Photo by Darrow Montgomery

H Street haunt The Palace of Wonders—D.C.’s only bar to boast a “monkey contemplating human bone skull,” a “cyclops fetal skull,” and a “living unicorn”—celebrates its second birthday this weekend.

Helping ring in the sideshow bar’s terrible twos are D.C.’s Best Sideshow Duo Tyler Fyre and Thrill Kill Jill, burlesque performer Li’l Dutch, and “Skullduggery & Skin Show” performers Albert Cadabra and Gal Friday. During the three-hour show, Jill promises sword swallowing, magic, burlesque, belly dancing, fire eating, snake charming, bag pipers, aerialists, contortionists and a flea circus. Though personally, I’m not convinced there is actually a living unicorn.

Real Palace enthusiasts can celebrate the birthday twice—first on Friday, June 27, and again on Saturday, June 28. Shows are 20 bucks a pop, and begin at 10:00 p.m. at the Palace of Wonders, 1210 H Street NE.

Flier after the jump.

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Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells is still fighting for peace and quiet in the District. The lawmaker, you may recall, pushed a bill before the D.C. Council last month to limit “non-commercial speech” to “70 decibels, or 10 decibels greater than ambient noise.” In other words: No setting up a big speaker on the corner and blasting people’s ear drums all day long.

The bill was tabled by a 7-5 council vote.

Charles Allen, chief of staff for Wells, says his boss isn’t giving up on the proposal.

“Just because it was tabled,” says Allen, “doesn’t mean the councilmember believes it’s dead. The community has made it clear that they want this.”

The community, in this instance, is code for residents living around 8th and H Streets NE. In that now-bustling corridor, religious groups like the Israelite Church of God in Jesus Christ, featured in a recent Washington City Paper cover story, gather with loudspeakers to stage al fresco sermons.

Wells claims that “As a result of the group’s amplifiers, residents as far away as three blocks away can’t open their windows or work in their yards without being subject to the amplified noise.”

—Rend Smith

Frozen Tropics has the best pics from the H Street invasion of Bobby Flay’s sweater vest and distressed jeans. Mr. Charred Poblano was in town Wednesday to tape an episode of Throwdown, his show on Food Network, where he “surprises” real chefs who think they might be getting their own show, only to have to stand there in front of the cameras and feed Flay’s ego. Sweater Vest took on Granville Moore’s exec chef Teddy Folkman and his moules and frites. The taping actually took place at the Argonaut, complete with Flay taking a call when he was supposed to be bringing it (Endless Simmer has the evidence). ES also dropped a few nods to the home team that sound suspiciously like a spoiler alert:

Though audience members have been asked not to reveal the outcome of the throwdown, I can say that I found Teddy Folkman’s blue cheese and bacon mussels to be plump, juicy and flavorful, and his frites were crisp, salty and coated in a delicious blend of herbs like tarragon and thyme. The yellow tomato and truffle aioli that he provided for dipping was amazing, though Folkman admitted that the expensive ingredients would preclude him adding it to the menu anytime soon. Bobby Flay’s mussels, true to form, were served in a broth that featured coconut milk, green chiles and tons of butter. They were tasty, but seemed smaller and less tender than Folkman’s. And although Flay’s roasted poblano (naturally) dipping sauce was delicious, the fries themselves were disappointingly plain – more like fast-food fries than Belgian frites.

DC Foodies say the show is set to air in May or June.

Last spring, H Street venue The Red & The Black started up “Shot-and-a-Haircut,” a Tuesday night promotion offering up a shot of whiskey and a shear for just $12. But after a year of liquoring up and chopping off, the bar was forced to shut down the enterprise three weeks ago. As it turns out, you need a license for that.

According to manager Ricardo Vergara, The Red & The Black brought in licensed hairdressers to buzz its buzzed patrons, but the bar still needs to secure its own permit to allow them to operate on the premises. The whiskey shot, of course, is still available, but the haircut is on hold indefinitely. “We’re trying to find some way to get a barbershop license to continue it,” says Vergara. “It was an extremely popular night for us.”

