Walking around downtown after watching Up the Yangtze at E Street Cinema yesterday, we spied the Hotel Harrington sign, as many have, many times before, and thought, “That logo sure looks familiar…”
By brownpau
Category Archives: The Daily Feed
By brownpau
By Butcher Burgers
Oh my god. How is it possible that I missed the news about Butcher Burgers, the latest effort of Michael Landrum (of Ray’s the Steaks fame).
I’m going. Tomorrow. I shall report back with photos. Who’s coming with me? (Obligatory OMG NOM NOM NOM noise here.)
By Wayan
DC Neighbourhoods Ablaze!
Washington DC has its official fireworks on the Mall, but forgive me I find them insignificant. For me, the formal symphony + lightshow is a distant second, if even ranked, when compared with the neighbourhood effort.
And that would be every neighbourhood in this city – from Congress Heights to Foggy Bottom, Park View to Palisades. On every block, on each street, we have an orgy of light and sound, all amateur, and therefore, so much more creative and intimate.
In Petworth, we had our own fireworks festival. With the full block party audience in attendance, we had all kinds of sparkling, shootings, and showers of crackling through the night. Even Taxi Dog got in on the show.
And this morning? Happiness with firework detritus strewn about.
By Tom Bridge
Happy Independence Day. You’re Fired.
That was the message today to 250 DC teachers and 500 teachers’ aides who missed a certification deadline this week. Official termination letters go out on Monday. Chancellor Rhee thinks it won’t be a problem, as these were “expected” terminations, and none of the firees have classrooms assigned. Well, I guess it’s good we knew it was coming?
By brownpau
Fireworks and Storms
As often is the case for the Fourth of July in Washington, the weather has been largely unstable: heat and humidity mixing with occasional showers. We’re now just about a half-hour from the scheduled start of fireworks on the Mall at 9:10 AM, and another wave of showers with some lightning has just finished sweeping the area. Here’s a closeup of our weather radar as of 8:30 PM:
The system that brought us that surprise rain twenty minutes ago is leaving to the northeast, but another system is forming to the west, and seeing that and considering the instability in the local atmosphere, my instinct — coupled with a general disdain for sitting in mud — is to stay indoors rather than go out to join the crowd of fireworks-viewers. But hey, that’s just me. There’s also a chance that system will dissolve into vapor and leave the district dry at 9:10PM, in which case, the show goes on.
Watcha gonna do, DC? If you’re living downtown, you now have under thirty minutes — just enough time to hop on a Metro or dash out to the Mall and maybe make it to a good viewing spot amidst the mass of humanity already there. And hey, if you’re reading this on your mobile device from out on the scene, send us a status report.
Update: Thankfully for those out there, the rain held off! We watched from the safety of a friend’s apartment, and I’ll have a time lapse video ready soon.
By Amélie
Your July 4th Street Closures
Well, if you’ve lived here long enough, you’d know that Metro and traveling by foot or bike is probably the best way to get down to The National Mall on July 4th. For those of you who don’t and insist on motorized transport, D.C. DOT has issued the list of street closures for the rest of the day.
By Ben H. Rome
Party, Alexandria-style
For all you locals who don’t want to fight the incoming crowds for the fireworks displays across the region today, take heart. Alexandria’s found another excuse to throw some more explosives into the air next weekend.
(photo originally uploaded by The Library of Congress)
By Tom Bridge
No Fireworks in Vienna.
david crying in grass
Originally uploaded by obiwanjr
So, if you were planning on catching the Fireworks in Vienna tonight, instead of one of the other multitude of shows, you might want to reconsider. They’ve changed their plan to be a laser light show on a 100×70 foot screen, instead of fireworks. Granted, given the accident last year that injured 11 people, maybe it’s the right choice, but there will be no fireworks on the fourth of july this year.
Yikes, that does sound unamerican, doesn’t it?
By Tom Bridge
Welcome Beta Testers!
Welcome to We Love DC, Pre-launch folks! We’re opening up the site about a half a day early to make sure we didn’t have any major whoopsies in the site that we didn’t find. Drop a comment on this post for anything that doesn’t look quite right. Currently, we’re sporting two side-by-side columns, one for Feature-length content, and one for more bloggy-content called the Daily Feed. We’re going to be honing what goes in each of them, and suggestions are welcome.
We’ve got a couple RSS feeds right now, but we’ll have more in the coming weeks, including a by-author feed, and a by-category feed. We’ve also got our Flickr Pool up and running and there’s Twitter and Facebook, too. Hey, don’t judge, all the cool kids are doing it.
So yeah, drop us a comment to tell us what doesn’t work, or read on for issues we know about.
By bstanfield
Aerial Photography Demo in Columbia Heights
If you see something funny in the sky over Columbia Heights on Saturday afternoon, smile and say cheese. HacDC, a new hacker collective, is hosting an aerial photography demonstration by Curt Westergard of Air Photos Live.
Curt will be flying a tethered aerostat balloon (weather permitting) and taking aerial photos of HacDC and the Columbia Heights neighborhood near St. Stephen and the Incarnation Church. He’ll talk about what he does with balloons, show off the system he’s developed for deploying them, and generally have a good time.
