News & Politics

Robert Devaney • April 11, 2016

Well, one business is leaving and another arriving. A new restaurant will fill the void left by the departed Morso. Capitol Prague Restaurant will soon set up at M and Potomac Streets, part of the Eton Court complex.

Capitol Prague will operate a restaurant and a coffee shop two doors away, said manager Petra Foist, who added, “We hope to open in mid-April.” With Czech and Slovak cuisine—schnitzel, goulash, braised pork and dumplings—as well as various beers, “it will be down-home cooking,” Foist said. Capitol Prague will be the only restaurant in Washington, D.C., with Czechvar lager on draft, she said. That beer is made by the famed Budweiser Budvar Brewery (Bud?jovický Budvar) in the Czech Republic. (Capitol Prague is still constructing its website.)

One block away from the new restaurant, a business is closing its 33rd Street location — but not closing. It will become an online operation: J. Chocolatier’s retail shop is closing Monday, March 4.

“We have had a fantastic three-and-a-half years in our Georgetown location,” wrote J. Chocolatier owner Jane Morris in an email. “Not to worry: J. Chocolatier will continue bringing delicious chocolates to the D.C. area. . . . We plan to roll out a brand new website with online ordering later in March (and just in time for Easter treats). Local shipments usually arrive in one to two days. You can also continue to purchase our bon bons at CocoVa in Adams Morgan or order them with your wine at Veritas Wine Bar in DuPont Circle. We plan to expand our wholesale business to select stores in the D.C. area very soon.”

Morris continued: “We are proud to say that our Georgetown retail sales have grown every year, with increases ranging from 20 percent to 50 percent year-over-year. That’s no small feat in a difficult economy with the shockingly small boot-strap budget that we had. We achieved this by providing our customers with excellent products and services. You, the customers, did the rest through word-of-mouth. In fact, we are exiting the Georgetown store up 27 percent so far for 2013.”

As to the question of why close the 33rd Street store now, Morris replied: “It has been a treat to work in such beautiful surroundings everyday. Unfortunately, there were some problems with the Georgetown location. We had minimal foot traffic. Plus, the old building was nearly impossible to keep cool in the summer. That caused major headaches like sky-high utilities and constant AC and refrigeration repairs. All of these factors combined really hurt our bottom line. It just didn’t make sense to continue operating in a location that wasn’t working well for us.”

And as far as future retail space, Morris wrote: “We haven’t ruled that out. We continue to look for another retail location, but are carefully considering our options. In the meantime, we will be looking to partner with other local businesses to do pop-up shops and markets. We also look forward to another season at the Downtown Holiday Market this December.”

Fans can follow J. Chocolatier on Facebook or Twitter. It also guide chocolate tastings for private groups and corporate clients. There is a party today, Monday, with free chocolate and Champagne, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., at J. Chocolatier, 1039 33rd St., NW—202-333-4111.

Robert Devaney •

MRP Realty and investment partner, Rock- point Group LLC, will put Washington Harbour, the Georgetown retail, office and residential landmark on K Street and the Potomac River up for sale in March or April, as first reported by Washington Business Journal.

“The Potomac River property could fetch well in excess of $250 million,” according to the Business Journal. “MRP and Rockpoint teamed up in June 2010 to buy the two-building center for $244.5 million, or about $459 per square foot. One real estate expert familiar with the property estimated it could go for as much as $400 million.”

“When we purchased the asset three years ago we saw some phenomenal opportunity at the Harbour. It is an irreplaceable landmark as- set,” Bob Murphy, managing principal of MRP Realty, told the Journal. “We really love the project. We really have put our heart and soul into it, and we’re excited when we see value created.”

Along with $50 million in renovation and getting past the April 2011 flood, Washington Harbour premiered the ice skating rink at its center fountain last November. The ice rink and renovated restaurants made the riverside complex a year-round destination.

Gary Tischler •

I woke up in the middle of the night thinking I’d fallen asleep during the Oscars. In the dark, I finally accepted the fact that the show was indeed over and that the smoke alarm hadn’t gone off either.

My goodness, this year’s Oscars show was long. I was getting punchy at the end, so much so that when first lady Michelle Obama appeared via Skype just prior to Jack Nicholson announcing the best picture award (Surprise! “Django Unchained.” Just kidding.), I’d jotted down Michele Bachman’s name instead of the first lady’s. I dare not repeat that mistake.

