News & Politics

Kyle Lundberg • May 3, 2012

After years of success selling meat at local farmers markets, Jamie and Josef Stachowski, the father-son team behind Stachowski Brand Charcuterie is preparing to open a butcher shop in Georgetown on the corner of P and 28th Street.

The deli-style market shop, tentatively titled Valentine Meats, will reside in the former location of Griffin Market, which closed down and moved to South Carolina last February due to a spike in rental rates.

Josef will be the owner of the shop, taking the reins from his father Jamie, an acclaimed sausage maker who was recently featured on Discovery Channel’s “Meat America.”

“We’ve thought about doing this for a long time,” Josef said as he took a break from grilling sausages at the Rose Park farmers market last Wednesday. “The markets are always busy, and people are always asking ‘where is your store?’ For the longest time, I’ve had to say that we don’t actually have one.”

According to Josef, the Georgetown location was not specifically selected in advance, but he does think it will be a good fit.

“Georgetown is a nice place to be,” he said. “It’s got a homey kind of local feel to it, something you definitely wouldn’t get at a place like H Street. It gives it a more authentic feel.”

Tom Papadopoulos, a real estate agent and restaurant broker who helped the Stachowskis obtain a 10-year lease on the property, said he thinks the Georgetown location is ideal, and that “people in Georgetown would really love it.”

Stachowski Brand sausages are made fresh straight from the source. The butchers use pork raised by Amish farmers and season their products with special herbs and spices. They plan on serving an array of their famous sausages including chicken, Wisconsin bratwurst, duck, turkey and sweet Italian pork sausages, as well as a small menu of sandwiches.

Despite some reservations, Josef is looking forward to running his own shop.

“Right now, I’m excited,” he said, “but like everything else, I might get bored with it before too long. “But,” he continued, “it’ll be more personal than what we do now. I’ll get to interact with people more.”

Josef said that running a family business with his dad leads to some unique workplace dynamics.

“I really don’t have a traditional boss,” he said. “I have space and freedom. But, at the same time, it’s a lot harder to hear your dad tell you what to do. It’s a power struggle for sure, but we keep each other in check.”

Josef hopes that Georgetown and the wider D.C. community will flock to
their shop in the same way they flocked to the popular Griffin Market.

“Hopefully, we can serve the community and they will embrace us,” he said.

Although the shop does not have an official opening date, the Stachowskis hope to have the operation up and running “in the next couple of months,” Papadopoulos said.

Until then, curious foodies can try out the unique Stachowski Brand at local farmers markets, including the Rose Park, Palisades and Falls Church markets. For more information on Stachowski Brand Charcuterie, visit http://stachowskibrand.com.

Georgetowner •

Next month, Georgetown will play host to the 18th annual Taste of Georgetown food and wine festival. The festival will provide visitors a chance to sample fine cuisine from 30 local restaurants, including Bangkok Joe’s, Clyde’s, Muncheez, Café Bonaparte, 1789, Mie N Yu, Serendipity, Neyla and Pinkberry, which will be opening in Georgetown soon. More traditional favorites, such as Chipotle and Georgetown Cupcake, will be on hand to serve up their familiar fare. The event will also feature wine tastings and local jazz talent at Blues Alley.

Past favorite tastes at the festival have included such diverse dishes as JPaul’s cheeseburgers, Hook’s campfire s’mores, Tony & Joe’s macadamia shrimp, Muncheez’ falafel wrap, Clyde’s pork belly sliders and Café Bonaparte’s crepes.

Taste of Georgetown began as a bake sale on the lawn of Grace Church to help raise awareness and money for Georgetown Ministry Center, a homeless ministry that began in 1987 to provide services ranging from housing to psychiatric assistance. According to Debbie Young, marketing manager of the Georgetown Business Improvement District, the event has raised more than $100,000 for the GMC since 2004. Last year alone, the festival raised $38,000 for the GMC, Young said via email.

Taste of Georgetown will run from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 15 at Wisconsin Avenue and M Street, NW. Tasting tickets, good for one tasting, are $5 and can be purchased in advance online at TasteofGeorgetown.com or at the event.

Kristin Sørumshagen •

After some delay, the construction of The Capella luxury hotel can begin, funded by a joint venture, Castleton Hotel Partners, according to a press release from Capella Hotels and Resorts in early September.

