a.m. on Sept. 15, restaurant owners in Georgetown and other interested parties can put their hat in the ring to obtain the last of 68 liquor licenses allowed in the neighborhood. According to the D.C. Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration, the license became available after a liquor license application for a restaurant in town was withdrawn Sept. 9.

Applications must be submitted in person to the Frank D. Reeves Municipal Center at 2000 14th Street, NW, Suite 400 South, and will be reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis.

Georgetowner •

Shop Local for Eileen Fisher at The Phoenix

September 17th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | Tel: (202) 338-4404

From September 17th – 19th, Join us in celebrating Eileen Fisher’s Fall 2015 Shop Local Event. Receive 10 percent off your full priced Fall Eileen Fisher purchase and enter to win one of 12 Gift Bags filled with goodies from your neighborhood businesses! 10 percent of all Eileen Fisher sales benefit Women for Women International.

Address

1514 Wisconsin Ave NW

“20th Century People”

September 18th, 2015 at 10:00 AM | Free | info@oldprintgallery.com | Tel: 2029651818 | Event Website

The gallery’s fall show, 20th Century People, will open on Friday, September 18th and remain on view through November 14. The exhibit is a compendium of “people in prints” by some of the most celebrated 20th century American printmakers. Creating in a time when the art world was pushing towards abstract expressionism and modernism, these artists stayed rooted in a sort of inherent figural humanism.

Address

The Old Print Gallery; 1220 31st Street, N.W.

The Andrew & Mary P. O’Neal Cares Project Benefit Concert

September 19th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | $65 | Event Website

WCJS Radio and the Andrew and Mary P. O’Neal Cares Project will sponsor a benefit concert featuring D.C.’s own, Lori Williams and Steve Washington, and a special appearance by, Scott “Bugs” Allen and 3rd Scenario. The event will be held at The American University Katzen Arts Center, Abramson Family Recital Hall, 4400 Mass. Ave., N. W., Washington, DC. All proceeds from this event will go to two well deserving non-profits: Ghanaian Mothers’ Hope and Innocents At Risk. Tickets for the show are now on sale.

Address

The Katzen Arts Center; 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW

Das Bier Bash presented by Drink The District

September 19th, 2015 at 01:00 PM | $35-$50 | ilovebeer@drinkthedistrict.com | Tel: 2026183663 | Event Website

Tighten your lederhosen, raise your stein and prepare for the wurst at this ode to Deutschland. Das Bier Bash offers a heady mix of traditional German food, games, and music that will have you dancing to the oompah in no time.

The following items are included in your ticket:

Unlimited tastings of over 75 beers

Lawn games like corn hole, flip cup, and beer pong

Access to awesome local food trucks

Live entertainment all day

Address

The Block; 500 New York Avenue NW

Fifth Annual Park After Dark

September 19th, 2015 at 06:00 PM

Mark your calendars for a special evening under the stars to benefit the C&O Canal National Historical Park.

Address

Historic Great Falls Tavern, Potomac, MD

Wolf Trap Hosts Annual Charity Ball In Partnership with the Embassy of Italy

September 19th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | $750 for individuals, with access to a VIP Reception starting at $1,500 | Tel: (703) 255-1900 | Event Website

Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts will host the 2015 Wolf Trap Ball, this Saturday, September 19, 2015 on the Filene Center stage at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. Hosted in partnership with the Embassy of Italy and in cooperation with the National Park Service, this year’s Ball honors the thriving arts and culture of Italy. As Wolf Trap Foundation’s largest annual fundraiser, the Ball and its proceeds benefit the Foundation’s nationally recognized arts and education programs.

Address

Filene Center Stage; 1635 Trap Rd, Vienna, VA 22182

Sunday Serenity: Fall Yoga in the Park

September 20th, 2015 at 09:30 AM | $5 | education@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 2023372288 | Event Website

Sunday Serenity continues through the fall! Join local yoga instructor Lauren Jacobs in the East Park at Dumbarton House, which provides a serene, tree covered outdoor space, for this 60 minute all-levels vinyasa flow class that should be fun and challenging for both experienced yogis and yoga skeptics alike! Bring your own mat.

