Brad Pitt Has Your Secret Shit: Rolling DC

Oh that Georgetown private chatroom shit is the most Georgetown thing ever. Like the DC Urban Moms list after a visit from Max Jacobson. The idea that a white person who lives or works there needs to read a chat log to figure out their neighborhood is bigoted as fuck is hilarious. Burn that shit down. Except for the Benetton and the Mossimo Dutti. And the Levi's Store. And the DMV, also necessary. The rest though! It's the worst! Can we make this thread into our special room to report on when rich neighborhoods piss us off?

In other gentrification whining news, I realized an interesting trend in the restaurants in my neighborhood: Everywhere that's open for lunch (read: before 4pm) is part of a chain or series of restaurants owned by successful restaurant business people - mark and ty neal, mike isabella, andy shallal, etc). Everywhere else that doesn't open until happy hour is either a one-shot or belongs to some ass hats who magically haven't managed to run their one other concept into the ground yet. The lesson here is if you can't get it together to be open for lunch then maybe you're in the wrong business! And I'm tired of going to the same five places whenever I want to get lunch out somewhere without a hike! *shakes fist at capitalism*

I sympathize with your rage in general, Mr. Tomboto. Continue to fight the power. And I am a big fan of lunch, especially if there's a liquor license involved (because I am an unapologetic drunkard). Absolutely agree that more places should serve lunch. But I see mom and pop-ish lunch places all over the place; not sure where you mean.

Downtown and in Crystal City there are loosely-Asian buffet pay-by-the-pound places and a zillion delis in almost every office building. Ditto Skyline and L'Enfant and Rockville and Farragut/Dupont. For years of being an office drone I subsisted mainly on deli reubens and street hot dogs. Doesn't Rosslyn (i forget if that is still your hood) have Piola, Café Asia, Guajillo - and is not too far from 4 Courts, Guarapo, Amsterdam Felafel?

If one's anti-chain purism is such that Ben's or Busboys and Poets are now OMG BAD AND HATED CHAIN RESTAURANTS because there's more than one of them, I don't know what to say. Yes, those are JUST like Applebee's. Ditto Jaleo, District Taco, Lebanese Taverna, Ray's. Or, for that matter, the Palm, Legal, etc. Basically TGIF with nicer linens. Perhaps sometimes "successful" means you're doing something right.

Re: Isabella, Kapnos is walkable for me and they do lunch quite decently. So does Vine & Fig, Mussel Bar, Ser, Liberty Tavern, Thirsty Bernie's.

...Taqueria Poblano, Atlacatl, Majestic, Murphy's, 4 Sisters, Whitlow's, Cowboy Café, Kite Runner, El Ranchero, City Lights, Big Buns, Niwano Hana, La Caraquena...

Suburbanite me who lives in VA to be close to his VA dayjob is still disgusted by that Congressional Heights/St E's thing I mentioned above-- from giving Wizards/Mystics owner Leonsis an arena to the development now planned by the metro there. Folks I am mad at:

developer Geoffrey Griffis of CityPartners said he took an interest in the neighborhood back in 2008. Other Metro-accessible neighborhoods were booming, but Congress Heights wasn’t even on most investors’ maps, he said.

“I thought, here’s an opportunity to start to assemble something, to start to do something,” Griffis said in an interview.

To redevelop the area around the Metro station, he teamed with the Bethesda-based company Sanford Capital.

Over the next three years, Sanford Capital bought the four brick apartment buildings at 1309, 1331 and 1333 Alabama Ave. SE and 3210 13th St. SE for about $2.8 million.

Together, the companies laid out a plan calling for a 285,000-square-foot office building and about 208 apartments with ground-floor shopping. The project, Griffis said, would be “transformative,” bringing jobs and businesses to a long-neglected neighborhood.

...
“We’re not trying to run anybody off. If anything, we’re trying to get them to work with us so we can move at a faster pace,” Griffis said.

Some residents are wary. City inspectors have cited Sanford Capital for nearly three dozen violations, including rat infestations, failure to maintain minimum temperatures, obstructed drains, broken lights, splintered floors, leaking faucets and defective smoke detectors.

Residents have accused Sanford Capital of deliberately contributing old mattresses and furniture to a trash heap in one building’s parking lot. The company also owes more than $10,000 in back taxes on two of the properties, according to the D.C. tax office.[/I]

Eesh. Disgusting and, sadly, not surprising.