Construction of The Capella Georgetown has been on the agenda for quite some time; the original plan was to open by Jan. 2012, according to a press release from Capella Hotels and Resorts in March 2010. “The developer experienced some difficulties with the funding,” said John Drake, vice president of marketing at Capella Hotels and Resorts, “but now we have secured funding and we would love to open by the end of 2012.” Castleton Holdings and ICG Properties is partnering with Point Ford Management Limited, a South Asian based investment firm, to secure funding for construction as well as management of the luxury hotel, according to the latest press release.

Robert Warman, executive vice president of West Paces Hotels, told USA Today that the Capella Georgetown will compete with Georgetown’s other luxury hotels, the Ritz-Carlton and Four Seasons. Drake, however, is not afraid that this will be difficult for the Capella Georgetown. “I don’t want to sound arrogant but our hotel is a notch above the other hotels in the area,” Drake said, explaining that the Capella Hotels and Resorts offer personal service and assistance to their guests and adapts to their guests’ needs.

The Capella Georgetown, situated at 1050 31st Street, will feature 49 rooms and suites with “unmatched levels of customer service and room finishes,” according to a press release which says that the hotel will offer the pre-arrival services of personal assistants, luxury car service, 24 hour room service and a guest only spa and fitness center. The Capella Georgetown also entices guests with immediate access to the upscale shops and restaurants of Wisconsin Avenue and M Streets.

There will also be a restaurant and bar with outdoor seating along the C&O Canal, a private rooftop lounge and a rooftop indoor and outdoor pool overlooking the Potomac River and several Washington landmarks. The rooftop, however, might be “wishful thinking” as the Advisory Neighborhood Commission and the Old Georgetown Board previously have hesitated on similar matters, according to the Georgetown Patch.

Regardless, there is no question whether the Capella Georgetown will be a high-end place. “The hotel is purposely very small in number of rooms,” says Drake, “and we will cater to top corporate managers, CEOs, diplomats and heads of state among others.” And the caliber of the hotel certainly matches that of the event that serves as an unspoken deadline for the project, the next presidential inauguration, Jan. 2013.

Kyle Lundberg •

Student writers and alumni of the Georgetown Voice at Georgetown University are protesting school administrators’ decision to confiscate their large newsroom, which will take effect today. The administrators are punishing the actions of two editors and a former staff member, who caused approximately $1,500 in property damages when they attempted to evade campus security during hurricane Irene.

“The Georgetown Voice violated the student organization office space use agreement and as a result must give up their current location,” Georgetown University spokesperson Rachel Pugh told the Georgetown Patch. “They continue to have exclusive access to a different office space.”

Many Voice writers and alumni believe that the entire paper is being treated unfairly as a result of the actions of a few members. 57 alumni signed an ad in the Voice asking the university to reconsider its decision.

“Moving The Georgetown Voice to smaller, inadequate office space penalizes the rest of the paper’s staff, who were not involved in the incident, and jeopardizes the future of a critical University institution,” the alumni wrote. “Taking away that space cripples the paper’s ability to do the reporting that makes it an integral part of life on campus.”

A Jan. 25 diversion hearing has been set for Eric Pilch, Sam Buckley and John Flanagan, the three students who were arrested for the damage on Aug. 28. The initial misdemeanor status hearing was held in D.C. Superior Court on Sept. 21.

Jeff Malet •

The people who worry about the future of books and reading—myself and thousands upon thousands of other book lovers —may have less to worry about than they think.

Every year for the last 11 years, the National Book Festival, founded by then First Lady Laura Bush, has assuaged some of the fears that books and its attendant contents—stories, novels, poems, children’s tales, fables, histories, biographies, essays, short stories—are rapidly dying. From modest beginnings, the festival can now boast over 100,000 attendees —a huge number of them young people down to the just-beginning-to-read age—a statistic that probably caused the sponsoring Library of Congress to expand the festival to two days.

In less than ideal conditions—it rained sporadically and the ground on the National Mall was muddy in many spots—thousands again turned out, many parents with little children in tow, to hear authors read, take questions and sign books, to visit billowing white tents, to play games, to pose with a Penguin and other characters, to take quizzes, to grab tote bags and posters, and to give hope to the future of reading and books.

Among the many things the festival accomplishes every year is to shine a light on the great diversity of writing (and illustrating) talent that exists, authors who write great, big, and small, and lasting volumes of books. Over 100 authors, writers of all sorts and illustrators were on hand for the festival.

