An IHOP opened in Congress Heights three days ago. Normally, this would not qualify as big news. The International House of Pancakes isn’t exactly a place of culinary wonder; its slogans are either corny (”An American Icon”) or sad (”This is My IHOP”). The sorriest thing in the world isn’t John McCain’s new ad featuring Britney or Fox’s morning show. It’s this video of a marriage ceremony performed at an IHOP. IHOP is no Original House of Pancakes (the best breakfast place of all time).

Still. The pancake/crepe/T-bone joint is the first major sitdown to open up in Ward 8 since forever. Or long before Barry used the ward’s council seat as his retirement fund. Zing! So Ward 8 finally enters the world of food–huge, huge portions, low, low price–made for old people and drunks.

The CW is that IHOP is a greasy spoon made somewhat depressing by the embarrassingly-named deals, super-sweet concoctions (it’s latest being an apple-cobbler-themed pancake special), and the fact that you must be hammered to consume such products. The food seems created by incredibly stoned evangelicals: wholesome turned vaguely unwholesome.

These are food stuffs mainly inhaled during the hours of 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. It’s dark outside and lonely inside. You only go to IHOP when you’ve struck out for the night. You aren’t getting laid. Fuck it, you go to IHOP, your drunken stupor made correct with eggs, sausage, bacon, three buttermilk pancakes, and bottomless coffee.

That was the Old IHOP.

The New IHOP is located on Alabama Avenue SE just inside the Camp Simms Giant parking lot. The New IHOP is bright, warm, inviting, clean, and boasts 37 cheery employees for every customer. The New IHOP has Karen: The Most Dedicated Waitress Ever.

Karen was our server.

When Karen approached our table, she glowed. This was her second night, she told us. Thank you sitting in her section, she told us. She is very excited, she told us.

My source I was eating with offered a nervous smile to all her replies. After she gave us our bottomless sodas and iced-Ts, she smiled some more. You guys ready, she asked.

My source wanted to know why she was so excited.

“I’m alive,” Karen said and then took in a deep breath proving she was alive.

OK.

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A week or two ago, I spent serious time commuting to and from Henson Ridge for a story on the struggling Hope VI community. As far as appearances go, the neighborhood is well-made, well-designed, and has some nifty new playgrounds. On closer inspection, teenagers still gravitate toward the decrepit rec center and crummy basketball courts, and have converted a set of jersey barriers into a hangout spot. Violence has inched up. Residents have started complaining about trash piling up at those new playgrounds, the lack of routine upkeep, and the need for more cops on their new streets.

There’s tension between renters vs. homeowners, grandmothers vs. bored teenagers, and residents seeking comfort and quiet vs. residents or visitors sipping the cheap stuff in public.

But what felt so much like the old housing project days wasn’t these gripes. It was hearing residents talk about the management company–Edgewood.

Of course, I didn’t interview every resident. And some I did talk to had no complaints and loved Henson Ridge. But there were others who shared a different history. There was the resident whose air conditioner had been broken for a week. She says she called Edgewood multiple times and even visited their offices in Henson Ridge twice. She was still without AC.

And there were the three residents who had bullet holes in their walls. Two of whom made reference to promises Edgewood had made to them. And still the holes hadn’t been fixed. I don’t know about you but I’d prefer a kitchen without a bullet hole.

Schnetia Green, 65, had lived with a bullet hole above her kitchen table for more than a month. She had complained but could get no one from Edgewood to fix it. Then I showed up at her door.

A few days after my story ran on Henson Ridge, she called to give me the good news. The hole had been fixed.

“It just got fixed Monday,” Green says. “But look how long it was open before they fixed it?”

Yeah. But that was before Washington City Paper came to the rescue, right? Did the management company, um, mention my story?

“They didn’t mention it,” Green says.

Very interesting. Edgewood not only fixed her pocked wall but they went ahead and fixed her droopy ceiling. They probably expected a follow-up expose! Right?

At the end of this past school year, Ballou Senior High’s graduating class hauled in close to $2 million in scholarship money. This was one of Kimberly Morton’s many responsibilities. Morton worked at Ballou coordinating outside partnerships which translates into making sure students work the scholarship beat and corporations and charitable nonprofits take an interest in the Congress Heights school. At the end of the school year, Morton was laid off.

Kevin Green was the school’s parent coordinator. In March, he held a training for parents, schooling them on the academic, emotional, and social aspects of the school. The course is designed to turn these parents into advocates for their children’s education and leaders within Ballou. They wanted 30 parents. They got 15 to complete and graduate from the course.

