Seeing All the People (and God, Too) in the Cherry Blossoms
• April 5, 2012

This is what it’s like to be in Washington in the spring, punchy, yelled at, bowled ever, embraced, cajoled, and awed by history almost everywhere you go.

If you come here to see the sites and sights, history is purposefully and permanently here in all the monuments, past, present and soon to be erected.

If you come here to be in the nation’s capital and ingest the atmosphere of what’s on the nightly news you may get lucky and get more than you bargained for. If you came here to let your passions burn out loud, your feelings spill into parks and streets, your face on television as an army of many on the very same nightly news, well, here and there you are.

And if you want to be a part of something enduring and fragile, all at once and steeped in history, well, there’s that, too.

All sorts of history was going on over a Washington weekend and is still going on. On a Saturday, you could catch a large group of demonstrators at Freedom Plaza, many of them young black men dressed in hoodies to protest the death of as 17-year-old unarmed Florida teenager shot to death nearly a month ago by a self-appointed member of a neighborhood watch in a gated community. The voices were loud, impassioned and as clear as an open wound, even if the larger issues were not so easy to decipher.

You could go over to Capitol Hill (and to the Department of Health and Services) and see the preparations as the country’s highest court in the land, the Supreme Court, prepared to take on the landmark Health Care legislation, called ObamaCare, passed more than two years ago and now under question on constitutional grounds. Tea party demonstrators were already here, demonstrating at HEW, while other folks prepared to get in line for the limited seats available to spectators.

Down at the Tidal Basin, on Friday, history was being honored again — in that unique way that is both immediately, beautifully, sweetly, mysteriously, in the here and now and firmly rooted in the commemorative past.

The cherry blossoms, first presented as a gift to the United States from Japan 100 years ago were in full bloom. And they were early. And there was a storm coming, a “monster storm,” a “huge storm” as told by hyper-ventilating, vibrating weather people and television news in apocalyptic tones who expressed an uninvited opinion that the cherry blossoms were in serious danger.

As if anybody needed that kind of panic-inducing encouragement, everybody showed up. It’s fair to say they showed up in the thousands, on a sunny, brilliant, warm day as far removed from sturm und drang as you can possibly be.

I went to see the cherry blossom with my colleague Robert Devaney. I, too, felt some panic at the dire predictions. So, I feared that my usual penchant for procrastination might have dire results. The cherry blossoms might be gone, for all I knew, something that could not be said about demonstrators for justice or lines at the Supreme Court.

And so, for the first time since I moved in Washington, D.C., in the late 1970s, I went to the Tidal Basin to see the cherry blossoms in full, fabulous, fantastic bloom. Regrets? Boy, do I have a few. Ashamed? I certainly am.

Because the cherry blossoms themselves, and the festival that has evolved out of the gift and the flowering of white and pink blossoms, and that ballet-like swirling dance they do, making you blissfully blinded by the white, as they twirl like bashful multiple twins to earth, is one spectacularly good reason to be alive.

I’ve always seen the pictures, items on the web, accounts by word of mouth, local TV segments, and I have gone to National Cherry Blossom Festival events, such as parades, exhibits, shows, kites, and all things Japanese in America. The festival that has sprung up gets bigger every year until it runs the hopeful course of the coming of the buds, the blossoms and the dying of the light blossoms, a process that will perhaps be a bit shorter this too-sunny and warm year, although the festival will not.

But, as the song goes, “Ain’t nothing like the real thing, baby.”

I feel, after all, blessed by blossoms, and the spirit that they so lightly carry. We walked past the Washingtonia of the still slightly wounded-by-earthquake Washington Monument and the future site of the Museum of African-American History. And, as the poet Walt Whitman so sung of ourselves: the world’s humanity arrived pretty much all at once. They jostled for walking space, laid out blankets, kissed and made up, let their hot dogs drink, maneuvered their baby carriages, managed their canes and fragile bones.

All of us walked in splendor.

Across the paths to were the site of where the first trees were planted, you could see the thousands, and the packed blossoms straining successfully to be a vista edging up to either side of the Jefferson Memorial. Choppers in the sky — black ops? — paddle boats on the river, a dangerously flirtatious female duck making her final choice among four or five male admirers who appeared to be trying to drown her. Tough love indeed.

Everybody posed. Everybody clicked the age of the digital camera click — up for the blossom closeup, back for the larger world view, snap, snap. Get the girls lacrosse team, the park cop on her horse, the children running or sleeping.

