Yearly Archives: 2009

Monumental, The Features
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Monumental: Eastern Market

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While Monumental is traditionally the realm of the markers and monuments and memorials left throughout the city, Council Chairman Graham said something at this morning’s re-opening of Eastern Market that stuck with me. He said that Eastern Market was DC’s own Monument, more so than any of the Washington monuments. He couldn’t be more right. Let’s take a look at our rededicated monument to city life.

Eastern Market was constructed in 1873, designed by Adolf Cluss. The District was attempting to urbanize and part of that plan was a series of local markets for produce and meat. Cluss designed Central and Eastern markets as part of the new system. As the Post would point out in the wake of the fire, Eastern Market is truly local. The architecture of the space, done in the Italian style, in old red brick, is set at odds with the Federal style of granite, marble and columns.

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We Love Food
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We Love Food: Firefly

Photo courtesy of Me

Firefly, courtesy of Me

Firefly‘s gotten a lot of mention around here but we’ve never done a comprehensive review. When I had to pick a place to meet an out-of-town friend who was staying off Scott Circle, Firefly seemed like a no-brainer selection. My darling wife and I met her and another dining companion on a Thursday night expecting a highly enjoyable experience.

We did not get exactly what we expected.

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The Daily Feed
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Bread for the City Needs Your Help

Photo courtesy of
‘Every Food Fits – When Life Gives You Cucumbers…’
courtesy of ‘staceyviera’

Bread for the City is working on “filling the food gap” from when their food pantry went way over budget in May. When a food pantry goes over budget, it’s because there’s a greater need in the community for food assistance, and because donations may not be coming as freely. Food pantries get pinched from both sides in a recession. Every little bit helps, so if you can, send them some money today, and don’t forget to join us at our first anniversary party next week, where we’ll be accepting cash donations for Bread for the City at the door.

The Daily Feed, The Hill
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Eastern Market Reopens!

Eastern Market.JPG

When a fire decimated the inside of Eastern Market early in the morning of April 30th, 2007, the city lost one of its own best monuments. Built in 1871, architected by Adolf Cluss, Eastern Market was the city’s first enclosed produce markets, a supermarket before Giant, Safeway or Magruder’s were even a twinkle in their founders’ eyes. After 26 months of restoration and renovation, Eastern Market reopened today, with a ribbon-cutting ceremony hosted by Mayor Fenty, Congresswoman Norton, Council Chairman Gray, Council members David Catania, Tommy Wells and Kwame Brown, and former Council member Sharon Ambrose.

The new interior of Eastern Market features all of the 2007 vendors, from Canales Meats to Calomiris & Sons fruits. The $22M renovation also features, to the relief and delight of all, Air Conditioning and Restrooms. Chief among the renovations, though, is a full fire sprinkler and alarm system designed to minimize damage and alert the authorities.

We’ll have a bigger feature on Eastern Market this afternoon in the 3pm Feature slot.

The Daily Feed
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Campy Fun

Photo courtesy of
‘Obsessed with the woods’
courtesy of ‘Vagabond Shutterbug’

When I was a kid, a friend and I decided to spend the night in the yard…until our horse snorted loudly outside the tent door and we ran screaming to the house.

Camping also makes me think of watching meteor showers from sleeping bags spread under the sky, freeze-dried cobblers gone hilariously awry, adventures with bear canisters, and way too much rain.

One thing’s for sure — camping breeds good stories. Get some new ones by joining the Great American Backyard Campout and sleeping outside Saturday night, when it’ll be clear and 60-odd degrees. Your balcony a bit cramped? Head to wide open space in Shenandoah or George Washington National Forest. Then flambee some s’mores.

News, The Daily Feed, WMATA, WTF?!
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Metro’s Proximity Circuits Failed During Crash

Photo courtesy of
‘Circuit Board Art’
courtesy of ‘tbridge’

The Post is reporting this morning that the trackside train proximity sensors did not function properly on Monday, or in a test on Thursday. These sensors are designed to detect where the trains are in the system and provide that information to other nearby trains to slow or stop them based on proximity.

Metro has undertaken a complete review of all the electronic relays on the Red Line, and will keep the system operating on manual with a maximum speed of 35mph until the review is complete, which may take a few weeks. We’re going to be on manual for a while, so that means adjusting where you’re standing on the platform, as trains are going to be pulling forward to the 8-car mark even at 6 cars long. In addition, Metro will be moving all of the 1000-series cars to the center of trains for safety purposes. If you see a 1000-series car at the front of a train, mark down its car number, time of day and where you saw it, and put it in the comments here? We’ll make sure Metro knows about it.

