E.L. Haynes High School Opens in NW
• March 12, 2013

E.L. Haynes High School opened March 7 at 4501 Kansas Ave., NW, and a ceremony included remarks from Mayor Vincent Gray, Councilmember Muriel Bowser and a keynote from Maria Gomez, founder and president of social services non-profit Mary’s Center. Founded in 2004 and designated a Tier One High-Performing School by the DC Public Charter School Board, E.L. Haynes Public Charter School currently serves 950 students from grades pre-school through ten and is recognized locally and nationally for advancing student achievement. E.L. Haynes High School now fulfills the school’s college preparation promise and is a non-selective public high school designed so that every student will successfully complete a college-prep program. The 33,000-square-foot addition adjoins 12,000 existing square feet of space, adding 400 students. The facility includes science labs, a gymnasium, specialized spaces for the arts, a technology lab for video game design and programming courses and an indoor/outdoor cafeteria. The project team included architects Shinberg Levinas and general contractor Forrester Construction. Grants from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education, Qualified School Construction Bond, and support from The Campaign for E.L. Haynes Public Charter School funded the project.

J. Chocolatier Departs
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J. Chocolatier’s retail shop on 33rd Street closed March 4. It will become an online operation.
“We have had a fantastic three-and-a-half years in our Georgetown location,” wrote J. Chocolatier owner Jane Morris in an email. “J. Chocolatier will continue bringing delicious chocolates to the D.C. area. . . . “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. … In fact, we are exiting the Georgetown store up 27 percent so far for 2013.”

Forever Yogurt Coming, Too
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But, wait, there’s more: Chicago-based Forever Yogurt indicates that it is coming to Georgetown, seeking two locations. It already is set for 1728 Columbia Road, NW, in Adams Morgan. The franchise company is riding the yogurt mania wave. The company shows on its website locations — from Princeton to Panama — being prepared for new Forever Yogurt stores.

Capitol Prague Opens in April
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Capitol Prague Restaurant Coming: 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.)

BID Cheers 26 New Businesses in 2012
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Known as D.C.’s “Shopping Playground,” Georgetown saw 26 new national and independent merchant openings in 2012, with several exciting new openings planned for early 2013, the Georgetown Business Improvement District announced last week.

“Georgetown continues to be the Washington area’s premier retail destination and the leader in bringing exclusive local, national and international brands to shoppers,” said Joe Sternlieb, CEO of the Georgetown BID. “Not only do stores want to set up their business in Georgetown’s urban retail-friendly setting, but customers want to come here because it’s not your typical mall and is a beautiful, historic place to spend your time. It’s a ‘meeting place’ for Washingtonians, and we’re optimistic that the neighborhood will only continue to provide more choices in not only shopping, but food, hospitality and entertainment as well.”

2012 marked the opening of 26 new businesses in Georgetown: From Bandolero to Luigi Parasmo Salon, Luke’s Lobster and the Washington Harbour Ice Rink. This year will include Alex and Ani, Billy Reid, Bonobos, Capella Washington, Eno Wine Bar, the Graham and Malmaison — and more to come. Visit www.GeorgetownDC.com for details.

Jack?s Boathouse Fight Now Up to CourtMarch 13, 2013
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The same day the National Park Service announced that B&G Outdoor Recreation of Massachusetts would be awarded the contract to operate at the site of Jack?s Boathouse at 3500 K St., NW, it also handed an eviction notice to Jack?s owner Paul Simkin March 1.

?The NPS violated the federal judge?s restraint order,? said Simkin, whose eviction by the National Park Service in December was changed to a wait-and-see. ?Our lawyer has filed an emergency motion for sanctions against NPS for violations.?

In its announcement about the new contract, the NPS said Jack?s did not put in a bid. Simkin responded that is because of his business?s legal action against NPS. He said a NPS letter to him states in part: ?The NPS indicates its agreement not to take any action against the plaintiff until March 31, 2013. So, that?s why this is all the more confusing, March 1, to be given an eviction notice.?

TV Legends: Bonnie Franklin, Dale Robertson
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In a communications-entertainment world where access to everything all of the time is a given, change is hardly ever noticed, or given any kind of context.