And there was the group that had laid out a picnic cloth, friends, neighbors, acquaintances and an artist painting. One was a couple who live in Paris: he, American, a retired TWA pilot who once saw a biplane land in a field near his town and never forgot it; she, his instant French love-of-his-life.

Perhaps influenced by his surroundings, he said, “I got to say it. I’ve had a wonderful life.” He hushed my expressions of worry about getting older. “You’re an amateur,” he said. He was 91.

This is the way it was on a Friday in Washington, in the sudden peak time of the cherry blossoms and many other things. There are, I’m sure, very good and always mysterious reasons for believing in God, a deity, a creator, a higher being. The atheists or non-believers among us who were also gathering in Washington this weekend had found none. [gallery ids="100655,100656,100657,100658,100659,100660" nav="thumbs"]

Killer of Good Guys Manager Gets Additional 35 Years
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The murderer of Vladimir Djordjevic, a manager of the strip club Good Guys on Wisconsin Avenue in Glover Park, was sentenced to 35 years in prison last week by the U.S. District Court, according to the Associated Press.

Vasile Graure attacked Djordjevic in November 2007 after being thrown out of Good Guys for photographing one of the dancers. Graure then shortly returned to the entrance of the club and poured gasoline on Djordjevic and ignited it, causing burns over 90 percent of the manager’s body. Graure was found guilty of assault and arson four years ago and given a 30-year sentence in prison.

According to WTOP, Djordjevic had undergone dozens of painful surgeries since the attack and testified from his hospital bed by videotape during Graure’s first trial. Djordjevic died from his injuries in May 2010; Graure was convicted of murder in January.

Drink Up, D.C., the Budget Could Use Those Tax Dollars
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As part of his 2013 budget rolled out last month, Mayor Vince Gray proposed that hours for liquor sales at bars, restaurants and stores be extended. Under Gray’s proposal, bars would be allowed to extend weekday and weekend hours by an hour—booze could be sold until 3 a.m. on weekdays and 4 a.m. on weekends—while liquor stores could start selling at 7 a.m. Monday through Saturday. (You could also buy beer and wine at the grocery store starting at 7 a.m. on Sundays.) All told, the changes, which would take effect in October if they passed the D.C. Council, could bring in $5.3 million for the city in 2013. (That’s a small portion of the $172 million budget deficit, $69.4 million of which was closed through “revenue initiatives.”) This isn’t the first time that D.C. has tweaked its liquor sales hours, nor is it the only jurisdiction to do so in the quest for ever-scarcer tax dollars. As part of Gray’s 2012 budget, the tax on alcohol went from nine to 10% and hours at stores were extended. [dcist.com/2011/09/drinking_our_way_to_balanced_budget.php}(http://dcist.com/2011/09/drinking_our_way_to_balanced_budget.php) and bars and restaurants were allowed to  start serving earlier in the morning. [http://dcist.com/2011/10/early-to-rise_brunchers_can_get_sun.php}(http://dcist.com/2011/10/early-to-rise_brunchers_can_get_sun.php)

Town-Gown Truce? ANC, CAG, University Ask for Delay in Zoning Filing
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Could there be peace in our time? In the April 2 meeting of Advisory Neighborhood Commission 2E, a joint statement by neighborhood groups and Georgetown University asked the D.C. Zoning Commission to delay the deadline for filings on the university’s 2010-2020 Campus Plan process by 60 days.

Members of the Citizens Association of Georgetown, the Burleith Citizens Association and the ANC, all of which oppose the university’s expansion plans, and representatives from the university stood up at the meeting to affirm the surprising announcement. As it stands now, the university’s deadline for submissions is April 12, and neighborhood groups have until April 19 to respond.  If the zoning panel agrees to the request for delay, the submission and response dates will change to June 11 and June 18, respectively.

Only several weeks ago, Jennifer Altemus, CAG president, as well as student leaders and others on the university side, was lamenting the delayed decision by the zoning board.

Why the 180-degree turn? ANC chair Ron Lewis said that the delay was requested so that “we can explore the possibility of reaching common ground in our talks about the campus plan. . . We’re giving a somewhat different report than we had expected.”

“This approach reflects our continued efforts to seek common ground and to engage with city and neighborhood leaders,” wrote Rachel Pugh, director of media relations for the university, in an email. “Joining with our neighbors in requesting an extension is a meaningful sign of progress in a long process.”