If you’re interested, stop by the church parking lot (at 16th and Newton in Columbia Heights View Larger Map) around 3 PM.
By Tom Bridge
Fireworks Tomorrow!
Be sure to check out the Post’s Google Maps Mashup for all the various fireworks celebrations tomorrow. My personal favorite spots to watch the fireworks are between the Washington Monument & the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall, as well as GW Parkway, just off the road. My good friend Dan suggests the Key Bridge, and a couple people I know swear by a canoe out on the water.
Looking forward to some fireworks tomorrow!
By Tom Bridge
Packed House on the Metro
Last Monday
Originally uploaded by thudfactor
If you’ve thought this past few months on the Metro were busy, you were absolutely right. Turns out 8 of the top 10 ridership days of all time were in the last three months. Yesterday was the third busiest day of all time, with 834,956 riders on the system.
Yikes! Here’s hoping tomorrow goes alright. There are special rules for tomorrow, which include the traditional closing of Smithsonian Metro. Parking’s free at any of the Metro lots and garages, and the system’s open until 3am. Don’t bring your bikes, either.
By Wayan
My Ziggy’s First Photo
Yeah, so there is change all over the place. Besides the obvious one, I’ve got another change a-coming that’s a little more subtle – for the moment.
As you may surmise by the photo, Amy is pregnant and Ziggy the Zygote is gonna be calling me “daddy” one day soon. December the doctor says, but tomorrow it feels like.
Dad. Wow.
So here’s a toast to change, may it be the only constant we all have in the world.
By Tom Bridge
Old Thomas Circle Photo
This beautiful Black & White image comes to us via Shorpy and a great search for the Washington DC metroplex. It’s Thomas Circle, circa 1943, when street cars ran up 14th street toward U Street. Worth a reminisce.
By Tom Bridge
All’s Well at World Bank
You might’ve heard about the craziness at World Bank today, what with a guy showing up and claiming he was a terrorist and had a box full of explosives. Turns out the guy wasn’t actually carrying explosives, and was then detained by the DC Police. There’s still a shelter-in-place order in effect at the World Bank, but man, talk about excitement!
Me, though, I’m just wondering when one of these suspicious packages actually contains explosives.
By Amélie
Rubber Duckie, You’re The One…
Apart from seeing a businessman borrowing his daughter’s Winnie the Pooh backpack today on the Metro, I’m not sure how many of us could publicly regress back into childhood at a moments notice. So it did warm my heart this morning when my inner child was revealed to me in a sign for the “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” which will open July 12th at the Smithsonian’s International Gallery. Given the description of the program, I’m hoping it will be better than the last lackluster 5-6 item exhibit last trotted out to fans a few years ago. It is an amalgamation from the “Jim Henson Legacy” exhibit as well as the Smithsonian’s traveling “show”, which should be the best of both worlds.
For those of you who are more transient residents to D.C., or visitors stopping in to say a hearty “hello” to the National Capital region, the global phenomenon known as The Muppets was started here at the University of Maryland through Henson’s first show, “Sam and Friends”, broadcast on WRC-TV in D.C. starting in 1954. Who knew Kermit was that old, right?! Besides the Muppet characters, Henson was an experimental filmmaker, collaborating with composer and electronic music pioneer, Raymond Scott (Henry Warnow) on several films. If you can’t get enough of Henson at this exhibit, swing by UMD for the bronze statue and garden or visit the library there for more collections (the online version is also a treasure trove).
Jim Henson Memorial
Originally uploaded by zhurnaly
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs
By Ben H. Rome
Ghost Train
Ghost Train
Originally uploaded by Ghost_Bear
Shooting the Metro trains is a new experience for me. Caught this Orange line train a few weeks back; hopefully, I’ll have time to try above-ground stations soon.
By Tom Bridge
Garden Progress!
Mators
Originally uploaded by tbridge
It’s been a great spring/early summer in my garden. I’ve got at least a dozen tomatoes on a pair of vines so far, and a ton more flowers on the vines. The rain’s been frequent enough that I haven’t had to spend a ton of time out with the watering can, which is to my liking. How’s your garden doing so far? Got anything to share?
By brownpau
Crepuscular
Crepuscular rays bursting forth from a passing storm cloud, seen from Pennsylvania Ave while I walked around downtown to discover that watch repair shops all close before 6PM.
By Carl Weaver
Beat the Heat with Ice Cream, not Gelato
Fellow Metroblogging DC writer amandaa and I have been tossing around some ideas for a summer series on the best ice cream in the District and surrounding areas. What better way to cool off on these hot, sultry days that plague this area? To those who like fancy-sounding potentially evil ice cream alternatives, I have to ask: What the hell is the deal with gelato? It’s not ice cream, not an Italian ice and certainly doesn’t come in flavors I understand.
Please help me understand this difference. Better yet, if you have a favorite gelato spot, please let me know. I am will to try it again, but the stuff I got at the cafe under the National Gallery of Art fell short of the mark for being what I would call good or tasty. In fact, I threw out half of it. If you have seen me near ice cream, you know that never happens.
So is gelato really worth pursuing or is my intuition right that it is simply genetically inferior to ice cream?
This post appeared in its original form at DC Metblogs