You can probably view “One Day at a Time,” the very successful network television sitcom that starred the delightfully original Bonnie Franklin as a divorced single mom raising two teenaged daughters in the 1970s on YouTube or cable channels airing old sitcoms. You might able to find “Tales of Wells Fargo” and “Iron Horse” and even “Death Valley Days,” three western series from the 1950s and ’60s, starring cowboy star Dale Robertson on Premium Cable Network’s Encore Series specializing in western fare.

Looking at them, you realize that television, like everything else in the world, has changed enormously. In a network and general cable television world of reality shows, old and new shows, those shows appear like relics or spools found in a time capsule from a distant past.

Both Franklin and Robertson died last week: Franklin, at 69 of cancer; Robertson, 92, of complications from pneumonia and lung cancer.

Franklin was a refreshing star in a network entertainment world that was dominated by cop shows—as now—and the realistically upgraded and topical sitcom world of Norman Lear who threw, like a hand grenade, “All in the Family,” onto network television, which featured Archie Bunker, a working-class paterfamilias played with great outrage by Carroll O’Connor, spewing complete politically incorrect comments and attitudes that he wore like a worn, no-sleeve t-shirt, living with his out-of-work semi-hippie son-in-law Michael, whom Archie called “Meathead,” his wife Edith and daughter Gloria. The show begat other sitcoms, “Maude” and “The Jeffersons,” where bigotry, the life of single mothers and single women and all sorts of social issues made their way into the comedy

Franklin, with her brisk red hair and no-nonsense airs, was refreshing, trying to handle her daughters with respect, tart affection and wisdom gained through her own life experiences. With Franklin’s energetic ways, the show seemed to mirror a certain amount of realism, a look at a world experienced by many women (even then the divorce rate hovered around 50 percent) if not most. The show was part of a television world where topicality had invaded a sitcom world once dominated by the more idyllic world of “The Andy Griffith Show,” or, earlier, “Leave it to Beaver” or the abysmal “Beverly Hills Hillbillies.”

These days, there are still sitcoms, we can say thankfully, although many of them have more than their fair share of raunchiness. Still, there’s “Modern Family,” the recently departed Tina Fey show—or was it Alec Baldwin’s?—“30 Rock,” “The Office,” “Parks and Recreation,” “New Girl” and “The Family Guy” along with “The Simpsons,” which spawned a whole new genre of adult cartoon sitcoms with all the free-flying cultish results you might expect. These are shows imbued with work-place, single life or family life content mixed in with an irreverent and often wiggy spirit, one of which—“Two and a Half Men”– gave us Charlie Sheen’s personal post-movie star life in high dudgeon.

Robertson was a star of the type we don’t have any more. There are still occasional westerns from “Open Range” of a few years back, to “Django Unchained” which is a western which began out west and moved into the pre-Civil War South, but had the spirit of a Sergio Leone “Spaghetti Western.” But there are no more western television series, especially of the type which Robertson starred in. During the 1950s and 1960s, television became the landing place du jour for Hollywood personalities who had once been western movie stars or players. Robertson himself, who wanted nothing more in life than to be able to own a ranch and raise horses, insisted he was not an actor. Usually, they were Hollywood western players —such as Hugh O’Brian (“Wyatt Earp”), Richard Boone “Wanted Dead or Alvie,”, or James Arness’s “Gunsmoke” or even the debonair, urbane Gene Barry (“Bat Masterson”)—whose career never quite reached the level of stardom or had petered out.

Robertson acquitted himself well in his three series and earned more than enough money to buy a ranch and took over the show, “Death Valley Days,” which Ronald Reagan once hosted. Reagan, as a future president, had another career awaiting him.

Robertson’s death sparks memories of his films—“The Silver Whip”—and series, enjoyed by people living in a very different America, where the phrase “gun control” might simply mean a description of the way a gunslinger twirled his gun.

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Rosa Parks Statue Dedication in U.S. Capitol (photos)
• March 4, 2013

Legendary civil rights activist Rosa Parks was honored Feb 27 with a statue inside the U.S. Capitol with a dedication ceremony attended by President Barack Obama and other notables.