I work in your neighborhood and they know how to be open for lunch, because Ballston is building density in office space as well as residential. Heck, the redevelopment of the Blue Goose parcel is exactly that. I'm living by 14th & U and I'm like hey my neighborhood is hopping! It's a bridge-and-tunnel destination! But it's like a freakin' dead zone until 5pm.

My point about the Neals, Isabella, Shallal et al. was that these are people who are demonstrably pretty good at the restaurant business, and all the "mom and pops" that aren't open for lunch are just being lazy. Literally you can walk down U or 14th all the way between columbia heights and logan and every place open for lunch is operated by people who are in the restaurant business to make lots of money. I look at all the other places and now I'm like, amateurs.

We do need more commercial space though. Whenever they finally tear down the reeves center I hope they put offices there and not more apartments.

when our bank screwed up our property taxes the DC OTR was all over our shit. wasn't anywhere near $10,000 either. developers get away with so much shit

They've been attempting to gentrify my apartment building in Alexandria for 2 years now and it's a hilarious, asbestos-laden disaster.

Senor Tomboto, sorry for the snarkitude (think I mistook your point; I get you now).

As it happens I tried to have lunch with a friend in that hood a while back, and found the same thing. I wanted to go to Fainting Goat but they were closed. Ditto Vinoteca. I think Alero was open but meh. Nearing desperation ended up at Ben's Next Door, which is fine but does not exactly roxor one's soxorz.

Arlington's approach to affordable housing is nobly intended and sometimes succeeds - but it is very much swimming against the tide. The ratio of "affordable" to "at-market" rents in every new development is tweakable, and occasionally contributes to decent diversity. When I was young and underfunded I lived in a complex with a sliding scale (Woodbury Park, near Court House, run by the nonprofit AHC). At the time it was 60% "affordable" / 40% "market rate" - but "affordable" in these environs is still pretty steep compared to Manassas Park or whatever.

Accommodating current residents (as opposed to new ones who are non-rich). A lot of this development is happening in comparatively new spaces, though, and sometimes it leads to comical results.

For example, there's a church in Clarendon that decided to put an apartment building on top of the church. To do so they had to argue about whether or not they owned the air above their building. There are strong tax incentives for including affordable units in the building, and they of course wanted those. So they had to argue about whether or not a taxpayer-subsidized apartment that is on top of a church somehow violated church-state separation.

I know there are genuine heartbreaking human hardships all over, and I wish there were more we could do. But meanwhile this is the kind of silly argument we are having on this side of the river: if people see churchy signs and such while going to and from their subsidized apartments, does this constitute proselytizing, or imply state endorsement of a religious faith?

http://georgetownvoice.com/2015/11/12/student-activists-announce-sit-in-in-president-degioias-office-call-for-name-change-to-mulledy-hall/

Student activists announce sit-in in President DeGioia’s office, call for name change to Mulledy Hall

By Elizabeth Teitz on November 12, 2015 News
Georgetown students announced at a solidarity demonstration on Thursday, Nov. 12 that they are to begin a sit-in outside University President John DeGioia’s office on Friday morning to continue until administrators change the name of Mulledy Hall.

Several hundred students, faculty, and administrators attended the event, which was organized to call attention to racial disparities and discrimination at Georgetown as well as to send a message of support to activists across the country, including at University of Missouri and Yale University. The event, which was organized on Facebook, was hosted by Crystal Walker (SFS ‘16), Candace Milner (MSB ‘16), Queen Adesuyi (COL ‘16), Ayo Aruleba (COL ‘17), and Stephanie Estevez (COL ‘16).

The sit-in is to continue during the president’s business hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. until administrators change the name of Mulledy Hall, named for a former university president who sold 272 slaves to Louisiana in 1838 in order to raise money to pay off university debts.

Milner read off a list of demands from what she called a “working document,” which includes renaming McSherry Hall and the John Main Center, in addition to Mulledy Hall, installing plaques on unmarked graves of slaves on campus, the implementation of an annual program to mark slavery’s legacy at Georgetown, revision of campus tours to include information about the roles of black people in Georgetown’s history, mandatory training for professors on identity and diversity, and the creation of an “endowment to recruit black identifying professors.” The endowment should be “equivalent to the Net Present Value of the profit generated from the transaction in which 272 people were sold into bondage,” according to a document circulated by the Black Leadership Forum.

“We’ve been dialoguing enough. We are the university of dialogue,” said Walker who spoke at the event and sits on the Working Group on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation. “We want tangible change.”

