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Peter Murray • October 17, 2015

A special investigative report on technology and profiling in Georgetown.

The rapid recent pace of technological innovation has triggered a new era of policing, one in which crime fighting is based almost entirely on data — captured, analyzed and communicated using the latest digital tools.

Last year, the Georgetown Business Improvement District began using the Microsoft-owned mass-messaging application GroupMe to bolster communication between local businesses and Metropolitan Police Department officers. As John Wiebenson, the BID’s operations director, noted, “Criminals move so quickly, we needed real-time communication.”

MPD Officer Antonial Atkins spearheaded the effort on the police side, glad to replace an endless stream of text messages from merchants and Georgetown citizens with a single, centralized messaging app. Yet Atkins — MPD Officer of the Year in 2013 — was quick to point out that GroupMe “is not a police app,” although he’s proud to call it “my idea.”

The results of that idea, cataloged in more than a thousand messages on the app beginning in March 2014, show a vigilant community working to identify threats and prevent crime. However, the posts as a whole also illustrate a stark racial disparity in how crime and suspicious behavior are reported in the community, raising hard questions about the relationship between community policing and civil rights.

Racial Bias on GroupMe

Most striking within the app is the frequency with which African Americans are reported for criminal and suspicious behavior. Of 330 people described in messages warning of suspicious or criminal activity posted between March 1, 2015, and July 5, 2015, 236 — or 72 percent — are identified as African Americans (often aa on the app).

Data about the percentage of African Americans among Georgetown shoppers is not available, but — given that only a quarter of the residents of the Washington metropolitan area are black or African American (2010 U.S. Census and 2011 American Community Survey) — it is likely to be much smaller than 72 percent. By way of comparison, GroupMe users in Georgetown flagged only 16 white people, less than half of 1 percent of the total, for committing some sort of crime or business disruption.

With regard to pictures distributed on GroupMe of suspects and “suspicious” characters over the study period, 19 photos of African Americans were circulated to the group, while only one photo of a white person was posted. Seventy-six people mentioned in the chat were not identified by race, while the group reported one Hispanic and one Asian man as suspicious.

“A racial bias is pretty apparent based just on the pictures and descriptions [in GroupMe],” says a Levi’s employee who wishes to remain anonymous. Isabel Savage at Hu’s Wear called certain posts on the app “racism at its greatest form,” adding, “the [retail] industry breeds it.”

Savage’s coworker at Hu’s Wear, Hannah Warren, initially agreed with Savage’s representation of racial bias on the Georgetown GroupMe account. But after being confronted with examples of posts labeling black men as suspicious without evidence, Warren explained that one of the men in question “was dismissive,” “standing very close to the racks” and “had a hat pulled down low.” “Better safe than sorry,” she said, before admitting, “a little bit of profiling, I do it.”

Based on The Georgetowner’s interviews with managers and messages on GroupMe, users here have a wide range of triggers when it comes to suspicion. Multiple GroupMe users in Georgetown said that one indication that a customer is likely to shoplift is the carrying of heavy or old bags. (H&M bags are particularly suspicious, according to interviews with store managers).

Sometimes users flag people as “suspicious” without giving a reason, noting “no confirmed theft.” Certain clothes and hairstyles can trip the alarm for a store employee and lead to a GroupMe message. People with dreadlocks, or “dreads,” are often flagged as “suspicious.”

Speaking off the cuff, Atkins, a middle-aged African American man, mentioned that a shopkeeper told him that without his uniform he could look like a shoplifter who was in the store last week.

While Atkins expressed concern over the racial disparities exhibited in GroupMe, he said that by and large he trusts the app’s users to call it like they see it without bias, in part because their posts “will be there for life.”

Joe Sternlieb, the president and CEO of Georgetown BID, offered a similar response. “The underlying assumption here is that people [GroupMe users] know what suspicious behavior is and they just report what they see,” he said, adding, “a lot of security officers at the stores are African American.” (D.C.-based lawyer and ethicist Jack Marshall used the black police officers in Baltimore that arrested Freddie Gray, who died in police custody, as an example that bias can affect anyone.) “It’s not like a law enforcement agency is targeting a specific group of people,” Sternlieb said.

According to statistics provided by MPD, theft is down 10 percent and crime overall is down 7.5 percent compared with year-to-date figures within the BID’s jurisdiction from last year. Atkins attributed those drops to “people getting involved” through GroupMe. When police do catch someone, users celebrate, writing messages like “I love this app” or congratulating police with “Good job!” He said that people thank police in Georgetown for their services, with waves on the street or messages on the app. Officers are “very happy” with how they’re treated by Georgetowners.

The Beginning

The BID, a nonprofit funded by a tax on property owners within its boundaries, launched the app, branding the new group “Georgetown Business Public Safety: Keeping Georgetown Safe,” in GroupMe. At first, most messages came from police officers, including Atkins, notifying store managers about things to look out for, such as thieves, protests and bad weather.

As use has expanded, more and more messages have come from store managers and other employees, reporting crimes to the police and warning one another about criminals in the area. Atkins estimated that, currently, 85 percent of messages “come from the stores.” The group count at press time is 340 people, including 30 police officers.

When downloaded on a phone (or, less often, a computer), the app allows users to communicate instantly with all the members of their particular group. Messages, which can include photos and other media, appear on users’ home screens instantly. All users then have a chance to respond to the entire group.