On December 1, 1955, a 42-year-old African-American seamstress named Rosa Parks boarded a bus in Montgomery, Ala., on her way home from work. When a white man entered the bus, the driver insisted that Parks give up her seat so that the man could sit. She refused and was arrested and convicted for violating the rules of segregation common throughout the South at that time, known as the “Jim Crow” laws. Parks appealed her conviction, formally challenging the legality of segregation. At the same time, local civil rights activists, aided by Martin Luther King, Jr., started a boycott of the Montgomery bus system The boycott lasted 381 days until December 1956 when the Supreme Court ruled segregation illegal, and Montgomery buses were integrated. The Rosa Parks incident in a profound way marked the beginning of the non-violent protest movement in support of civil rights in the United States.

The 2,700-pound bronze statue of Parks now stands in Statuary Hall between those of suffragist Frances E. Willard and refrigeration and air conditioning pioneer John Gorrie. Rosa Parks thus becomes the first black woman to be honored in the Capitol with a full-length statue.

Parks died in 2005 at the age of 92. She herself had no children but the event was attended by numerous nieces, nephews and cousins plus various dignitaries and civil rights activists.

View our photos of the dedication ceremony by clicking on the photo icons below. [gallery ids="143141,143062,143054,143046,143039,143033,143026,143018,143010,143069,143076,143134,143127,143120,143114,143107,143100,143092,143084,143002,142995,142988,142910,143148,142904,143153,142896,143157,142890,143163,142918,142926,142982,142974,142967,142960,142953,142946,142939,142932,101183" nav="thumbs"]

H.L Poling & Sons Closer to a Georgetown Reality
• February 28, 2013

More details have been revealed about the soon-to-be-opened Georgetown haber- dashery H.L. Poling & Sons, namely about
the individuals behind the retail concept. The duo, prep-revivalists Drew Poling and Scot Meacham Wood, now of San Francisco, Calif., were available for a few questions from the Georgetowner last Thursday. Drew Poling is an alumnus of Georgetown University who worked at the Georgetown University Shop from 1984 to 1986.

Since then, he worked as a buyer for Bloomingdale’s in New York City and in social media at UNICEF. His partner, Wood, is an interior decorator and has done visual work for Ralph Lauren. He boasts more than 500,000 followers on Pinterest. According to Poling, the two began developing the store about a year ago. The location of the Georgetown store has not been disclosed.

The concept of the store is that it is a contin- uation of the original “Poling’s” menswear shop in Ottumwa, Iowa, founded in 1910 by Poling’s grandfather. The shop was taken over by his father and closed in the mid-1990s. The two de- scribe the store as “old Ivy for modern times,” with customer service being a top priority. “We want it to be a welcoming place,” said Poling. H.L. Poling & Son’s website, hlpolingandsons. com, lists the store as “coming to Georgetown Fall 2013.” ?

Jack Evans Report: Sunset Sales Tax Now
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I wrote in my last column about the new Council period and a number of my priorities, such as education, public safety, and affordable housing. One of the things these goals have in common is that they are substantially impacted by the budget decisions that the Mayor and the Council will make over the next several months. As Chairman of the Finance and Revenue Committee, this half of the year is often my busiest.

I am hopeful that the Mayor’s budget will include funding for these items as well as for expanded library hours, and that it will include sensible tax relief now that we can afford it. This is a time when everyone is expecting hundreds of millions of dollars of “new” revenue to our government to be announced due to higher-than-expected tax collections as our economy improves. In light of that information, it simply doesn’t make sense to continue our plan to begin to tax out-of-state municipal bonds this year, a tax which largely impacts seniors. I believe I have the Mayor’s support on this issue, but it will help if he and my colleagues on the Council hear from you prior to and during budget considerations.

I am also hopeful that the Mayor will finally sunset the supposedly temporary increase in the sales tax. In case you don’t know the story, the government raised the sales tax from 5.75% to 6% several years ago with the promise that it would sunset by now. Unfortunately, when the government thought it needed the money, it simply repealed the sunset provision. Now that everyone knows we have the money, we should keep our promise to lower this tax. All my colleagues should be able to agree on this, as the sales tax is regressive, disproportionately impacting those who have the least disposable income.

Before the budget is released, we first go through the performance oversight process. Over the past two weeks, I have sent a number of questions to the agencies under my purview to collect data on agency structure and recent spending. After I review what has worked and what has not, I will be in a better position to make recommendations on adjustments to the agency budgets for next year. I am also pleased to welcome the Commission on Arts & Humanities and Destination DC as new additions to my committee oversight responsibility this year. Thanks for your support during this process, and please feel free to reach out to my office as well as to my colleagues to share your views. ?