Town Topics

Lisa Gillespie • July 11, 2012

The Washington Kastles bring live
tennis tournaments to Washington,
D.C. each July. Owned by entrepreneur
Mark Ein, the Washington Kastles are
the 2009 and 2011 World TeamTennis
champions and the only team in league
history to go undefeated through
the regular season and playoffs. The
Kastles’ fifth season will again be led
by 27-time Grand Slam tournament
winner Serena Williams and 21-time
Grand Slam winner Venus Williams.
The Kastles play a total of 14 matches,
seven at home and seven on the road,
with the top two finishers in each conference
moving on to the playoffs. Gates open at
5:15 p.m., matches start at 7:10 p.m. Tickets
are available through www.washingtonkastles.
com or Ticketmaster. Located at The Wharf
at 800 Water St. SW, the closest Metro stop is
Waterfront-SEU and L’Enfant Plaza.Williams
and 21-time Grand Slam winner Venus Williams.
The Kastles play a total of 14 matches, seven at
home and seven on the road, with the top two
finishers in each conference moving on to the
playoffs. Gates open at 5:15 p.m., matches start
at 7:10 p.m. Tickets are available through www.
washingtonkastles.com or Ticketmaster. Located
at The Wharf at 800 Water St. SW, the closest
Metro stop is Waterfront-SEU and L’Enfant
Plaza.

Lisa Gillespie •

Screen on the Green starts on July 16 and
goes through Aug. 6 on the National Mall. Films
are shown on Monday nights beginning at dusk,
around 8:30-9:00 p.m. People start to claim their
spots on the lawn as early as 5 p.m. Movies play
except in extreme weather, and there are no rain
days. This years films include “Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid,” “It Happened One
Night,” “From Here to Eternity” and “Psycho.”

Alison Schafer • June 29, 2012

One quick glance as you walk by and you can see it. They are good. They are really, really good.
The regulars at the Rose Park tennis courts include lawyers, former members of Congress, diplomats, doctors, liberals and conservatives. They are young, or a little creaky, from all parts of Washington—and from all over the world. But they all bow to the altar of tennis. And many of them have been playing pick-up tennis together for decades.

“I’ve only been here three years, they barely talk to me!” says Drew Hodge, a banker and tennis player.

Hodge is sitting in the shade, on a plastic chair bought by the tennis players, watching a heated doubles match. Next to him sits Clarence Lyons, a 30-year regular here and the unofficial boss of Rose’s three courts. He tamps down disputes when they arise and helps organize volunteer maintenance squads to trim back bushes and keep the courts neat. Clarence is locally famous, greeting the mothers and their kids by name— even if they never step foot on the courts.
But it’s the tennis players, racket in hand, who ask for him all the time. “Who’s Clarence?” and “Someone told me to ask for Clarence?” are constant refrains.

After all, he’s their connection to a good game.

“People—its DC, after all—leave to go to other countries. When they come back, they come back here,” Lyons says. He says the concierges at nearby hotels often send players up to Rose. One of them told the regulars that there are only three public courts in the U.S. with a level of play this high—one in Chicago, one in San Diego and Rose Park.

David Dunning lives a block from Rose and spends most of his time there, organizing events, cleaning up, playing tennis, chatting with neighbors or just hanging out. “It’s the best pick-up court for tennis in DC, there are a lot of good players here who come from all over the city,” he says.

During prime time, weekends and week nights, the Rose Park players are clearly a literally slice above the average. People show up and get folded into games, or they sign up and a game comes to them. Usually, a wanna-be comes and hits on the backboard next to the courts for a while. That’s sort of a tryout—if you look good on the backboard, you get to move up to the regulars. Of course, anyone can bring their own game and sign up for a court; this process is only for the hard-core players.
On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the action is intense. Two ferocious pick-up doubles games flank a gentle grudge match between neighbors. Many of the people on the court played in college, and some are tennis coaches. Only a few, though, are women. The vast majority of the regulars are men, though the few women who do play are impressive.

One of the spectators muses that the good players come to Rose because the courts are build in a slight “V” shape, so the big hitters can slam the ball and it (mostly) stays in. “Everyone looks like a super star,” suggests Hodge.

Another says that good players attract good players. Ville Waites has been a regular for some fifteen years. He identifies himself as “the king of everything around here,” and says players have got to be able to handle the pressure of constant ribbing and a little supportive trash talk.

“They come for camaraderie and they come to hang out, to shoot the breeze,” Waites says, “that’s half of what people come here for.”

Every September, the park hosts a doubles tournament, complete with a cookout and trophies.
The Rose Park courts are such a draw that the occasional celebrity sometimes stumbles upon them. Last year, the actor Owen Wilson came by a couple of days in a row. Carlos Santana, of the eponymous band hit balls there once (which is truly hard to imagine, if you remember the ‘70s). A few years ago, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf warmed up at Rose before a Legg Mason tournament. Of course, they only raised the level of play at the courts a little bit.
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Robert Devaney •

You may not have noticed that resident-only parking already exists in Georgetown. At least, along certain sections of 33rd, 34th, 36th and P Streets, thanks to the O&P Street Project.

