News & Politics

Georgetowner • May 11, 2015

New speed enforcement cameras in the District were activated by the Metropolitan Police Department May 4. The five new locations joint the more 300 speed camera locations across the city, according to the District Department of Transportation.

During the first 30 days, violators will receive a warning ticket. Once the 30-day period is ended, speeders will receive a full-fledged speeding tickets.

Speed cameras — two of which are next to Georgetown — have just been set up at:
= 2600 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW, northbound
= 4400 block of Reservoir Road NW, eastbound
= 700 block of Maryland Avenue NW, southbound  
= 2400 block of 18th Street NE, southbound
= 3000 block of Pennsylvania Avenue SE, northwestbound  

According to WJLA News, the District saw a sharp drop in revenue from $75 million in fiscal 2013 to $37 million in fiscal 2014.

In April, six new cameras were set up at:
= 6100 block of Eastern Avenue NE, southeastbound
= 3200 block of Fort Lincoln Drive NE, southbound
= 600 block of Kenilworth Avenue NE, southbound
= 1400 block of South Capitol Street, northbound and southbound
= 1900 block of Branch Avenue SE, southbound

Robert Devaney •

“We give a second life to trees,” said Thomas Moser, founder of Thos. Moser Handmade American Furniture, whose company seems to treat every day as if it were Earth Day.

Celebrating his 80th birthday, Moser was at the opening of the company’s new store in Georgetown March 20 to say hello to Maine’s Congressional delegation and his clients and fans – and, we might add, to charm anyone talking with him.

The company’s chairs, tables and dressers of simple, timeless design are highly regarded, expensive, meant to last generations. Moser gets the attention of architects, designers and homeowners, as well as schools and libraries, even presidential ones.

Handcrafted and signed, company output is 85-percent residential. One Maryland house reportedly has more than 30 pieces. Moser has furnished parts of Georgetown University’s law library as well as that of Catholic University. The company’s products are on full display at the Park Hyatt on M Street in the West End and in its Blue Duck Tavern.

Aaron Moser, one of the founder’s sons, heads the company’s contract division, which serves offices and schools. He is as proud of the company’s 55 pieces at the George W. Bush Presidential Library as he is of Moser’s relationship with St. Timothy’s School, just outside Baltimore, and its students, who attend woodworking classes at the Maine factory.

“We’re not furniture purveyors,” the company founder says. “We’re craftsman.” His enthusiasm is infectious, and his brutal honesty and cheeriness fill a room.

The new Georgetown store on 33rd Street is “more like an art gallery,” the company’s “finest in the country,” Moser said, looking around the 5,000-square-foot space. Located a few doors north at the corner of 33rd and M Streets for 10 years, the Moser store is back after almost a three-year absence because Georgetown fits the company’s marketing demographics perfectly.

It is a little out of the way for Moser – the C&O Canal is down the street – but he loves its ambiance and is curious about the history of the building at 1028 33rd St. NW.

The building’s solid stone (from the Aqueduct Bridge which was replaced by Key Bridge in 1923) and brickwork lines up well with a Moser mantra, a reworded Shakerism: “Build an object as though it were to last a thousand years and as if you were to die tomorrow.”

“I learned woodworking from dead people,” said Moser, not skipping a beat in retelling how he became part of the handicraft revival of the 1970s.

Originally from Chicago, an Air Force veteran, he was a college professor teaching language and speech pathology. He taught in Saudi Arabia for a few years, setting up language labs at the College of Petroleum and Minerals.

After years of pursuing woodworking as a hobby – beginning with antique-hunting and making missing drawers for pieces: “We bought 26 grandfather clocks in parts.” He called the learning process a case of reverse engineering. “Parts of things show continuity.”

Soon enough, Moser was all in, starting his business in 1972 in New Gloucester, Maine, which, as of 2010, still holds a Shaker community of four. With his wife Mary’s support – they met when he was 14 years old and she was 12 – a career reinvention from academic to woodworker took place. Married for 58 years, the couple has four sons: Matthew, Andrew, Aaron and David.

“I wanted to recapture the craft of the early-19th-century artisans,” Moser said. “I venerate the 19th century.” He liked what Americans produced before factories began to dot the nation in the second half of the 1800s. He said he is “fascinated by Shaker design, the honesty of material, the economy of labor. The Shakers prayed to God with their hands.”

