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Robert Devaney • July 16, 2015

“Small business is the heart of America,” said Ward 2 Council member Jack Evans at the Georgetown Business Association’s Leadership Luncheon June 24 at Tony and Joe’s Seafood Place at Washington Harbour.

Businesses, small or otherwise, and their leaders and influencers were on full display at the longtime popular spot on the Potomac. The full list of honorees in room, along with the attendees, made for what was truly a business power lunch.

The event’s biggest honor, the Lifetime Achievement Award, went to P. Wesley “Wes” Foster, Jr., co-founder of Long & Foster Real Estate. Business Person of the Year was Charles Lawrence of the Secor Group and the Joe Pozell Public Safety Award was given to Metropolitan Police officers Christian DeRuvo and William Peterson. The Art Schultz Communitarian Award went to Leslie Buehler of Tudor Place, while Baked and Wired was named the Business of the Year. New Business of the Year, on the other hand, was awarded to Dog Tag Bakery. The Georgetown Preservation Award went to architect Robert Bell, who is reconstructing the old Georgetown Theater.

Evans also spoke on the D.C. budget and honed in on the $3 million earmarked for repairs to the C&O Canal and a new canal barge — a neighborhood treasure as well as major tourist attraction. The councilman also recalled when Washington, D.C., and its oldest neighborhood were hurting in the 1990s in contrast to today, which he referred to as a “golden age of Georgetown” while also noting the vibrancy of the 14th Street corridor downtown.

Pam Moore, the former president of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, introduced Leslie Buehler, outgoing executive director of Tudor Place, one of the most historic homes in the city with ties to the family of George Washington. Moore noted how residents and businesses “all work together . . . it is a golden age, as Jack says.” Buehler thanked the businesses “for embracing Tudor Place.”

Terry Bell of Salon Ilo introduced architect Robert Bell (no relation), who took on the task of improving “the ugliest building in Georgetown for the last 40 years.” The architect and now owner of the old theater said that the iconic “Georgetown” sign would soon return to be illuminated and hang over Wisconsin Avenue and look “fabulous for the next 100 years.”

At-large Council member Vincent Orange introduced the man of the hour, Wes Foster, who smiled when Orange read out part of Long & Foster’s annual report and said, “These are great numbers.”

Before anything else, Foster thanked the police — and then his wife Betty — before speaking of his 12,000 agents. Known for getting to the point and keep it real, Foster told the crowd, “Thanks for sticking around.” [gallery ids="102124,133745,133743,133748" nav="thumbs"]

Kelly Byrnes •

The former Georgetown home of famed chef Julia Child is now listed for sale at $1.1 million.

The 1,364-square-foot property, located at 2706 Olive St. NW, housed Child and her husband Paul in 1948 prior to their residence in France, where she studied French cuisine. In 1956, after years renting the property to tenants while abroad, the Child’s returned to the home, where the late chef conducted cooking lessons from its kitchen.

The house, built around 1870, boasts four bedrooms, three bathrooms and an aged yellow exterior, and is being sold as is. It’s unknown whether the kitchen has been modernized or still intact from Child’s cooking days nearly 60 years ago.

Though considered a fixer-upper, the house’s history is a major selling point. Before Child’s presence, the builder behind the three-story Colonial, Edgar Murphy, and his family occupied the home for over 40 years until his death in 1913. An African American carpenter, Murphy and his family rented out a separate unit within the space to black tenants to earn extra income, at a time when Georgetown was a neighborhood rooted in African American culture.

Between the history of Murphy’s ties to the house and Child’s culinary reputation which grew there, the dwelling has molded into a local symbol of prosperity, a charm that potential buyers can’t put a price on.

Kelly Byrnes •

Four Georgetown establishments — Lady Camelia Tea Room, Georgetown AMC, Chaia Tacos, and an unnamed Greek restaurant to be located on Prospect Street — have acquired new liquor licenses, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration announced June 25.

