Town Topics

Robert Devaney • June 18, 2013

The renovation of the Nevils Hall student apartment complex on the corner of 36th and N streets has nearby neighbors concerned about traffic and noise. The project, beginning May 16, calls for a three-week intense schedule of 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.—chutes, dumpsters, interior demolition, asbestos abatement and reconstruction. Georgetown University promised that workers would not park on residential streets and that most deliveries to and from Nevils would be routed through the campus. Large dumpster trucks, however, would have to drive on Prospect Street and 34th Street, school reps said.

Recalling the Nevils Hall makeover during the 1980s, Karen Cruise, a Citizens Association of Georgetown board member who lives on 35th Street across from Loyola dormitory, remained skeptical that noise could be kept to a minimum. At the April 4 Advisory Neighborhood Commission meeting, Karen Frank, head of university facilities and student housing, told commissioners she would see if deliveries could begin an hour later in the morning. The first phase continues until Aug. 23 with most work going on inside the building, which contains mostly four-, five-, and six-person apartments with full kitchens, and which served as Georgetown University Hospital in the early 1900s.

Even Georgetown University seniors who live at Nevils are being inconvenienced: By May 14, they must move out of their apartments, before senior week and their graduation day, although the university is compensating them. Each evictee— whose college tuition is among the nation’s highest—will receive a whopping $200.

Robert Devaney •

An Executives Without Borders fundraiser at the downtown Smith & Wollensky, April 5, benefited wounded warriors and featured Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, former U.S. Administrator to Iraq and current president and CEO of World T.E.A.M. Sports, and Sgt. Rusty Frost of the U.S. Air Force, a double amputee who served in Iraq.

Along with 400 others, Bremer and Frost will take part in “Face of America,” a 110-mile bicycle ride, starting April 16 at the steps of the U.S. Capitol and ending on the battlefield of Gettysburg, Pa., the next day. At least 80 of the riders will be military members who were wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan. (The first-day miles will take riders past the Iwo Jima Memorial in Arlington and over the Key Bridge to Georgetown and up Canal Road towards Frederick, Md.)

At the fundraiser, the upbeat Frost, who suffered through 30 surgeries and recovered at Walter Reed Hospital, said he loved bicycling across the country. “The best thing to do [for recovery] is to get out of the room, off your crutches,” he said. “I can’t lose any more feet.” Frost, who met his wife Catherine at Walter Reed (“I could not run away from her.”), said his vehicle was hit in Samarra, Iraq. His job? Ironically: Explosive Ordnance Disposal. And his opinion of the film, “The Hurt Locker”? “I laughed the whole time,” Frost said. “We’re professionals. There’s no time to be a lone wolf.”

Look for the bicyclists coming over Key Bridge at M Street early Saturday morning—and salute some real American heroes.

Gary Tischler •

You never know what you might find in Georgetown Tobacco, that’s for sure. It’s not the only tobacco shop in the Washington area, but it’s probably the most original one. It is absolutely the most enduring, and it’s one-of-a-kind shop in Georgetown, now celebrating its 47th anniversary.

I’m looking at a Georgetowner cover dated July 1-15, 1992. That’s when we interviewed David Berkebile, the founder, owner and president of Georgetown Tobacco. Interview may be too formal a word, really. It was more like catching up, getting re-acquainted, with the occasional question thrown in. And all along, there was the enticing, oddly comforting aroma of pipes and cigar tobacco permeating the walls of the building.

It’s exactly the kind of time you expect to pass at Georgetown Tobacco if you just happen to wander in, drawn by the atmosphere, the humidors, the eccentrically beautiful masks and as many bearded gentlemen.

I’m looking at the picture, from a watercolor collage by David Connell from 1992, with Berkebile, wearing a checkered shirt, red tie, holding a cigar in his right hand, smoke trailing up. There’s a box of Los Puros cigars below to the left, a storefront Indian, a smoothly curved pipe to the right, an old-fashioned cash register, a wooden duck, tobacco leaves, boxes of shop items under glass and the store façade.

On the surface, nothing much has changed except that nineteen years went by. Berkebile, a navy vet, a homegrown guy, a Georgetown resident, look s about the same. In fact, he looks pretty good for a guy who’s squeezed by 70. He’s got a mustache now, another checkered shirt and a cigar in his hand, just as before.