Other influences on Moser include Stickley, the Arts and Crafts movement and Bauhaus design. “My work is derivative,” he said. As for the classic Windsor chair, “the best ones are in America.”

“We are the antithesis of Ikea,” says Moser CEO Bill McGonagle. “We like to say our furniture lasts as long as the time it took the tree to grow.” He joined the company in 2012 after working for another Maine Tom: natural products maker Tom’s of Maine.

As for the Moser company’s environmental soundness, McGonagle noted, “We have a small footprint.” There are about 200 employees.

“It’s how we source the wood,” which grows no more than 600 miles from the factory and office in Auburn, Maine, he said. “We don’t throw any wood away. We use half of what we buy. The remainder craftsmen buy for their art. Scraps move on to being firewood or sawdust used as bedding.”

The company uses domestic hardwoods only: no teak, no mahogany.

And Moser’s favorite kind of wood? “Cherry,” he said. “It reveals what God put there.”

Robert Devaney •

S&R Foundation has signed a contract with George Washington University to purchase the Fillmore School property on 35th Street. 

Formed in 2000 by Dr. Sachiko Kuno and Dr. Ryuji Ueno, the foundation also operates from Evermay Estate and Halcyon House in Georgetown.

S&R Foundation — which holds its Overtures Series and other musical events at Evermay on 28th Street and its Halcyon Incubator, a fellowship for young social entrepreneurs, at Halcyon House on Prospect Street — will now have a third historic property in Georgetown.

As a new owner of the Fillmore property, S&R and the announcement will likely be applauded by those live nearby, as it plans to use Fillmore as an arts incubator, which will serve as “a platform to grow talented artists in the fields of fine, visual and performing arts, maintaining the educational use of the building and its place as part of the vibrant arts landscape in the nation’s capital.”

The Fillmore School property will fit with the mission of the S&R Foundation, which is to “support talented individuals has evolved to encompass broad support of individuals with great potential and high aspirations in the arts, sciences and social entrepreneurship, with a special emphasis on furthering international cultural collaboration and ensuing social benefits .”

“Through S&R’s expansion of arts education at the Fillmore School, we will continue S&R’s commitment to supporting excellence in artistry, innovation and entrepreneurship in an environment that encourages international collaboration,” said Sachiko Kuno, CEO and president of S&R Foundation. “We also are excited to expand our commitment to supporting talented artists in Washington, D.C., especially those from underserved communities.”

The Fillmore School property, located at 1801 35th St. NW, was listed for $14 million with TTR Sotheby’s International Realty by seller George Washington University. The property holds a former D.C. public school, built in 1893, and then an arts center. It was sold to the Corcoran in 1998.  

The university acquired the historic schoolhouse and its more than one acre of land last year as part of a deal with the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art, when GWU took possession of all Corcoran real estate. The Fillmore space has been used by the Corcoran College of Art and Design since it purchased the former D.C. public school in 1998. Classes will be held in the Fillmore building until the end of the spring semester.

Here’s what TTR Sotheby’s International Realty wrote in its listing for the 35th Street property: “The Fillmore School is a landmark opportunity in Georgetown. Built circa 1893 and named after President Millard Fillmore, the school served as an architectural and educational anchor for the community for more than a century. The all-brick, fully detached structure encompasses nearly 23,000 square feet of finished space on four levels. Notable features include soaring ceilings, double hung windows, a modern elevator and two staircases. The existing building holds tremendous conversion potential, ranging from condominiums or apartments to office or institutional use. The 1.25-acre site offers parking for 100 cars and frontage on 34th and 35th Streets NW.”

The seller was represented by Michael Brennan, Phyllis Patterson and Brittany Patterson of TTR Sotheby’s International Realty, and the buyer was represented by Mark McFadden of Washington Fine Properties.

Robert Devaney •

Hops, Cask & Barrel, associated with Sherry’s Liquor of Woodley Park, 2627 Connecticut Ave. NW, is set to take over the closed Wagner’s liquor store at 1717 Wisconsin Ave. NW, as first reported by the Georgetown Metropolitan.

