Earlier this week the Workingman Collective—local artists Janis Goodman, Tom Ashcraft, and Peter Winant—installed 30 bird habitats on 14th Street NW between P and U Streets. The project, titled Site, Cite, Sight, was commissioned by WPA/Corcoran as part of SiteProjects DC, which places a variety of art projects onto that stretch of 14th. You can see the collective’s members in that picture on the right. What’s with the orange jumpsuits? It’s about “interaction with the community,” says Goodman. “When we’re out there in our coveralls, people can come to us and ask us what we’re doing.” Adds Winant: “We’re recognized as doing something that’s an art piece, rather than graffiti artists.”

Site, Cite, Sight, Ashcraft says, is meant to draw city dwellers’ attention to the distinctions between “the environment and the built environment”: the habitats are designed for the Eastern Bluebird, the Black-capped Chickadee, and the Downy Woodpecker, three of the hardest-hit species from the West Nile Virus. (Specific habitat designs are “mainly a matter of the size of the openings,” says Goodman.) The Workingman Collective specializes in work that deals in this sort of urban-natural intersection. In April 2006 the group went to Butte, Mont., to draw a five-mile chalk line that “represents commitment, delineates territory and marks what’s cut and what’s kept.” Earlier this year Ashcraft and Winant headed to the campus of James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Va., to install Pine, a wooden ping-pong table intended in part to revitalize a little-used campus quad.

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My wife and I were sitting at a two-top at Al Tiramisu, chef’s Luigi Diotaiuti’s dark, subterranean Italian operation in Dupont Circle. I was staring at a portrait-quality drawing of Giuseppe Verdi, whose graying, haunted mug seemed to be accusing me of a life-time devotion to rock ’n’ roll. There was a glass-encased display of miniature grappa bottles to my left, as some sort of Italian music wafted overhead. I halfway wished I could switch places with my wife, Carrie, so I could have my back to the wall. It feels that authentic here.

I was drawn to the prosciutto di Parma antipasto because, according to the menu, it comes with “homemade cherry mozzarella.” But when I asked the waiter if the fresh cheese was indeed made in-house, he instead explained that the “cherry” adjective indicates the size of the mozzarella, not the flavor. So I tried my question again, and the waiter shook his head no, no, no. The mozzarella is not made in-house, he insisted.

Carrie and I shrugged it off and ordered the antipasto anyway, which was utterly delicious.

This morning, I called Diotaiuti to double-check about the mozzarella. After all, why advertise it as homemade if it’s not? The chef explained that the waiter was confused. The buffalo mozzarella is imported from Italy; the cherry mozzarella is made in-house with fresh cow-milk curds.

Shortly before 8:45 this morning, Susana Ricca walked out of the Jurys Hotel in Dupont Circle in search of a bagel. She didn’t make it to Firehook Bakery, less than a block away.

Just as she made it to the sidewalk across Q Street, Ricca heard a loud crunching bang to her left and caught the blur of a black Mercedes Benz careening her way. Ricca leaped a knee-high steel fence and landed in a street garden.

Good thing, too. The Benz took out the fence and landed halfway in the garden with Ricca. An Argentinean tourist who was in town with her husband and a daughter, Ricca escaped without a bruise.

An hour after the crash, a tow truck was still trying to yank the Benz from the garden as Charita Roberts watched, speeding ticket in hand. It was the cab driver’s fault, she said. The cabbie was driving down Q Street when Roberts says she stopped at the intersection at 19th Street and pulled out. The cabbie struck her in the front fender, sending the C280 across the sidewalk. She thought the cab should have stopped for the pedestrians at the crosswalk.

For her part, Ricca, a sprightly women a few years past middle age, seemed still in shock. “She’s lucky she’s not dead,” said a beautician from Diego’s Hair Salon, who caught the accident in a series of mirrors inside the shop.

Standing on the sidewalk with her family, Ricca was now on the way to the Smithsonian after resting back at the hotel.

“She’s always praying,” her daughter said. “She’s very Catholic. She’s very lucky in every sense.”