The lineup at this year’s festival looked like a representation of a golden age of writing, not a decline in the reading and penning of words and books. There was Toni Morrison who is as close to a world supernova literary star as you can get at such a gathering, making her first appearance at the festival, a treat for everyone who got a chance to hear her on Saturday morning. She won the 1993 Nobel Prize for literature, and she’s a unique and much-honored novelist and chronicler of the African American experience with such books as the Pulitzer Prize-winning “Beloved,” “Song of Beloved” and most recently “A Mercy.”

On Sunday, there was David McCullough, the venerable historian and biographer of presidents like John Adams, Harry Truman and Theodore Roosevelt, whose most recent book “The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris,” told the stories of American intellectuals and artists and their experience in Paris. For some, McCullough’s biography of the irascible, American-spirit to the core Truman may be one of the finest single-volume biographies of an American president ever written. Edmund Morris—who may have written the best three-volume biography of an American president with his chronicling of the life of Theodore Roosevelt – was also on hand.

In between, at a variety of tents and pavilions you could find mystery writers, children’s books writers and illustrators, poets, novelists, essayists, writers on politics and the contemporary experience, journalists who write books and collections. Washington Post-ies were prominent, among them op-ed writer Eugene Robinson and reviewers and essayists Jonathan Yardley and Michael Dirda. The red-haired, be-freckled and beautiful actress Julianne Moore was on hand to talk about her three books featuring “Freckleface Strawberry,” not coincidentally inspired by her own sea of becoming freckles.

There was Gregory Maguire, the man who gave us a book called “Wicked”—a dark other-side story about the witches of Oz—and thus can be held responsible and receive the accolades for the roaring theater musical machine that is “Wicked.” Sara Peretsky, the Chicagoan who invented the tender-tough (mostly tough) female private eye V.I. Warshawski was on hand again.

On both days, you could wander among the many pavilions and hear and see the sounds of the future of books, literature and reading. Often, the sounds were squealing noises, but still, a reaction is a reaction. Wells Fargo, a co-sponsor, had a booth complete with story-telling about old stagecoach days. There was a book nook, a digital vehicle and pavilion, telling about the history and holdings of the Library of Congress, there were bigger than life (and alive) furry characters (including the Penguin of Penguin books), with whom little kids posed. There were also drawing activities (it seemed often that there must have been thousands of crayons created for this festival).

What was exciting was the the variety and diversity among the pavilions. You walked into the mystery tent and there was novelist Russell Banks (who sometimes writes novels that fit this the genre) reading from one of his books, his beard bobbing in the light, the audience enthralled in a moment of story-telling. There were lots of stories told, including in a pavilion devoted to nothing else but story-telling. There was the yearly Pavilion of States, where the literary history and the current offerings were on display as huge crowds made their way through each state.

Claudia Emerson held forth on her poetry, and earnest men and women walked up to a microphone to ask her about how she revises and for a few minutes, you were treated to a talk about process, how poets can be made and un-made and changed. There were at least 200 people in the tent, many of them makers of poems, and all of them people who read or listened to poems.

There appeared not to be too much talk about the presence of new delivery systems that are not books, but contain the contents of books.

There was, in the end words upon words, and books with the words in them. [gallery ids="100303,107732,107737,107742,107747,107752,107757,107762,107767,107772,107777,107782,107787,107792,107797,107802,107807,107727,107722,107828,107662,107824,107820,107667,107816,107672,107677,107682,107687,107692,107697,107702,107707,107712,107717,107812" nav="thumbs"]

Jeff Malet •

Dave Megerle, a member of engineering firm Wiss, Janney, Elstner, Associates “Difficult Access Team,” attaches ropes to the top of the Washington Monument, in Washington, Tuesday, Sept. 27, 2011. Four people will rappel down the sides to survey the extent of damage sustained to the monument from the August 23 earthquake which shook much of the East Coast. According to the Park Service, the heaviest damage appears to be concentrated at the very top of the monument, in what is called the pyramidion. Large cracks of up to 1-1/4 inch wide developed through stone and mortar joints. The Washington Monument, built between 1848 and 1884, is 555 feet, 5-1/8 inches tall. Its walls, 15-feet thick at the base and 18-inches at the top, are composed primarily of white marble blocks. (All photos by Jeff Malet) [gallery ids="100304,107841,107832,107845,107827,107849,107822,107853,107817,107837" nav="thumbs"]

Samantha Hungerford •

Samantha Hays Gushner, The Phoenix

The small back office of The Phoenix is a jumble of papers, family photos and brightly colored do-dads. The single overhead light hangs low over the desk, illuminating the dark hair and olive face of Samantha Hays, the representative from the third generation of business men and women in her family. She has just returned to the shop after spending the morning apple picking with the fourth generation.