Amos Gelb •

Back in the early 1800s, a French writer toured the embryonic United States, just a few decades after independence. It fell to this foreigner, Alexis de Tocqueville, to define the foundations of our country in his ever-fresh travelogue, “Democracy in America.”

As James MacGregor appeared over the rise of the steps at the Georgetown Four Seasons, seemingly scripted for J. J. Abrams’ latest saga, I wondered whether I was looking at a modern-day Tocqueville, a new foreigner in a crisp blue suit come to tell the tale of the emerging Washington, D.C.

Once-challenged neighborhoods like Shaw, NoMa and even Petworth (although more slowly) are at the forefront of what seems like the overnight birth of a new city, filled with entrepreneurs and young adults – not just passing through as they scratch the itch to dabble in politics, but planting roots and building careers.

It is a town where start-ups like 1776 and WeWork expand, it seems, as quickly as developers can throw up new buildings, and where whole neighborhoods along the Anacostia and the Southwest Waterfront are not so much gentrifying as metamorphosing.

And here to make sense of it all is James MacGregor, the 40ish father of two who hails from Toronto and comes via stints in America’s heartland (Louisville) and, for the last dozen years, in the start-up meccas of San Jose and San Francisco.

He’s come east to tell a great tale. One of growth and resurgence.

“Get 100 miles outside D.C. and everyone will tell you that D.C. is only about political gridlock and politics. But actually it is not. That might be the federal government, but the business community is engaged in getting stuff done.”

Not a bad party line for someone who has been in D.C. for about six months. But his D.C. boosterism is just getting started. He dismisses comparisons between the Silicon start-up land he just left. “Everybody seems to want to be the next Silicon Valley. There is a lot of stuff there that makes Silicon Valley what it is. It is a thing to strive towards, but, if that is the end goal, that is not going to work.”

Instead, what MacGregor sees is a story that is just starting to unfold, built on a number of industries. And he is here to make sure it gets told, because MacGregor is the new publisher of the Washington Business Journal.

He inherited the job from Alex Orfinger, the long time WBJ publisher who moved down the hall to take on broader duties for the WBJ parent company (owner of 40 print titles and a bunch more online, nationwide).

And MacGregor thinks there is a better story to tell in D.C. than on the other coast.

“It’s actually hard to cover the tech giants like Facebook or Google. So to really cover them you cover others things, like real estate deals.”

And that, he believes, is the heart of any business story, the people and the deals, mostly in real estate. And if it is about people and deals, MacGregor thinks D.C. offers a far richer story than the West Coast. MacGregor’s journalistic mantra: follow those two and you have a road map for what is happening. He has spent much of the first six months just getting to know both.

“When you eat out as much as I have to, you have to police what you eat,” MacGregor offers as he orders three eggs and grilled tomatoes, hold the toast.

The WBJ currently has a staff of 43, with about half devoted to editorial coverage for a paper that has circulation of 16,000 and 2 million hits, with a quarter of those unique visitors to the website in March. As publications go, that is rather modest, but you won’t hear MacGregor singing print’s swan song.

“Digital actually made us do print better, to make it more engaging for the reader. It does not have to be a race to a bottom. In fact we have spent a lot in redesign and improved the quality of the paper. We made investments across all platforms.”

Rather than the traditional competition, what worries MacGregor is the competition he can’t see, the challenges coming around the corner, that individual blogger whose posts about tech or health or one of the other emerging business hubs in town suddenly catch fire, build a following and take WBJ’s audience away.

The real challenge, MacGregor says, is that the barriers to entry are now so low that serious competition can emerge overnight out of nowhere. Partly in preparation for that, MacGregor believes the WBJ needs to leverage its unique position.

Currently, he sees a false separation between Maryland, Virginia and the District. MacGregor describes the Journal’s duty as being to foster a sense that “a rising tide will lift all regional boats.”

To that end, he believes the Journal needs to lead the conversation about what is important to local businesses. Thus, a third leg of the Journal strategy: holding breakfast sessions and other events across the region, focusing on growth, real estate and development and the challenges in each jurisdiction.

“If we do it right, we are going to get to the end of the year and there will be four things across all of these jurisdictions that are really important to business. And we can know what they are and perhaps how to tackle them.”