As reported earlier this week in the Washington Post, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts recently introduced their supposedly health-conscious whole wheat glazed donut. If you live in NW DC, you can simply trot over to the Krispy Kreme store in Dupont Circle on Connecticut Avenue to give this dandy of a donut a try. But, as Uweekly.com reports, if you’re the NBC affiliate in Augusta, Ga., you may be willing to go to much greater extremes to satisfy your sweet tooth.

The Brickskeller, 2/26, 10:56 p.m.:

A mouse runs through the dining room and hops in the fake fireplace. No one else notices.

Thinking of heading to Dupont Circle’s Cloud tonight for some appetizers and aperitifs? Think again. The Alcoholic Beverage Control Board served the swank Dupont Circle “restaurant” with a summary suspension yesterday, forcing it to close its doors and halt operations. The suspension comes after a patron was stabbed at Cloud on Feb. 16.

According to the suspension notice, the victim was stabbed three times, twice after security had already intervened in the altercation between the two club patrons. “The victim was extremely intoxicated, having been served at least six alcoholic beverages in the establishment,” the suspension notice says. At the time of the attack, security was being provided by Mad Power Unit, a promotional outfit associated with the nightclub Pearl, whose license was also revoked by the board following a spate of violent incidents.

In addition to Thursday night’s stabbing, the summary suspension details a litany of other violent incidents that have taken place over the course of the last two years at Cloud, many of them involving patrons who were hit by glass bottles and rushed to the hospital.

To make matters worse, the suspension letter says that when alcohol administration investigators arrived at the scene Thursday night, they discovered Cloud was providing entertainment, even though it had not gotten board approval to do so.

Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration director Maria Delaney says the board made the decision to suspend Cloud’s license on Wednesday “because of the pattern of violence” at the establishment. It delivered the suspension notice the next day.

Safeway ordered a new fleet of shopping carts for its store at 17th and Corcoran Streets NW last year. The company paid a little less than $100 apiece for carts smaller and easier to handle than their forerunners. But they weren’t all fitted with the security system that makes the wheels lock when they pass a boundary. So in the last few months, at least 17 carts have disappeared from the “Soviet Safeway.”

“The manager told me, anecdotally, that some customers have seen ‘em in apartment buildings, or that some customers have said they’re good for laundry,” says Safeway spokesperson Craig Muckle.

Some of those customers live in the R Street Apartments a few blocks away at 15th and R Streets. One resident says he often sees two of the carts in front of the building when he goes to work before dawn; they’re always gone when he returns. Another man says that neighborhood kids and homeless people claim the carts for their own. “They ain’t no adults out there stealin’ no shoppin’ carts,” he says.

Resident Andrea White has spotted a couple of the carts herself. “I heard they all over D.C.,” she says. “Somebody been takin’ them things.”

The front page of today’s New York Times showcases an innovation that we can only hope never makes it to D.C.—an unconventional playground designed to better engage children. A revolutionary concept in child rearing, this new playground would come with “play workers” ready to assist the kids in their advanced, imaginative play. And just what sort of play would take place? Well, according to the Times, there’ll be plenty of “water, ramps, sand, and specially designed objects meant to spur the imagination.”

If that sounds like a highway interchange with some cool signs, check out the rendering of this great new space provided by the Times. Best I can tell, it’s essentially an outdoor volleyball court with some benches and poles, not to mention some wagons that the munchkins can use to carry the water and sand around for their imaginative projects. No swings or slides on this playground—Johnny’s gonna get to work building a facsimile of the new baseball stadium!

Perhaps this concept’ll fly up in New York. But it’s dead on arrival down here, for several reasons:

1. Cool toys with or without wheels don’t survive on D.C. playgrounds. A couple of years ago, I was walking home and spotted a toddler on a small truck getting pushed by her mom. I recognized the truck because it came from Stead Playground, where I often go with my son. I asked the woman if she was just borrowing the toy, and she said she was and that she was just going to Safeway before returning it. Yeah, right. Thing never turned up again. These cute red wagons in the Times story? I give them three days at Stead.
2. Play workers? Who’s going to actually pay for workers to guide my kid’s leisure time at the park? Does that mean I get a break? Hey, he’s all yours, Mr. Play Worker! I’ll be back in a couple hours. You can just see the DPR press release right now: Department Hires 200 Play Workers; Repairs on Leaky Roofs and Toilets Deferred.
3. Water. The rendering in the Times depicts a little kiddie pool of sorts in a sea of sand and some architecturally attractive features. The obvious problem here is drowning. But let’s just suppose that it’s somehow drownproof. A pool of water is the worst possible thing for a playground, just a conveyor of misery. The bully’s going to splash it in everyone’s face. Some kid’s gonna trip, fall in, and cry. Or it’s just gonna dry up, and the drunks will use it as a urinal at night. Look, playground geniuses: Parents struggle to get water out of playgrounds.

If you still don’t believe me, just listen to this blowhard, as quoted in the Times piece:

“’Very little time is spent by kids in playgrounds if they have a choice,’ said Roger Hart, who has been consulting with the Rockwell Group and the city in developing the playground.”

OK, Mr. Hart: Can you explain why my 3-year-old screams, kicks, and cries when I pry him from D.C.’s Turtle Park and its slides, train, swing set, and very conventional sandbox?

Dupont Circle public-safety activist Rob Halligan has had his share of run-ins with Nathan Johnson, an inveterate thief who’s pilfered clothes, food, and trinkets from many an automobile in Northwest over the past five years. So when Halligan spotted Johnson yet again in the company of police officers this past fall, after the 46-year-old was nabbed for allegedly breaking into someone else’s car, Halligan started casually kicking around the idea of pushing for a “Nathan Johnson Law” that would be designed to punish the worst of the city’s recidivists (”Nerves of Steel,” 11/24/06). Although most eponymous statutes serve to memorialize rather than shame their honorees (think: Megan’s Law), Halligan’s talk wasn’t hyperbole. On Dec. 11, he visited the John A. Wilson Building to grab the ears of various D.C. councilmembers, among them Phil Mendelson, chair of the judiciary committee, to discuss the possibility of what Halligan describes as a “three strikes, you’re out or 10 strikes, you’re out” kind of criminal-justice bill. During their 15-minute chat, says Halligan, Mendelson agreed to investigate whether a “Nathan Johnson Law” would be necessary and feasible. “I would be willing to look at legislative proposals,” says the councilmember. As for the statute name, Halligan says he likes the working title but isn’t wedded to it. “That would be fine, but I really don’t care,” he says. “I think it rings nicely, but we can call it the Mendelson Law if that will get it passed.”

An irregular feature pitching urban ideas big and small

II: The Great Dupont Cover-Up

On a clear day, the Q Street portal to the Dupont Circle Metro station is the most dramatic in the system. The circular opening offers a vast, beckoning slice of blue sky. But Washington isn’t San Diego, and the sky isn’t always blue. It rains and snows here, and winds whip down that wide opening and straight through the unguarded tube of the Dupont station. And all that weather is tough on machinery, which is a principal reason the Q Street Metro escalators are so often out of order.

As fall turns to winter, this is an apt time to consider covering the Q Street entrance. Fortunately, the portal’s unique shape precludes one of the tackily modernistic canopies that have been retrofitted elsewhere in the system. The circular opening requires a different sort of lid, one that can be integrated into a larger structure. Which is fine, since that building could fix several other problems on that block.

Back at end of the 1980s, when Jack Evans was on the Dupont Circle advisory neighborhood commission and still a defender of neighborhoods, Riggs Bank had plans to build an out-of-scale office structure on the parking lot that covers about half that block. (The “square,” which is actually a trapezium, is bounded by Connecticut and Massachusetts Avenues NW and 20th and Q Streets.) Then-Mayor Marion Barry came to Dupont and walked, with Evans and other neighborhood residents, on a tour of several sites that were targeted for development. Barry agreed that the development plans were excessive, and the Riggs plan died.

Instead, the bank evicted the shops and restaurants on the 1500 block of Connecticut and converted the space to offices. Dupont activists had prevented a large new office structure but at a cost to street-level vitality. (A retail frontage requirement for major streets in the city would have prevented that misfortune, but the D.C. Council, then as now, is too timid to impose such a provision.)