The organizers also called for structural and cultural change on campus that reflects greater diversity and active progress.

“The culture doesn’t prioritize the needs of people of color,” said Antwan Robinson (COL ‘16). “You have to watch your backs on campus. It’s not always safe.” He spoke of feeling uncomfortable on campus due to a climate of racial intolerance and ongoing micro-aggressions, and urged students to speak up about the injustice they witnessed.

Administrators, including Dr. Todd Olson, vice president for Student Affairs, also attended the event.

“It’s very valuable to listen to our students tonight,” he said. “We are committed to continuing to engage with our students and make changes on our campus.”

After the event ended and participants dispersed, some lingered in Red Square, while Father Raymond Kemp, special assistant to the president and an adjunct professor in the Theology Department, walked through the square with one fist held in the air.

“This is solidarity, this is what I teach. It’s straight out of Papal doctrine,” he said. “This is exactly Catholic social teaching at its very best.”

This story will continue to be updated as more information becomes available.

Editor’s note: An error with regards to Antwan Robinson’s class year has been corrected. Robinson is in the College Class of 2016, not the College Class of 2017.

In addition, a sentence summarizing Robinson’s remarks at the rally has been updated. The sentence previously read, “He spoke of feeling uncomfortable at times walking on campus at night due to a climate of racial intolerance, and urged students to speak up about the injustice they witnessed.”

I read elsewhere about U of MD issues:

http://www.testudotimes.com/2015/4/9/8375065/byrd-stadium-maryland-football-name-change

http://www.diamondbackonline.com/news/wallace-loh-forms-a-work-group-to-help-consider-renaming/article_385d78d0-62e1-11e5-bcf7-e32ca19dd581.html

https://www.thrillist.com/eat/washington-dc/best-washington-dc-restaurants-for-ethnic-cuisine

Not sure I agree with Yechon as top Korean

The writer is including the whole region btw, not just DC itself

Someone needs to do an updated ratings of Eden Center restaurants list.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/dc-sports-bog/wp/2015/12/03/pro-kobe-crowd-at-verizon-center-doesnt-make-d-c-a-bad-sports-town/?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_sports

hmmmm

I never agree with top X lists for food in this town. They always seem soaked in affectation and a clear preference for places with demonstrably shitty service

If you like the Big 3 sports, DC is totally trash. If you like the other two, it's great.

'is _________ a good sports town' is an even dumber argument than 'is __________ an elite quarterback'

yes but seriously DC is a demonstrably awful sports town for fans of 3/3 of the big major league sports

what's...sport #5

frolf

tiddlywinks

I never agree with top X lists for food in this town. They always seem soaked in affectation and a clear preference for places with demonstrably shitty service

― El Tomboto, Thursday, December 3, 2015

Examples please of these raved about places with lousy service? Also, while there are similarities on many top local food lists (from Tom Sietsema in the W. Post to blogs like Eater and Thrillist and Washingtonian and Tyler Cowen and Don Rockwell) they all have their idiosyncrasies, so I am not clear which ones you are talking about.

We eat out at about the same 5 places over and over and over since the person-making happened, so take my grouching with a grain of salt. I would like examples of good service in WDC actually. Even as regulars where the managers all know us (and like us) we still get frequent WTF moments from hosts and staff.

take my grouching with a grain of salt

always do <3

I view those lists the same way I view "100 greatest books" or "100 greatest albums" or whatever. Interesting as debate starters for people with a lot of spare time and money - "Why haven't you included Chez X?" Or "Why are you still listing chez Y"? But not very good indicators of where you should go tonight for a reliably good meal.

Just as I don't consult Rolling Stone to know what record albums to put on the ol' hi-fi of an evening.

And like Tombot I have the small-person factor to consider. Taking an unruly special-needs toddler to even the most patient restaurant is risk incarnate. And every time we go out on our own, we blow 80 bucks on a babysitter in addition to whatever we're going to do or eat, so sure bets are prioritized over the New Hot Thing.

That said, in 40 years of living here I've managed to hit a lot of the highlights (Eve, 2941, Pesce, Vidalia), a few reliable mainstays (Lebanese Taverna, Lost Dog, Cashion's, Nora, 1789), and a number of overhyped Fails (Zola, Corduroy, Zed's).

Luxury apartments are more fun to build and market than affordable apartments, file under Duh.