“I think I always knew I would end up in the business,” Hays says. “There was a time when I was living in Aspen, and I was skiing and I was really having a great time. I was out there for seven years and I thought, ‘You know, I should get back to reality.’ It’s just such a great business, and such an amazing way to live my life.”

The Phoenix was opened in 1955 by Hays’ grandparents, Betty and Bill Hays, who she continues to draw on for inspiration. The two founded the store with nothing but a station wagon full of folk art brought back from Mexico and a bit of business savvy.

“That tradition of travel and working directly with the artists that we buy from is one of the reasons that I am so passionate about continuing in the business,” Hays says. “We have seen communities grow and thrive through the success of the art that they produce. It is very exciting to be a part of that.”
Hays, who started working in the shop when she was 13, now works with the third generation of artists that her grandparents first discovered, as well as newer international artists and retailers.

“I think that because we have been here for so long, the store has an image as ‘that Mexican store,’ when that’s really not the case anymore,” Hays says. “Our heart will always be in Mexico and that kind of relationship is something that we don’t ever want to lose. But I think that what we’ve tried to do as we move forward is let people know that we have this incredible jewelry and clothing collection that isn’t just from Mexico anymore.”

Although she is the next rising generation in the family business, Hays still works very much in tandem with her parents, who each take on separate responsibilities at the store.

“I am fortunate to have a wonderful relationship with my parents,” Hays says. “We have great communication and are constantly bouncing ideas off of each other about new lines and the mix that we have at the store.”

Hays largely handles the clothes buying for the store, while her parents buy the jewelry and handle the accounting. Recently, Hays has scaled back her duties at the shop to focus more time on her two children, five-year-old Clara and three-year-old Theo, along with three dogs, two cats and a fish pond to round out her brood.

“There’s a constant feeling of having one foot in both places and feeling like you’re not doing either one particularly well,” she says. “But it seems to work out. It’s nice to have a balance between the two.”
Hays says that one added bonus of working in a family business is knowing that someone is always responsible for the store, whether she’s at home with her family or her parents are gone traveling.
Of course, that’s not to say Hays and her parents always agree on things. During the recent renovations of the store, tension rose around the old peg board on the walls, which her parents thought to be iconic, but Hays thought was no longer functional.

The walls are now painted a clean, fresh white.

Other changes include fresh paint, more functional displays and 30 solar panels that were recently mounted on the roof in keeping with The Phoenix’s message of social consciousness.

The store’s Oct. 15 trunk show and styling event with Eileen Fisher will also be held with a socially conscious theme, as it will support So Others Might Eat, an organization Hays’ grandmother was passionate about.

The Phoenix
1514 Wisconsin Ave. NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
202-338-4404

Hope Solomon, Wedding Creations & Anthony’s Tuxedos

Hope Solomon is a fast talker in pearl earrings and a leopard-print blouse.

At 27, she has a thriving career on Capitol Hill in emergency preparedness, is a highly active member of the Georgetown Business Association and makes it clear that she will be taking over the family business sometime soon with no intention of giving up her passion for politics. Most people who know her describe her as a firecracker.

“Anyone that’s been raised in a family business will know that it’s very difficult to sort of kick the parents out so that you can take over,” she says between sips of San Pellegrino. “Like I was talking to Samantha and Karen and we all have the same sort of issues. No matter how much you get your foot in the door, old dad over there, he’ll never retire. I’ve sort of tried to develop my own career while taking over just so I’m keeping busy.”

Five feet away, Ed Solomon, or “old dad over there,” sits working at his desk and doesn’t seem to take offense to this statement.

The Solomon family business, Wedding Creations & Anthony’s Tuxedos, has been open for 34 or 32 years, depending on whether you ask Hope or her father. The business began with Ed and his wife, Gerri, in 1979 when they opened up a boutique providing bridesmaid dress rentals. Eventually, the store moved on from renting to selling bridesmaid dresses and wedding gowns, finally branching into short-notice tuxedo rentals with more than 400 tuxes in stock.

Solomon grew up with the store playing a leading role in her life. Her crib was in the back of the shop, and she spent her days in the store with her dad.

“I’m an only child, so for me this store is like a fourth family member,” she says. “So, no matter where my passions go, this is my number one priority.”

Solomon says that her current schedule is to work her “day job” on the Hill and spend nights and weekends “moonlighting” at the shop. Although this amounts to a practically 24/7 work schedule, she says that she doesn’t recognize being at the store as work because it’s “just something you do.”