The Administration announced in late May the licenses would be open for application and reviewed on a first-come, first-served basis. The announcement came on the heels of license cancellations at M Café, Puro Café, Zenobia Lounge and Pizzeria Uno.

Georgetown’s Moratorium Zone places a number of permit restrictions on area establishments, including a limit to 68 liquor licenses issued to restaurants to allow for sale and consumption of beer, wine and spirits. All Georgetown hotels, as well as businesses located in Georgetown Park, Prospect Place, Georgetown Court and Washington Harbour are exempt from the moratorium.

The moratorium is currently in effect in Georgetown until February 2016 and is one of five neighborhood moratorium zones in the District along with Adams Morgan, Glover Park, and both East and West Dupont Circle areas.

Gary Tischler •

In all the major and epochal events that have occurred over the past few weeks, nothing—not even the SCOTUS decision on gay marriage—seems to have been quite as tumultuous, and quite as dramatically full of rapid change as the political and cultural reaction to the shooting of nine African Americans at the historic Emmauel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

Nine people—the kind of people, pastors, religious leaders, community leaders, old, young, and blameless folks, women and men, fathers and grandmothers, all of whom led lives that were admired and inspirational—were killed in the church by a young 21-year-old white supremacist. He sat with these people, members of a bible study group, for an hour, felt their presence and individuality intimately, but no curb, no compassion or empathy, no emotion touched him except the urgency of killing them because they represented everything he resented and hated in the world.

Political leaders at first were outraged—South Carolina governor Nikki Haley’s first response was to emphatically call for the death penalty of the alleged killer who was apprehended and arrested not too long after the murders, but she did not at first embrace the idea of doing away with the Confederate battle flag that flew at the state capitol. Like some others, she insisted that the flag needed to fly free. Republican presidential candidates responded with shock and not a little confusion, wondering how this atrocity could have happened and seemed baffled that it did. President Obama’s initial response was one of strong outrage, and frustration on the issue of guns.

But something else happened—the crime and the killings stunned African Americans, who felt the losses keenly and deeply, like vivid aftershocks from the worst and most violent days of the Civil Rights movement as well as more recent events involving the deaths of black men at the hands of white police officers.

But there were no people raging in anger in the streets. There was grief, lamentation and, shockingly, forgiveness. And this time, they were not alone—the outrage, and perhaps more important, the sense of loss and lost was acutely universal. In South Carolina, , where the South’s most avid secessionist had left the United States of America first as the country moved toward Civil War—white neighbors embraced their fellow African American neighbors in Charleston, weeping and full of grief.

But when the alleged killer’s manifesto fully revealed him to be a white supremacist and racist gnarled and defiant, and when a photograph of him with the confederate flag emerged, there was bi more mystery to motivation—he murdered good and upstanding people in the black community out of sheer hate. And that self-evident fact changed everything.

Governor Haley emphatically called for the removal of the flag from the state capitol grounds. “It is time to move the flag from the capitol” and she was joined in South Carolina by Senator Lindsay Graham, and perhaps more surprisingly and resonant as metaphor, South Carolina State Senator Paul Thurmond, son of the South’s uber-segregationist, the late Strom Thurmond.

The presidential candidate fell in line too, suddenly finding the wisdom to understand that the killings were not a mystery, but inspired by symbols and a warped view of history, including the Confederate battle flag. Businesses were eliminating logos and products embedded with confederate flag logs, Virginia contemplated taking the flag off of license plates.

It was a watershed rush to judgement, which seemed to include questioning the values of Southern traditions, values and history itself. One man interviewed on television, whose house was lathered in walls of confederate flags, wailed about an attack on Southern traditions, courage and values. Told that the Ku Klux Klan had used the flag, he wailed that they “stole it from us, they defiled the flag.” He, like many others, insisted that the flag (and the war) was not about slavery, but about state’s rights.

It seems in many ways a peculiarly Southern thing, this battle over the flag as a battle over the Civil War and how it is remembered and commemorated in the South. But it’s also a wholly American thing, because the war is so ingrained in the nation’s popular culture—there remain millions of people who had seen “Gone With the Wind” over and over again, and its effects should not be minimized.