Major sticking points between the parties, such as the demand that students be housed on campus by 2016, remain. But some persons in the process seem to be taking zoning commissioner Anthony Hood’s advice in February that residents and university officials meet more continually to resolve any issues affecting the neighborhood. At an earlier ANC meeting, Mayor Vincent Gray spoke of the town-gown tension and said he believed that common ground would be reached. Whether this small measure of unity displayed at the April 2 ANC meeting leads to a sea charge by which neighborhood and university leaders collaborate is anyone’s guess.

At the same meeting, the ANC voted unanimously to oppose the redrawn designs for the university’s planned Athletic Training Facility.

Georgetown’s Jack the Bulldog to Welcome Puppy Mascot-in-Training, April 13

Georgetown University’s Jack the Bulldog  is going to have to start making room on the couch and especially on the bleachers, because a bulldog puppy will arrive April 13 on campus to be trained by the boss, the veteran, the main four-legged mascot. The new guy, “Jack Jr.,” or “J.J.” for short, is a gift from Janice and Marcus Hochstetler, bulldog breeders in California, who have two children at Georgetown. This is their way, they say, of thanking the university for the education their children are receiving.

Jack recently injured his left rear leg and is expected to have surgery this month. He will be returning this fall to continue rooting on the athletes and begin teaching J.J. what it means to be a Hoya. “Jack’s presence will provide important support to J.J. since the older dog is already comfortable with his life as a mascot at Georgetown,” says Rev. Christopher Steck, S.J., associate professor in theology. “J.J. will be looking for signals from Jack, and Jack’s enthusiasm in different environments will encourage J.J.’s own.”

According to the American Kennel Club, Jack ranks 8th among 125 of the most famous dogs in pop culture. He spends his time cheering at Georgetown games (Hoyas say he is often seen attacking and eating cardboard boxes with the opposing team’s logo on them), or resting in the lobby of the Jesuit Residence before heading home to his New South apartment that he shares with Steck. 

The Washington Post reported that the new addition is not a replacement for 9-year-old Jack. J.J. was planning on moving across country since he was born in December. Steck tweeted last Friday, March 30, “Really excited about the new puppy, and just to be clear, Jack is NOT retired.”

Join Jack and J.J. for a special welcome event at Healy Circle, 4 p.m. on Friday, April 13, when Steck returns to campus with the little guy from San Diego. Meanwhile, check the university website which will map the puppy’s travels across America to his destination in D.C.

Library’s McCoy Earns Historic Preservation Award; Tale of 2007 Fire in the Comics

Jerry McCoy, special collections librarian, Washingtoniana Division of the D.C. Pubic Library, will receive an individual award from the Historic Preservation Office of the D.C. Office of Planning which chose the Georgetown Neighborhood Library project for the 2012 District of Columbia Award for Excellence in Historic Preservation. The ceremony will be held June 21. 

McCoy is well known in Georgetown for heading up the Peabody Room at the R Street public library. It suffered extensive from an April 2007 fire. Nevertheless, firefighters and staff saved 95 percent of its historic collection, including the beloved portrait of Yarrow Mamout, a early 19th-century Georgetowner who emigrated from West Africa and a popular resident at the time. (Today, the library stands fully reconstructed.)

That story was re-told in the Washington Post’s March 25 comics sections in the “Flashbacks” comic-strip. “I thought the denoument of the Yarrow story featuring the Peabody Room’s portrait and its rescue from the fire was pretty spectacular,” McCoy said.

Capital Bikeshare Opens First Stations on the National Mall
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The District Department of Transportation and the National Park Service announced last month that the first Capital Bikeshare stations have been installed on the National Mall. Two stations were installed just days before the start of the National Cherry Blossom Festival. The new stations are located at Ohio Drive and West Basin Drive, SW near the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial; and on Jefferson Drive between 14th and 15th Streets, SW, close to the Washington Monument.
 
“We are delighted to offer Capital Bikeshare to our residents and visitors as they traverse the historic landmarks and monuments on the National Mall,” said Mayor Vincent C. Gray. “We strongly believe that a Capital Bikeshare presence on the Mall will promote greater use of bicycling and other sustainable transportation options throughout the five week festival and beyond.” 
 
The new stations are the first of five Capital Bikeshare stations planned for the Mall and they will remain in place after the Cherry Blossom Festival.

Street Art Classy-Style Comes Downtown
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Notice those black and steel interwoven figures dominating the median of New York Avenue between 12th and 13th Streets? They’re the second installation of the New York Avenue Sculpture Project www.downtowndc.org/go/new-york-avenue-sculpture-project by international sculptor, Chakaia Booker, who unveiled them last month on International Women’s Day, more than two years after the National Museum of Women in the Arts www.downtowndc.org/go/national-museum-of-women-in-the-arts (1250 New York Avenue) teamed with the D.C. Office of Planning and other agencies to begin work on featuring changing installations of works by contemporary, world-class women artists.