“A lot of parents come up and don’t know how to get through the system,” Green explains. It’s his job to walk them through it. Sometimes, he will do home visits if the parent can’t make it to Ballou. He turned into a truancy officer on the day of standardized testing. Last school year, 63 percent of the 10th grade showed up for the test. This year, 98 percent showed up. At the end of the year, Green was laid off.

Both Morton and Green were victims of budget cuts in a school that needs all the help it can get. The school has a dysfunctional PTA at best and needs that go well beyond addressing peeling paint.

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We’ve been getting some incredible reactions to our long-awaited Hoods & Services issue.  The highlight so far: a certain Anonymous (A. Payton) posted the following (and so much more!) below Cherkis’s profile of the Dissed-Trict:

I enjoyed your June 20th series of articles on DC neghborhoods…..and I HATED IT!!!

To be fair, the series was educational and humorous. But I do wonder if the City Paper is consciously working to assist the careless real estate and population upheavals in DC. No I’m not talking conspiracies. Just a quiet, journalist stirring of the hornets nest .

You know this issue will become the Cliff Notes/cheat sheet for whites and newcomers looking to bone up on the territories they plan to envade and conquer. With this (and Google) they can pretend to be knowledable about these areas.

 Read more.

This afternoon, I was again stuck in the rain. At least this time, I could take refuge in my car before most of the big drops fell. But jeez, not 30 seconds into riding back to WCP from Congress Heights (where myself and our resident filmmaker were doing some on-location business for our upcoming neighborhoods issue), I noticed an already downed tree.

Thirty seconds into a thunderstorm and a dead tree.

The tree was a neighborhood tree. It wasn’t part of the National Mall. It had been planted along a row of squat red brick apartments. It had survived the crack epidemic, neglect, and piss-poor area schools. And now because of a quickie thunderstorm it was gone.

That’s pretty weak. I saw more scattered leaves, branches, and tree guts along MLK Ave. And near the on-ramp to 295, the limbs of another tree were blocking the road. Weak.

I thought to myself: “D.C. has some pretty weak-ass trees.” Trees: Please step it up.

Last week, Sandra “S.S.” Seegars, the Congress Heights advisory neighborhood commissioner and all-around rabble-rouser, filed her papers for the Ward 8 D.C. Council race. That makes her the first to officially challenge the re-election of Marion S. Barry Jr.

Barry probably isn’t sweating too much; Seegars is a perennial also-ran. It’s her second shot at the mayor-for-life—four years ago, she garnered a bit less than 5 percent of the Democratic primary vote to Barry’s 57 percent. In 2000, she did somewhat better against Sandy Allen, gaining nearly 20 percent of the primary vote.

Her theme this time: “A Change Is Going to Come: Be Part of the Change.” Seegars reports that’s she’s already printed up and distributed some 5,000 cards across the ward. About 25 people, she says, have thus far volunteered for her campaign.

Tonight’s her official kickoff, with a dinner at the DuPont Adventist Senior Center at 896 Southern Ave. SE from 5 to 7 p.m.

Earlier this year, another ANC member, Ahmad Braxton-Jones, announced an exploratory bid, but has yet to take the next step.

To review the other races so far: In Ward 2, it’s incumbent Jack Evans versus Cary Silverman (and possibly Rob Halligan); in Ward 4, incumbent Muriel Bowser is still unopposed, as is Yvette Alexander in Ward 7. The Democratic at-large race features only Kwame Brown to date, while the non-Dem race pits incumbent Carol Schwartz against Adam Clampitt (and possibly Dee Hunter).

Ward 8 may not have any of those elusive “white tablecloth” restaurants, but it is now facing a possible glut of Subway franchises.

Last Tuesday, a Subway opened its doors in the building housing Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr.’s old campaign headquarters on the 2900 block of Martin Luther King Avenue SE. A press release touted it as the ward’s “First Franchise Restaurant,” but in fact, it is the chain’s second such outlet there; another Subway resides on Alabama Avenue SE.

The owner of the new Subway, though, emphasizes its ability to seat people—having enough tables and chairs for 10 customers—way more than the Alabama Avenue location can. “I think we could say that this is the first sit-down restaurant in Congress Heights,” argues the new franchise’s landlord Chito Peppler. The chain had much lower expectations: No seating, no customer bathroom, and a wall of bulletproof glass. Peppler convinced Subway honchos to include the seating and john and leave out the glass.

Subway owner Mohammad Rashid isn’t worried about the competition. “It’s far away, you know,” he says. “It’s not going to affect their business at all. It’s enough distance.”