Riggs is defunct now, and Pittsburgh’s PNC, which took over the bank, probably doesn’t need all that office space. The storefronts should be restored to retail uses, with a bonus to PNC: A new building on the parking lot that would contain any office space the bank needs, as probably leave some additional square footage that PNC could rent. There’s just one problem: That parking lot has to stay.

Parking lots in urban areas are, to put it mildly, an abomination. They’re an inefficient use of space and a breach in visual and actual continuity. But this one is transformed every Sunday into a farmer’s market that’s become an essential swatch of Dupont’s urban fabric. And there doesn’t seem to be any other open space in the neighborhood that could accommodate these market, at least in its full-blown incarnation. (Only a few merchants use the site during wintertime.)

The answer is a complicated structure that requires design and construction finesse, as well as an architectural style that suits both the pre-modernist buildings that neighbor the site and a contemporary function. Or, rather, functions: The new building, cantilevered over the parking lot, would incorporate office space and a mezzanine leading from the entrance on the Massachusetts Avenue side to the northwest corner. There, a transparent cover would overhang the station entrance, protruding like a magnifying glass extended from its leather case. A walkway could lead from the mezzanine to a pathway around the circular cap. (Actually, the cover could be constructed so that people could walk on it, but that might be a little too eerie, for people both on and below the projection.)

Nearby, elevators and escalators (sheltered from the elements, of course) would carry people from Mass Ave. into the new office block, much as they do at the building erected over the Friendship Heights terminal. A direct internal entrance into the new structure could also be constructed from the existing PNC (ex-Riggs) building at the intersection of Dupont Circle and Massachusetts Avenue.

Technical difficulties aside—and I concede that aspects of the proposal as sketched here may simply be unbuildable—the PNC/office/market/Metro project would be expensive. But it doesn’t involve abuse of eminent domain, evicting small businesses, or any of the other demerits of the city’s most aggressive redevelopment schemes. It would shelter the Metro escalators, preserve the farmers’ market, restore retail to that block of Connecticut, and add to the tax base. Plus, it would retain the view from the upward Metro escalators, and create an architectural landmark that might even draw tourist dollars.

Those seem like a sufficient number of benefits to justify bestowing some of the various subsidies the city dispenses to all sorts of dubious projects. And perhaps—given a sufficiently brilliant design—the neighbors might even allow to the new building to rise as high as the Riggs proposal that was spurned almost 20 years ago.

Immodest Proposal I: Putting China Back into Chinatown

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

DupontForum
Some Dupont Circle neighbors are unnerved by the activities of a “rogue clipper” who’s been spotted in the night illegally clipping the low branches of trees. Lance first noticed the “awkward prunings” of the mysterious clipper: “He/she does not prune trees uniformly but only prunes branches on the sidewalk side,creating lop-sided tree canopies that will remain an unsightly shape for years to come. Some of these trees are newly planted,struggling to become established, and are not ready to be pruned.” But as David sees it, some trees just need to be pruned, and if DDOT won’t do it, let the rogue clipper have his fun. On at the corner of 17th and P Streets, he writes, there’s a tree with branches hovering dangerously low—threatening the safety of pedestrians. “Frankly, if somebody lopped the limbs off their tree, I would consider her/him a civic hero, not a menace,” David argues. And in David’s opinion, appealing to these homeowners probably wouldn’t work. “The home-owners don’t give a damn about their neighbors; they park their cars and trucks in the yard.”

Brookland
Although Brooklanders seemed pleased that a Yes! Organic Market is opening in their area, as opposed to what one resident calls another “random hair braiding salon,” Vicki and Mary Pat wonder why the health food store wants to enter the neighborhood’s already overcrowded wine-and-beer market. George immediately smacks down what he perceives as women claiming that the market will encourage public drinking: “Has anyone ever seen a bum hanging outside of Whole Foods getting drunk on the selection of international wines sold inside?” he asks. After several residents side with George, Vicki explains that she doesn’t think the market will create a drinking problem, but “that there is already a drinking problem w/ people hanging out in the alley.” Unable to gain even an ounce of sympathy from lovers of beer made from insecticide-free hops and packaged in recycling cardboard carrying cases, she quickly switches to a topic that no one can speak against: the possibility of children playing in an alley adjacent to the store being run over by the market’s delivery trucks. “I hope the alley is not used for delivery trucks going back and forth,” she says. “If so beware of children playing.”