Still, we watch these things, sometimes almost avidly, because, well . . . so that the next day we could begin conversations with “I’m ashamed to say I watched the whole thing.”

And I did. And I’m only a little ashamed. I have now seen enough clips of “The Life of Pi” that I don’t actually have to see it, and I congratulate Jet Li, I’m sorry . . . Ang Lee on his surprise win for Best Director. Somebody up there doesn’t like Steve Spielberg, or maybe it’s the town, or Ben Affleck’s revenge or the curse of “The Color Purple.” Getting recognition from Affleck, who stood up on the podium with George Clooney and a host of actors now working in television when his “Argo” won Best Picture, probably didn’t soften the blow for Spielberg, who gets robbed as routinely as a guy carrying an iPhone or an iPad after midnight in the city.

The Oscars have better-late-than-never hopped on the train of officially putting on a show as opposed to an awards ceremony. These Oscars started to resemble the Grammys which hardly bother to hand out any awards between numbers. Still, first-time Oscars host Seth MacFarlane is no substitute for Justin Timberlake.

What’s fun about watching the Oscars is that it’s getting to be like watching Access Hollywood, about which I am a little bit ashamed. You can grouse, snark and talk about dresses and things you would never mention to your buddies, and you can say Charlize Theron and Halle Berry are beautiful to your wife or girlfriend because they agree with you although you shouldn’t get too interested in Jennifer Lawrence—who, bye the bye, was a popular winner for Best Actress, tripped on her dress and comported herself with youthful, bracing dignity and humor, the way she appears to have done all through the awards season.

The same cannot be said for Anne Hathaway, of whom we have seen way too much and heard from way too much. We can only hope that she will gain her weight and hair back and that she can now stop talking about being worried about the Fantines of the world. She has now won every award for which she was eligible this season, plus winning a life time achievement award in the dieting hall of fame. Not only that: she guessed correctly the contents of the mystery object contest. Seriously. Yes, she won. The Oscar . . . For Best Supporting Actress. Is that a surprise? Other than that, how did you enjoy the show, Mrs. Lincoln aka Sally Field?

MacFarlane turned out to be an odd duck of a host. He’s that bad little boy with the big grin who looks good in a tux, can even warble a little and has a penchant for bad jokes. He sang and danced to a song called “We saw Your Boobies,” chronicling just about every female Hollywood star who, well, you know what. The opening sequence, the trophy for which has been retired by Billy Crystal, proved to be one of those things in which William Shatner (not yet retired it appears), beams down as Captain Kirk to critique MacFarlane’s work as a host. This allowed MacFarlane to dump bad one-liners and appear to make it a part of the act, although he continued to do so long after the schtick was over. This is called having your tasteless joke and eating it too, especially the one about assassin John Wilkes Booth being the only person to get into Lincoln’s head. Yuck.

There were some surprises—Christoph Waltz won Best Supporting Actor for his urbane German killer (a little like the urbane SS killer from “Inglorious Basterds,” for which he also won the same award), upsetting either Robert DeNiro or Tommy Lee Jones, who are starting to look alike.

Quentin Tarantino, ever the disheveled bad boy, won an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay, which will now encourage him, no doubt, to do a a six-part movie about the end of the world in which everyone dies an excruciating but movingly painful and realistic death.

Our friends and neighbors, it should be noted, did well at the Oscars. Local filmmakers Sean and Andrea Nix Fine won an Oscar for Best Short Documentary and Georgetown resident George Stevens, Jr., received an honorary Oscar—along with stunt legend Hal Needham and documentary filmmaker D.A. Pennebaker. Stevens is the founder of the American Film Institute and the Kennedy Center Honors as well as being a noted film director and playwright and the son of one of Hollywood’s greatest directors, George Stevens.

Among other highlights was a tribute to the 50-year-old James Bond series, which—Jimmy, we hardly knew ye— included a jazzy, sleek and grand dame killed-it rendition of “Goldfinger” by Shirley Bassey, with which Oscar winner for a Bond song Adele could not compete with.

Then, there was the red carpet. It was red, it was crowded and every five seconds, up popped Chrkrisumcrissy Generalwith,Chowdownith, which was annoying because you had to spell her name right (K-r-i-s-t-i-n C-h-e-n-o-w-i-t-h Kristin Chenowith) and listen to her sparkly little chatter and jokes about her diminutive stature, although, to her credit, she blurted out a loud “Holy crap!” when Anne Hathaway guessed the mystery item under covers (the red slippers from “The Wizard of Oz”).