This is on the third floor of the shop, where few venture. I don’t know why: you could open a museum with it and likely get people to trudge up the narrow stairs just to see what’s there. It’s a little museum of Americana.

“I like to collect stuff,” he says, matter of factly. “These posters—they’re Belle Epoch—I got into it and it’s fascinating, the history.” He does a little selling and buying and things pile up. There’s a stuffed vulture, an American eagle, a bellhop and a bust of Groucho Marx, books on antique posters, and advertisements from the turn of the century.

“You know, I didn’t start out wanting to be a tobacconist, “he said. “It wasn’t a great passion of mine. I mean, I smoked a pipe in the navy, but that was it…I learned a lot, often from the people who worked for me. I like to learn things. It never stops.”

Back in the 1990s, he talked about the romance of cigars and pipes and it was apt. “Oh boy, there was a real boom in cigars. It became something of a trendy thing, with cigar rooms and the cigars, expensive ones, becoming a kind of power symbols for men.”

He does smoke the odd cigar in a savoring, expert slow pleasure kind of way. “Cigar smoking and pipe smoking,” he said, “they’re about savoring, taking your time. Not chain smoking round the clock.”

But even there, in that store suspended in time, some things have disappeared. “Dad’s don’t hand out cigars when a baby’s born anymore,” he said. “Gone, like whistling.”

You can get a product list on the Georgetown Tobacco website, brands of cigars, pipes, tobacco and the masks and posters and stuff. What you can’t get is the quiet quality of a kind of island, where people sort of talk, quietly, and they usually know what they’re talking about. You won’t get the employee loyalty and memories on the website.

Berkebile is not much of a self-promoter. He’s what you might call a person of interest—not in a criminal sense, but in the sense that everything in that building says something about him, where he came from, what he thinks, what he’s curious about.

He works at getting things right. He’s known as one of Georgetown’s good citizens. After two marriages he married Sandy, his high school sweetheart from his days at Western High School, now Duke Ellington School for the Arts. He lives in Georgetown, a place he loves as much as he loves the salient people in his life, his three daughters and Sandy’s three sons. He loves the store; he talks to people here, he kicks backs, he can look around his office and see his life story from the surrounding collection of trinkets, posters, statues and pipes.

From a seat on the third floor, he can see M street and its facades, he can smell the aroma wafting up from below, and he can feel the texture of his life.

Georgetown Tobacco is located at 3144 M Street, NW, or just follow the smell of fragrant pipe tobacco until you see the beautiful Victorian masks in the window. For more information visit Georgetown Tobacco online.

Robert Devaney •

The swift Potomac River beat faulty human technology or vigilance during the morning of April 18, as its waters reached high tide and crested slightly over its banks. (A weather alert had been issued for high water.)

In the case of Washington Harbour on the Potomac, with its dock and walkway leading back into a lower semicircle of restaurants, this lapping wave proved disastrous. Not all of the floodwalls had been raised to protect the complex; such a failure has never occurred in the K Street complex’s 22-year history. Water poured down around the steps to the fountain, flooding restaurants, offices, shops, parking garages, and damaged electric and gas utilities. Popular eateries, such as Nick’s Riverside Grill, Tony and Joe’s, Sequoia and Fishers & Farmers, were flooded with up to 12 feet of water. Offices were evacuated, condo residents left because of lack of power and recovery units arrived to pump water out of the complex and back onto the drains of 30th Street near the Swedish Embassy. Washington Harbour’s management company, MRP Realty—founded by Robert Murphy and two other former Trammell Crow executives—is responsible for the damage. On the scene were Metro Police, DC Fire, US Park Police, Secret Service Police as well as disaster expert Rolyn Companies, headquartered in Rockville, Md. [gallery ids="99657,105339" nav="thumbs"]

Robert Devaney •

A robbery at knife point occurred Palm Sunday, April 17, on the 1500 block area of 35th Street, N.W. The following morning, April 18, a robbery at gunpoint occurred on the 3500 block of Winfield Lane, N.W. The reported incidents were less than three blocks apart.