Almost every store in Georgetown has one or more employees on GroupMe, but the heaviest users are managers and loss-prevention employees at national retail outlets such as Zara, TJ Maxx, Levi’s, CVS, American Apparel, Abercrombie & Fitch, Dean & Deluca, All Saints, Banana Republic and Cusp.

Reviews Are In

When asked about the app, managers using it gave mostly positive reviews. Just after chiding a few employees for not joining the group, Brian Edmondson, manager of Sports Zone and a 14-year retail veteran, told The Georgetowner, “Shoplifting is a problem you can’t do much about because the penalties really aren’t that high.” He said GroupMe has helped prevent theft at Sports Zone by identifying known thieves in the area.

Similarly, Alex and Ani assistant manager Gaelle Taku said, “GroupMe is very helpful when shoplifters are headed our way.” A manager at Barbour said the app was “good for organized crime,” referring to group theft and flash mobs (not Tony Soprano’s crowd). A number of employees praised Officer Atkins and his involvement in GroupMe.

Other users gave the app mixed reviews. “[GroupMe] is helpful but I honestly stopped using it because it was just too much,” a manager at American Apparel said. Jillian Berman at Banana Republic concurred. “I had to get off it,” she said, despite it being a helpful communication tool, because she was receiving too many messages on her phone.

Paul Collins, a manager at Rag & Bone, called the app “hit or miss” in terms of getting a police response, and said he thought some users were “too quick” to report people for trivial, non-criminal things — smelling like marijuana, for instance. The Barbour manager said he had to take posts like that “with a grain of salt.”

Rules and Results

That’s not what users are supposed to be posting, according to BID officials. A closed group, “users have to be invited, they have to have a conversation with John [Wiebenson] about the rules,” Georgetown BID president and CEO Joe Sternlieb said. He explained that GroupMe is used “exclusively to report possible criminal activity and known criminals.” As for rules, both BID officials said that merchants are instructed to call 911 before reporting crime on GroupMe. Of particular importance, Sternlieb noted, is that users describe, “where they went, what they look like and what they’re wearing,” with regard to suspects.

In the process of writing hundreds of posts with these details, GroupMe users in Georgetown have developed a coded, text-friendly and abbreviation-heavy dialect. For example, “BOLO” means be on the look out, and is usually accompanied by a description of a crime or a known thief, or a suspicious activity such as carrying old bags or ignoring staff. Often, GroupMe users send out photos taken on security cameras or smartphones of known criminals or people acting suspiciously.

Stores frequently ask officers to perform a “walk thru” to scare off anyone suspicious, and police usually respond “omw” for “on my way.” (If an officer isn’t available, he or she will message back telling the user to call 911.)
Certain behaviors, like being quiet or curt, or looking over to the counter, are deemed suspicious in GroupMe. Walking around at too fast or too slow a pace is an alarm for other employees. Being part of a large group, especially of young people, can also lead to someone raising a flag on the app.

Occasionally, officers make arrests, but Atkins says part of the purpose of GroupMe is to prevent crime. More often though, GroupMe users get it wrong. In most cases, this ends with little fanfare and no mention on the message board.
Here are a few examples:

At the beginning of March, “American Apparel (3025 M St NW) Ayesha Mgr” posted, “3 African american girls, one with curly red dreds, other has bangs and shoulder length hair, and the other.” The text breaks off and Officer DeRuvo responds, “Omw. Walking,” before Ayesha finishes the sentence with “acting suspicious…” The girls return later, Ayesha asks for another walk through and then the messages stop, with no word on the situation getting resolved.

In another post, “TJ Maxx (3222 M st) Carl” wrote “bolo 4 aa males and 1 aa females had a couple of small bags (solbta) came in selecting the same high end jeans and shirts. They did not steal anything. But did Leave the department a mess.” He also posted pictures of four of the men to the entire group, although no crime was observed.

Carl wrote, “Bolo we just had a man taking unusual interest in our front door and letting associates in so be aware about who is near your stores when unlocking the door.” He provided a photo in this instance as well, again without indication of a crime.

“Zara (1238 Wisc Ave NW) Derrick Loss Prev.” frequently posts about African Americans without observing criminal activity. On Feb. 24, he wrote only about “2 suspicious aa males,” providing descriptions and their direction. He then posted, “FYI. If they do steal they are driving in a grey Oldsmobile aroura.” Atkins asks for a tag number “incase a theft occurs,” saying the information will “provide detectives with information to conduct a follow-up investigation.” This exchange took place without any indication of any crime.

In some cases, though, users will correct each other and vindicate the suspicious person described or photographed. For example, earlier this year, “Hu’s Wear (2906 M st) Hannah” flagged a black man as suspicious, sending his picture, description and where he was headed around to the group. “About 6 foot. Tats [tattoos] on hands and neck. Very suspicious, looking everywhere but what was he asking about,” she wrote cryptically. Later on that day, an employee named Will at Suit Supply wrote, “He was just in Suitsupply. Made a purchase of several suits and some gloves.”

In another instance, in response to a photo of two black women sent by a user at American Apparel, an employee at Benetton wrote, “Those were the ones from our store as well. Good job on the pics! Only known thieves would smile for the camera” — in response to a photo of two black women sent through the app by the user at American Apparel. The woman smiling in the photo was a store employee. The other, non-smiling woman was the known thief.