The Daily Feed
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Honk If You Miss Michael

Honk if You Miss Michael

Last night, on H St. and 8th NE, a block party formed to honor the memory of the late, great Michael Jackson. The mourners then turned to H St. to spread their love with passers-by, including the Circulator, 90, 92, and X2, among many other supportive motorists. One of the noisiest honkers waved his vinyl copy of Thriller out of the window as he drove by.

The Daily Feed, We Green DC
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Be a Star! And Help DC Win a Big Green Prize

Photo courtesy of
‘20080620-5428’
courtesy of ‘sskennel’

CarbonfreeDC wants to launch an Extreme Green Neighborhood Makeover — and has beat out 2,500 others to become one of 10 finalists in the Green Effect competition sponsored by National Geographic and SunChips.

The plan? To sponsor 20 homes on a city block in one of the poorest neighborhoods in Washington, DC, helping the families green their homes and lower their energy bills. The five best ideas will win $20,000.

Can you volunteer to star in the video? On Sunday at 4:30, CarbonfreeDC needs volunteers to star in the video it will post to the contest site. Come to National Geographic Museum on Sunday at 4:30 p.m. for the filming, and stay for drinks and snacks at Beacon Bar & Grill.

The Daily Feed
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The Magic of the Single-Shot Photographer

Photo courtesy of
‘Personal Vision’
courtesy of ‘1Sock’

I read an article in Express yesterday that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. It was about color photographer William Eggleston, whose work is displayed at the Corcoran right now. The part that was amazing to me is his technique: he doesn’t take multiple frames of his subject and pick the best one, like most photographers. He takes one shot. Just one. And they’re not just good, they’re defining-art-photography amazing. This, I have to see. The exhibition, William Eggleston: Democratic Camera, Photographs and Video, will be open through September 20.

Life in the Capital, People, The District, The Features
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Why I Love DC: Kirk

Photo courtesy of
‘Pointy Houses in a Row’
courtesy of ‘Bill Jones Jr’

“Creative people have LA and stylish people have NYC,” said a person that I met at the bar. “Nerds like you and I, we’ve got Washington. It’s our city, man.” Flippant, yes, but philosophical at the same time.  This stranger that sat down next to me on a Friday evening hit at what, to me, makes DC a great place: community. It’s part Mecca for CLA geeks, like myself, and part city of unseen potential.  Since getting to know Washington, DC, I realized that its a place that most Americans visit, but never actually see.  The true beauty of this city is known only to residents and this provides a strata of a commonality that binds them together.  Why do I love DC?  Community, plain and simple.

I’ll admit that I lived in the area for a solid 4 years before I began to discover that DC actually had a personality. Cracking the marble facade of the city takes time and effort. To most, Washington, DC is a giant, historical landmark. It holds our nation’s great monuments and provides beds for its leaders. It’s an effective, yet insular bastion of power that lacks the cultural panache of other, major cities.

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Technology, The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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DC Jobs Program Employee Fired for Being A Jackass on Twitter

Photo courtesy of
‘TwitterFailWhaleScreenshot_2’
courtesy of ‘MikeBlogs’

One of the first rules about having a Twitter account is that, if your messages are public, you have to assume that everyone you know can and will read your tweets. So, that means if you’re talking about work, or end up saying something like, “In americas ghetto anacostia… If i get scared i will just yell chinese carry out! They will not shoot me.” while working for the DC Jobs program? That means you’re going to get fired.

Congratulations, David Le, that, coupled with a few of the other tweets from the article makes me glad the city fired you.

Alexandria, Food and Drink, Night Life, The Daily Feed
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New Restaurant Alert: COLUMBIA FIREHOUSE

Photo courtesy of
‘Engine Co. No. 28’
courtesy of ‘flipperman75’

The Neighborhood Restaurant Group (who brought you Rustico, Evening Star, Eat Bar, etc.) has announced the opening of a new concept, the Columbia Firehouse in Old Town. With two different restaurant experiences, and two bars, the Firehouse will be quite the addition to the Alexandria dining scene.

The 80-seat upstairs dining room will serve as a classic chophouse with most of the restaurant’s meats and all of its charcuterie selected, butchered and prepared by Red Apron. The 120-seat dining room downstairs will offer a casual menu with a focus on modern American comfort food, small plates and sandwiches, such as dry-rubbed & smoked chicken wings with buttermilk blue & firehouse bbq sauces, Maryland crab cake with jicama slaw and Dijon aioli, and the firehouse burger.