Little did I know that after seeing numerous versions of “Les Miserables” and the movie version, I would get to see the whole thing all over again when every member of the cast of the movie and various unidentified people in costume rang through several lines of every song in the show, I think. Now, I won’t have to do that again for a few years. And oh-my-god, there she was again: Anne Hathaway aka Fantine, still alive after all that suffering.

Only one question remains: If Anne Hathaway wakes up in the middle of the night, does she start singing “I Dreamed a Dream”?

Robert Devaney •

Broken-down government property at around $15 million needing even more millions to fix up or an established superplex on the Potomac for millions in three digits?

As the price on the West Heating Plant, now actively getting bids on the auction website of the General Services Administration, keeps going up, ponder the potential price for Washington Harbour, less than a block away from the 29th Street property, set to go on sale.

MRP Realty and investment partner, Rockpoint Group LLC, will put the Georgetown retail, office and residential landmark on K Street and the Potomac River up for sale in March or April, as first reported by Washington Business Journal.

“The Potomac River property could fetch well in excess of $250 million,” according to the Business Journal. “MRP and Rockpoint teamed up in June 2010 to buy the two-building center for $244.5 million, or about $459 per square foot. One real estate expert familiar with the property estimated it could go for as much as $400 million.”

“When we purchased the asset three years ago we saw some phenomenal opportunity at the Harbour. It is an irreplaceable landmark asset,” Bob Murphy, managing principal of MRP Realty, told the Journal. “We really love the project. We really have put our heart and soul into it, and we’re excited when we see value created.”

Along with $50 million in renovation and getting past the April 2011 flood, Washington Harbour premiered the ice skating rink at its center fountain last November. The ice rink and renovated restaurants made the riverside complex a year-round destination.

As for the West Heating Plant, the two-acre government property continues to get bids between two or three bidders. As of Feb. 25, the winning stood at a little more than $15.5 million, with another day of bidding extended yet again. Advised the GSA: “We are now with the soft-close period. Bidders are encouraged to check back frequently to the remaining auction time.” If no one bids on the plant for more than 24 hours, the GSA will then decide if the auction is to be concluded.

Jeff Malet •

Joel Grey came to the Smithsonian for a special donation ceremony and the screening of his Academy Award-winning performance in “Cabaret” at the National Museum of American History’s Warner Bros. Theater Feb. 22. The event marked the film’s 40th anniversary. In honor of the occasion, the actor donated the straw hat that he wore when he danced with a gorilla, while singing, “If You Could See Her (Through My Eyes).” Other items from the museum’s collection of “Cabaret” costumes were on display, including the black tuxedo pants and tailcoat used by Grey in the film and the 1987 revival tour, and the pink satin vest, wig and shoes worm by Grey in the stage production.

Before the screening of “Cabaret,” Grey sat down with curator Dwight Blocker Bowers for a discussion of the film.
Grey said he was just about to quit the business in 1966 after a series of uninspiring roles when he got a call from famed producer and director Hal Prince about a new show based on John Van Druten’s 1951 play “I Am a Camera,” which in turn was adapted from the 1939 short novel “Goodbye to Berlin” by Christopher Isherwood. Grey was to be given five songs by his good fiends John Kander and Fred Ebb, but there was initially no real definition of his character role. In rehearsal, it took weeks before Grey found the darkness in that character which became the emcee. It was based in part on real persons Grey encountered while he was stationed in Germany in the Army, and nightclub performers he had seen earlier.

The musical was set in Berlin in 1931 during the Nazi rise to power, and just a year before the actor was born. The straw hat Grey donated was worn during what he considers to be the “quintessential place in the film where everything changes . . . the character of the emcee was . . . so much of a double idea… Adolf Hitler-like in that he promises the audience a very good time . . . bread on every table. . . . They follow and they have a good time, and at the end he turns out to be something other than what we thought he was.”

View our photos of Joel Grey at the Smithsonian by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101173,142586,142579,142572,142566,142558,142551,142544,142537,142600,142607,142529,142612,142617,142593" nav="thumbs"]

Jeff Malet •

The Smithsonian celebrated Presidents’ Day Weekend with a variety of special events, including Presidents’ Family Day at the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Portrait Gallery and the fifth anniversary of the Live Butterfly Pavilion at the Natural History Museum with special arts and crafts activities for children of all ages. We also took a stroll through the 2013 Orchids of Latin America exhibition which will run through April 21, also at the National Museum of Natural History.