Even disregarding the few users who repeatedly report African Americans without indications of criminal activity, the statistics within a roughly 90-day period suggest that there is more widespread bias at play.

‘I’ve Caught Every Type of Person Stealing’

All employees at the most active stores who talked to The Georgetowner acknowledged that users on the app predominantly report African-Americans. But they also all claimed to have caught people of all races stealing from their stores.

A manager at American Apparel who wishes to remain anonymous offered a different explanation. She said she’s witnessed “every type of person” stealing from her store, but that African Americans are “more loud about it” and “more obvious about it.”

Candice Stewart at Benetton offered yet another explanation of why black people are flagged so often in the GroupMe system. “A lot of the known thieves are black,” she said. “It’s the same people over and over again.”

Managers at CVS, Zara, Dean & Deluca and TJ Maxx declined to be interviewed for this article.

“There’s a common phenomenon of a black person showing up in a store, and just because they are black, they look suspicious,” Georgetown Law professor Anthony Cook said when presented with the BID’s GroupMe messaging board. “Now, they’ve basically automated that process by putting it on camera, and not just using that for internal purposes, but now distributing it en masse to other people so that whoever is identified in the chat is guilty to the rest of the group without any kind of interrogating or any benefit of the doubt,” Cook said. “It’s a digital mob mentality.”

According to a host of scholarly work compiled by Rutgers Business School Professor Jerome D. Williams, black people are no more likely to shoplift than members of any other race. Shoplifting comes “in all sizes, shapes and colors,” Williams writes.

Marshall doesn’t call what’s happening on GroupMe in Georgetown “profiling,” though. Instead, he says that bias, racial or otherwise, impairs judgment, and that it “is impossible to correct for” when you’re under the influence of it. “These people [on the app] aren’t bigots, they just need to recognize what’s happening [with regard to bias].”

Marshall says the ethicist in him has a problem with the fact that people who end up being flagged as suspicious or criminal on GroupMe have no way of knowing that they are under observation. Marshall and Cook both said that they could imagine someone flagged on GroupMe being violently confronted by an app user regardless of police warnings on the app not to engage. Without prompting, both experts used George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch coordinator who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, as an example of something that could happen in Georgetown because of GroupMe.

Customer Service, Please

However, interviews with store employees paint a far less dramatic picture. Edmondson from Sports Zone said his staff won’t do anything to a known thief in the store other than provide customer service. “Customer service is the best preventative for theft,” he said, a sentiment echoed by a handful of employees at other stores.

Still, Marshall said, “Apps create a lot of power in the hands of people who have not taken necessary steps to be competent enough to wield the power.” In that vein, he suggested training for GroupMe users as a potential solution that “wouldn’t be hard to do” to solve the app’s “bias problem.” When asked about training, Atkins said, “that’s on them,” referring to app users, “not the police.”

Sternlieb suggested that Atkins already trains users with in-person conversations and tips about reporting criminals on posts in the app when asked whether training could eliminate racial disparities presented in BID’s GroupMe account.

Wiebenson said he confronts users who have posted “inappropriate” messages, meaning those with rough language or marketing messages. He also said he removes repeat offenders from the group.

‘The App Should Go Global’

Atkins stands by his claim that the GroupMe model in Georgetown “should go global.” And in a way, it already has. As apps that can be used for mass messaging have proliferated, they have attracted billions of users with more and more communities adopting them to stay connected. It was only a matter of time before police joined the party.

A document released by the Obama Justice Department titled “Community Policing Defined” calls on police to do what MPD is doing in Georgetown by developing “two-way communication systems through the internet” with the public, among other recommendations.

In localities ranging from Odessa, Texas, to Gloucester Township, New Jersey, to Los Angeles, police, businesses and citizens are using the Nextdoor app in the same way that GroupMe is being used in Georgetown. (Nextdoor is also popular in Georgetown, but so far area users of the app have focused more on finding contractors, roommates and nannies than criminals.)

In Georgetown, the Citizens Association is getting involved, urging more area residents to join and use the app for public safety. And in the District as a whole, the idea is picking up steam. Atkins said that police use the app to keep in touch with residents in his neighborhood. He also said that he’s giving a presentation on GroupMe to an ANC commissioner in District 5 in an effort to build a public-private partnership around policing there.

“We are pioneers in starting this,” Atkins said.

This story originally ran in the August 5 issue of The Georgetowner.
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Robert Devaney • October 15, 2015

Georgetown University’s Rabbi Harold White, the first full-time rabbi at a U.S. Catholic university and highly regarded for his interreligious teachings, died Aug. 31 of complications from a stroke at the age of 83.

In 1968, White began as the school’s Jewish chaplain not so much for the few Jewish students at the time but for all students—to promote understanding between Judaism and Christianity and beyond.

A Freedom Rider in the civil rights movement, White many years later helped to found the Program for Jewish Civilization in 2004. He retired in 2010.

The university will hold a memorial service for White 10:30 a.m., Sunday, Sept. 20, in Gaston Hall.

