Dear Marx Cafe:

Last night, I was stuck. I was hungry and I desperately wanted to watch the election returns. I picked your establishment because a) you were relatively empty and b) you had CNN on two out of three TVs. And I live near you.

I hate to say this but I regret this decision. Why you decided to pipe in bland adult contemporary alternative [think a Dawson’s Creek episode where Pacey drops some bad E] instead of the shout-y mantones of Wolf Blitzer is beyond me. Didn’t you hear that last night was the last real primary night loaded with delegate-rich states? Didn’t you hear that last night could have been—and probably was—a real game changer? Didn’t you hear that Indiana had been changed from a too-early-to call status to a too-close-to-call status?

Even if you don’t scan TPM every five minutes, you should at least have been able to give me the closed-caption option after I requested it. There are nerds out there. They can be your audience too. I am one of them.

Live up to your name. Why call yourselves Marx Cafe if you’re gonna make patrons watch the Celtics game? Why call yourselves Marx Cafe if Indiana is still Very Much In Play and you decide to flick off CNN for “Dancing with the Stars?”

What the hell was that?

You didn’t even ask me what I thought of your selection. If you had asked, I would have suggested that MSNBC’s political team would have been the better choice. I would have told you that its anchor had just been featured on the cover of the New York Times magazine, that the channel is almost hip. I would have told you also that even Morning Joe holds up as web-only reruns.

Instead, you made me think about watching “stars” try to “dance.”

I will end this now. I don’t think I need to mention the food since you appear to treat it as an afterthought. I’m sure whatever voluntary agreement you have does not include having to make a decent veggie burger.

Anyway, please keep in mind that there are still some primaries left. I hear Oregon is going to be the next game changer.

Sincerely,

J.C.

This afternoon, the D.C. Council’s public works and environment committee voted to strip $2 million meant to reconstruct Klingle Road NW from Mayor Adrian M. Fenty’s budget proposal. Furthermore, the committee voted to add language to budget legislation requiring the road to remain closed, effectively overturning a 2003 council vote to reopen the road.

For LL’s take on the whole sordid story and how it got to this point, read this.

Committee chair and Ward 1 councilmember Jim Graham supported spending the money, as did Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser. Ward 3’s Mary Cheh, Ward 7’s Yvette Alexander, and at-large member Kwame R. Brown opposed doing so. Ward 8’s Marion Barry, though not a committee member, also showed up to speak in support of keeping the road closed.

The full council is free to revisit the decision when the budget legislation moves forward next month.

Updates to come.

UPDATE, 3:50 P.M.: A subsequent amendment by Cheh moves the $2 million in local money to alley repairs and earmarks another $2 million out of the District’s federal funds for environmental remediation of Klingle Valley and construction of a recreation trail.

UPDATE, 4:17 P.M.: After the markup ended, Graham vowed to take the matter to the full council at the May 13 budget session. He also said he intends to hold a public “roundtable” on the Klingle issue in the two weeks interim. “I think there’s going to be a lot of discussion,” he says. During the hearing, Graham had proposed delaying any vote until such a roundtable could be held. Cheh & Co. voted it down; “The public had had ample time….I don’t know anything that’s been debated more than Klingle Road,” she said.

UPDATE, 7:30 P.M.: The Fenty response, from spokesperson Carrie Brooks: “The Mayor will defer to the judgment of the members of the Committee on Public Works and the Environment on this issue. Having served as a councilmember for six years, he certainly appreciates the legislature’s role in shaping the District’s budget.”

Today, Don Juan’s restaurant in Mount Pleasant will make its case before the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board that it deserves to have live music and dancing reinstated, just as Don Jaime’s and Haydee’s did last week.

Don Juan’s is a different animal than the other two, and so its case will be harder to make. Over the years it has gained notoriety as a haven for drunk Latino men, getting drunker by the hour.

But Don Juan’s owner, Alberto Ferrufino, has taken extraordinary steps over the last year to change his restaurant’s image. Working with Hear Mount Pleasant, the neighborhood group working to overturn the live music ban, Ferrufino has spent thousands of dollars to install double-paned windows, a new roof, and soundproof insulation. After firing three DJs for refusing to turn the music down, he eliminated the problem by getting a new jukebox with smaller speakers and putting a limiter on it so it can’t get too loud.

The ABC Board requires yearly trainings for bar managers in responsible alcohol management, but for the last decade Don Juan’s has been sending its entire staff to the trainings. And recently, they’ve contracted with a well-known consultant from the Responsible Hospitality Institute to provide much more intensive training on responsible alcohol service and security.