Address

2715 Q Street, NW

Jane Austen Tea

September 20th, 2015 at 01:00 PM | $30 | education@dumbartonhouse.org | Tel: 2023372288 | Event Website

Enjoy one of the Regency Era’s favorite past times – afternoon tea! You are cordially invited to join Mrs. Bennett for a spirited discussion of Austen’s works and enjoy a lively period appropriate tea while learning the history of taking tea in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This afternoon tea is complete with tea sandwiches, scones, and assorted desserts. Arrive early to tour the historical Federal period house museum.

Tickets must be purchased in advance.

Address

2715 Q Street, NW

Lifestyle Seminar presented by Quarry Springs

September 20th, 2015 at 11:00 AM | Free | christine.basso@sothebysrealty.com | Tel: 2023022508 | Event Website

Real estate experts from TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, moving professionals from Town & Country Movers, and home consultants from TAD Relocation will discuss transitioning from an estate home to a luxury estate condominium.

Address

8101 River Road, Bethesda, MD.

Washington Bach Consort presents “Mass Appeal”

September 20th, 2015 at 03:00 PM | Tel: 202-429-2121 | Event Website

Washington Bach Consort presents “Mass Appeal”

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):

Mass in A Major, BWV 234

Sanctus in D Major, BWV 238

Kyrie in F Major, BWV 233a

Mass in G Major, BWV 236

Katelyn Aungst, soprano

Sarah Davis Issaelkhoury, mezzo-soprano

Robert Petillo, tenor

Steven Combs, bass

All programs are subject to change without notice.

Address

National Presbyterian Church; 4101 Nebraska Avenue NW

Landmark Society Author Coffee: Novelist Mary Louise Kelly and ‘The Bullet’

September 21st, 2015 at 09:30 AM | $0-20 | fherman@tudorplace.org | Tel: 202-580-7321 | Event Website

Join a personal conversation with renowned writer and Georgetowner Mary Louise Kelly about “The Bullet,” a heart-pounding story of fear, family secrets, and one woman’s hunt for answers about her parents’ murder. The author will share the inspiration for her latest novel, about beautiful professor Caroline Cashion, who discovers a bullet lodged at the base of her skull. Kelly weaves a captivating tale of mystery and suspense as her heroine uncovers the truth behind “The Bullet.”

Address

1644 31st Street, NW

Michael Wilbon & James Brown Celebrity Roast Celebrating Gary Williams

September 22nd, 2015 at 05:30 PM | $500 | kaylan.somerville@dcccap.org | Tel: 202-503-2662 | Event Website

Join Michael Wilbon and James Brown for an evening of laughter and inspiration benefiting the DC College Access Program (DC-CAP) as we celebrate basketball coaching legend Gary Williams of the University of Maryland. Comcast SportsNet’s Chick Hernandez will emcee as celebrity roasters share humorous stories about Coach William’s career on and off the court. Before the dinner/roast, a silent auction will feature priceless celebrity memorabilia, sporting event tickets, travel, and more.

Address

JW Marriott; 1331 Pennsylvania Ave., NW

LGBT Shorts

September 17th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | $12-$15 | intern@kendrarubinfeldpr.com | Tel: 202-681-1151 | Event Website

The LGBT community is so important to the fabric of DC culture, so join us in celebrating our pride with a special collection of films highlighting the LGBT experience or made by emerging LGBT filmmakers. Presented in partnership with Reel Affirmations.

Address

Landmark Theatres E Street Cinema; 555 11th Street NW

Robert Devaney • September 18, 2015

Concern about excessive airplane noise over Georgetown, the Palisades and other neighborhoods on the northern bank of the Potomac River has united sometimes disagreeing groups to the point of going to court.

Over the past year, complaints have mounted as with more airplane flights have gone in and out of Reagan National Airport. Some airplanes’ routes have shifted north over Northwest Washington instead of flying straight along the river to and from National Airport — and “NextGen” flight paths are proposed to shift north.

Neighborhood groups and Georgetown University petitioned the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Aug. 24 “for review of final decisions by the Federal Aviation Administration (‘FAA’) to permanently implement certain flight arrival and departure routes at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (‘DCA’) in violation of the National Environmental Policy Act (‘NEPA’) and with addressing — and, in some cases, without even responding to — significant concerns raised by Petitioners and their members,” according to a Petition for Review, obtained by The Georgetowner.