“On April 17, at approximately 7:35 a.m., an individual was robbed at knife point while walking to work in the 1500 block of 35th Street,” reported Georgetown University’s Department of Public Safety. “She was approached from behind by two suspects, who restrained her and displayed a knife forcing the complainant to hand over a backpack which contained her cell phone.” The suspects—one described as a black male, 18-20 years of age, medium build, 5’8”-5’9” wearing a gray jacket, another described as 5’8”-5’9” thin build, and black hair—drove off in a gray, four-door vehicle southbound on 35th Street. The complainant reported the case to Metropolitan Police Department, which is investigating the incident. No injuries were reported

On Monday, April 18, just before 6:30 a.m., a victim was robbed at gunpoint on the 3500 block of Winfield Lane, according to the Metropolitan Police Department. Two assailants, described as dressed in dark clothing with black masks, escaped in two separate vehicles.

Also reported was a burglary on 33rd Street: “On Tuesday, April 5, at 5:52 p.m., DPS received a call from a Georgetown student living in the 1200 block of 33rd Street, reporting that a male suspect had just burglarized her residence by forcing open the bathroom window. The student observed the suspect exiting the rear door. Nothing appeared to be missing from the residence. MPD officers and detectives were notified. The case will be handled by MPD detectives.” No one was harmed; there is no description of the suspect.

Crime reports or tips: Georgetown’s Department of Public Safety, 202-687-4343; Metropolitan Police Department, 202-727-9099.

Robert Devaney •

With a few rumors circulating that Serendipity 3 might not open at all after several delays, co-owner Rodrigo Garcia totally denied such talk and said that problems with the venting system were the cause of the latest wait. Pointing to the open ceiling where the duct was being worked on, Garcia showed off the nearly completed interior of Serendipity 3’s first floor during an April 18 impromptu tour.

Upon entering the restaurant at Wisconsin Avenue and M Street, which once housed the legendary Nathans, one is greeted by a wall sculpture of Abraham Lincoln sitting at his memorial holding a froho, the frozen hot chocolate dessert. Above the bar, cherubs fly the Serendipity 3 banner. Burgundy-cushioned chairs are at the tables on a burgundy-stained floor. Windows can open to the sidewalk (this prompted the powerful cooling system). Tiffany-like lamps abound as well as a centerpiece domed, one on the ceiling. Galt clocks are on the wall (neither First Lady Edith Galt Wilson nor “Atlas Shrugged” seem implicated) as is a porcelain Mobil Gas Pegasus. Fashion illustrations from the 1940s are ready to hang as well as a photo of Andy Warhol in front of the original Serendipity 3 on East 60th Street in New York, which opened in 1954, the same year this newspaper began printing.

Garcia says the famous $1,000 sundae will be happily prepared for those who desire to take a gold-plated spoon and taste the top-drawer ingredients with the edible 23k gold in its crystal goblet. There is an open kitchen, a display case for merchandise as well as a grab-and-go for pastries and such with entrance on the side. Washington-inspired images are on the menu with local favorites like chowder and crab cakes. The second floor will be for private events and a media room is being finished.

And this newspaper’s prediction: How about an opening by Memorial Day? Fourth of July?

Robert Devaney •

The D.C. Zoning commission met April 14 for the first of three hearings on Georgetown University’s campus plan. Georgetown administrators sat before the commissioners and made their case for the 2010-2020 outline. With their lawyer and architect, John DeGioia, university president, James O’Donnell, provost, and Todd Olson, dean of students, testified to the main points of “the modest and reasonable plan.” Acknowledging the opposition of residents to the university’s proposals of increased graduate student enrollment and on-campus road construction, DeGioia argued that the university had gone “more than halfway to meet neighbors.” (Visit Georgetowner.com to read past articles for more details.)

The zoning commission includes Anthony Hood, chairman, Konrad Schlater, Greg Selfridge, Peter May and Michael Turnbull.

In the room were neighborhood leaders as well as Georgetown students.

Commissioners offered some preliminary comments and questions. Asking about the percentage of students living on campus (79 percent), May said he did not like the sound of “a voluntary cap” on enrollments, which seemed to be “not setting a good tone for discussion.” Turnbull asked about how far or how long it would take to walk the campus north to south. Schlater was curious about such strong opposition to the plans by residents. DeGioia replied, “We are in the finest residential neighborhood.” Schlater requested the 10-year data on disorderly conduct by students.

The next hearing—with residents’ testimony—will be May 12, at 6:30 p.m. Third hearing is on May 16.