Here in Arlingtopia, we use tax incentives and the permitting process to force developers to include a certain percentage of "affordable" units (i.e., still pretty costly but theoretically within reach) along with their "at-market" (i.e., gonzo insane nightmarishly expensive) luxury units. My hood has a bunch of this kind of housing (though not nearly enough to meet the demand). It helps (a little). Certainly better than nothing.

For every allegedly "affordable" apartment that is close-in and transit-accessible, there are surely 25 people living in some exurban group-house, or with their parents, who desperately want to move to the city but can't afford the rent. It's an unquenchable level of demand. Hard to fault developers for preferring to serve the market of people who can spend $3k/month and are picky about what type of marble lines the showers in the gym, and how obsequious the concierge is about getting them KenCen tickets.

The Metro sucks? http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/transportation/why-does-metro-suck-dangerous-accidents-escalator-outages.php

Yes, it does.

That's a great article.

http://dcist.com/2015/12/_all_aaditya_shah_wanted.php

It all began when Shah made an appointment with Paint1ng.com, a company he found on Craigslist, for Monday at 8 a.m. He got a call at 8:09 a.m. saying that the crew wouldn't arrive for another 45 minutes.

"I told them I didn't have time to wait around, and they told me to leave the door open or the key under the door," Shah says. He declined and said he would hire another crew instead. That's when "the guy started losing it," Shah said.

Shah provided DCist with the texts he received, which quickly escalate from promises to arrive shortly to "Death to Muslims," and "Get out of my country bitch," with a photo of Shah from Facebook.

from the wmata article

Colvin left after a year on account of the unsafe practices, which “just blew my mind,” he says. He’s now working in Kuwait.

lmao

Was never interested in restaurant Fig & Olive, and definitely not now. Misleading re local farm grown food and raising prices after salmonella problems and the shipped in dishes controversy

As City Paper reported earlier this week, many components of these dishes were not made fresh on-site. While the restaurant touts local farms and "genuine taste and seasonality" at the top of its menu, a lot of the food—from risotto to ratatouille—was pre-prepared at a central commissary in Long Island City, New York. That commissary suspended production in the wake of the salmonella outbreak, and investigators from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration never got a chance to test food samples for the bacteria there.

In response to City Paper's reporting, Fig & Olive shared the following statement with other media outlets:

"Commissaries are routinely used by upscale restaurant groups that serve a high volume of customers to ensure consistency in food quality and service. We had a commissary that was utilized for specific items by our New York outposts and selectively nationwide, which we closed in September 2015. The vast majority of ingredients served at our restaurants are locally sourced from vendors and farms. Currently all of our dishes are prepared in house at each location."

It's possible that the price hikes are related to changes in how and where they produce their food. However, Fig & Olive declined to elaborate to City Paper on what "prepared in house" actually means or how they were able to transition from making nearly 200 food items at a commissary to now making them at individual restaurants. They declined to say if they now make desserts, breads, sauces, and other ingredients from scratch at each location.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/youngandhungry/2015/12/17/fig-olive-increased-prices-after-salmonella-outbreak/

http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/19-Year-Old-Found-Dead-in-Adams-Morgan-After-Night-at-Bar-Family-Says-362866631.html

McGuinness' family believes he went down the back stairs of the bar and fell, Nicolai said.

Madam's Organ

http://dcist.com/2015/12/activists_take_complaints_about_con.php

An unassuming house in Cleveland Park had some extra lights shining in front of it on Wednesday night, but they were not of the festive variety. About 50 activists placed lighted placards reading 'slumlord' at a politically connected developer's home and demanded better conditions at a Congress Heights apartment complex.

"If you're allowing rodents, mold, no heat, we don't want you to be able to return to your nice house in a nice neighborhood and enjoy yourself," says activist Eugene Puryear of Justice First, which organized the protest. "We're not just going to sit back."

The developer, Geofffrey Griffis, counters that those sorts of issues are exactly what his firm is trying to fix with a sizable new development. He pins the problems on the buildings' owner, which his firm has partnered with on the planned project.

At issue is a complex of apartment buildings—four inhabited, one vacant—around the Congress Metro station and across the street from a proposed pro-basketball arena on the St. Elizabeth's East campus. Sanford Capital, which bought four of the buildings in recent years, has teamed up with Griffis of CityPartners to plan a gleaming new mixed-use apartment complex. But two major issues stand in their way.

hell yeah, that was good shit

https://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2015/12/AbrDUcK/3f163c270.jpg

Boycotting Cafe Saint-Ex on the basis of "HTTR" on their sidewalk chalkboard this morning.