Here is an update from the project leaders: “As part of the O&P Street Rehabilitation project, street lights within the project zone are being updated or, in many cases, added. In response to public concern for safety, the finalized lighting plan increases current lighting by 40 percent, while still preserving the historic feel of the area. You may notice a new light fixture or foundation for a new light fixture near an existing light. In many cases, the existing light will be removed at a later time. Many of the new foundations are covered with orange drums. These drums are in place for pedestrian safety and will be removed once the light poles are installed. When the new lights are operational, you may notice a significant increase in brightness the first couple of nights. Per DDOT’s policy, any existing street lights designated for removal will stay turned on until we verify all of the new lights are fully operational. Once they are deemed as such, the existing lights designated for removal will be turned off.”

The website is FixingOandPstreets.com. As far as the new parking signs go, let’s see how long they stay up.

Georgetowner •

There are two kinds of robberies: the ones that are serious and the ones that are not. medium complexions and thin builds.

When a handgun is involved, it’s always serious. When the hands of a clock are stolen, chances are it’s not serious–it’s tradition. (All right, one might fall from the clock tower.)

Handguns were involved in two robberies at or near restaurants Sunday, April 29. An armed suspect, dressed in black, described as light complexioned, robbed the popular Five Guys restaurant on Wisconsin Avenue of an undetermined amount of cash just before midnight.

Earlier that day around 1 p.m., two employees of Serendipity 3 Restaurant on M Street, taking a cigarette break outside the restaurant were robbed by two men who approached them asking for a cigarette. One of the men pulled a gun and demanded the victims’ wallets and phones. According to the Metropolitan Police Department, the two men were described as black males between 25 and 35 years old with medium complexions and thin builds. One man was described as wearing blue pants and a yellow shirt. The second man was described as having brown eyes and brown hair and wearing a black hat.

Elsewhere, a timely crime was visible to everyone, it being an iconic symbol for all of Georgetown. Over the weekend, it was discovered that the Healy Tower’s clock hands were missing, front and back, and not for the first time, either. As these are the end days of Georgetown University seniors, it was suspected that some upperclassmen may have absconded with the hands in a towering act of not quite derring-do. There is a tradition for this kind of dark-of-night theft in which the hands are then mailed to the Vatican stamped “Returned to Sender” — at least, according to Wikipedia– perhaps with a Latinate postmark. The last time the clock hands were stolen was in 2005. (Investigations are ongoing, and offenders can get suspended from school or worse.) Will they ever return? Their fate is still unknown, poor old clock hands.

Robert Devaney • June 27, 2012

The Potomac River breezes surely helped with the heat, and the sights were iconic, as the annual boat ride for the Georgetown Business Association left Washington Harbour. Cruising under Key Bridge and then down under Memorial Bridge, the group enjoyed food from Dean & Deluca and got a chance to check a new river boat line, Boomerang Tours. [gallery ids="100874,127379" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

Hundreds of congressional hearings are held in Washington each year. Administration officials and others sit before House or Senate inquisitors answering each as fully and dutifully as they can. These hearings usually occur on Capitol Hill and often make for some drama or political theater.

On June 19, one particular congressional hearing was in held Washington — but away from the Hill in Georgetown. Not only was it in Georgetown, it was in a place which evoked the opposite of what most think about when considering Georgetown real estate: an empty, broken-down heating plant, now for sale by the federal government.

The hearing in the West Heating Plant on 29th Street was a bit of political theater, staged by Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.), Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and Rep. Jeff Denham (R-Calif.), Chairman of the Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management Subcommittee. Its title was “Sitting on Our Assets: The Georgetown Heating Plant.” Reviews have been generally favorable.

The representatives — including Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) and Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY) — set up tables and chairs within the massive plant and grilled one witness: Flavio Peres, the deputy assistant commissioner for Real Property Utilization and Disposal at the General Services Administration (GSA).

Their questions hit on why it has taken so long to put up that for-sale sign for this highly valuable property, just south of the C&O Canal and the Four Seasons Hotel. (The sign went up the day before the hearing.) The 1940s-era structure once generated energy for federal buildings and then stood as a back-up. It has been totally shut down since 2000 and has cost the government $3.5 million in maintenance fees.

Denhan and Mica want other unused federal property to get on a faster track to be sold by the GSA, as urged by the Obama Administration. They aptly used their site-of-the-day to make that point to GSA and to the public. They have held hearings off Capitol Hill before and threaten to hold more around the country, if necessary.

Peres took his hits from Mica, who said of his testimony, “We don’t know if [the plant] was turned on. We don’t know if it has an operating license. We had other places to store what was stored here … It just doesn’t seem like anyone is minding the store or taking care of the assets. This is a pretty valuable piece of property.”

Denham asked: “How is GSA going to ensure that this time we are going to get the highest value on this property that is the biggest piece of acreage in downtown Georgetown?”

Peres said that the market was strong and that developers and planners knew of the impending sale. He said that the online sales auction for the heating plant property would likely be in late September.

As for the GSA, it holds 142 properties, compared to other agencies that hold 14,000. And, yes, a GSA official spoke to Georgetown’s Neighborhood Advisory Commission about the impending sale last year. There are plans, set by financiers and architects and ready to roll, as evidenced by the Levy Group’s designs. Neighborhood groups want to make sure that some land within the mixed-use site can be used for public parkland, connecting Rock Creek to the riverfront. The huge building itself must be gutted and restructured for condos and the like.

After the hearing, Mica, Denham, congressional aides and media went to the plant’s rooftop with its commanding views of Georgetown, Cathedral Heights, West End, Rosslyn and the Potomac River. Dramatic? Yes, political theater plays well in this town.