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Robert Devaney • September 29, 2014

The District Department of Transportation has begun off-peak single-lane closures on eastbound Canal Road, NW, between Foxhall Road and the Whitehurst Freeway, weather permitting.

These single-lane closures on eastbound Canal Road, NW, will occur on weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. and from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.

These closures will allow DDOT crews to repair a wall area along Canal Road, NW, and install a guardrail along the corridor. DDOT expects the project and associated lane closures to be completed in July 2015.

DDOT advises all motorists to be alert, while traveling through this location and be observant of the work personnel. Traffic controls will be in place to warn motorists as they approach the area.

For more information, please contact Project Manager James Sellars at 202-391-8207.

Dana Farrior •

Fret not because you forgot to feed the meter, you have a spot at the annual Park(ing) Day, Friday, Sept. 19.

In the last couple of years with the help of the Georgetown Business Improvement Development, Georgetown have taken on the parklet project, allowing residents, designers and businesses alike to construct their very own public space. Also, involved are the Downtown and Golden Triangle BIDs for their neighborhoods.

Park(ing) Day’s inception in San Francisco 2005, originated with Rebar Art Studios desire to inspire people to reimagine the environment and their place in it. Its vision is to temporarily convert meter spaces into public parks generating new forms of communal space. What started as a single locale has launched into a global movement with more than 100 cities on over four continents involved.

“The Georgetown BID is excited to see the neighborhood enthusiasm for parklets – a concept that is outlined as an important tool for improving public space in the BID’s Georgetown 2028 Plan,” said the BID’s William Handsfield.

The Georgetown businesses participating are Luke’s Lobsters at 1211 Potomac St., NW, and Baked and Wired at 1052 Thomas Jefferson St., NW, and Flor at 1037 33rd St., NW, near Cady’s Alley.

Patrons of Luke’s will be able to take advantage of food and drink specials that will debut its beer, wine and cocktails offerings. Baked & Wired chose to take a slightly different approach, making their space more interactive by including buckets filled with chalk. Visitors will be able to draw and write messages in the park, allowing the green space to be a forum to bring the community together.

For more information, visit the Park(ing) Day project at www.parkingday.org.

Gary Tischler •

In Washington, a company town of a very special sort, lobbyists and lawyers have a very special place.

In the rest of the great wide country outside Washington, lobbyists and lawyers are the epitome of Washington insiders—the fixers and wheeler dealers who control policy and money.

Thomas Hale Boggs, Jr.—he was called “Tommy” in his youth, and the nickname survived into his adulthood—was the kind of man who carried the aura of an insider, while having an outsider’s outsized personality. He was a warm man who knew politics better than any politician, who came from a time-honored political family, a man of the South (Louisiana) who wore his Washington persona (Georgetown University graduate) like a really good suit that fit him well. He was a big supporter of the Georgetown Senior Center. Unpretentious, friendly, a talker, he headed the firm of Patton-Boggs, a legal firm which took its lobbying duties to high levels.

Boggs, who died unexpectedly at 73 this week, was the kind of man who could probably convince the anti-lobbying and lawyer-joke people in the world that he was an honorable man working in an honorable profession, because that’s exactly what he was and what he believed.

“Tommy was a terrific guy, a very smart guy and a quintessential Washington person in the best sense of the word,” said Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans, who has been of counsel with Patton-Boggs for the past 13 years.

“He was always willing to help out.” Evans said. “He had the personal touch and this gift for bringing people who disagreed with each other together. He wasn’t an ideologue. He worked with Republicans and with Democrats, although he was a lifelong Democrat. He was a classy man, who gave lobbyists a good name by example.”

At the Palms, where Boggs frequently squired clients and friends—and those things seemed to follow one another, they set his table in black, out of courtesy and as a way of celebrating the man.

Given his family and background, it’s a wonder Boggs didn’t become an elected official, a senator or governor. His father, Hale Boggs, was the House Majority Leader, his mother Lindy was a nine-term congresswoman, and his sister Cokie Roberts was a national television journalist. The man he worked for on his first sojourn to Washington was none other than Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn. Young Boggs worked the Speaker’s elevator.