Columbia Firehouse will also be home to two bars. The main bar, located on the ground floor of the restaurant, will specialize in pure, authentic versions of classic cocktails including Rickey’s, Fizzes, Sazeracs and more. he second floor bar and adjoining lounge will be open for special events, and will allow cocktail enthusiasts to sample a rotating menu of creative concoctions, as well as aperitifs and after-dinner drinks. I’m sure I’ll have much more information for you when it opens.

The Daily Feed
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Game around DC

Photo courtesy of
‘DC Meetups – 09-03-22 – Your Move’
courtesy of ‘mosley.brian’

It’s been going on a year since the Metro was festooned with ads for Fallout 3, a post-apocalypse game set in the DC region. Apparently The Conduit doesn’t have the same sort of ad budget since it released a few days ago without any sign of it around our mass transit. But if you want to run around a digital District looking for information about an alien conspiracy and happen to own a Wii perhaps you want to pick this one up.

It’s presumably less depressing than Fallout 3 since everything isn’t a destroyed wasteland. As a bonus, the enemy is named the Drudge. It’s unclear if there’s another group in the game called the Politico that runs around desperately trying to get the Drudge to link to them. I’m hoping that the Drudge wear a silly hat, at least.

If you’ve played the game please chime in and let us know how it is as a representation of DC. You know how much we love to drone on about representations of our fair city.

Music, We Love Arts
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This Week in Music: Play it Loud: The Antlers/Cotton Jones @ IOTA


DSC08369 by musicalhedonist

Love can’t buy a full room, no matter what the prophets of new media might say. Even when the gushing adoration gets issued from the fast-typing manicured fingers of a name-checking rock critic, it’s not enough to ensure that there will actually be warm-drinking bodies filling the club when the band finally walks out — at least not at Iota.

The Antlers shuffled into Iota on the last languid Thursday night, dragging the sonic fruits of an inaugural album, “Hospice,” and the slow-snowball of a slew of positive reviews and early “best in 2009” lists, stretching from Pitchfork to NPR. It’s the type of trilling whisp-heavy work, managing to build and stretch droning little pop songs into eerily depressing, slow building atmospheric foothills. The dark little missive may enchant and bewitch, but make it through the ten tracks, and a very strong chance that you probably won’t be in the state of mind known as happy.

It’s an album that plays better in the headphones than the speakers — the canvasses quaver but rarely overwhelm — but on Thursday when I sat down with front man Peter Silberman, drummer Michael Lerner and keyboard stroking effects-slathering master Darby Cicci, the trio promised that the sound would be brought.

“We try to make each song as dense and expansive as we can,” said Silberman. “I don’t always know who’s making each sound or where it’s coming from, but we try to build each song as full as we can.”

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The Daily Feed
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Green Line Rail Cracked, Metro Delays


Holding Pattern
Originally uploaded by Samer Farha

Metro discovered a cracked rail on the Green Line near the West Hyattsville station, which is going to result in single tracking around the exposed area until they can repair it. Metro will also be inspecting all 3,000 signaling relays as part of their crash response, which may contribute to system slowness. Until all the relays have been checked, the system will continue to operate in the slower Manual mode.

Update [2:37pm]Metro has announced a second rail crack this time on the Red Line at Medical Center. The Red Line will now be single-tracking between Grosvenor/Strathmore and Friendship Heights.

The Daily Feed
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Metro crash lawsuit #1

Photo courtesy of
‘Supreme Columns’
courtesy of ‘Carla Jones (Gen-esis Photography)’

WTOP reports that the first lawsuit has been filed by a crash victim. Davonne Flanagan, 15, received a broken leg in the crash, where he was riding in the rear of the first car of the striking train. The family is seeking $950,000 in pain and suffering as well as actual injury and expected rehabilitation. The victim’s family hired this subway accident lawyer in new york to handle the case.

A personal injury lawyer knows your rights and also knows how much your claim is worth. They also know that their success determines how much money you will pay them. Insurance claims come with so many uncertainties, and most times, insurers always try to find a way of denying claims. They keep tabs on timing and procedures to make sure things happen within the stipulated time limits. This will help keep your compensation claim on the right track. According to the San Bernardino accident lawyer, this is vital for ensuring fast settlement of your claim.

Personal injury lawyers tend to charge on a contingency basis. This means they receive a percentage of the settlement if and when a settlement is reached. A client does not pay out of pocket. Personal injury lawyers‘ fees can range from 33 to 45%.

Attorney Lawrence Lapidus explains the prompt filing with the statement “My clients wanted to file early because the Transit Authority is known not to settle cases without filing suit.” Lapidus has apprently been a plantiff’s attorney against WMATA several times in the past.