The store, which is small and uses “every square inch of space,” according to Ed, gets much of its business from generational customers: families who got their tux or dress there and are now bringing their children in. They refer their friends to the business, and the circle grows. He notes that for as small as their shop is, they rented out 60 tuxedos last weekend.
And the daughter has plans to grow the business further.

“I think the highlight is you have the ability to do whatever you want, whenever you want and however you want,” she says. “It’s very different from having worked in the corporate world where you’re given a direction and then you only have the ability to do that. I like the creativity and reaching out to other businesses and the teamwork in Georgetown. That’s what I find just great. Being able to walk across the street and say ‘Hey, I need this from you,’ or ‘I’ve got this idea,’ and everyone sort of chips in and helps.”

Solomon has already begun to bring accessories into the store, making it possible for brides and bridesmaids to shop in one stop, and plans to incorporate more event planning into their services once she starts working at Wedding Creations & Anthony’s Tuxedos more full time. Her idea is to guide brides through Georgetown weddings, highlighting small businesses and the services they offer.
Her goals, however, are not limited to the future of the shop. In her passion for politics she rules nothing out, whether it’s helping others with their platforms or running for a position herself. Her main concerns are for education, as a product of the D.C. school system herself, and the welfare of small businesses. She says that she got her political mind from her father.

“I’m a little Ed,” she says.

Wedding Creations & Anthony’s Tuxedos
3237 P St. NW
Washington D.C. 20007
202-333-5762

Karen Ohri, Georgetown Floorcoverings

Karen Ohri, a petite, young blonde, kneels down on the showroom floor of Georgetown Floorcoverings to wipe syrup and pancake crumbs from the face and hands of her 2-year-old son, Jayson.

“I’m ‘ticky,” says Jayson, as his mother gives him a final check before sending him off to play with the carpet samples and few toys lining the walls of the store. Half an hour earlier, he had trailed his mom in to work, announcing to all who would hear that he’d gotten mom to buy him fast food from McDonald’s.

“So, this is a lot of what it’s like,” says Ohri. “There’s good, and there’s bad. You’re always multitasking, Blackberry going off, child screaming in the background, the whole nine yards. But the nice thing, too, is that now the businesses [The Phoenix, Wedding Creations & Anthony’s Tuxedos and Georgetown Floorcoverings] are more established than when our fathers and grandfathers started them.”

Ohri is a wife and mother of three kids, ages two to 13, and is steadily taking on more responsibilities at Georgetown Floorcoverings, the family business which her grandfather first opened their 1417 28th St. location in 1954. Now located at 3233 K St. where they’ve been since 1962, the business specializes in commercial flooring in everything from hardwood to linoleum, although they do some work with residential architects and designers.

Like her father before her, Ohri started to work at the shop regularly as a teenager emptying trash cans, but she helped out around the shop since she was five, answering phones, dusting shelves and labeling samples. In 1998, she began working in the store full time.

As a teenager with two siblings, Ohri never thought she’d be the one to take over the family business. Yet when her brother, the most likely candidate, followed his dream of becoming a firefighter and her sister moved to Minnesota to become a teacher, she found herself next in line.

“I’ve always liked it, but in high school I never thought I was going to run the family business. But as far as my dream job, now it is. I love what I do. And it does allow me some flexibility like bringing this little guy in to work,” she says, patting Jayson who is now slumped against her thigh.

Ohri worked alongside her father, Ronald Swarthout, who is very involved in the business, until last Mother’s Day when Swarthout suffered an aortic aneurism.

“It was the call in the middle of the night you never want to get,” Ohri says. “It was terrifying.”
The family rushed together, her sister flying in from Minnesota that day. Strangely enough, Swarthout had just talked to his doctor about the possibility of an aneurism the day before, prompted by Ohri, whose intuition told her he might be at risk.

“If anything is going to make you get into the ‘what are we going to do in the future’ train of thought, that’ll do it,” Ohri says.

Since then, she has jumped in to take over the payables and many of her father’s other duties. Although Swarthout made a swift and full recovery, Ohri has kept these responsibilities.

“I don’t know if he’s wanting to [retire], but I’ve kind of just continued doing what I’ve started doing because I feel like it allows him to have a life besides thinking ‘every Thursday I’ve got to cut checks and every Friday I’ve got to mail checks,’ ” Ohri says. “It’s been kind of nice for him, I think. And then he’s been travelling. Right now, he’s in Italy, which is huge. He would’ve never been able to go away like this.”