Thousands—maybe millions—of people, amateur historians, battle-re-enactors—see the war as a series of battles fought bravely and most bravely by the confederate soldiers and their romantic, brilliant cadre of generals and officers—Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson, Jubal Early, Jeb Stuart, George Pickett, Longstreet and all the others In many minds, the war exists as a series of actions—Pickett’s futile charge, the battle over bridges and ditches, the rebel yell, Stuart’s cavalier cavalry.

To African Americans in the South and all over the nation, the war was about the emancipation of the slaves, which freed slaves, without giving them freedom in their daily lives, especially in the South, which continued slavery by other means with segregation and Jim crow.

In the Washington area, the beltway culture, those symbols from the war and the old south and American history abound and abide still. At an overnight stay last year in Frederick, Maryland, we visited the cemetery where Francis Scott Key is honored and were we were startled to see the statue of a Confederate soldier, with the Confederate flag flying free behind him. Frederick also honors Supreme Court Justice Roger Taney—Scott’s father-in-law—with a statue, as does Baltimore. Taney was the author of the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision which stated that the federal government could not regulate slavery in territories and that slaves free and not could never be citizens of the United States.

Perhaps the horrible murders in South Carolina might lead to some real conversations, white and black, white and white, black and black, old and young, about the past. Maybe the political air around state capitols will be a little clearer with the removal of that wounding flag.

And maybe not. You can expect the process to be painful and difficult and long. Already, no less an intellectual than Ann Coulter—and others—suggested that perhaps Governor Haley—a staunch conservative—did not fully understand the traditions of the south because she was raised in an immigrant culture..

But that initial reaction—across the country, and from most politicians on both sides of the aisle-was thunderous, in the heat of a battle that has not yet been fought, but will surely continue forward.

Georgetowner •

Dinner & A Movie

June 18th, 2015 at 07:45 PM | 0 | isobel@taapr.com | Tel: 2026258370 | Event Website

Market Common Clarendon will be hosting Dinner & A Movie On The Loop for four consecutive Thursday’s kicking off on June 18. Each week will have a Market Common Clarendon restaurant partner serving dinner for a fixed amount to enjoy during the movie. Movie’s will begin at 8:30 PM, with food available beginning at 7:45 PM.

Thursday, June 18th: Big Hero 6

Address

Market Common Clarendon; 2700 Clarendon Boulevard; Arlington VA 22201

Cooking Light & Health’s The Fit Foodie 5K Race Weekend

June 19th, 2015 at 06:00 PM | $55-$150 | sarahj@breadandbutterpr.com | Event Website

Ready, set, go – To the most delicious 5K race ever! Cooking Light & Health’s The Fit Foodie 5K Race Series is the ultimate celebration of food, fitness and fun. The race weekend is jam-packed with delicious bites and sips, a scenic 5K Race, Finisher’s Village Celebration, interactive demonstrations from acclaimed fitness and culinary talent, Tracy Anderson Method, a Sunday Brunch, tons of giveaways and more! At The Fit Foodie 5K Race Weekend, crossing the finish line has never tasted so good!

Address

Strawberry Mark at Mosaic District; 2910 District Avenue; Fairfax, VA 22031

Summer Lounge at the Shops at Wisconsin Place

June 19th, 2015 at 06:00 PM | isobel@taapr.com | Tel: 2026258370 | Event Website

Summer Lounge at the Shops at Wisconsin Place will be hosting its second live music performance as a part of the Summer Music Series on Friday, June 19 from 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM. Guests will be able to experience a relaxing evening complete with The Christopher Linman Jazz Experience while also enjoying summer food offerings provided by the Capital Grille, Le Pain Quotidien, and Whole Foods Market. In addition, there will also be an Enter To Win, featuring items from your favorite retailers.