“Rabbi White’s devotion to our shared values and our mission as a community was unparalleled,” said the university’s president John DeGioia. “His leadership and vision in creating opportunities for dialogue strengthened our community and helped build the ethos of engagement that characterizes our campus ministry today.”

The following are portions of a news release by Georgetown University that tells the story of White’s life and influence.

EMBRACING DIFFERENCES

The rabbi, whom students called “Rabs,” also co-taught a popular course in the theology department with Rev. Dennis McManus, a Catholic priest and visiting associate professor at the School of Foreign Service, and Georgetown’s Imam Yahya Hendi on the many similarities as well as differences among the Abrahamic faiths.

“The goal of interreligious dialogue,” White once said, “is not to just look for similarities, but to see the differences and be able to embrace the differences.”

Hendi shares a “first” with White as the first Muslim chaplain hired by a Catholic university. “The rabbi was a close friend and an amazing confidant,” Hendi said. “He taught with integrity, and love for the truth.”

STUDENTS’ BEST SELVES

McManus had been with White recently – they had traveled together to Poland this past summer to visit the Jan Karski Educational Foundation’s sister organization in Warsaw. (Karski, the Polish World War II resistance movement fighter who taught at Georgetown for four decades until his death in 2000, made the first reports of Nazi atrocities to the Polish government and Western allies.)

“Rabbi White had a unique gift as a teacher,” McManus said. “He could draw out what was best in his students even before they asked him a question. The result was always the same – as they became their best selves at his invitation, they could only ask their best questions. Every professor envied this gift.”

HALLELUJAH, JESUIT SHABBAT

A tireless promoter of interreligious understanding, Rabbi White also started new traditions at Georgetown, including Hallelujah Shabbat, a traditional Shabbat service every January that invites choirs – including gospel choirs – to participate. And during Jesuit Heritage Week every February, he created a Jesuit Shabbat and invited Jesuits to share their personal religious journeys as he shared his own.

“Georgetown is unique,” White said in a Georgetown Witness to History video in 2008. “The leadership of this university are people who proudly affirm and assert their religious identity and that is what makes Georgetown so very, very special.”

ENCYCLOPEDIC KNOWLEDGE

Many Georgetown faculty members noted White’s encyclopedic knowledge of Judaism.

“Everything in the immense universe of Jewish civilization interested Rabbi White – from Kabbalah to the Jews of China, from Rabbinic Midrash to the more radical theologies that developed in the wake of the Holocaust, from the writings of Moses Maimonides to the philosophy of Martin Buber,” said Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the School of Foreign Service’s Program for Jewish Civilization. “In particular, Rabbi White was greatly influenced by the teachings of his mentor, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan. He brought all of these influences to bear in his tireless work with generations of Georgetown students.”

FRIEND, TEACHER, RABBI, THERAPIST

White performed countless interfaith marriages throughout the Washington area, including many Georgetown students but also many who simply sought him out. The rabbi served as spiritual advisor to the Interfaith Families Project of Greater Washington, D.C., Area. In his “spare time,” he served as scholar-in-residence at Holy Cross Abbey in Berryville, Virginia, and at Mercersburg Academy in Pennsylvania.

Israel Klein posted a tribute on Facebook. “A handful of folks were able to visit the rabbi between his stroke and hospice care,” Klein wrote. “He spent his last days in a beautiful hospice facility on the Long Island Sound in Connecticut. He was surrounded by friends and family and natural beauty. … Emerson said, ‘It is not length of life, but depth of life.’ Rabbi had both. He’s a person we were blessed to know and love.”

INTERFAITH MARRIAGES

Erik Smulson, Georgetown’s vice president for public affairs, first met White as a child. The rabbi was a friend of his father, Mark Smulson, a longtime research scientist and professor of biochemistry at the university’s medical school who passed away four years ago.

“Rabbi White served generations of Hoyas,” Smulson said. “The High Holidays services that he created were the only free services in the city.” Smulson recalls that Gaston Hall, where the services were held, was full of Jewish students, members of Congress and interns from Capitol Hill who had nowhere else to go.

While a student at Georgetown, Smulson fell in love with Jennifer Beard, a Catholic. Because both students valued their religious backgrounds, they asked White and a Catholic priest to marry them.

“For many years, he was the only rabbi willing to perform interfaith marriages,” said Smulson, now a father of three. “He met with me and Jen as we prepared for the wedding, and talked to us about love and respect and faith.”

A GREAT LIGHT

The free High Holiday services continue under Georgetown’s Rabbi Rachel Gartner.

“A great light has gone out in the world,” Gartner said at a Jewish prayer service at Georgetown in White’s honor. “We knew Rabbi White by his smile and his work, his friendship and his leadership, his life and his vision.” She said his Hebrew name meant “life” and “peace.”

“He really pursued peace and understanding really every day of his life,” Gartner added. “We were blessed to have him in our presence, and I know that we’ll carry his light on in our different ways and in all the work that we do.”
Georgetown will announce a larger memorial service in the near future.

STUDENT OF HESCHEL, BUBER

Born in 1932 in Hartford, Connecticut, White received his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Wesleyan University, his rabbinical degree from the Jewish Theological Seminary and a certificate in pastoral counseling from Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

Before Georgetown, he was rabbi of Beth Israel Congregation in Ann Arbor, Michigan, as well as Jewish chaplain at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and American University’s rabbi. He served as a U.S. Navy Chaplain at Parris Island, South Carolina, and with the 7th Fleet in the Pacific.