Hale Boggs was killed in a plane crash in Alaska in 1972. His mother, in addition to winning a special election to succeed her husband in the House of Representatives, was named as President Bill Clinton’s ambassador to the Vatican. She died last year at the age of 97.

While advancing and looking out for the interests of a varied group of clients, which included all manners of industries from oil, to drug and insurance companies, he managed always to be something more than K Street royalty. He was the kind of man who didn’t let politics per se get in the way of business or friendships maintained and new acquaintenances made and kept.

That kind of approach would be well suited today to the politics of the times, and it’s sadly lacking, a time where impasse and deadlock seem to prevail more often than not. Politicians are called by that name: because with politicians these days, it’s always about politics.

Boggs succeeded precisely because—although his stock and trade was to ease the path to the doorways of influence,which included knowing whom to call, have for lunch, and having his calls answered—he hardly ever let politics be the deciding factor of his life. Lobbyists, it seemed, on K Street were about knowing politicians, without necessarily embracing politics.

Gary Tischler • September 19, 2014

Finally, there was a debate, and just in the nick of time, what with only a little more than a month left before voters decide who is going to be the next Mayor of the District of Columbia.

You might cherish the memories you have of this debate, held at a Katzen Hall auditorium at American University, given that front-runner in the polls Ward 4 Councilmember Muriel Bowser, who won the Democratic  Primary and has a hefty lead in the polls over challengers has said flatly that she will participate in only four debates, including Thursday’s affair at AU.

She is being challenged by Independents David Catania, a prominent at-large District councilmember, and former councilmember and frequent mayoral candidate Carol Schwartz, bidding to be back all the way after a six-year absence from the political and electoral scene.

It’s been months since Bowser won the primary over incumbent Mayor Vincent Gray—still under the shadow of suspicion for his 2010 campaign—and other challengers including Ward 2 councilmember Jack Evans and Ward 6 councilmember Tommy Wells. During that in-between time, there have been no candidate forums, a lot of posturing and position statements, the arrival of Schwartz bidding for a political comeback, Bowser going hither and yon throughout the community—and sometimes the country—and Catania delivering position statements and being a very active councilmember and producing a 126-pages position booklet, detailing his proposals for how he would govern the city.

There’s been a great deal of anticipation about the first debate, and the possibility that it might be a volatile affair. 

Bowser was buoyed by the news of a hefty lead over her rivals in a Washington Post-NBC News-Marist poll which came out the day before and had 43 percent of likely D.C. voters favoring Bowser, with 26 percent for Catania and 16 percent for Schwartz. Catania has questioned the poll, saying an in-house poll of his campaign showed the race to be much closer.

The so-called debate—billed as a conversation with the candidates—was moderated by NBC newsman Tom Sherwood, a veteran of such affairs and included a panel of Washington Post political writer Clinton Yates and WAMU reporters Patrick Madden and Kavitha Cardozo.

Sherwood, at times, took on the aspects of a no-nonsense and sometimes frustrated cowboy, herding and snapping a whip, as he tried to make both the candidates and the audience behave. He had little patience for excessive clapping, candidates interrupting each other or breaking the time limit, although the candidates, as they are wont to do, did just that and often.

It’s fair to say that nobody won this affair, and that nobody was mortally wounded either.  Verbal shots were fired to be sure, and some of them even nicked their targets. Much of what happened was predictable, and the fresher aspects and revelations, while unexpected, were not of the “Stop the presses or put it on Twitter” kind.

Bowser, in basic black and pearls, came on strong and confident, offering to lead securely a changing city that was financially well off, promising that everyone would benefit and that in a boom town, nobody should and would be left behind.  Catania in quite the blue suit, stood up every time he talked, while Schwartz and Bowser sat. He presented himself as the man with the experience, the man who had done more for education and made more education legislation than anyone else, while painting Bowser as a legislative light weight, which she vehemently denied.  Schwartz in her own inimitable style—down to earth, warm, but also tough when need be—recalled that she was an education champion long before anyone else, that she was for the worker and took positions which in the end cost her her job. “I knew it wasn’t politic to do that, but I did it anyway,” Schwartz said.