nova_spsn
The Northern Virginia Single Parents Social Network gets adults and kids alike involved in such fun events as “Octoberfest” parties, trips to the Spy Museum, even a “Veddy Scary Movie Night.” But moderator Kevin thinks too many people are lurking without actually coming out and meeting their fellow parents/posters. “Why don’t you come out to an event or two……you signed up for this group.….why don’t you give it a try! COME ON OUT!!! Or, do I haveta come in and get you???!?!” Kyfreckles gives a sarcastic answer to Kevin’s playful rhetorical question, calling out all of the listsev members—who are trying to care for children by themselves, and work, and handle a thousand other things—for being too chickenshit to turn out for G-rated hot-tub parties and housewarmings. “But if I actually stop sitting back, reading the posts and actually PARTICIPATE in something, then how can I continue to bitch and complain that I never meet anybody new and that I never go out and do anything? Geesh.”

Residents of Swann Street NW have grown accustomed to peering into vacant houses only to find strange people peering back out at them—or, in one case, jumping out and mugging them. But the reign of “abandominiums” might be drawing to an end, if Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham’s “Nuisance Property Boardup” legislation rolls through the D.C. Council.

Introduced last week, the bill gives the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs the power to immediately seal up unsafe buildings, whereas before the process could take weeks. “[A nuisance property] is not only demoralizing, but it’s obviously an invitation to crime. And we’ve had very serious fires occur,” says Graham.

Neighbors of 1774 Willard St. NW are particularly happy about the fix. The vacant, three-story bricker has over the years hosted an illegal cable connection, an apparently drugged woman who liked to randomly scream at things, and frequent male visitations that some believed to be evidence of prostitution. One neighbor reports that he recently saw a man and a woman huddled in the dark under the house’s back porch, but a recent visit turned up only a broken back door, beer bottles, and a pile of human-looking feces.

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

shepherdpark
To commemorate one of the hottest spells of Washington weather in quite some time, Bill announces a “Hot Weather Photo Bake-Off,” open to D.C. residents willing to endure the heat and snap pics. But they must adhere to strict guidelines of hack photography. “We’re looking for photographs that give the feeling of excruciating heat,” Bill writes. “An egg frying on the sidewalk is an obvious example; hot, rising air enveloping suit-wearing men and women works, too. People consuming vast quantities of chilled beverages at outdoor restaurants is fine. (Or better yet: If they’re pouring the beverages directly on their heads.)” Is the Hot Weather Photo Bake-Off just a friendly community photo contest, or a scheme hatched by the Washington Examiner’s art department to nab some shots of sweaty toddlers, overheated puppies, and old women fanning themselves? You decide.

TakomaDC
Takoma resident Linda ponders how to spot the real troublemakers in her neighborhood. “Kids hanging out on a corner are not committing a crime, but in some instances, I just feel like something is not right with some of these kids, they just look like they’re ‘up to no good’ to borrow a carmudgeonly [sic] line from my grandmother. I know my mother feels unsafe when we drive around and she see these thuggish-looking kids hanging around. I try to explain to her that dressing like a thug is ‘the style’ for young people these days, so you can’t judge someone by what they are wearing (or how they are wearing it), but she thinks I’m being dangerously naive.” To help Linda and her mom distinguish between fashionable and felonious youths, here’s a quick guide: disaffected youth in baggy jeans with a scowl on his face=cool teen. Disaffected youth in baggy jeans waving a gun in your face=criminal teen.

DupontForum
When Gloria inquires about buying a can of “mase” to protect herself, her neighbor Curt offers up not only a list of places to purchase pepper spray (“Hardware store,” “Sonny Surplus”) but tips for wielding a can: “[P]ractice grabbing & spraying it a few times so you are quick on the draw,” he advises. “[I]t’s the Wild Wild West these days.”