In the meantime, the bar has started up a new promotion: “Ninja Warrior/American Gladiator Happy Hour” which features the Japanese and U.S. competitions onscreen and $2.25 drinks behind the bar each weeknight from 5 to 8. The new night also offers up $1 kamikaze shooters whenever a contestant moves to a higher level in the competition. Don’t worry: That happens a lot. “One night, six contestants made it in the three hours,” says bar manager Anne Marisic. “I was starting to get a little worried.”

This morning, the Washington Post has a nice little scoop on how after well over a decade living in town, former Mayor Anthony A. Williams has put money down on a sweet new 2,146-square-foot pad at Jim Abdo’s Landmark Lofts on H Street NE.

And Mayor Bowtie, now ensconced in a cushy corporate job, finally gave an explanation as to the delay in his homeownership:

Williams, 56, now chief executive of a real estate investment fund in Arlington, said he never bought property when he was running the city because of “the political and financial pressures. Politically, it was hard trying to pick an area.” Aides said the mayor realized that whatever neighborhood he chose would become fodder for public debate, to be chewed over and critiqued.

Oh, ferchrissakes. Like his decision not to own a home wasn’t endlessly chewed over and critiqued?

At one point, Williams was said to have been eyeing property in LeDroit Park. LL asks: Who possibly could have had a problem with LeDroit Park? It’s got history. It’s got majority-black demographics. It’s got a pedigree (former Mayor Walter Washington lived there). It’s got beautiful homes. I mean was Shepherd Park really gonna get pissed if you snubbed ’em?

Seriously, Tony, what’s real story?

Anyone doubting the strength of organized labor in this town, think again: A bill that would allow the District to enforce limits on daytime noise was tabled without debate this morning at a meeting of the D.C. Council’s committee of the whole, thanks in no small part to union protesters.

The Noise Control Protection Amendment Act, sponsored by Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh and Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, was prompted, among other things, by the amplified demonstrations of the Black Hebrew Israelites on or near H Street NE. Under the bill, noise greater than 70 decibels, or 10 decibels above ambient noise levels, would be subject to sanction.

Cheh introduced the bill, citing the need for some checks on daytime noise that’s currently unregulated “no matter how long, no matter how unrelenting, no matter how amplified.” She mentioned that she had met with members of the labor community, who were concerned that the bill might interfere in union protests, but noted that the bill had gained the support of the Service Employees International Union. Cheh, a constitutional law professor at George Washington University, also said she “completely confident in the ultimate constitutionality” of the bill.

Immediately afterward, Ward 2 Councilmember Jack Evans moved to table it, a manuever that under council rules requires no debate. The motion passed 7-5, with Evans, Jim Graham (Ward 1), Muriel Bowser (Ward 4), Yvette Alexander (Ward 7), Kwame Brown (At-Large), Phil Mendelson (At-Large), and Chair Vincent C. Gray in favor; Cheh, Wells, Marion Barry (Ward 8), David A. Catania (At-Large), and Carol Schwartz (At-Large) opposed the tabling. Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas Jr. was absent.

What gives, you may ask? Our man on the scene, Arthur Delaney, reports that more than 100 members of the Metropolitan Washington Council AFL-CIO and its affiliated organizations showed up for the council meeting wearing red T-shirts. After the vote the group set off around the Wilson Building thanking members and their staffers for putting the kibosh on the bill.

Just when you thought H Street NE was finally safe for nightlife, Frozen Tropics notes that local residents are considering a cap on tavern and nightclub licenses.

Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner Mary Beatty says some residents who live nearby are concerned that noise from the bars could one day become a problem. “It’s not a problem at this point,” she says. “We want to get ahead of the issue.” The neighborhood recently instated a moratorium on single sales of beer and liquor, which went into effect Oct. 1.

Joe Englert, who owns five bars and clubs along H Street, says he thinks capping the area’s liquor licenses might be a good idea “if it’s smartly done, not puritanically done.” He thinks there should be no more than 40 or 50 bars or clubs allowed within 15 blocks. Beatty says she and her fellow commissioners have not come up with a number for the cap yet and are eager to hear neighbors opinions at a Nov. 20 public hearing.

Bryan Weaver, an advisory neighborhood commissioner in Adams Morgan, says H Street should view his neighborhood as a kind of cautionary tale. “They’re like Adams Morgan in the 1980s,” he says. “They’re trying to create an entertainment district. We’re just trying to keep the circus in the tent.” Adams Morgan residents passed a similar moratorium last year, and D.C. Council approved it in July.