Several neighbors have been making a concerted effort to bring families with children to Don Juan’s on a regular basis, trying to change the all-male composition of its clientele to be more family-friendly. After all, with the wave of gentrification in Mount Pleasant and the recent fire which effectively evicted 200 Latino residents from the neighborhood, Don Juan’s needs to expand its client base in order to survive.

I live directly behind Don Juan’s, and while I’m a big fan of their tamales, I usually get them to go because I don’t like being the only woman in there. I also didn’t like having a drunk guy pass out on my feet on a Sunday afternoon in there a few years ago. But I’ve got to hand it to Don Juan’s for cleaning up its act and making an effort to engage the community. I’ve been a supporter of Hear Mount Pleasant since their inception – I’ve even got their silk-screened “Bring Back Live Music” sign in front of my house – and I think they’ve done a great job listening to the community’s concerns and working with Don Juan’s to address them.

And as for live music, as far as I can tell men don’t like to dance alone, so more music will mean more women, and that can only be good for the place. We’ll see if the ABC Board agrees.

In this week’s column, LL detailed the political machinations beneath the latest resurrection of the interminable Klingle Road dispute. In the process of counting the votes on a $2 million budget line item to move forward with road reconstruction, LL chose to count At-Large Councilmember Kwame R. Brown as a “Spineless Wind-Twister” thanks to his comments in favor of further debate of an issue that has been debated for 17 years.

Well, yesterday, Brown called LL up and gave him an earful for lumping him in with Ward 8 Councilmember Marion S. Barry Jr. in that category. LL visited Brown’s office and listened as Brown explained his deep convictions—and campaign promises—against spending local money on Klingle Road repairs.

So there you have it folks: LL is officially pulling Brown from the Spineless Wind-Twisters and putting him amoung the proud ranks of the Bleeding-Heart Tree-Huggers. That’s brings the running count to eight anti-road votes, four pro-roaders, and one unknown.

Brown’s conviction also means that the mayor’s $2 million Klingle Road line item isn’t going to make it out of the council’s committee on public works and the environment. Committee chair and Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham favors spending the money, as does Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser, but the other three committee members—Mary Cheh of Ward 3, Yvette Alexander of Ward 7, and Brown—are all now unequivocally on the record against it.

Look for that $2 million to be directed elsewhere at the committee’s April 30 budget markup.

Photo of Klingle Road by Darrow Montgomery

Today, another battle has been decided in the ongoing war over live music in Mount Pleasant, and both sides are claiming victory.

For the past year, Mount Pleasant restaurants Don Jaime’s, Haydee’s, and Don Juan’s have been working with neighborhood group Hear Mount Pleasant to terminate their voluntary agreements with the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance. The voluntary agreements, or VA’s, restricted hours for live entertainment and prohibited cover charges and dancing. Catch up on some background here.

In yesterday’s ruling, the ABC board amended the MPNA’s voluntary agreements with Don Jaime’s and Haydee’s , but did not terminate them (a ruling on Don Juan’s voluntary agreement is slated for next Wednesday). Under the new agreement, hours for live music have been significantly expanded: The restaurants may host entertainment Sundays through Wednesdays until 11:00 p.m.; Thursdays until midnight; and Fridays and Saturdays until 1:00 a.m. Dancing is now permitted, as are cover charges.

In a press release, Hear Mount Pleasant declared the ruling “a major victory.” In their own release, the MPNA focused on the fact that the ABC board “denied the request to terminate voluntary agreements.”

Read the rest of this entry »

With the Mount Pleasant apartment fire and back history of thousands of code violations, a string of Post stories on crummy landlords, and the announcement today by Peter Nickles heralding a new “sweeping” offensive against slumlords, I have to wonder: Where’s Councilmember Jim Graham?

If you go to the Post’s “Forced Out Map,” so many–if not the majority–of controversial properties are in Graham’s ward. The news of these properties isn’t a surprise. Each of these properties has a history. Graham is great at throwing heat during a council hearing. And he’s wonderful at showing umbrage in front of a reporter. I have no doubt that he’s prevented a number of tenants from eviction. And maybe he’s even helped clean up a building or two. I can’t help but feel Graham could have done much, much more.

I can’t help but wonder where Graham was on these issues years ago. And if he was on these issues, why didn’t he do more to protect tenants? He certainly wasn’t living in these apartments ala Cory Booker.

After the Mount Pleasant fire, Graham was quoted in the Post saying: “This is the classic example of eviction by neglect.” The newspaper of record goes on to describe the councilmember as having “worked on various issues with tenants for years.”

So I’m sure Graham was well aware of the 7,000 code violations from that building. So couldn’t this powerful and savvy councilmember have done more?