At the seminary, he studied under the well-known Polish-born American Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, considered one of the leading Jewish philosophers of the 20th century, as well as equally revered Jewish philosopher Martin Buber and Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan.

Before he died, White asked that all donations in his name be made to the Program for Jewish Civilization.
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Peter Murray •

Thor Equities, a New York City-based real estate development and investment firm, is under contract to purchase the Latham Hotel property at 3000 M St. NW from SB-Urban for roughly $53 million. The move marks Thor Equities first acquisition in the D.C.-area and fits into the companies real estate portfolio, which includes properties along popular shopping thoroughfares like Fifth Avenue in Manhattan and Market Street in San Francisco.

“3000 M Street’s location in the heart of Georgetown benefits from the large volume of tourists, students and other pedestrians who regularly visit the neighborhood to shop, eat and play,” Joseph Sitt, CEO of Thor Equities, said in a press release, adding, “We look forward to enhancing this property to maximize the area’s exciting growth opportunities.”

The Latham Hotel micro-unit project was one of three that SB-Urban is developing in Northwest Washington targeting affluent young people with small but well-furnished apartments located in desirable neighborhoods. The company’s two other developments, slated for Blagden Alley in Shaw and at 15 Dupont Circle in the historic Patterson Mansion, are still a go, with plans to begin construction on both this year.

SB-Urban bought the Latham Hotel building in November 2013 for $45.4 million. After the purchase, the company went through a number of regulatory hoops, gaining the approval of the Old Georgetown Board and the Board of Zoning Adjustment to renovate the space into a development consisting of 140 units with 330 square-foot floor plans.

According to Urban Turf, Thor Equities is likely to redevelop the building into some combination of residential units, a hotel and a “premier flagship” retail operation.

Robert Devaney •

We are all denizens of the perpetual, virtual reality of momentous times and events that recede. We are in the moment and anticipated all at once: another momentous Republican debate will be held tonight, Europe appears awash in refugees from Middle East wars, and right on schedule Pope Francis is coming to Washington next week.

Here is another piece of news: Georgetowner Frida Burling is one hundred years old today. Now, that’s something worth celebrating.

Burling, who wrote her autobiography, “Finally Frida,” several years ago, is worth celebrating, especially in Georgetown. 

When people talk about legacies and life stories, usually the tale is about how you lived your life, and what your markers there are along the way that tell your story and note what you bear your participation in your life and in your community.   

Here at the Georgetowner, we’ve always felt, ever since we encountered Frida Burling in her first forays into making something iconic, lasting and permanent out of the yearly Georgetown House Tours, that in many ways, she represented an ideal of community and citizen here.  Not just because of the tour itself—although she always gave the yearly celebration of Georgetown history and essence her full energy—but because she embraced the idea of community service and identity with place with all the joy she could muster, which was considerable.  

Burling is and has always been, even now, with some of that beautiful energy unavoidably diminished, a Georgetowner who represents her town and herself more than well.  She has a deep, abiding love for the place where she lives and has never been afraid to show it—and to be persuasive in her efforts to get others  to join her in her various efforts that included the Georgetown Ministry Center as well as the homeless programs at St. John’s Episcopal Church. When she came looking for volunteers and help for the tour, whether to host patron’s parties, or have homes on the tour, she was pretty hard to resist, because Frida has and always had an immense reservoir of charm, humor and knowledge and a sense of life’s duty and rewards.  

When we sat down with her two weeks ago at her 29th Street home—which is one of those sunny, stylish, bookfilled residences that perfectly reflects the life she and her late husband Edward Burling shared there—she still had that empathy in her eyes and certain certitudes also.  She had led a life which allowed her to dive into causes with fervor that was fueled by compassion, as well as self-assurance—she was at the 1963 Civil Rights rally and historic Martin Luther King, Jr.’s  “I Have a Dream” speech. In her book, you will find a picture of her gleefully holding up a sign (“Money for Jobs Not War”) at a rally protesting U.S. policy.

Burling’s lifetime now spans  17 presidencies: Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Truman, Ike, Kennedy, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton, Bush 2, and Barack Obama. And her health allowing, she will see the inauguration of the 45th president.  She remains firm about her loyalties and preference. Asked who her favorite president during the course of her life was, she emphatically said, “Barack Obama.”

This is not a story about biography,  except to suggest that a long life such as Burling’s produces a sense of continuity, a feel for its history, detailed and otherwise, and that burgeoning consistent warmth provided by family. In Burling’s case one that produced a fair-sized clan and tribe from two marriages, both by any measure fruitful and well-shared.

But knowing Frida and knowing about her also gives you a sense of her values and the values and history of the community which she championed with sustained energy—she was still seen exercising in the gym in her nineties. 

On this day remembering and celebrating her 100th birthday, we will save  biographical details and deeds and accomplishments for more appropriate times. This is not even a time for history.  It’s a celebration.

So: Happy 100th birthday to Frida Burling! We join her and all who love her in wishing her as many more birthdays as possible. 

Gary Tischler •

It has been almost 25 years since “The Civil War,” the gifted filmmaker Ken Burns’s visual poem and epic television documentary on our nation’s most costly and transformative struggle aired on public television, drawing some 40 million viewers and catapulting the boyish-looking Burns into the top ranks of documentarians.