Robert Devaney •

Starting with a rooftop reception at the House of Sweden (aka the Swedish Embassy) for its April 18 meeting, members and guests of the Citizens Association of Georgetown first enjoyed the sunset and looked down on the flood damage at Washington Harbour across the street. Later, D.C. recycler Catherine Plume gave her take on “changing the world one water bottle at a time” through the proper uses of “reduce, re-use and recycle.” The event was all about being green for Earth Day. One of the greenest embassies, the House of Sweden has that in spades. “Electricity from wind power and not from Pepco,” noted its general manager Cecilia Browning, as she welcomed the crowd. On hand was Occasions, the first certified green caterer. CAG president Jennifer Altemus was nominated for a third year—along with vice president Gianluca Pivato, treasurer Robert Laycock and secretary Christopher Mathews. The vote will be at the May 17 gathering.

Robert Devaney •

EastBanc presented its design for a high-end condo complex at 3601-3607 M Street (the gas station property next to the Exorcist stairs) to the Old Georgetown Board, April 7, and was sent back to the drawing board. Residents may be fuming about the height of the complex against their backyards, but it was the way the condo looked and worked on the street that garnered the rejection. While some OGB officials agreed with Georgetown architect Robert Bell’s opinion that the condos as drawn had a look of “Marriott-hotel quality,” others found the design unfriendly or uninviting to pedestrians. While not exactly a high traffic area in terms of walkers, the Key Bridge Exxon will close by the end of July 2012. (The property is owned by D.C.’s gas station king, Joe Mamo, who also owns Parker’s Exxon on MacArthur Boulevard, Georgetown Exxon at Q Street and the Watergate Exxon.)

Meanwhile, EastBanc will be presenting designs to local officials, April 25—this time for the West End neighborhood—for the public library site (24th and L Streets) and fire station (23rd and M Streets). The library site involves a 10-story residence of up to 180 units above a new library and retail; the firehouse would have 52 units above its new building.

Robert Devaney •

Prospect Street residents whose backyards would be almost level with the top of the proposed Key Bridge Exxon condo on M Street are not feeling the love from their Advisory Neighborhood Commission, to say nothing of the developer EastBanc, which presented its redesign of the project after scrutiny by the Old Georgetown Board at the May 2 ANC meeting.

Prospect Street resident Jack Davies said that the redrawn design “doesn’t address our concerns,” and argued further that “the view from Key Bridge [looking toward Georgetown and the homes up on Prospect Street] is iconic.”

“The ANC should reflect the needs of the neighbors,” Davies said. “The ANC resolution lacked teeth.” He said neighbors had asked for a delay and for more discussion about a 40-foot limit. However, he was not suggesting that nothing be built, he said. “We could live with a compromise.”

Robert O’Malley, who lives right next to the infamous Exorcist steps, said he hoped people would not be looking back at the project “after five years and asking, ‘How did that get by?’ The Old Georgetown Board brushed us off. They don’t have their heads screwed on right. The ANC needs to be more emphatic. Think about the future before it is too late.” Shannon Pryor, another Prospect Street resident, cited the natural green strip of land in the back of the properties and added, “You’re devaluing our property.”

Commissioner Bill Starrels, whose district within the condo project and the Prospect Street homes lie, said the ANC resolution “could have been tougher.” Commissioner Tom Birch said that the ANC could ask the Old Georgetown Board to lower the project’s height to 40 feet.

EastBanc presented its design for a high-end condo complex at 3601-3607 M Street to the Old Georgetown Board April 7, and was sent back to the drawing board. While some OGB officials agreed with Georgetown architect Robert Bell’s opinion that the condos, as drawn, had a look of “Marriott-hotel quality,” others found the design unfriendly and uninviting to pedestrians. The OGB did not object to the 50 feet of the condo project. EastBanc modified the design with a more brick look and a more obvious sidewalk and entryway as well as making the rooftop pool area smaller and the penthouses lower.

The Key Bridge Exxon will close by the end of July 2012. The property is owned by D.C.’s gas station king, Joe Mamo, who also owns Parker’s Exxon on MacArthur Boulevard, Georgetown Exxon at Q Street and the Watergate Exxon.

During the same presentation, EastBanc said it had “simplified and cleaned up” its design for the Verizon property at the C&O Canal and Wisconsin Avenue, after OGB review, and added more red brick to the look of the future condos.

The Old Georgetown Board will meet May 5 at 9:15 a.m. at the National Building Museum.