Address

5310 Western Avenue; Chevy Chase MD 20835

Millennial Made: Food Face Off

June 19th, 2015 at 07:00 PM | $30 | Event Website

Description: What could be better than an evening of savory cuisine and cocktails? In partnership with Union Kitchen, Millennial chefs will showcase their use of cool gadgets and cooking technology. Featuring live cooking stations, attendees will sample foods from each station and vote to determine which Millennial chef creates D.C.’s “best bite”.
Sponsor: Union Kitchen

Address

1776; 1133 15th St NW

Humane Society Pet Adoption Van Visits Georgetown Library!

June 20th, 2015 at 12:00 PM | FREE | rebekah.smith@dc.gov | Tel: 202-727-0232 | Event Website

Be a real hero this summer — adopt a pet in need! Come celebrate the DC Library’s summer reading program, “Every Hero Has a Story” with a special visit from the Washington Humane Society’s pet adoption van on Saturday, June 20th, from 12-4pm. You can visit with their adorable animals, learn about volunteer opportunities, and even complete a same-day adoption process to take home a new furry friend! All are welcome!

Address

Georgetown Neighborhood Library; 3260 R Street NW

Nordic Jazz Festival 2015

June 20th, 2015 at 04:00 PM | 0-$35 | idaang@um.dk | Tel: 202-304-0402 | Event Website

Nordic Jazz 2015 presents Scandinavia’s top performers in Washington D.C. June 20th – 27th.
The Nordic Embassies, Twins Jazz Club, the Dupont Circle Festival and the Phillips Collection are excited to present the ninth annual Nordic Jazz Festival in Washington, D.C., June 20th – 27th, 2015. Internationally acclaimed performers from Denmark, Finland, Iceland and Sweden will present the modern sound of Nordic Jazz over the course of 11 concerts.

Address

Twins Jazz; The Phillips Collection; Embassy of Finland; House of Sweden; and Dupont Circle Park

Friends of Rose Park Summer Movie Nights

June 20th, 2015 at 08:00 PM

Bring your picnics, chairs, and blankets for a screening of “Rio 2” at 8 p.m. June 20. Drinks and snacks available!

Address

Rose Park; 26th and O Streets

Sunday Serenity: Yoga in the Park

June 21st, 2015 at 09:30 AM | $5 suggested donation | info@dumartonhouse.org | Tel: 202-337-2288 | Event Website

From June 21 to August 30, Dumbarton House will host a guided yoga session every Sunday from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM in the East Park. The classes are followed by a meditation. Bring a yoga mat and wear something comfy to enjoy a relaxing experience in one of our lovely gardens.

There is a $5 suggested donation to the instructor that will be collected during each class. Reservations are not required but to find out more information and to claim a spot, visit DumbartonHouse.org/events.

Address

2715 Q St NW

Tchikovsky’s 1812 Overture/Emanuel Ax Plays Brahms

June 21st, 2015 at 08:15 PM | Event Website

Tchaikovsky’s triumphant masterpiece complete with cannon blasts, and his romantic overture to Romeo and Juliet, with internationally-acclaimed pianist Emanuel Ax’s “thoughtful, lyrical, lustrous” (The Washington Post) playing of Brahms.

Address

Filene Center; 1551 Trap Road; Vienna, VA 22812

Robert Devaney •

The Georgetown–Burleith Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E held its July meeting June 29 to discuss, among other things, home rentals and the city’s archaeological survey of 3324 Dent Place NW, the lot on which freed slave Yarrow Marmout lived.

On home rentals, the commission touched on both short- and long-term rentals with regard to Airbnb “party houses” and Georgetown University student rentals, respectively. D.C. Department of Consumer Regulatory Affairs acting director Melissa Bolling appeared at the meeting to talk about both issues.

Commissioner Tom Birch raised a number of concerns that Georgetowners have about short-term rentals, including their use as “party houses.” Despite legal issues surrounding Airbnb rentals in D.C., Bolling said her agency can only flag problem houses based on complaints related to excessive noise or other problems. She noted that DCRA is considering new rules on short-term rentals akin to those the D.C. Taxi Commission have considered regarding Uber.