Petitioners include Georgetown University, the Citizens Association of Georgetown, Burleith Citizens Association, Foxhall Citizens Association, Hillandale Citizens Association, Colony Hill Citizens Association, Palisades Citizens Association, Foogy Bottom Citizens Association and Georgetown University Student Association.

Respondents include the FAA and its administrator Michael Huerta.

The petition continues: “The University, its resident students and the Neighborhoods and their residents have suffered — and will continue to suffer — significant, adverse impacts as a result of the FAA’s flight arrival and departure routes. FAA’s decision with respect to the flight arrival and departure routes was finalized, published and implemented by the FAA on June 25, 2015, as reflected on the list of route decisions on FAA’s online flight procedures data portal.”

According to some neighborhood leaders, “Since the summer of 2013, some of the communities started noticing increased noise and vibrations from flights going in and out of Reagan over their homes. It has become intolerable since then and well into what used to be regarded as ‘curfew hours’ in D.C. from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. Because Reagan National Airport (DCA) is no longer deemed a regional airport and because of multiple exceptions to the perimeter rule, it has available slots 24/7, which are starting to be used by multiple airlines. Flights now start as early as 5:20 am and arrivals are well past midnight with greater frequency.”

“The petition for review filed on behalf non-profit neighborhood groups,” another leader continued, “seeks to overturn certain arrival and departure routes approved by the FAA for National Airport.  The basis for this claim is that the FAA relies upon an environmental assessment drafted in 2013 and a subsequent finding of no significant impact without any actual analysis of the recently published routes that have begun to be used this spring and summer or the cumulative effects of other decisions which have increased traffic and noise. Aircraft noise sensors were not moved to new alignments for arrival and departure routes.  The 2013 environmental assessment is not a valid basis on which to publish these new routes.”

One community activist told The Georgetowner, “The MWAA [Metropolitian Washington Airport Authority] and the FAA have not been good neighbors and we believe they have sought to obfuscate the issues we have presented to them since our first meeting. . . . Rather than listening to the community, the FAA has doubled down on its new routes. We understand that the agency plans to implement more routes over more parts of D.C. through the remainder of 2015. We are extremely concerned about this, and we hope other neighborhoods throughout the District will join us in seeking a resolution of this matter.”

Georgetowner •

1984

August 27th, 2015 at 07:30 PM | $20-108 | stcbox@shakespearetheatre.org | Tel: 202.547.1122 | Event Website

A new adaptation of the classic by George Orwell created by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan. 1984 was originally produced by Headlong, Nottingham Playhouse, and Almeida Theatre

April, 1984. 13:00. Comrade 6079, Winston Smith, thinks a thought, starts a diary, and falls in love. But Big Brother is watching—and the door to Room 101 can swing open at any time. Orwell’s vision of a dystopian future is brought to life in a radical multimedia production by the U.K.’s acclaimed Headlong theatre company.

Address

The Lansburgh Theatre
450 7th Street, NW
Washington, D.C.

Kristin Chenoweth
August 28th, 2015 at 08:00 PM | Event Website

With a voice that “slices through the stratosphere like a supersonic jet,” (The New York Times) this Tony- and Emmy-winning star takes center stage, performing theatre and pop standards, as well as songs off her 2014 album, Coming Home.
Address

Filene Center
1551 Trap Road
Vienna, Virginia

“Brews for Books” Fundraiser at Mr. Smith’s
August 31st, 2015 at 04:00 PM | Free; $10 donation suggested | marketing@bankofgeorgetown.com | Tel: 2023551200 | Event Website

Join Bank of Georgetown for “Brews for Books” at Mr. Smiths! This happy hour benefits First Book, a nonprofit that puts new books in the hands of low-income kids. Enjoy drink specials & half price appetizers; a $10 donation provides 4 new books to a needy child. Donate online.

The event is part of “Give Back: Tenfold,” Bank of Georgetown’s anniversary service initiative that supports 10 local nonprofits through unique projects and donation drives.Member FDIC

Address

Mr. Smith’s of Georgetown
3205 K Street, NW
Washington, D.C.