The Committee on Public Works and the Environment yesterday voted to approve a moratorium on single sales of alcohol for a section of H Street NE. The proposal must now come before the full council for consideration.

According to a communiqué from the office of Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells, the measure, which would prohibit the sale of single containers of beer and half-pints of liquor, would span the 700 to the 1400 block of H Street NE. He said the proposal “will go a long way to address some of the chaos and crime afflicting H Street, NE.”

A similar moratorium is already in effect for a slice of Mount Pleasant, and supporters cite a reduction in calls for service to MPD as a result. But local H Street business owners have fought the ban, with Paul Pascal, an attorney for some of the businesses, saying it’s a “draconian” response that amounts to an effort by neighbors to micromanage local commerce.

But Wells says he supports the ban. “For too long, we’ve had individuals using our curbsides and sidewalks as open-air bars,” he said in the release. “I’m proud to support the ANC and residents to put the moratorium in effect…”

The D.C. government is considering two big projects to increase retail businesses in two very different neighborhoods: Georgetown and H Street NE. Yet neither plan addresses basic retail-boosting strategies that the city should have adopted decade ago.

In Georgetown, developer Herb Miller is looking for at least $20 million in tax increment financing (TIF) to redo Georgetown Park, the mall his former company developed and that his current firm recently bought back. This remake might include a Nordstrom’s, which would be the first new department store to locate in D.C. since Neiman Marcus opened in Friendship Heights in 1977.

The odds might seem to be against this deal. Former Mayors Marion Barry and Tony Williams, as well as erstwhile Pennsylvania Avenue Development Commission director M.J. Brodie, all tried to lure department stores into the city, preferably into the “retail core” around Metro Center. When their campaigns began more than 25 years ago, there were three department stores downtown. Now there’s one.

Yet Miller has a successful record. In addition to developing Georgetown Park, he built (with TIF money) the architecturally gruesome but impressively lively Gallery Place complex. And it’s possible that Nordstrom, having saturated the suburbs, is finally ready to expand into a major East Coast city. (It does have downtown stores in the West, but on this side of the country, it’s avoided cities, save for little Providence, R.I.) Now that Georgetown has been upscaled to the point of tedium—which may explain why Georgetown Park is struggling—perhaps prissy Nordstrom can feel comfortable there.

The department store chain certainly wouldn’t take to scruffy H Street NE, where the city plans a $27 million fix-up in hopes of attracting some 300,000 additional square feet of retail. The idea is to build on the “Atlas District,” with its arts center and nearby bars and live-music venues.

Interestingly, both Georgetown and H Street NE would be along the route of the long-touted crosstown Metro line, which could link in Rosslyn to the Silver Line to Tysons Corner and Dulles. Building that Metro extension—which no one is seriously discussing these days—would cost a lot more than $27 million, but it would make both Georgetown and H Street NE more attractive to shoppers and shop-keepers alike.

There are simpler things the city can do, of course. Retail requirements and street-frontage regulations for major streets should have been instituted back in the 1970s, at the dawn of Home Rule. Parking lots that separate streets from shops—as at the dreary H Street Connection strip mall—should never have been allowed. City officials now say that $1 billion in annual sales tax revenue is lost to the suburbs because D.C. is—in the retail-biz parlance—”understored.” A lot of that cash would have been retained if the city hadn’t permitted large new buildings with minimal or no retail space to be erected on prominent sites.

Such urban essentials as maintaining and improving infrastructure, establishing zoning regulations that require effective retail spaces, and improving law enforcement—an issue on H Street NE, but also in Georgetown—would do more to transform D.C. than any Nordstrom’s. Yet city officials still have a lottery mentality. They continue to behave as if they can fix everything with one big score, rather than doing the slow, hard work of providing the basic services and consistent planning that would allow the city to mend itself.

The Washington Post is standing behind last Sunday’s Style section feature on the gentrification of H Street NE—even those parts that have been proven wrong. “The bottom line is, I think the story speaks for itself,” says Marcia Davis, a Style assignment editor.