In front of the 25th anniversary, local PBS station WETA, which was Burns’s original partner in this large and echoing project, is airing all nine episodes of “The Civil War” today through Friday, Sept. 11 in a newly restored, high-definition version.

Much has changed in the course of 25 years—history and time march on after all, and people move on, too. But at the time, “The Civil War,” with its signature and distinctive style, sound and look, was a definitive work about its subject. Burns went through thousands of photographs from the period, most of them by Matthew Brady and his shop, as well as newspapers, letters, memoirs, paintings. He used the voices—many of them easily recognizable—of leading actors and personalities to give voice to Lincoln, Lee, the generals and the firebrands, the abolitionists and sons and daughters of the South, the slaves in their sorrow and strength. Their voices were the garnish to the narrative, giving it the staying power it retains.

This is the year of the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, after all, and everything in this stirring account resonates loudly, sweetly, and sadly to this day. This is also the year that a horrible mass shooting at an historic African American church in Charleston, South Carolina, where the national tragedy opened with the thunder of cannons in 1861, resulted in the amazingly and shockingly swift uprising against the Confederate battle flag across the South.

That the fate of the Confederate flag could still be an issue in the year 2015 will appear less remarkable after watching “The Civil War.” Early in the opening episodes, there are shots of regimental and division reunions of Yankee and Confederate units, decade after decade, with the old soldiers getting older, and older still, and a shot of President Franklin Roosevelt speaking to the veterans of both sides in the 1930s. The casualties on both sides—horrific in number—were always listed in the end as American casualties.

With few “movie” shots, but rather a moving camera caressing old photographs or contemporary landscape shots in color of cornfields and fences that were the common battleground landmarks of the time, Burns brings the period alive. The war—when it came—came with explosive energy in the South and the North, too, before the daily suffering set in. In the opening two episodes, the picture is that of two sides spoiling for a fight, even while hoping it wouldn’t come to that. Neither side had the slightest idea of what would happen, what devastating destruction would ensue.

What made Burns a kind of artist in the effort was the ingredients of his narrative—those voices, that music, faintly familiar as a lullaby, the stories, the personalities of the key actors, as well as those young men who fought in familiar fields, and those they left behind, and the slaves and slavery itself.

Everything changed in the Civil War, and with “The Civil War,” too. Burns and his team of composers, writers, voices, designers had created something enduring, a kind of thing that was akin to the best of Shakespeare—an author that Lincoln read voraciously. Burns would go on to make his fame and fortune in distinctive documentaries of the American experience—broad homages to subjects as different as “Baseball,” “Jazz,” and “The War,” or more intimate biographies of Mark Twain and the recent “The Roosevelts”

David McCullough, perhaps America’s premier and critically and popular historian (“Truman” and “John Adams,” and most recently “The Wright Brothers”) narrated “The Civil War,” giving the narrative an almost presidential and sage-like authority. Sam Waterston, who would become a tough New York City District Attorney in the long-running “Law and Order” series, was the voice of Lincoln, while Morgan Freeman—who else could do it?—resounded the voice of Frederick Douglass. The great Southern playwright Shelby Foote gave his voice to Jefferson Davis, while the late and great stage actress Julie Harris gave a tough musicality to the sharp observant notes of the Southern diarist Mary Chestnut. Garrison Keller emerged with the youthful Walt Whitman’s voice and Jody Powell (he was President Jimmy Carter’s press secretary) was Stonewall Jackson.

The most steady voice and observer belongs to the author and historian, the late Shelby Foote, who wrote a novel about the battle of Shiloh and a three-book epic history of the war, books that are at once searing with detail and energy, but clear-eyed with knowledge that is hard to refute.

You hear remarkable things in even the first set of episodes which end with the first Bull Run and the realization that this would be a long war, with no end in sight. It’s remarkable how many people—common soldiers in an uncommon war, slaves, firebrands and politicians, president(s) and intellectuals, wives and shopkeepers and newspaper reporters—expressed their feelings with such vehement eloquence, such a sense of the tragedy which engulfed them.

It almost strikes one dumb to hear the Major Sullivan Ballou read (in the voice of Paul Roebling) a letter to his wife, about his love for her and his country. He wrote: “Sarah, my love for you is deathless. It seems to bind me with mighty cables, that nothing but Omnipotence can break; and yet, my love of country comes over me like a strong wind and bears me irresistibly on with all those chains, to the battlefield…..never forget, my dear Sarah, how much I love you, nor that when my last breath escapes me on the battle-field, it will whisper your name.” Major Ballou was killed at Bull Run.

Chuck Baldwin •

Head to Rock Creek Nature Center on Sunday to celebrate Rock Creek Park’s 125th anniversary. The free event includes guided hikes (check the schedule for starting points), programs about the park in the auditorium and half-hour outdoor-skill classes hosted by REI.

There will open-air programs with nature-poetry readings and water-wise gardening; activities including a rock-climbing wall, arts and crafts, pony rides, roller-skating lessons, a golf clinic, gardening tips and mushroom identification; and booths from partners such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Washington Area Biking Association, the NPS Bee-You-Tee-Full Pollinators and the Rock Creek Conservancy.