View our photos by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="101169,142414,142407,142400,142392,142386,142378,142428,142371,142433,142364,142439,142356,142445,142421" nav="thumbs"]

Nico Dodd •

For the new Bonobos Guideshop in Georgetown, it’s all about the fit. On Jan. 29, the Bonobos Guideshop opened at 3321 Cady’s Alley, NW. The Guideshop concept is one that is specific to Bonobos e-commerce busi- ness model. Instead of buy- ing clothes from the brick and mortar store, customers try on different sizes to find the right fit and can then order garments online in the store or at home.

Before the shop in Georgetown opened, Bonobos had a tempo- rary location in Bethesda. Based on the success of the Bethesda location, the company “looking for a more permanent space” there as well, said Bonobos cofounder Andy Dunn. Erin Ersinkal, head of retail for Bonobos, said that the search process for a space in Georgetown only took one weekend. Guideshops are usually located in “high foot traffic areas” but are not necessar- ily “on the busiest corner,” since the customer experience is geared towards service and experi- ence as opposed to moving pants out the door. Bonobos Guideshops are also located in New York’s Flatiron district, Boston, Palo Alto, San Francisco and Chicago.

Speaking to an opening night crowd Jan. 28, Dunn said Bonobos’s e-commerce model is “the biggest revolution in retail since the auto- mobile.” [gallery ids="102580,119825" nav="thumbs"]

Gwendolyn Shearman •

The Glover Park property near Whole Foods Market will get a new look in 2013. The space, located at 2251 Wisconsin Avenue NW, was sold to real estate developers Jan. 15. The property, which now houses Glover Park Hardware and Washington Sports Club, overlooks the Naval Observatory and the vice president’s residence.

“The area has superior age/income demographics and the property generated a great deal of interest from developers,” said Gordon Nielsen, who represented the seller.

Brokered by Gordon Nielsen and Guy d’Amecourt of Summit Commercial Real Estate, LLC, the $20.1 million deal sold the property to a joint venture of Altus Realty Partners, Chesapeake Realty Partners and Ellisdale Construction.

The joint undertaking plans to resurface the exterior of the building to install a glass façade and to renovate the 30,000-square-foot retail space. In addition, plan call for a 65,000-square-foot, 81-unit residential rental property behind the existing building with two levels of underground parking that will hold approximately 97 spaces.

According to a press release from Summit, “The apartments will average 635 square feet with a mix of studios, one-bedroom, and two bedroom units looking to target young professionals.”

Brown Craig Turner architectural firm is providing the design concepts for the renovations and new construction, emphasizing that the project is “Targeting the Gen Y population.”

The joint venture is targeting a LEED Silver classification as well as improving the energy efficiency of the building by improving the current HVAC system in the existing building.

Glover Park Hardware and Washington Sports Club will remain open during the renovation, which is set to start in April of this year. The project will take about a year to complete, with residential spaces to be completed by July 2014.

Jeff Malet •

The 57th Presidential Inauguration theme, “Faith In America,” was echoed in President Barack Obama’s inaugural address from the west side of the U.S. Capitol Jan. 21 to a crowd that filled the National Mall. The president began his second term by asking the nation to act with “passion and dedication” to broaden equality and prosperity at home, nurture democracy around the world and combat global warming. He concluded with these words: “Let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.”

View our photos of Inauguration Day by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="139863,139786,139780,139773,139766,139760,139752,139745,139738,139793,139800,139856,139848,139842,139834,139828,139820,139814,139807,139732,139725,139719,139645,139638,139630,139870,139876,139882,139622,139887,139652,139659,139712,139706,139700,139693,139686,139680,139673,139666,101129" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

Forget Lance Armstrong. Forget that Notre Dame guy with the imaginary dead girlfriend. Forget the fact that nobody was nominated to the Baseball Hall of Fame this year and what all of that says about tainted glory.

Let’s talk about Earl Weaver. Let’s talk about Stan Musial. Both of them are already in the Baseball Hall of Fame, with no disclaimers, no errors, just grand slam lives and careers. Weaver and Musial, diminishing further a sports world dominated by obscene amounts of money, crazy, outrageous and sometimes criminal behavior and egos that can only be shaded and shared by confessions with Oprah.

When it comes to baseball, both Weaver, whose fame rests on his hugely successful run as a crafty, crusty Baltimore Oriole manager, and Musial, a major nice guy and star as a St. Louis Cardinal who counted among his peers players like Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays, were old school, each in his own way.