On off-campus student housing, Bolling said that DCRA wants properties rented out by GU students “in the system” in order to make sure the dwellings are safe, inspected and licensed to be rented. She said DCRA will be conducting “surprise” inspections this summer to further that goal.

Also at the meeting, Ruth Trocolli, the D.C.’s chief archaeologist, gave an update on the dig underway at the Yarrow Marmout lot on Dent Place. She and field director Mia Carey have high hopes that the dig will uncover artifacts that will shine a light on Marmout and Georgetown’s African American history more broadly.

Marmout, who was taken from Guinea and enslaved, was educated and became a successful merchant in town. His life was recounted in the book, “From Slave Ship to Harvard: Yarrow Mamout and the History of an African American Family.”

To support the project, contact the D.C. Preservation League to donate towards its goal of raising $7,000. According to the league, “This project is being conducted by the D.C. Historic Preservation Office with the assistance of student and community volunteers. The funds will be used to conduct remote sensing of the site, hire a professional earth moving team to remove fill and to purchase necessary supplies to complete the project.”

Georgetowner •

Writing and singing in 1963, Bob Dylan gave us an anthem for the 1960s in “The Times They Are A-Changin’ ”: Vietnam, the counter culture, civil rights tragedies and triumphs and assassinations.

Dylan, who remains with us as a crusty, gravelly sage, may himself be astonished by how change dances through the street these days, multitasking at will. Last week, change was a daily dancer, the kind we’ve hardly ever seen before. In a week marked in red by the prior week’s murder of nine parishioners at a historic black church in Charleston, change charged into our lives — especially here, but everywhere else, too — with an almost brusque confidence.

It was an especially good and transformative week for President Barack Obama, who suddenly had a legacy in hand as, first, Congress handed him a hard-fought victory on his trade deal, then the Supreme Court (now and forever SCOTUS in this acronym-favoring and acrimonious society) upheld the president’s health-care program by a convincing 6-3 vote. On the following historic day, the court ruled 5-4 that same-sex couples were allowed to marry nationwide, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy providing the key vote and an eloquent, moving rationale.

Suddenly — President Obama called the gay-marriage decision a thunderbolt — it seemed we had witnessed something transformative. A cultural earthquake had shaken the body politic, resulting in tremors of jubilation and, for shocked opponents, tremors of fear.

Republicans were said to have a hard time of it, which did not prevent every single so-far-announced candidate, from Bush to what’s-his-or-her-name, from announcing the old bromide: we will fight for repeal of Obamacare. It’s as if they were wearing their old hand-me-downs, still lamely saying what they were against and failing to articulate what they were for.

This was a remarkable difference from the GOP response to the shootings by a self-proclaimed white supremacist in South Carolina. Many Southern GOP officials, governors and presidential candidates called for getting rid of the Confederate flags on public display, in one way or another.

The tragedy also turned out to be a triumph for the president. It was as if the old Obama, the rhetorically gifted and inspiring young candidate of 2008, had reappeared in a stirring eulogy for the Rev. Clementa Pinckney. With an act of amazing grace, he led four thousand parishioners in the singing of “Amazing Grace.”

It seemed to many that these were watershed days, when a rainbow flag of love seemed to replace a flag that inspired hate, when progressives moved from being seen as knee-jerk, PC liberals to the grand masters of inclusion and tolerance, injected by a fresh spirit. Their friends on the other side of the aisle seemed suddenly old, entranced by the past.

But, before the next thing happens, let’s listen again to Mr. Dylan’s words: “As the present now/Will later be past/The order is rapidly fadin’/And the first one now will later be last/For the times they are a-changin’.”

Kelly Byrnes •

Dozens of protesters gathered July 9 at the Old Post Office Pavilion, the site slated to become the Trump Hotel next year, to join forces against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

At the same time, a smaller group of Trump supporters also showed up near the protestors.

Led by local elected officials and activists of community groups, the crowd voiced anger towards Trump’s recent comments in which he degraded Latinos and Mexican immigrants, referring to them as “criminals” and “rapists.”