Add to those breakfasts, the panel discussions, which he hopes are not only events for those who attend but will generate news and stories that the Journal can then repackage (along with revenue). WBJ is averaging about 30 events a year.

So MacGregor’s WBJ is not going to be a passive chronicler. He intends to make it a force to enhance, encourage and facilitate development and business growth. It is almost planting the seeds of the stories the Journal will get to reap later.

He smiles as he recalls exactly that role, how he heard from people who wanted to start companies and used the Journal’s Power 100 list to call people up, get advice, then exploit those connections to establish thriving businesses of their own.

MacGregor is still in the honeymoon phase with his new city. But he says that the final decision to come to Washington was not really his.

After hearing about the job, he and his wife came to check out D.C. They arrived for one of those glorious fall weeks, a Destination DC-kind of trip, he recounts. They toured around as the leaves were changing, looked at some neighborhoods and tasted D.C.’s growing wealth of great restaurants, getting around on Capital Bikeshare bikes.

MacGregor had been to D.C. sporadically. He knew the great story brewing here and the strength of the publication Orfinger had built. At their final dinner, when Orfinger asked what they thought, it was MacGregor’s wife who answered for both of them: “Sign us up. We are in!”

And so MacGregor blazed the family’s trail to D.C., with his wife and two young children joining him at the end of the school year.

Now he will have two families to watch grow: his own and that of his newly adopted home.

Peter Murray •

Former President (and potential first man) William Jefferson Clinton spoke Tuesday, April 21, at Georgetown University. Clinton’s hour-long speech meandered at times, touching on foreign policy, his time as president and even the Whitewater scandal. The talk, the third of four Georgetown lectures by Clinton taking place over several years, didn’t touch explicitly on his wife’s presidential campaign. (His topic was how Americans have a responsibility to shape the country into a better place than it is today.) Clinton had previously told Town & Country Magazine that his role “should primarily be as a backstage adviser.” On Thursday, April 23, Clinton’s ex-world-leader-buddy, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will speak at the university at the invitation of Georgetown’s Global Futures Initiative.

Gary Tischler •

Every year, eventually, spring comes to Washington.

The long-awaited season is an outward-bound explosion, an effusion of nature, basking in our admiration and seemingly pleased with itself for making it all look so easy.

Spring is bulbs, petals, digging shears and gardening shovels, blossoming trees, snaking vines, perennials and tulips and the fluttering, scooting, climbing critters that gad about in this profusion of natural wealth.

Here in Georgetown, spring is again the season of the Georgetown Garden Tour – the 87th annual – presented by the Georgetown Garden Club, an affiliate of the Garden Club of America, on Saturday, May 9, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. A tea with light refreshments will be served by garden club members from 2 to 4 p.m. at Christ Church, 3116 O St. NW.

Every garden tour is an opportunity to engage with one of the aspects of Georgetown that make it special, and so attractive to visitors. The tour offers ticket holders the chance to see – and take in with deep breaths – eight gardens, four each on Georgetown’s west and east sides.

“I believe that the garden tour and the garden club have had a tremendous effect on Georgetown. It’s very important to the community,” said Barbara Downs, a member and former president of the Georgetown Garden Club. “The proceeds alone have gone a long way to help preserve the natural quality of Georgetown, not just gardens, but foliage, trees, parks, places where we gather.”

Over the years, the Georgetown Garden Club, with proceeds of the tour and other fundraising efforts, has contributed to what it describes as “the greening of Georgetown, the tree-lined streets and the public parks.” Beneficiaries include Book Hill Park, the Georgetown Public Library, Montrose Park, Volta Park, Rose Park, Tudor Place Historic House and Garden, Trees for Georgetown, Dumbarton Oaks Park Conservancy and the Student Conservation Association.

This is about natural beauty, aided and abetted by particular people’s penchants for digging, growing, designing and beautifying, sometimes with the help of professional designers. Right here on earth, gardens mingle soil, trees, flowers, vegetation, pathways and works of sculptural art into an infinite variety of singular places.

This is not for just for show, but for civilized comfort, a way of living and looking. Here is where you can sit in an artful patio, to read, to commune, to dine, to enjoy a glass of wine in a space of one’s own.