Yet who knew Catania, for instance, has never gone to a Nationals baseball game, even though he was once a left-handed second baseman?  Catania fought the battle against the baseball team and stadium because “I didn’t think it was a good deal to have the owners pay nothing and the city everything.”  Bowser suggested that the reason Catania did not go to a game was that he was still angry about losing the fight.  “It kind of speaks to his temperament,”  she said.

Bowser complained that Catania was trying to take credit for everything. “Next thing you know he’ll take credit for the blue skies and rolling seas,” she said.

Other odd things came up. Yates asked in the interests of finding out something new: “If you had to give up your car, how would you travel in the city—Metro rail, bus or bicycle?”  Bowser said she loved and preferred to travel by bus, Catania and Schwartz would take the Metro.  “Let me get this straight,” Yates asked. “No bicycles?” 

It was a strange reaction, given that there’s been quite a bit of controversy about a veritable boom in bicycle use and rentals. “I think it’s a great thing, and I believe in a growing transportation system in which everyone obeys all the laws, stops for stop signs and red lights,” Schwartz said.

They were asked—by Yates again—what one book they would have students read.  Bowser suggested Barack Obama’s “The Audacity of Hope.” Catania said, “I wouldn’t want to tell  a student what to read. I’d want them to make their own choice.”   Schwartz chose Charles Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities,” which she felt resonated in this city, which has yet to become one city.  This is the book that begins with “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” which in this town is always true.

Round one of four rounds had its entertainment values and its informational rewards, but as a brawl, nobody walked out limping. [gallery ids="101859,138026" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney • September 18, 2014

Yes, the flag is most definitely still here — and for 200 years.

The 200th anniversary of the writing of the song by Georgetowner Francis Scott Key that became the nation anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” was given the highest salute Sept. 13 and Sept. 14 at the place where it all came together, Fort McHenry and Baltimore, Md., during the War of 1812.

Penned after the British Navy stopped the bombardment of Fort McHenry, which guarded Baltimore and its harbor, and departed the Chesapeake region, “The Star-Spangled Banner” was an instant hit and aptly described the scene and feelings of onlookers on Sept. 13 and Sept. 14, 1814.

Over the weeklong celebrations, the Star-Spangled Spectacular in Baltimore told the history of Baltimore’s role in the war and how the city’s defenders stymied the British, as it hosted tall ships and navy vessels from the U.S. and other nations. The Inner Harbor was festooned with banners, full of vendors, events and visitors. Proud Baltimore rolled out the red-white-and-blue carpet for all and looked its very best.

Highlights of the bicentennial parties were the Sept. 13 evening show in front of Fort McHenry with fireworks as the finale and Sunday morning’s “By the Dawn’s Early Light Flag-Raising Ceremony,” performed to the moment when the Star-Spangled Banner was seen 200 years ago to the relief of defenders and Francis Scott Key.

The Sept. 13 events included a stamp release ceremony by the U.S. Postal Service — a “Forever” stamp which depicts the shelling of Fort McHenry in 1814 — and an air show by the U.S. Navy Blue Angels.

The evening’s program included a major performance by the U.S. Marine Band, the “President’s Own,” as well as singing by the Morgan State University Chorus. Local politicians welcomed the crowd, including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, Gov. Martin O’Malley and Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, who was hospitalized overnight due to a respiratory infection. “I pushed myself a bit too hard, given all the excitement around Star Spangled Spectacular and the tremendous opportunity the festivities presented to showcase the very best of Baltimore,” Rawlings-Blake said.

After spirited and witty remarks by the ambassadors of former enemies, Canada’s Gary Doer and Britain’s Peter Westmacott, the evening’s last speaker was Vice President Joe Biden, who gave a final, rousing address for the flag: “Does the Star-Spangled Banner still wave? Did it wave … at Normandy … at Ground Zero? … It will wave and not just wave … it is in our hearts.”

And, then, there were fireworks above the fort, the best ever in Baltimore, which one news photographer proclaimed as “the best I’ve ever seen.”

The next morning, with the Third U.S. Infantry, U.S. Army “Old Guard” howitzers, Fort McHenry Guard Field Music and the U.S. Navy Band on hand with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, also a retired general, a 30-foot-by-42-foot replica of the original Star-Spangled Banner garrison flag, was raised at the exact moment of its hoisting 200 years ago.