4:00-9:00 PM

Fairfax Choral Society Youth & Adult Auditions
September 1st, 2015 at 06:00 AM | No cost to audition. Contact Office for Tuition & Dues Information | office@fairfaxchoralsociety.org | Tel: 703-642-3277 | Event Website

With ten ensembles and more than fifteen musicianship classes, FCS provides opportunities to nearly 400 choral singers from preschool through adult.

FCS will hold auditions and voice checks for our Youth and Adult Programs during the month of September. Please email office@fairfaxchoralsociety.org or call 703-642-3277 to schedule an audition time. Locations: Fairfax (Adult), Annandale, Herndon, Centreville (Youth).
Address

Fairfax (Adult), Annandale, Herndon, Centreville (Youth)

Chuck Baldwin •

With the District’s homicide rate now hitting 105, last year’s total for the year, the DC Police Union held a confidential vote asking members whether they had confidence in D.C. Police Chief Cathy Lanier to manage the resources of the police department and keep residents safe — and 1,122 voted “no.” Only 28 voted “yes.”

At least 10 shootings occurred in the past week with two resulting in deaths, despite Lanier’s All Hands on Deck initiative in which all available officers are on the streets for 48 hours. One victim, 13-year-old Taije Chambliss, was wounded while walking home from the library at 6:45 p.m. when she was hit by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting near Eastern Market in Southwest D.C.

According to union sources, the lack of information provided by informants, which the union says are a result of Lanier’s policies moving all of D.C.’s drug and vice investigations into a single centralized narcotics unit and eliminating plain-clothes vice officers, as the root of the surge in crime. Resignations by disgruntled officers, along with retirements, have also created staff shortages that add to the force’s inability to control gun violence.

Mayor Muriel Bowser continues to back Lanier. “After 25 years of policing these streets, deploying officers and strategies, building a force of highly qualified officers and police leaders, in the good times and the tough times, too, I have every confidence in Chief Lanier,” she said in a statement released by her office.

Gary Tischler •

One man, with almost tender, compassionate and literary style, wrote about the human brain. Another man gave us nightmares.

OLIVER SACKS

Oliver Sacks, who died of cancer at the age of 82, is listed principally as a neurologist, as is Ben Carson, one of many who seeks the Republican nomination for president. He was in truth, quite a bit more than that.  His practice was medicine, but he explored it further through research, through unparralled writing, through books and an empathy that more closely resembled that of a poet.

Sacks explored the pathways and byways of his specialty by writing books about peculiar, often unstudied neurological disorders and thus made millions of people acquainted with them.   He was not merely a popularizer of difficult subjects—he was a story teller of case studies who became so widely read that his books hit the best seller lists, became movies (“Awakenings” with Robin Williams, for one). Scientists and  some his peers sometimes sneered at this, but his readers were rewarded by gaining access to people and themes and subjects that had never occurred to them as objects of exploration.  He was, in some ways, like a travel writer exploring byways, sanctuaries for creatures and people lost to the world.

He called his books “neurological novels” about unusual people with unusual burdens to bear—“The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat,” about a man who could not understand what his eyes saw, for instance, or the aforementioned “Awakenings”.  He wrote about everything and in the best of literary writing, made the extraordinary available to ordinary people and the ordinary extraordinary. He wrote “Seeing Voices” about the uses of language and perceptions of it by the deaf. He wrote about himself, too, including the dying of the light that was his journey to death.  Would that there could be a book from where he might have gone.

WES CRAVEN

Wes Craven, who died at the age of 76 of brain cancer, was one of the early practitioners of what can be called contemporary horror films,  those explicit, scary and films with teens in peril, haunted, chased and often eviscerated by big men with sharp objects.

Craven scared us to begin with with “The House on the Left in 1972 and then with “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” his most famous and acclaimed film. He often worked with Sean S. Cunningham, the creator of the “Friday the 13th Series,” and they worked together on the inevitable film “Freddy vs Jason,” which brought together the bloody protagonists of their two best films.  Hard to remember now who won.

He also directed what was probably his most lucrative film, “Scream,” which seemed almost a sendup of horror films while delivering the shocks.

The New York Horror Film Festival awarded Craven a lifetime achievement award.