Downs’s own garden has “a Japanese, Asian feel,” she said, and includes a bubbly fountain for birds, dogwoods and spring flowers, including irises and tulips.

To some extent, the annual garden tour always carries with it elements of mystery and serendipity. The yearly trek to homes and gardens in Georgetown reveals more than one secret of Georgetown living, not only the gardens themselves but the actual size and depth of the residences. This is revealed in the house tour, too, but the experience of patios and gardens adds to it.

From the view of a passerby, Georgetown’s homes always hide themselves a little. It’s hard to apprehend the actual size, the spaces, the depth and length of a house, not to mention its close proximity to others. (This does not include most mansions, which are very bold and rarely hidden.)

Tour sites range across Georgetown: 1248 30th St., 2824 O St., 1642 29th St., 3025 P St., 3413 P St., 3417 P St., 3314 O St. and 3327 N St.

On the east side, you’ll find a garden with pavement patterns in brick and limestone and columns of small bamboo. In another garden (a wrap-around) are fig trees, crepe myrtles, oakleaf hydrangeas, Italian pots. Yet another has a contemporary design, with grass steps, crepe myrtles in tubs and modern sculpture. In a large, historic garden in the center of the village, by a sweeping lawn with a pool, stand a large wall clock from a church tower in Provence and a marker showing Georgetown’s old boundary line.

On the west side, you’ll find a curvilinear, multilevel garden, with niches, an armillary sphere and a fishpond with aquatic plants. Nearby is a brick-paved garden with a French touch, including an aerial hedge, water features, hornbeams and espaliered camellias, all framed by a lattice fence. Elsewhere, a former carriage house offers an arched entrance with a wooden gate (once for horses), a tap pool and a hot tub. Another home features walks, gravel and a terrace. The owner’s love of plants is evident in three beds showcasing perennials, ferns and knockout yellow roses, as well as in the mature trees.

This year, the Georgetown Garden Club has published a book that not only serves as a companion to the tour but stands on its own. “Gardens of Georgetown: Exploring Urban Treasures” was written with great, understated grace by Georgetown author Edith Nalle Schafer.

Schafer, a genuine Georgetown citizen and treasure herself, has been a chronicler of Georgetown life for many years, through books, stories and essays. She has a gift for getting to the heart of what makes the village special. Her egalitarian style celebrates the village’s permanent things: buildings, churches and art, sidewalks and steeples, temperature and weather and the way all those things endure amid changes great and small.

Last week, the Georgetown Garden Club held a reception and book signing at the home of Jerry and June Libin on P Street. The evening, the place and the people there were a kind of reflection in miniature of what house and garden tours are about. After a slight drizzle during the evening, Libin, a noted tax attorney, stood in his own garden of trees, foliage, space and a covered pool and said, “I always love it out here after the rain. Everything feels fresh and new.”

“Gardens of Georgetown,” with spectacular, detailed photographs by Jenny Gorman, is a broadly painted but sharply detailed view of Georgetown as reflected in its gardens. In the book, Schafer defines our need for gardens, their purposefulness.

There is philosophy in this book. Sights are described directly with an economy of words that never lack impact. This goes for narrative text and for the photo captions that Schafer has helped along with quotes from philosophers and literary types (from Ralph Waldo Emerson to Virginia Woolf and the always astute “Unknown”).

Yet amid the pages, Schafer is her own best philosopher. She doesn’t need much help to describe what the photographs reveal. Her writing manages the difficult feat of being both pragmatic and entirely, hauntingly lovely.

Gardens are like that, too – having the all-at-once qualities of the necessary and the truly priceless. In digging up dirt, planting and contemplating the results, we manage to make art and gain a satisfaction properly enjoyed under trees, by a fountain, at night with the air fresh from rain and memory.
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Caitlin Franz •

Former D.C. Council member Jim Graham is taking on a new career. He is now special events director at the House, a strip club on Georgia Avenue NW. A supporter of adult entertainment during his time on the Council, Graham proposed legislation to make it easier for strip clubs to open.