“U-Turn on H Street” was a classic WaPo swipe at the complicated racial politics of renewal along this long-suffering corridor. The story’s author, DeNeen L. Brown, took a breezy, poetic approach to the topic, occasionally dipping into second-person storytelling. After describing an encounter with a clever shopkeeper, for instance, Brown writes, “you wonder whether the newcomers would catch that kind of humor, appreciate that kind of street wit that doesn’t come with a degree.”

The “newcomers” in Brown’s piece are basically the white people who have moved into the H Street vicinity. And they take a pretty thorough beating in the piece. Which is fine, so long as the facts hold up.

On Monday, they appeared to be taking a beating. In an online discussion of the piece, two posters wrote in to take issue with the money anecdote in the Brown story. That anecdote goes like this: One night, Courtney Rae Rawls, 26, was tending bar at H Street’s the Argonaut. She was serving a table of white people. These people found some chalk lying around and started writing on the table. Rawls asked them to stop. Here’s the rest of the story, verbatim from the story:

“Please, guys, quit writing on the table. Nobody wants to rub their elbows in chalk.”

The customers laughed. They picked up the chalk again. Exasperated, the bartender yelled: “Come on, ya’ll grown people!”

A white woman at the table mocked: ” ‘Ya’ll grown people!’ What kind of language is that?”

Bartender: “What?!”

The woman: “You ought to be glad I bought a $500,000 house in your black ghetto neighborhood.”

The online chatters—one claimed to have witnessed the confrontation from a table by the jukebox and one claimed to have been at the table—took issue with the Post’s rendering of events. From the person near the jukebox: “The white students were writing on the table but they did not say what Ms. Rawls said they did.” And from the person at the table: “Contrary to what appeared in the story, the confrontation did not take on any race/class overtones until Ms. Rawls said ‘Y’all wouldn’t act like this in your own neighborhood.’”

These issues got a vetting earlier in the week on City Desk, which received many comments on every side of the issue. But no official response from the Post came over the blog lines.

Seeking answers, City Desk called Brown earlier in the week. Brown responded, kind of: Everything’s off the record, she said, except to say, “I stand by my story.”

So City Desk went to Davis, who edited the H Street piece. Davis took issue with City Desk’s blog post from earlier in the week, arguing that it was unfair to drop such a piece before having called the author. (*City Desk response here.) She also said that the title of the item—”Memo to Post Style Section: Do Some Goddamn Reporting”—was also unfair in light of how much reporting Brown pumped into the piece.

City Desk posed a few issues to Davis. They’re after the jump, with her responses:

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Local reporters and bloggers aren’t the only ones who’ve covered H Street’s Argonaut Tavern lately.

“It’s really the only place in the Atlas district we could find to get dinner before a show,” reports a Washington City Paper Restaurant Rater who visited the Tavern earlier this month, “but the place was freezing (both of us with coats and scarves on and still shivering), service [was] on the slow side, and the food, while okay for bar food, is still just okay.” The “warm” chips were a highlight, even if the accompanying salsa tasted “bitter.” “Next time,” the rater concludes, “we’ll plan to eat before getting to the area.” (To read the rater’s full report and to get other perspectives, click here.)

Have you had a chance to put on a fleece and check out the Argonaut? You can submit your two cents here.

On Sunday, Washington Post staff writer DeNeen L. Brown released the results of her immersive study on the H Street NE corridor. It’s gentrifying, she says. There are issues of race and class everywhere, she concludes. Other results include the suggestion that white people are uppity assholes.

Capping on white people, of course, is always a surefire route to a lively reader comments section on washingtonpost.com. Adopting the racially coded language of urban hatred, Brown equates “newcomers” to white people. Then she proceeds to question whether the newcomers are smart enough to appreciate “street wit that doesn’t come with a degree.” She slams the newcomers for wanting to remake the place in their own image and other transgressions, too.

The most damning evidence of uppity, racist newcomers comes courtesy of a bartender at U Street haunt the Argonaut. Twenty-six-year-old Courtney Rae Rawls recalls an incident with some white Argonaut patrons who were writing on their table with Argonaut-provided chalk. Here’s how Brown tells the story:

Rawls says most nights, things are cool. But she hesitates. Then she tells a story. She was serving some white patrons. They began writing on the table and she asked them to stop. They ignored her. She repeated: “Please, guys, quit writing on the table. Nobody wants to rub their elbows in chalk.”