Also I watched three people walk out of Provision 14 saying "Sorry not sorry - $20 for a (inaudible), I don't think so" and then walk directly across the street to Eatonville. Hilarious.

I heard the place that replaced Ulah Bistro is obnoxious and terrible.

The place that replaced Ulah is owned by the same people as Provision 14, so no surprises there.

Aha.

x-post - you wanted a soccer reference instead on the chalkboard, or did the DC amurican football squad steer you wrong in fantasy football? Or is this just a suggestion St Ex is bandwagon jumping?

1. They're in bumfuck maryland, not dc
2. It's a tossup whether "Make America Great Again" would make me more or less annoyed than cheering Dan Snyder's shit show of a team
3. That too

seriously the idea that I would play fantasy sports, though

anyway I came here to post this

http://wtop.com/lifestyle/2016/01/new-development-transforms-shaws-historic-streets-into-retail-destination/

“I think they see a life and an energy in D.C., and they saw a great opportunity in D.C. to do something that was a collection, so to speak, of retailers that were in a more intimate format and more neighborhood based,” Mosle says.

“This is underground, this is artisanal, this is the creative class.”

HURBLRGGH

I guess I like that I can (more easily) walk to a movie theater now, although I haven't been yet.

As a mortgage holder I'm not even that stoked for what this potentially means for property values, because if every square foot in the neighborhood goes up, then we're not climbing the ladder - just staying put at an inflated nominal price. OTOH I keep hoping for the Reeves Center to come down, like they're going to replace it with anything other than another high-rise, high-priced residential development that looks like basically all the other big-windows tiny-patios multicolored-brick-curtain-wall buildings that popped up over the last decade and a half. I am a gentrification hypocrite

3,000 a month for a one bedroom at The Shay

FWIW I heard The Louis hasn't been able to break ~88% occupancy since they opened. There are still some units that have never had a tenant.

Chris Earnshaw's old-school DC photo exhibit with limited hours, opening tonight--

January 7 – February 26, 2016

DISTRICT explores D.C. during the 1960s and 1970s through the extraordinary eye of photographer Chris Earnshaw. These images – captured originally as Polaroid prints and nearly lost to time and neglect – reflect the demolition, desperation, beauty, and energy in the every-day of the capital city of the era. DISTRICT is presented by the Historical Society of Washington, D.C., in partnership with artist and archivist Joseph Mills.

121 - Loew's Palace in Her Prime, 1965

Earnshaw, whose work is in the permanent collection at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, among others, is, says Mills, “one of the finest photographers I have ever had the pleasure and privilege of knowing. He is able to speak in depth of the great architects of his time and place, as well as of the details on the building and the destruction he witnessed of their beautiful works. Whether turned toward a building being wrecked, or a soul being lost, Earnshaw knew instinctively not to interfere with the camera’s ability to see clearly.”

DISTRICT will be on display in the Historical Society’s rotating gallery space on the second floor of the historic Carnegie Library at Mt. Vernon Square, 801 K Street NW, Washington, D.C. Following the evening opening reception on Wednesday January 6, 2016, exhibition hours will be 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, with additional viewings on Saturday January 30 and Saturday February 20. The exhibition closes February 26, 2016.

Anyone know anything about this movie Sweaty Betty? Apparently it's a little slice of life indie set in hyattsville with a dude who wants his 1000 lb pig to represent the Redskins. Got some good reviews and festival awards but I've read nothing about it locally and I live in hyattsville

can we have a moratorium on naming things DISTRICT that are in or related to the district

x-post--- from the V. Voice review

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the film's setting as Hyattsville, Maryland. The film actually was shot near Hyattsville, in Cheverly and Kentland, also in Prince George's County. A newscast excerpted in the film erroneously identifies Hyattsville as the setting.

Sweaty Betty
Directed by Joe Frank and Zachary Reed

Yep, no one has written about the Sweaty Betty movie locally

just film sites and publications in NY and elsewhere.

The film, from first-time directors and best friends Joe Frank and Zachary Reed, tells the story of a number of real-life residents — and a massive pig named Miss Charlotte — living in a low income African American neighborhood in Hyattsville, Maryland on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. Frank and Reed, both Hyattsville residents (Frank works as an accountant when not making films; Reed works as a meat processor), made "Sweaty Betty" to pay tribute to their neighborhood and the people they've come to love in the area.

springboard-meet-the-directors-behind-sweaty-betty-a-film-unlike-anything-playing-on-the-festival-circuit-20150605