Yes, the flag was most definitely still there, thanks to the defenders of Fort McHenry — and their brave story, remembered to this day, recorded by and thanks to Washingtonian and Georgetowner Francis Scott Key and his “Star-Spangled Banner.”
[gallery ids="101853,138232,138228,138223,138219,138213,138241,138245,138249,138236" nav="thumbs"]

The Georgetowner •

Georgetown University broke ground Sept. 12 on a new state-of-the-art athletic facility, named after legendary Hoyas men’s basketball coach John R. Thompson Jr. Although the tennis courts next to McDonough Arena are gone, they will return in the four-story, 144,000-square-foot John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center, slated for completion in August 2016.

The following are more details from Georgetown University about the groundbreaking.

Standing on the site where a building will be built bearing his name, former Georgetown University Head Men’s Basketball Coach John Thompson Jr. was joined by family, friends and many former players as ground was officially broken for the John R. Thompson Jr. Intercollegiate Athletics Center Sept. 12.

The $62-million project will be completely supported through philanthropy. The four-story, 144,000-square-foot Thompson Center will be constructed adjacent to McDonough Arena and include practice courts, team meeting rooms, men’s and women’s basketball coaches’ offices, and weight-training and sports medicine rooms for all varsity athletes. The new facility also includes a Student-Athlete Academic and Leadership Center, an auditorium, team meeting facilities for varsity programs and a new venue for the Georgetown Athletics Hall of Fame.

More than 500 people – including former players such as Patrick Ewing, Dikembe Mutombo, Alonzo Mourning and Allen Iverson, all of whom played for Thompson, Jr., and more recent players ranging from Jeff Green, Roy Hibbert, Otto Porter Jr. and Henry Sims, who played for current Head Coach John Thompson III – came to the site for the official groundbreaking of the facility.

The morning started with a welcome from the Hoyas’ current head coach, who introduced Director of Intercollegiate Athletics Lee Reed.

The invocation was conducted by Edward Glynn, S.J., the president emeritus at Gonzaga University, St. Peter’s College and John Carroll University. He was followed on the dais by William J. Doyle, the chair of the “For Generations to Come” campaign, Irene Shaw, member of the Board of Regents, Paul Tagliabue, Chair of the Board of Directors, Emily Hall (president of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee) and Frank Rienzo, Intercollegiate Athletics Director Emeritus.

Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia introduced Thompson. “We are different and better than we were 42 years ago when John Thompson joined this community,” he said. “John provided us with a new way to imagine, to interpret our values and enabled all of us to see possibilities for what we could be that had not been realized before he joined this community.”

When Thompson stood to take the podium, the entire crowd came up for a standing ovation, finally sitting down after Thompson reminded them, “We can’t be here all day.”

He spoke about his relationship with President DeGioia, about many of his former players – “He shot everything he got in his hands,” Thompson said of Iverson – and some of his close co-workers, from men’s basketball trainer Lorry Michel to former academic advisor Mary Fenlon.

John Thompson Jr.’s name is synonymous with success. From 1972 to 1999, he compiled 596 wins, the most of any coach in the history of Georgetown University and the magnitude of his achievements is undeniable. On the court, he amassed league-leading records against all Big East Conference opponents (233-122) and captured 13 Big East Championships, seven regular season titles and six tournament championships. Thompson’s Hoya teams earned 24-consecutive invitations to postseason play, appeared in three NCAA Final Fours (1982, 1984 and 1985) and won the NCAA Championship in 1984.

“Without the help of a lot of people that are in here now, it would’ve been impossible to succeed,” he said.

Thompson talked about successes – from the 1984 NCAA title and Big East Championships – and losses – from the 1985 NCAA Championship game to the 1988 Olympics. However, he said he gains the most satisfaction in seeing the success that many of his players have had off of the court as well.

“It’s not the graduation rate, it’s what you do with the education that’s important,” Thompson said. “This school is defined by more than just victories. This is an educational institution.”