New York-based Booker works almost exclusively with recycled tires that are cut, shaped and folded, then woven into large-scale expressive works fusing ecological concerns with explorations of racial and economic differences, globalization and gender. The art project has changed the look of New York Avenue, one of Downtown’s major boulevards.

Analysis of MLK Library Begins
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The Urban Land Institute issued its final report on a proposed plan for the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library www.downtowndc.org/go/king-library (901 G Street) last month, setting the stage for the 40-year-old historic landmark to begin an in-depth analysis to determine the feasibility and cost of implementing the report’s recommended scenarios. Although an analysis of the city’s central library will begin next month, its fate has been discussed for years, particularly as Downtown has become more vibrant and property values have soared.

ULI presented preliminary details of its finding to help guide city leaders and residents in deciding the 400,000 gross-square-foot building and MLK Library’s future in November. The three scenarios for consideration include keeping the existing building as a library and lease excess space to another commercial, non-profit or municipal entity, maintaining the existing building for the library’s complete use and selling the building and identify another downtown location for the central library.

The Freelon Group, a nationally recognized architectural firm and the library’s architect-of-record, will examine how the library can be reconfigured for co-tenancy, add two additional floors, and identify, prioritize and provide cost estimates for needed major improvements. In addition, the library will work with the D.C. Office of Planning to explore whether there are viable, alternative locations in downtown that can accommodate a 225,000 SF central library.

More Restaurants Coming Downtown
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More dining options are making their way into Downtown. First on the house-cured, hand-carved meat front: the Carving Room (300 Massachusetts Avenue) and Red Apron Butchery (709 D Street) plan to debut this summer and fall, respectively. The Carving Room sandwich shop will open in the Mass Court apartment building to occupy space once reserved for Caldo, the Italian restaurant which decided to set up shop elsewhere. Besides serving lunch and dinner, it will feature an open kitchen, seating for 65 and a sidewalk café with 50 seats. Red Apron, a fixture at local farmers’ markets, will occupy 3,600 square feet of space and serve up all-natural, hormone-free lamb, beef and poultry. Known for its artisanal charcuterie, salumi, sausages, hot dogs and other fare, the butchery will also serve breakfast, lunch and dinner. The Protein Bar, the Chicago-based high protein food and drink eatery, is also coming, and will reside in the Market Square North building (701 Pennsylvania Avenue). Expect to see blended drinks, salads, chicken and vegetarian chili, and “bar-ritos” (made of warm organic quinoa and whole wheat wraps, instead of rice and flour tortilla) on the menu.

Finally, those of you awaiting Freshii’s (555 11th Street) arrival, it’s here. The fast casual franchise that sells customized salads, wraps, burritos, and other healthy fare opened last month, in space once occupied by Gifford’s Ice Cream & Candy Co.

YWCA Building to be Demolished
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Two years after purchasing the YWCA building (624 9th Street) for $21 million, MRP Realty and Rockpoint Group LLC plan to demolish the 93,553-square-foot structure this summer, thus ditching original plans to extensively renovate it and add 9,000 SF. In its place, they will construct a 112,000 LEED GOLD certified building on a speculative basis. The new office building will have a mostly glass façade, about 6,500 SF of ground-floor retail space and a new address, 900 G Street. The existing Class B building is located across from the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library www.downtowndc.org/go/king-library (901 G Street) and adjacent to the Mather Studios condominium. Akridge (601 13th Street) developed it in 1981 to house the YWCA offices and activity centers, including a first-floor pool.

Living Social Not Just Online
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Notice all the media attention heaped on LivingSocial (1445 New York Avenue) lately? Chalk it up to the company’s shift away from being a strictly online daily deals operation to one also focused on experimental retail “experience” space. Last year, LivingSocial leased the Douglas Development building at 918 F Street, transforming the 26,000 SF historic building near Gallery Place and the Verizon Center www.downtowndc.org/go/verizon-center into multi-purpose space for entertainment and a variety of cooking, art and exercise classes led by industry experts and local instructors. By now, it’s widely known that celebrity chef, Mike Isabella, of  Graffiato www.downtowndc.org/go/graffiato (707 6th Street) fame staged a successful pop-up restaurant there over four days last month. Tickets sold out within a few hours at $119 per person. What’s next? Keep up with the full list of offerings at the Living Social website www.livingsocial.com