Every Tuesday and Thursday, we run down what’s going on in local Internet discussion groups.

MPD-1D
In a post headlined “Leering Officer on Segway,” mjwilson99 gets right to the point: “Perhaps the white, middle-aged officer who was riding the Segway down Pennsylvania Avenue last week could seek counseling so as to be able to resist his urge to turn around not once, not twice, but three times, to ogle an attractive female pedestrian wearing a short skirt.” Shut your whining mouth, replied Danielle: “That is the most ridiculous complaint I have heard yet!…These cops risk their lives day in and day out for probably not enough pay, there could be a number of reasons the cop was looking around, perhaps he saw someone else that may pose a threat to the individual, perhaps he was watching traffic or just looking over his shoulder. Even if he was looking at the girl, who cares???” Several posters agreed with Danielle, before bigfishindc finished off the debate by saying, “just because this listserv makes it easy to complain about each and every aspect of police behavior, doesn’t mean its productive to complain about each aspect of police behavior.”

Brookland
Fred’s dog had a rough night in Brookland. “During the late afternoon on Sunday July 2nd, my dog Patrick got out of the gate from my backyard and was gone for about 20 minutes. Patrick was scared from the thunder and this caused him to “bolt” though he came back pretty quickly. When he returned, he seemed a bit freaked out and I attributed this to the storm that was coming in. When I got up this morning, my dog was limping from both hind legs. I was concerned that possibly he had been hit by a car during his absence yesterday (or something else)? A half day of worry and an expensive vet bill later, I now know that my dog was shot in the hind with a bb gun. The pellet is still lodged there (and will probably have to stay).” Thoughtful notes arrived for Patrick that night. “Thanks for all the well wishes,” Fred wrote. “Patrick is okay, still limping and such. He is on painkillers and a little bit out of it.”

DupontCircleParents
A recent City Paper article that focused heavily on the DupontCircleParents listserv drew the ire of said listserv. One poster, Noreen, was so perplexed by the story that she looked far and wide for the reporter’s motivation. “I am still trying to figure out why it was a story, what was the point? It just seemed so mean spirited all around. A Post reporter told me that his theory was that it was an attempt to score off from someone at the Washington Post where Ross has gotten so much positive press, and the newspaper staff come over through “Everybody Wins” to read at lunch with our students. The Graham foundation also granted us $25,000 for our playground, so there are definitely Post supporters here. Another person on my son’s Stoddert Soccer team suggested it was just a general anti-gentrification article. But since when is being committed to your local community gentrification anyway?…Anyway, the story didn’t originate from Ross, and everyone (just everyone) I talked to was sick about it.”

A tree fell on a female pedestrian near the corner of 20th Street and Connecticut Avenue NW this afternoon. But it was less a freak accident than preventable one—the tree fell two hours after police were notified.

At around 10:30 a.m., a Chipotle delivery truck collided with the tree, leaving it hanging at a 45-degree angle, witnesses say. Police responded after the collision and completed a report, but none were present when the tree crashed to the sidewalk about two hours later.

“People in Cosi were screaming,” says Brett Freeman, manager of a local store, describing onlookers’ attempts to prevent the initial crash. The delivery truck backed up and hit the tree again. “The driver didn’t care.…We called city services, but they never came,” Freeman says.

An employee of a nearby sandwich shop who saw the incident, Hannah Tesman, confirms that the police had abandoned the scene. “The police came out, but no one fixed it.…[N]o one was there when the tree came down.”

Karen Reyes, manager of the Chipotle, did not witness the collision or see the tree fall, but confirms that the driver came in to use the telephone. Reyes would not provide the number of the delivery company.

Police spokesperson Ofc. Israel James says that a branch of the tree struck the woman—according to witnesses, in her mid-20s—on the arm. An ambulance was called, and she was treated on the scene, he says. James could not comment on why police left the scene before the tree was secured. “I wasn’t told what caused the branch to strike the person,” he says.

According to Eric Lindon Erik Linden of the D.C. Department of Transportation, the agency’s Urban Foresty Administration didn’t hear about the tree until after it fell, at 12:55 p.m. “We immediately dispatched our emergency crews to the scene,” he says.