The club’s gay-night series debuted Sunday, April 19, with a show called “Rock Hard Sunday.” Cover for the debut was $15, a third of which was donated to Whitman-Walker Health, which provides primary-care services to the LGBT community. The Washington Blade reported that the male dancers were going to make good use of Graham’s signature accessory, the bow tie.

“They are going to put them on and at some point they will dispose of the bow ties in the audience,” Graham was quoted as saying. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.” Graham is also in charge of the Thursday night series, which features nude male dancing for women.

“I wanted something that was fun, and quite honestly, I want to make a buck or two,” he said in an interview with NBC Washington about his new job. (Once upon a time, Graham attempted to get his current employer’s liquor license revoked.) In addition, Graham is working as a consultant for Clean and Sober, a nonprofit that aims to help those recovering from substance abuse.

Caitlin Franz •

Bacchus Wine Cellar (1635 Wisconsin Ave. NW) has the perfect bottle to lift Mom’s spirits this Mother’s Day. The wine cellar is helping you celebrate by offering 15% off all weekend, plus in-store tastings of white, red and rosé wines Thursday through Saturday, 5 to 8 p.m., and Sunday, 1 to 6 p.m.

Treat mom to a sparkling brunch buffet at Café Milano (3251 Prospect St. NW) from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. The brunch costs $95 per adult and $35 per child (12 years and under), which includes endless Prosecco for adults, tax and gratuity. Make a reservation at 202-333-6183.

Daily Grill (1310 Wisconsin Ave. NW) is featuring a special Mother’s Day brunch menu on Sunday. Specialties will include bottomless brunch cocktails, Texas French toast with fresh berry compote and lobster pot pie. All egg dishes include Daily Grill’s special Aunt Ronda’s Monkey Bread. Make a reservation at 202-337-4900.

The Grill Room at the Capella Hotel (1050 31st St. NW) is giving away a pair of vouchers for brunch at the Grill Room for Mother’s Day. To be entered to win, follow these steps: “like” the Capella Facebook page and the contest post, leave a comment about why your mom (or a mom in your life) is special and share it on your Facebook page.

Mothers boat for free with the purchase of another boat rental at Key Bridge Boat House (3500 Water St. NW).

Olivia Macaron (3222 M St. NW) is offering a chance to win a gift box of 24 macarons for Mom. To participate, you must “like” the Olivia Macaron Facebook page and contest post, then comment, mentioning two lovely ladies you’d like to honor this Mother’s Day (they must be on Facebook). The winner must pick up their macarons at the store May 8 through May 10.

Visit the DIY station at Paper Source (1019 M St. NW) on May 9 and create a special card for Mom. The store will provide materials and instruct you in the techniques to make the design of your choice. The Make-and-Take experience comes with a 10% discount applicable to your other in-store purchases that day. You can also take 25% off each additional Mother’s Day Card Make-and-Take purchase.

Rí Rá Irish Pub (3125 M St. NW) is hosting a special Mother’s Day brunch. Reservations for large groups will be accepted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each reservation will receive complimentary Baileys Buns, a sticky and sweet homemade indulgence. You can make a reservation via email by contacting marycatherinecorson@rira.com.

Tudor Place (1644 31 St. NW) is offering 10% off plant purchases at the Tudor Place Plant Sale from May 8 to May 10.

Linnea Kristiansson •

The District Department of Transportation has announced that it will implement new traffic signal timing plans for almost 650 intersections in the greater downtown Washington, D.C., area. The so-called timing optimization will be start 8 p.m., Friday, April 24, and continue throughout May.

This is expected to reduce motorist travel times and reduce emissions and fuel consumption, DDOT says. It will improve traffic flow, reduce transit running times and optimize pedestrian crossing times. The citywide signal optimization initiative started in 2012, and it will enhance D.C.’s entire traffic signal network of more than 1,650 signals by the end of 2016.

The project will be done in various downtown areas. A few intersections in Georgetown along M Street and Wisconsin Avenue are included in the effort. The project area boundary also includes 23rd Street NW to the west, North Capitol Street to the east, U Street and Florida Avenue NW to the north and I-395 to the south.

DDOT says it will be monitoring and making adjustments to the traffic signal timing operations, throughout April and May. DDOT advises motorists to use caution in these areas as drivers become acquainted with the new signal timing patterns.

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