At the corner of Pennsylvania Avenue and 12th Street NW, shadow Sen. Paul Strauss (D) of the District of Columbia rallied the crowd, saying, “This building is on the people’s land, and it is the American people’s building. The Trump name stands for nothing but intolerance and hate.”

Strauss cited recent racial victories, including the passage of a bill to take down the Confederate flag from the statehouse in South Carolina and the court ruling to cancel the Washington Redskins trademark registrations over concerns that they convey a derogatory image of Native Americans, to provoke passion from the crowd.  

Latino presence was strong at the protest, with participants vigorously chanting Spanish phrases, such as “Si se puede” –translated to English as “Yes, we can.”

Maryland state Sen. Jamie Raskin (D) called upon the Republican Party and its constituents to recognize Trump’s controversial comments. He also urged citizens of Maryland, D.C. and Virginia to “boycott Trump hotels, boycott Trump casinos and boycott Trump politics.”  

The protest comes just one day after celebrity chef Jose Andres, a Spanish immigrant, backed out of plans to head a restaurant in the upcoming Trump Hotel.

Trump has faced plenty of backlash for his discriminatory comments, as NBC, Univision and Macy’s have all cut their corporate ties with the business mogul. 
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Robert Devaney •

West End Cinema, the independent movie theater at 23rd and M Streets NW that closed March 31 after four years of operation, will re-open July 17 as part of Landmark Theatres, the cinema chain announced this week.

Headquartered in Los Angeles, Landmark Theatres is known for showing documentaries, independent and foreign films and operates 50 theaters — 229 screens in 21 markets — across the U.S. Its first spot in D.C. was E Street Cinema at 555 11th St. NW in Penn Quarter, and it also operates Bethesda Row Cinema. In 2016, Landmark’s footprint in D.C. will expand with new screens in the old Atlantic Plumbing building at 8th and V streets NW later this year and at the Capitol Point project at New York Avenue and N Street NE, one block from the NoMa/Gallaudet U Metro station.

Previously known as the Inner Circle triplex before Josh Levin revived the place as West End Cinema, the new theater in the West End neighborhood will have two screens, and its lobby service will include alcoholic beverages.

Landmark President Ted Mundorff said that the new M Street venue will “bring even more films and events to the Dupont Circle, Foggy Bottom and Georgetown neighborhoods.”

Robert Devaney •

There are 18 staffers and 11 fellows — 31 in total. The non-profit bakery, which opened at 3206 Grace St. NW in late 2014, receives no funding from the government but does work with federal agencies that provide resources for service members and families.

Co-founders Rev. Richard Curry, S.J., of Georgetown University, and Constance Milstein, of New York City, Washington, D.C. and Georgetown, began their labor of love eight years ago.

For Dog Tag’s very first employee, Chief Operating Officer Meghan Ogilvie, who worked in finance in New York, her meeting with Curry recounted a similar tale experienced by many involved with the non-profit bakery.

“My college roommate called me one day and told me about a family friend, Father Richard Curry, who was looking to start a nonprofit for veterans,” Ogilvie recalled. “She knew I’d be interested as I’m from a Marine Corps family, with my father who served 26 years and my sister who served for eight.” Ogilvie sent her resume but got no response. Her friend was getting married, Ogilvie was a bridesmaid — and the officiant at her wedding was none other than Curry. “I found him at the rehearsal dinner and began my pitch — by the end of the weekend I had a job offer.” She started April 2012.

For Ogilvie, Dog Tag Bakery means opportunity and empowerment. “One percent of the country voluntarily signed up to protect the other 99 percent. Our organization provides quality opportunities for our veterans and spouses to take advantage of and empower their lives moving forward. It’s on the fellows to take charge of their lives, and we are here to be a support for the transition into the civilian workforce,” she said.

Are there other Dog Tag Bakeries to come? “Once we perfect the program at our Georgetown location, we look forward to opening up in cities across the country,” Ogilvie said.

Job applicants can visit DogTagInc.org. Customers can go to the bakery, or visit DogTagBakery.com.