Visit the National Park Service website for more information, including the schedule of events, which run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. at 5200 Glover Road NW.

Peter Murray •

It’s official: Warby Parker is no longer a start-up.

The eyewear brand officially opened its brick-and-mortar doors at 3225 M St. NW on Saturday, Sept. 26. The company was founded in 2010 as an online outlet for vintage-inspired (read: hipster) eyeglasses and sunglasses but has expanded its presence in major cities with stores in New York City, San Francisco, and Los Angeles in recent years.

The company’s new Georgetown location (which a representative for the company said they “couldn’t be more excited about”) looks like any other glasses store from the outside with rows of frames and plenty of mirrors, but the inside shows a keen attention to design and detail. For example, the books that sit atop the glasses cases are coordinated by size, color and font, and charming wallpaper near the back depicts a cartoon man in glasses doing an array of made-up yoga poses including the “Moderate Beyonce.” (The cartoons were drawn by an in-house designer, and some books, from Warby Parker’s “favorite independent publishers” are on sale at the store.)

The new store offers Warby Parker’s full collection to try on, same-day purchases for non-prescription glasses, progressive lenses, frame adjustments and optical measurements, though no on-site eye exams. (Warby Parker’s store in Shaw, set to open later this year, will offer eye exams.)

The company was founded in 2010 with a business model based on undercutting designer brands’ prices by designing and selling frames under one roof. At first, sales were online only, with Warby Parker giving customers the ability “Home Try-On” by shipping them up to five pairs of glasses to test out before buying one. Sunglasses and eyeglasses, even with prescriptions, start at $95 at Warby Parker and for each pair purchased, the company buys a pair of glasses for someone in need through partnerships with VisionSprings and other eye-focused non-profit organizations.

Richard Selden •

Having surpassed its original fundraising goal of $125 million by nearly $10 million, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has set a new goal of $175 million to fund its campus expansion. The project is the first new construction since the 1971 opening of the massive, multi-genre center, designed by Edward Durell Stone.

With the expansion plans approved by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, demolition is set to begin this month. The new facilities are expected to open in the fall of 2018.

No federal monies will go toward the project. Kennedy Center Chairman David M. Rubenstein, co-chair of the “Building the Future” campaign with treasurer Michael F. Neidorff, made a $50-million lead gift in 2013 and Boeing later gave $20 million. The center recently announced additional gifts, including $10-million donations from Jacqueline Badger Mars and Stephen and Christine Schwarzman.

With the planned floating pavilion relocated to dry land and the enhancement of a pedestrian bridge connecting the project to the Rock Creek Park Trail, the estimated design and construction costs have gone from $100 million to about $120 million. The three new pavilions, with high ceilings and river views, will contain flexible, intimate spaces filled with natural light. There will also be an outdoor wall for simulcasting performances.

The remainder of the budget will go toward exhibits in the new public spaces and technology and systems upgrades to the entire campus, meant to support a new level of engagement and “create a more inspiring dialogue between patrons and artists,” according to a press release.

The architects for the expansion are Steven Holl and Chris McVoy of Steven Holl Associates in New York, in partnership with BNIM Architects of Kansas City.

Gary Tischler • October 5, 2015

Scroll down to view more photos of the pope’s visit to Washington, D.C., beneath the story.

History these days is simultaneous, swift and capricious in its making.

But beginning with Tuesday evening, filling up all of Wednesday and running through more than half of Thursday, history was made, to be sure, but time also seemed to stop.  This was the time of Pope Francis in Washington, and his presence managed to blot out most of the rest of the news, while bringing out a serendipitous sun and perfect weather for the duration of his stay.

From the moment his plane landed at Joint Base Andrews after a flight from Cuba for the first leg of his first trip (ever) to the United States,  where he was greeted by President Barack Obama and his family, military and government officials and the first of a host of children, the pope made history, set precedents and captivated this city—which is, still and all, the center of the world. In that time, Francis became the center of the center of the world.

He set out on a mission and what became  a  grueling schedule, especially for a 78-year-old man: Wednesday began  at 9:15 a.m. with an Official State Welcome and Meeting with the president, followed by a short, but massively attended parade between the ellipse and a portion of the National Mall, followed by an 11:30  a.m. Midday Prayer at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle with a gathering of U.S. Catholic Bishops and church leaders.  At 4:15 p.m., after a brief rest at the Nunciato, the Papal Embassy in Washington, D.C., on Massachusetts Avenue, the pope  traveled in his now famous Fiat to the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception for a Mass of Canonization of Blessed Junipero Serra, the Spanish friar who was principally responsible for the construction of a series of monasteries in California, and the conversion of the indigenous population there.

After the outdoor Mass on part of the grounds of the Catholic University of America, there was a stop at a seminary and a return to the Nunciato.  The following morning, Francis traveled to Capitol Hill for a first-ever address by a pope to a joint session of Congress, followed by an address to the crowd of thousands who had gathered outside at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol. This was followed by a visit to St. Patrick’s Church in the City,  where the Catholic Charities organization ministers to a congregation that includes large numbers of homeless people. 

The obviously hectic schedule does not begin to measure the effect of the pope’s presence, the outpouring of adoration, love and affection, an outpouring from the people for the pope, but also the pope for the people he encountered with obvious relish. 