And so’s my street. Filming has begun on State of Play, the new Ben Affleck flick being shot on location in our fair city. The cool thing is that while most D.C.-based movies center around government buildings and monuments, this one is being shot – at least partially – in the neighborhoods. Exact filming times are hush-hush (to discourage you stalkers and gawkers who would crowd around to get a glimpse of Affleck or his co-star, Russell Crowe, or of course, my boyfriend, “a delivery guy” who’s working tomorrow.)

Crowe’s character lives in an apartment above Pfeiffer’s Hardware and Heller’s Bakery. Apparently the recent fire in Mt. Pleasant hasn’t set back the filming schedule, but something must have – they were supposed to shoot here March 29, but that’s been postponed.

In the meantime, they’ve recreated the whole Pfeiffer’s/Heller’s strip in Hollywood, building a whole new façade exactly like the real one. The set-builders, however, finished the job without having seen the Heller’s sign lit up; they guessed it lit up blue – but they were wrong, and so they’ve paid the bakery to replace the red lights in the sign to match their blue-lighted Hollywood set. They’re replacing Pfeiffer’s sign with a new one, too — still called Pfeiffer’s Hardware — but the store won’t be keeping it up because it doesn’t accord with historic standards.

Rumor has it there will also be a scene shot at Ben’s Chili Bowl and maybe the Kennedy Center.

The movie is about investigative reporters and police officers digging up the truth about the murder of a Congressman’s mistress. I wonder if Gary Condit will play himself? —Tanya Snyder

Another update here on how to help out the people displaced by the fire at 3145 Mount Pleasant Street.

Mt. Pleasant Main Street is hosting a Wine Tasting/Fire Victims Benefit on Tuesday, March 18 from 7 to 9 p.m. at MARX Cafe (3203 Mt Pleasant St).

From the release:

Come out try some great wine and light appetizers, meet your neighbors, support our neighbors that are suffering from the apt fire, and find out more about Mt Pleasant Main Street! Suggested donation $15 for tasting. Please Bring food and clothing for the fire victims as well as your cash donations! RSVP to karen@mtpmainstreet.org

To those grousing about this morning’s helicopters hovering over Mount Pleasant: 1) Give it up; 2) You live in a city, remember?; 3) Hundreds of people lost their homes, ya know?

There was enough whining on the Shepherd Park listserv that WJLA’s Managing Editor Dan Patrick had to respond. He wrote:

WJLA-TV and NewsChannel 8 has been getting complaints about “our helicopter” hovering over the scene of the Mount Pleasant fire this morning after a posting on a email group. I can assure you, due to flight restrictions post 9/11, our helicopter can come no closer than the northern portion of the Beltway in Montgomery County. We were not over the scene this morning, causing the noise issues for these residents. The only helicopters that would be allowed in the that airspace would be MPD’s helicopter or the United State’s Park Police helicopter.

And the response from a swell Shepherd Park citizen:

My sincere apologies to WJLA Channel 8. The helicopter hovering above Shepherd Park this morning was indeed a news helicopter, not military or police, but what looked like an ‘8′ was revealed to be a ‘6′ after the helicopter passed closer to my home. There is no Channel 6 in the DC area, but whoever they were need to be grounded, fined, and jailed.

Priceless.

Within hours of this morning’s fire in Mount Pleasant, various non-profits and government agencies hit the scene. And it looks like the hundreds of people displaced by the fire will not have to spend the night inside a rec center. They are being put up in hotels, reports Jason Yuckenberg, Councilmember Jim Graham’s spokesperson.

Also,Yuckenberg notes, a number of property owners have called Graham’s office to offer help. “We have many, many individuals coming forward offering rooms to rent at low cost or for free,” he says.

But these are temporary fixes.

As for the new Target possibly helping…

“I gave Target a call earlier today,” Yuckenberg reports. “They’ve always really come through.” But he adds: “I have not been able to reach our contact today.”

By now people know about the Mount Pleasant fire. The blaze took hold just before midnight. Sirens could be heard as far away as 16th and U Streets NW. Hundreds may have lost their homes.

This morning, Mount Pleasant Street is still shut down. Yellow tape cut off intersections and roped off businesses. Fire hoses take up Irving Street. Tired fire fighters gather around a truck serving coffee, rested at tables, and on apartment stoops.

Hundreds of people crowded near the 7-Eleven to watch as fire fighters continue to spray water on the four-story apartment building that is now gutted, that is mainly now just a scarred facade. People are quiet and respectful, snapping pictures with digital cameras, talking to neighbors, generally staying out of the way. It is eerie to see this busy street turn so silent. It’s now a possible crime scene.

According to the Post, Fire Department Spokesperson Alan Etter estimated that 200 firefighters and 80 pieces of equipment were used to combat the five-alarm fire: “The city had not had a five-alarm fire since a warehouse burned in the late 1970s, Etter said.”