Robert Devaney •

The Georgetown Piano Bar opens Sept. 12 at 3287 M St., NW, where the nightclub Modern was. Piano player Hunter Lang, former Mr. Smith’s manager Gene McGrath, former Mr. Smith’s employee Morgan Williams and Bill Thoet, vice president of Booz Allen Hamilton, are the team behind the sing-along place.

Meanwhile, departing its longtime M Street, Mr. Smith’s has been reborn at 3205 K St., NW, where Chadwick’s once stood for many years. Another manager from Mr. Smith’s, Juan Andino, reopened the place at its new location under the Whitehurst Freeway with new fixtures and decor after auctioning off old Mr. Smith’s classic items.

Look for Orange Anchor, a nautically themed restaurant of seafood rolls and rum drinks by Reese Gardner, is set to open at Washington Harbour “within a couple of months,” according to one of its managers.

Chef Daniel Boulud returns to D.C. to open DBGB Kitchen and Bar, a companion to his bistro of the same name in New York’s East Village (in honor of the Bowery’s now-departed CBGB), is opening next week in D.C.’s newly developed CityCenter at the corner of 9th and H Streets, NW. It is around the block from David Chang’s Momofuku, which will arrive in a few months.

Also opening at CityCenter is Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse. The 18,000-square-foot restaurant at the corner of Ninth and Eye streets, NW.

The elite retail and residential center, spanning blocks around 8th Street and New York Avenue, NW, took the land from the old D.C. convention center and more is redefining and enhancing the streets of downtown D.C.

Even Georgetown’s Baked & Wired will be making the scene at CityCenter — along with such retail top-drawers as Hermès, Longchamp, Salvatore Ferragamo, Burberry, Hugo Boss and Kate Spade.

Gary Tischler • September 15, 2014

It’s hard to believe that Joan Rivers will never say another word, funny, obscene, outrageous, funny and funnier or otherwise.

It’s true. Her daughter Melissa, with whom she had a show on television, called “Fashion Police,” made the announcement Sept. 4 that the comedienne had “died peacefully surrounded by family at Mt. Sinai hospital.” Rivers had gone into cardiac arrest during what was described as a routine medical procedure a week ago and had been on life support before being moved to a private room yesterday.

You suspect that, if given the opportunity, she might not have gone so gently or quietly into that good night, given her reputation for irreverence and given the fact that she had always something to say about something and everything, not all of it music to the ear.

There really wasn’t anybody like Joan Rivers, who looked, well, fabulous into 81 years, some of that bouffant blonde glamorous look due to plastic surgery, a fact which gave her plenty of material to make fun of. That was one of the things about Rivers—she wanted to do nothing but make people laugh, an ambition which she succeeded at most of the time, leaving behind the echo of loud laughter, louder outrage and wounded egos. She could laugh at herself. She didn’t care, and she didn’t mind.

At some point in her life and lives, she was a stand-up comedian—one of the first of her sex—an actress, a director (of a very funny movie called “Rabbit Test,” starring Billy Crystal in 1978), a fashion judge, a frequent guest on Johnny Carson’s “The Tonight Show” (until she wasn’t), a television star, a reality show star (with her daughter) with whom she often fought, a tough-love mother and daughter act. She was a writer, repeatedly telling the story of her life and laughs, in periodic between-the-covers-of-a-book updates. The titles tell the story: “Enter Talking,” “Still Talking,” “I Hate Everybody, Especially Me” and “Diary of a Mad Diva” among many. She was just about always unapologetic, if she happened to offend someone, which was fairly often.

She was also very, very funny, one-of-a-kind funny. Way back when she was in a play called “Driftwood,” in which she played a lesbian with a crush on Barbra Streisand—a pre-“Funny Girl” and “People” Streisand. She and her daughter practically invented the red carpet fashion critique act, in which she skewered bad dresses and the people who wore them, as in “I am wearing Ralph Lauren.”

She was once the subject of one of those infamous roasts, conducted by celebrities, other comics, film actors and the like—Dean Martin has a collection of them. The occasion, as was the case with others, was obscene, merciless and funny. When Rivers showed up to roast others, it very likely caused panic attacks in the hearts of the subjects.