Inevitably, things have changed about Georgetown Floorcoverings since Ohri’s grandfather first opened up shop. The family no longer lives or holds office upstairs in the “Watch Tower,” and her grandfather’s old organ – which he could and did play – is no longer stored in the back room. Yet aside from bringing the business into the 21st century, Ohri is dedicated to keeping as much the same about the business as possible.

“I’m not changing anything besides updating and enhancing,” Ohri says. “I’m not the bratty daughter coming in to change everything and knock down walls. I don’t really want to go and reinvent the wheel too much because dad’s always been a great businessman.”

Most of the changes Ohri has prompted have been aesthetic.

“This is what it looked like before,” she says, whipping out a picture of a dated showroom which, upon second glance, is an older version of the room she’s sitting in now. “We had a tiki-style roof for the samples.”

The warm, muted tones that now decorate the space are aimed at making their residential clients feel more at home in the shop and can use the showroom as a functional space. Yet even without making any major changes, Ohri’s family and business keep her constantly busy.

“The first day of my vacation we went to the beach and my phone rang at seven o’clock in the morning, and my husband said, ‘Why do you even leave it on?’ Well, because you have to! It’s a big responsibility, and I take it very seriously because it is my dad’s reputation and the reputation of the business,” Ohri says. “If something goes wrong with a job, I take it very personally because I just have such respect for my grandfather’s legacy and my father’s legacy. I just want to make sure I keep things going the same way they did,” she says as the youngest member of the next generation plays with stacks of carpet samples, just like his mother remembers doing as a child.

Georgetown Floorcoverins, Inc.
3233 K St. NW
Washington, D.C. 20007
202-965-3200 [gallery ids="99241,104054,104059,104064,104069,104074,104079,104084,104089,104049,104044,104039,104019,104110,104106,104024,104102,104029,104098,104034,104094" nav="thumbs"]

Gary Tischler •

When you think of the life of Roger Kennedy, the former director of the National Park Service who passed away at the age of 85 last week, you think almost immediately of the old adage that “they don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

Kennedy defined the idea of a Renaissance man, a concept which today merely means multi-tasking, which is not the same thing.

Kennedy lived a life of service and only became the NPS director relatively late in his life when President Bill Clinton appointed him to the position in 1993. By that time, he had already become a noted attorney, historian, television news correspondent, radio journalist and author of 12 books on American history, architectural history and public affairs. His last book, in fact, was published in 2009, a work called “When Art Worked: The New Deal and Democracy.”

He had served the nation and six presidents in various capacities, including Special Assistant to the U.S. Attorney General, the U.S. Secretary of Health, and Welfare and the U.S. Secretary of Labor.
The current NPS director, Jonathan B. Jarvis said that “Roger made it possible for everyone to have a stake in the national parks.”

Eight parks were added to the national park system during his tenure and you can tell the eclectic nature of his interests and passions from the list, among them the Tall grass Prairie National Preserve in Kansas, the New Bedford Whaling National Historical Park in Massachusetts, the Cane River Creole National Historical Park and the New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park.

During his tenure, he implemented a major restructuring of the Service while defending the Park Service against changes that would have undermined the system’s mission. He insisted that the park system tell multiple and diverse sides of the American historical story, a stance that often came under fire. He was a futurist in the sense that he anticipated the emergence of the Internet as a major communication tool to tell the American historical story to a huge audience.

He resisted government cutbacks that would weaken the ability to tell an inclusive story of the history of America. In 2002, he warned that “The impulse to prune back the budgets and get rid of the newer parks was all code for ‘let’s stop paying attention to blacks, Hispanics, women.’”

Kennedy could always be seen during the time of his tenure wearing the familiar uniform of the NPS, something that critics saw as grandstanding, but something he did with a great deal of pride.
Look at his life and writings; he had a lot to be proud of.

Jeff Malet •

Washingtonians gathered for the annual Turkish Festival on Pennsyvania Avenue to enjoy delicious Turkish food and traditional Turkish coffee, to browse and shop at the Turkish Bazaar, and to watch mesmerizing stage performances featuring the Ankara Folk Dance and Music Ensemble (FOMGET) on Sunday October 2, 2011. (Photos by Jeff Malet) Click on photo icons below for our slideshow of the event.
View additional photos by clicking here. [gallery ids="100307,107902,107907,107912,107917,107922,107927,107932,107937,107942,107947,107952,107897,107892,107887,107852,107973,107969,107857,107965,107961,107862,107867,107872,107877,107882,107957" nav="thumbs"]