Just behind the apartment, the fire had spread to Meridian Hill Baptist Church. Its stained-glass window are broken. Its roof is nearly collapsing. Inside, burnt debris is everywhere–down the pews and up at the pulpit. It looks like a total loss.

More pictures of the scene this morning, after the jump.

Read the rest of this entry »

Residents of Mount Pleasant are engaged in a death match over the future of their neighborhood strip. Should it be a quiet strip of restaurants or a more lively, perhaps boisterous, cluster of joints that offer live tunes and dancing?

The people who want more tunes have apparently worked up “individualized sound management plans to make sure neighbors won’t be adversely affected.”

The people who want quiet say that many families in the area are wary of “restaurants morphing into bars and nightclubs.”

For more on this fight, here’s a little pro and con.

“I have rented a UHaul to facilitate my move from Mt. Pleasant to LeDroit Park,” my friend informed me on Saturday, February 9, 2008. “Can you you help me move my dresser from my mother’s house to my new apartment?”

“Unfortunately,” I replied, “I cannot immediately accompany you to your mother’s house to facilitate your move. Hillary Clinton supporters are gathering in downtown Mt. Pleasant’s Lamont Park. I plan to observe this gathering.”

“Well,” my friend murmured. “Perhaps you can help me move after the gathering.”

“Of course,” I replied. A few minutes later, I took leave of my friend and walked to Lamont Park. The day was sunny, and unseasonably warm. When I arrived at the Lamont Park gathering, I found few Hillary Clinton enthusiasts in attendance. However, one woman who had declared herself “pro-Hillary” smiled at my approach.

“Go Hillary!” the lonely Hillary enthusiast exclaimed. Signs she carried reflected her pro-Hillary sentiment.

“Hello,” I replied. Few seem interested in this Hillary enthusiast’s cause, I thought.

“Super Tuesday was less than a week ago, but you publicly support Hillary’s cause in this neighborhood,” I continued. “Why has no one shown up to support Obama?”

“Obama’s people are too slow,” the woman replied.

“Too slow,” I repeated. I photographed the lonely woman, recording her lonely image for all posterity, and left to help my friend move. In the future, I thought, I will regard this photograph as proof that Mt. Pleasant did not support Hillary Clinton for President. But how can the political temperature of Mt. Pleasant be taken from a mere photograph? Perhaps 100 people were here rallying in support of Hillary before I arrived. Or, perhaps 100 people will show up to support Hillary five minutes after I leave. The day drew colder, and the sun hid itself behind a cloud. Either way, I concluded, my friend’s dresser will be heavy.

Against the sound of mariachi music, members of the pro-live entertainment group Hear Mount Pleasant rallied outside the Mt. Pleasant Library last night where members of the Mount Pleasant Neighborhood Alliance (MPNA) were meeting. The crowd, which lined the library steps and spilled out onto the sidewalk, waved signs saying “MPNA No Habla Por Nostras,” and “Dancing is Not a Crime.”

Hear Mount Pleasant and the MPNA are at odds over longstanding voluntary agreements that forbid live entertainment at three area restaurants (Don Jaime, Don Juan Restaurant and Carryout, and Haydee’s). Mayor Adrian Fenty and Ward 1 Councilmember Jim Graham attended the meeting and told protesters they looked forward to bringing the two sides together to discuss the issue.

It was a busy day for Hear Mount Pleasant. In addition to the nighttime rally, they staged a sit-in yesterday morning at Don Juan’s trash area to prevent District Department of Transportation (DDOT) officials from carrying out an inspection there. “We were there for about two hours,” says Hear Mount Pleasant member Amber Gallup. Some people sat on top of the structure while others gathered around it, she says.

According to spokesperson Erik Linden, DDOT was conducting a “routine inspection” to determine whether Don Juan’s trash structure was on public space. But group members say the structure has been there for 20-plus years, and if the owner, Alberto Ferrufino, brought his trash indoors, he would risk a health-code violation. Ultimately, the sit-in appeared to be successful. “We left without levying any enforcement,” Linden says. “We will be coordinating any further enforcement with the community.”

Walking in Mount Pleasant recently, I noticed a few jack–o’–lanterns still out in front of some homes. By now, of course, some look like they’ve started to decay.

What a great idea, I thought. Think about it: With Halloween’s preoccupation with skeletons, ghosts, tombstones, and so on, what good does a bright, shiny, healthy-looking orange pumpkin do? For my money, a scary face staring out at you from a pumpkin that looks gangrenous cuts a lot closer to the spirit of the holiday.

So if you carve pumpkins for Halloween next year, be proactive. Do it a few weeks earlier. Let ‘em rot for the trick-or-treaters.