Rivers lives on YouTube, of course, as do so many—there is a very funny sequence with a Johnny Carson appearance, a task she had being doing 21 years at the time, and she brought a dress and hair and a necklace which she’s worn on the first such appearance. “What happened to my hair?” Carson asked. The two had a falling out over the fact that Rivers had neglected to warn Carson about the fact that she was going to be doing a late-night talk show opposite Carson.

There is a fairly recent video of Rivers essentially staring and yelling down a heckler at an appearance in Wisconsin in which she used her credo as a kind of bold comedy statement. She’d made an off-color joke about Helen Keller. A guy in the crowd yelled, “That’s not funny.” “Yes, it is,” Rivers shot back. “I had a deaf mother, you stupid ass. … I learned that you have to laugh at everything so you can get over it . You stupid SOB.”

Rivers was inspired by Lenny Bruce. No shrinking violet either, Bruce, too, was like nobody else, and he suffered for it along with his addictions. Rivers got over things and thrived well into an age when you’re not supposed to be thriving, not supposed to be sharp-witted, stomp up and down and just raise hell. What Betty White has done remains a mystery.

You can just imagine what’s happening upstairs, where they have the first gated community. “Maybe we should lock the gate,” someone says. “I’m coming in,” the brash one might say.

“Get over it.” Still, down here, it’s a lot quieter.

Robert Devaney •

“I feel I am at my real-life Hogwarts,” said Heather Sewell of Halcyon House. She is one of seven inaugural fellows of the Halcyon Incubator, a 14-month fellowship and social entrepreneurship program, administered by the S&R Foundation.

The Halcyon fellows were publicly acknowledged at a Sept. 4 presentation at historic Halcyon House on Prospect Street, where they will live for the next four months with 10 additional months of collaboration, support and consulting with program staffers.

“The Halcyon Incubator is a place to work . . . and learn . . .,” said Kate Goodall, chief operating officer of S&R Foundation, which takes no equity from the fellows’ projects. Goodall said the no-strings-attached fellowships benefit from “the unique properties of Washington, D.C.”

The program, according to the foundation, “provides fellows with rent-free housing and office space, food and living stipends, mentorship, complimentary strategic, legal and PR resources,” as it “nurtures problem-solvers addressing 21st-century social challenges by transforming raw talent and audacious ideas into scalable ventures.”

Citing the story of calm nesting days for the Halcyon bird, as pictured in the program’s logo, S&R Foundation CEO and co-founder Sachiko Kuno said, “Halcyon is such an aptly named house for an incubator.” At the presentation in Halcyon’s ballroom, she introduced her husband Ryuji Ueno to the crowd — “my media-shy co-founder.”

Kuno and Ueno — who hail from Japan and made their fortune in the pharmaceutical business — made a big splash in Georgetown, when they purchased the Evermay Estate ($22 million) on the east side in July 2011 and then Halcyon House ($11 million) on the west side in March 2012. Both historic properties are used by S&R Foundation. (Halcyon House underwent a $3-million renovation.)

The foundation was founded in 2000 and includes the Overtures Concert Series, the Evermay Chamber and science programs and awards.

Introduced by Incubator program manager Ryan Ross, each fellow had his or her story to tell and vision to persuade — and each made quite an impression. They are seven chosen out of 200 applicants. (Next year’s class application deadline is Sept. 18.)

Olivier Kamanda of Ideal Impact wants the news to go further; his website shows how or where one can help to volunteer or contribute. Ari Raz of Purejoy wants to produce fresh baby food for all. Diana Sierra of BeGirl wants to help women around the world have sanitary pads they can use, as they work or go to school, during menstruation. Ben Reich and Dan Gallagher of Datasembly run a data aggregate that helps small businesses sift through it all, avoiding the “data-rich and info-poor” conundrum. Founder of the Daily Prophet, a online newspaper inspired by the Harry Potter book series, Heather Sewell of NewsEase wants reading news and other stories to be more educational. Matt Fischer of Control A+ has constructed a monitor that predicts asthma attacks.

Can these fellows change the world? It might just help that they started to make it all work at Halcyon House — and in Georgetown, more innovative than most suspect.