The customers laughed. They picked up the chalk again.

Exasperated, the bartender yelled: “Come on, ya’ll grown people!”

A white woman at the table mocked: ” ‘Ya’ll grown people!’ What kind of language is that?”

Bartender: “What?!”

The woman: “You ought to be glad I bought a $500,000 house in your black ghetto neighborhood.”

When I first read that anecdote, I said to myself, Hmm, that seems unlikely. Gentrifiers who are racist generally have a more subtle way of making their points these days.

And on today’s chat with Brown on washingtonpost.com, there’s some evidence that the anecdote IS bullshit. Here’s a post from the chat:

The only factual parts of that story were that we were indeed writing with chalk on the tables (what else would a bucket of sidewalk chalk on the table be for) and that a confrontation ensued. Contrary to what appeared in the story, the confrontation did not take on any race/class overtones until Ms. Rawls said “Y’all wouldn’t act like this in your own neighborhood.” We replied, as proud Capitol Hill residents, “this is our neighborhood.” To which Ms. Rawls replied, “You are the kind of people that are ruining this neighborhood.” We were minding our own business and having fun (maybe a little too much fun) until Ms. Rawls launched into a tirade.

And another point: If Brown and the Post Style section really want to get at the bottom of the racial divide on H Street, why don’t they do some reporting? Check out this incident from the story, in which Brown is hanging out with nightlife entrepreneur Joe Englert:

You ask him: What makes white people move into an area they dared not go for many years. What is the tipping point?

“It’s kind of like a field of dreams, ‘If you build it, they will come.’ It’s my yoke,” he says. “People are looking for an excuse to go out.” The city is where life happens, he says.

Why ask Englert? He lives in Glover Park. If Brown really wanted the answer to that question, I’m sure she could have posed it to some of these “newcomers.” But why bother with that when you can tar them all with a dubious barroom incident?

The recent coverage of Joe Englert’s forthcoming H Street Country Club, the pool hall and putt-putt watering hole, has overlooked one important point: The operation will be located in the former space of Phish Tea Cafe, the sprawling, multi-level Caribbean restaurant and nightclub that was one of the pioneers of the H Street NE rebirth.

Opened in the spring of 2004, Phish Tea was apparently ahead of its time and behind on acquiring its liquor license. “I think they kind of did it before they had a liquor license,” Englert says. “They were a little bit behind the eight ball for, basically, their history.”

Phish Tea’s closing made me fret even more about the imbalance on H Street—too many bars, not enough restaurants—but Englert says not to worry. The second phase of his development plan includes more solids and less liquids. “The next few places are going to be much more restaurant-oriented,” Englert says. “By design, the first few we opened up are more tavern- and nightclub-oriented because you got to get people on the street first, and usually the younger people come first to a new nightlife area.”

The H Street Country Club itself will serve food in a 40-to-50-seat dining room, Englert says. Douglas Singer, chef for the Argonaut Tavern and Temperance Hall, two other Englert properties, will crank out burgers, dogs, Frito pies, and other “twists and turns on the American grill,” the owner says. Look for the Country Club to start mixing up grease, beer, and putters in July.

Here’s what else is on Englert’s menu for H Street NE:

• The Rock and Roll Hotel at 1353 H St. NE: The bar is set to launch a menu featuring Middle Eastern cuisine, with an emphasis on vegan and veg-friendly food.
• Sticky Rice at 1224 H St. NE: Englert is opening a D.C. outlet of the punkish, in-your-face Richmond, Va., sushi and noodle bar that peddles dishes such as “shiitake happens” and “drawn-and-buttered.” The white (rice) riot is scheduled to begin in June.
• Dr. Granville Moore’s at 1238 H St. NE: Named after the doctor who used to practice at the address, Dr. Granville Moore’s will be a no-frills operation serving Belgian food. It set to open in the spring.
• Ethnic Joints TBA: “I just purchased a property that I’m looking to put an Ethiopian restaurant into,” Englert says. “We’d like to build a little community of several small ethnic, affordable restaurants in the neighborhood.”