EARL WEAVER

Weaver was a major figure in the ranks of managers as colorful characters—a la Casey Stengel—but was also a pragmatic, shrewd visionary who anticipated stat-driven strategies and team building. He was a very smart, hard-working, completely to a fault honest, a man who salivated in front of umpires and became a legend. Musial, for sheer consistency of excellence and effort, stood right up there with his more glamorous peers. Sometimes, he stood above them. Each man defined their baseball times to some extent, and surely their teams and the cities they represented.

Among the many photographs you saw printed of Weaver, after his passing Jan. 19 of a heart attack, included one where he was getting into an umpire’s face, mouth wide open in a scream, full of combative fury, about to kick up home plate, the umpire a moment from yelling, “You’re outta here.” Weaver did not suffer fools gladly, and that included especially umpires, but also his players and the media, which covered just about everybody in his professional world.

But he was always a very smart guy in terms of managing and strategy, and he was blessed with great players like Brooks Robinson, Frank Robinson and great pitching topped by Jim Palmer. He once quipped that managing was easy—all you needed was a team where every guy was named Robinson. As a man and person, and manager, he understood himself very well, but he understood the game better. He was short of temper and short of stature—five foot seven—but long on game knowledge, charisma, loyalty and a few other things that make up the complexity of being human.

Weaver managed the Orioles from 1968 to 1982 and again for a year and a half in 1985 and 1986. He won 1,480 games and lost 1,060, for the ninth best percentage among managers ever. He won one World Series and lost three; two to the Pittsburgh Pirates and one to the New York Mets, an astonishing upset.

He believed in great pitching and the three-run homer and hated bunting, squeeze or otherwise, or playing for one run. “If you play for one run, that’s all you get,” he once said. He avoided friendship with his players which peeved Palmer but worked for Weaver. He did not avoid criticizing his players—he told one player, according to reports, who was in the midst of a big slump and heading for a chapel to “take your bat.”

For Weaver, who drank inordinate amounts of beer and smoked a lot, managing was work, but sometimes you suspect that heckling umpires was a joy for him. When one umpire offered to let him read his rule book after one loud dispute, he declined, saying “I can’t read Braille.” He was ejected from more than 100 games, which may be a record. But when he was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, in his acceptance speech, he thanked “the umpires.”

According to the New York Times, when Pat Kelly, a player who led prayer meetings, was peeved that they didn’t get enough time for the meetings, he asked Weaver, “Don’t you want us to walk with the Lord?” Weaver replied “I’d rather have you walk with the bases loaded.”

In his final season—his only losing one—he said, “Just write on my tombstone: ‘The sorest loser who ever lived.’ ”

I’m not going to check that one. You never know.

STAN MUSIAL

Stan Musial, who died at the age of 92, didn’t cuss out umpires as far as anybody knows. If he did, it was quietly, where only the second baseman might have heard what he said. They called him “Stan the Man,” and he was described as a gentlemanly slugger, which seems a contradictory term, but there you are.

As a player, he had attitude: the same kind Ernie Banks, the perennially sunny and great Chicago Cubs player and Little Orphan Annie had: the sun will come out tomorrow, and that’s when we’ll play two.

He was born grit and true working class, the son of a Polish immigrant working in the steel town of Donora, Pa., a little ways away from Pittsburgh, the kind of town full of Eastern European mill workers from Serbia, Poland, the former Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia. Ohio and Pennsylvania were full of towns like that—one such was featured in “The Deerhunter.”

But Musial wasn’t rough and tumble: he became a legend for his performances and the way he hit a baseball better than most people. He was one of the good guys. He was an exuberant, warm, what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of guy. He did not have DiMaggio’s aloofness, Williams’s fixated bully competitiveness, May’s bustle-hustling spectacular style or Mantle’s self-destructiveness. Indeed, he was “The Man.”

Here’s why: from 1941 to the 1960s, he hit 475 home runs, got 3,630 hits, drove in 1,951 and had a career batting average of .331, playing on three World Series Championship teams and was named Most Valuable Player three times, playing the outfield and third base. His favorite song? “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” which he could play on his harmonica. He married his wife Lillian, who died last year at the age of 91, in 1940. He was in the restaurant business, hosting Stan and Biggie’s since 1949.

Musial was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2011. The president said Musial was “untarnished, a beloved pillar of the community, a gentleman you’d want your kids to emulate.”