Francis came, spoke at every turn and conquered. He inspired mightily. He hugged and embraced. He spoke in English with increased confidence. He was the Francis whom everyone had heard and heard about. He brought with him his reputation for humility, his keen intelligence, an undeniable warmth and hope from a bottomless basket.

For the duration of his stay, this city became both Catholic and catholic—which seems to define the pope’s style. During the outdoor Mass, in the prayer service, all the church’s great capacity for pomp shone in ways that were not ostentatious but appropriate to the circumstance, which had the rhythms of both an expansive historic and formal event, and a series of intimate encounters within the framework of the presence of thousands.

For the press, media, for law enforcement and for the city’s much maligned and beleaguered transportation system, the presence of the pope presented enormous challenges—the tension inherent in the protection of such a giant figure in the world’s consciousness with attendant security issues, for instance, and the use of resources by television and print organizations in deploying reporters and reporting without bias or over-adoration.  For Metro, the task was especially difficult—just the day before a train broke down in a tunnel. Yet at first glance, the city’s institutions performed admirably.

Catholic observers—those practicing their faith rigorously,  those not so regular or those fallen away or lapsed—were awash in nostalgia: one veteran television reporter mentioned channeling his inner altar boy.  This writer recalled being confirmed in a cathedral dedicated to the Virgin Mary outside a walled medieval city in post-war Germany in Bavaria, the Catholic center in a predominantly Protestant country. 

With Francis presiding over the Mass of  Canonization  for now St. Juniper Serra—also a first on North American soil and issue of some controversy and consequence in the Hispanic and Native American community—or at St. Matthews where red-hat cardinals and bishops came up for words with the pope, the pomp and propensity for stylized ritual is noticeable and moving—or impressive.  A Mass like this one, near twilight outdoors, with thousands in attendance—including Vice President Joe Biden, can be a solemn, beautiful experience.  The pope praised Serra, whose statue now accompanies that of President Ronald Reagan’s in the Statuary Hall in the Capitol.  Francis’s theme—or one of many—on this journey has been about engagement, encounters, about spreading the joy, about involvement with others.

The pope’s speech to the Joint Session of Congress was something of a marvel: equal parts inspiration, a diplomatic, but nonetheless emphatic speech, one that dealt with all the primary issues of the day that divide this country and the world—abortion, gay marriage, family, climate and the environment, the duty of politics. His English becoming clearer with every word, Francis had attendees right at the start, when he said, “I am most grateful for your invitation to address this Joint Session of Congress in the land of the free and the home of the brave.” As the saying goes, the crowd roared, with every member so capable jumping out of their seats.

For a spiritual leader, Pope Francis had a lot to say about politics, and every word he managed to say made the words and speeches of the men and women running for office (some of whom were in the audience) seem small and small-minded. He proposed to define politics for the men and women in congress who have spent too much of their time in the service of getting elected, a process that here and in many other places seems to be suffering a serious bout of uncertainty.  “You are the face of the people, their representatives. You are called to defend and preserve the dignity of your fellow citizens in the tireless and demanding pursuit of the common good, for this is the chief aim of politics.” (Donald Trump was not present.)

Francis called on the legislators to care for the hopeless, the poor and the people who have lost their way. Such concern comes directly from Jesuit doctrine, for Francis is, above all, not just the pope but a Jesuit, the church’s chief defenders and also its questioners and warriors for the poor. He urged dialogue, engagement, encounter, time and time again. He called for dialoguing with the elderly and become involved with them. He described the world as a place of violent conflict, hatred and brutal atrocities, committed even in the name of God and of religion. “Our response ,” he said, “must be one of hope and healing of peace an justice.”

The pope built his speech around the lives of four uniquely original Americans: President Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day and Thomas Merton—two of whom were assassinated.

Francis stated his full support for life—and condemned the death penalty. He stated his full support for the family, both of which seemed to be his way of touching upon, but without mentioning, abortion or gay marriage.  He urged a world conversation about the environment, the “health of the planet,” about ways to “avert the most serious effects of the environmental deterioration caused by human activity.”  Now is the time, the pope said, for “courageous actions and strategies aimed at implementing a “culture of care.” Notably, many House Republican members failed to applause, while Democrats did.               

Basically, he seemed to say that America must embrace its virtues, political and social, “the richness of your cultural heritage, of the spirit of the American people. It is my desire that this spirit continue to develop and grow so that as many young people as possible can inherit and dwell in a land which has inspired so many people to dream.”

Francis did not scold and did not chastise.  Like the shepherd of the church that he is, the pope sought to reconcile, engage and gather together.

He did this by example. He suffered a few children to come unto him after his White House greeting during the short parade, called “Encounter Francis on the National Mall,” Sept. 23.

More importantly, perhaps the best place to actually encounter the pope was in front of the Vatican embassy. Every day and night, many people, many children, gathered to see, hear and engage the pope.  And upon his every departure and return, he engaged the people.

He wrapped his arms around the children, spoke, or posed for selfies with love and delight.  What you remember the most was his arrival after the Mass, night having fallen. He exited the small Fiat and appeared exhausted, wobbly, walking very slowly. The noise of the crowd in front of the Vatican Embassy was as loud as ever—a clarion call, if you will.

He turned around slowly and waded into the crowd of outstretched hands and voices, smiling, arms outstretched.
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