Adams Morgan's divey Chinese takeout may be a tricked-out out sushi bar now, but Columbia Road still has that certain something, namely its empty stores. But fear not all you lovers of long receipts because exciting development is on its way. Yes, it's true, a CVS is going in---eventually---next to the second-rate Safeway, taking over the storefronts known as Beauty Island, Citibank, Foot Locker, and Mattress Discounters, all of which have closed or are closing, says Lisa Duperier, president of Adams Morgan Main Street.

Read More "So Long Beauty Island. Hello CVS." »

For three months of the year---tax season---Don and his wife, Linda, move into an office above a jumbo slice shop in Adams Morgan. In the third-floor space, there's a futon where they sleep at night. By day, it's set up as a spot for clients to talk with Linda, who does the initial work on the computer before Don gets you your money back from the federal government (he has less luck with D.C., unfortunately).

Linda's lovely and about to be 60. Don got there a few years back. When they're not smelling pizza in the place they live and work, they've got a nice, big house near the Chesapeake in Virginia. When they're not in either of those places, they're at train shows (Don's the collector; Linda likes the hotels) or traveling around Europe. It's quite a life. This year, they've added a fat Jack Russell terrier to it and put him on a dry-food diet after finding him overfed fried chicken and other delights by Don's recently deceased aunt.

Visiting this operation this time of year is a quaint and adorable experience for the client. Unless you're white.

Read More "What Getting a Tax Refund Could Cost You" »

Neighborhood Listservs are no place to notify the neighborhood of local businesses that may serve the neighborhood. Or so says our friend Bill D over on the mostly-entertaining Second-Best Neighborhood Listserv. Uncle Bill offers this plea to his fellow angry Adams-Morganers:

Can we limit or eliminate the commercial use of the listserv?  It doesn't matter if your business is yoga, furniture, real estate or restaurant/bar....it's still a business and this is not the place to advertise. City Paper or Craigslist are better suited to this purpose

Per usual, a flurry of responses (if Bill D is for it, well then, I'm against it) follow. Hey: at least he got the name right.

The hours left in the first day of spring are winding down, be sure you get your free cup of Rita's Water Ice before the day is over!

Rita's free ice promotion is running until stores close (either 9 p.m. or 10 p.m. depending on the store) so get over and get yourself some ice! Use this tool to find Rita's locations.

At the Rita's in Adams Morgan, Angela Brock said that Reed Elementary School and Oyster Elementary School, both located near the Rita's location, brought students out in droves earlier today to take advantage of the free ice. They served up 357 cups of ice, said Brock.

Brock and her sister, Charnita Brock Walker, were featured in Washington Post Magazine a few weeks back.

"summer treat! gelati @ rita's" by Flickr user Bright_Star.

There is a man down on the landing of our parking garage. He has wedged himself between a foot-high concrete wall, the cigarette urn, and the second floor door. It's a small space, barely room enough for his small frame. I do not notice this man.

Our beloved photographer, Darrow Montgomery, who just biked past him, points him out.

I ask him what's wrong. He says he has asthma, that he needs help. His voice is hoarse. Another man shows up. I will learn later that this man works at Payless. The man on the ground apparently has stolen a black purse.

The Payless man tells the other man to wait---the police have been called.

The man then walks as fast as he can up to our parking deck. He then makes like he wants to jump off the deck. He mumbles about wanting to kill himself, that life isn't worth living.

He is grabbed. We get him to sit down. His name is Thomas.

I leave Darrow and the Payless employee to keep the man occupied. I run inside WCP and call the Department of Mental Health's mobile crisis unit. This is where things get annoying.

Read More "Emergency @ Washington City Paper Headquarters" »

The 1800 block of Columbia Road NW is presently cordoned off due to a manhole explosion earlier this afternoon. Police and Pepco workers are on the scene. Details to come.

These events have highly inconvenienced luncheoning workers in the neighborhood, at least one of whom had to go to Subway instead of So's Your Mom for a sandwich.

UPDATE, 3:10 P.M.: A Pepco spokesperson says one manhole started smoking around 1:15 p.m. No power outages have been reported, and there's no word yet on the cause.

After 2 a.m. this morning, firefighters responded to a fire in the seven-story Harvard Hall apartments in Adams Morgan. The fire was reportedly contained to a single unit, in which a woman was badly burned.

While the fire's effects were thankfully contained, other Harvard Hall residents are raising questions about the building's safety. Several residents are reporting on an online message board that fire alarms didn't wake them.

Wrote one on a WJLA-TV forum:

I live in the building and perhaps the scariest thing about last night is that the fire alarms throughout the building did not go off. none of them. despite the fact that the 4th, 5th and 6th floor hallways were filled with smoke people were still evacuating over an hour later (many with small children) because they were sound asleep and didn't know that there were 8 firetrucks outside and dozens of firefighters in and around the building.

Read More "Harvard Hall Residents: Fire Alarms Didn’t Work" »

*U Street Girl comments on the fight at Cardozo High, in which 16 students were arrested, 15 injured, and 5 hospitalized after a cafeteria fight between several girls.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Food Fights & Snapdragons" »

When those looking to show off and prepare Adams Morgan's strip for the inauguration masses got together, several ideas were knocked around. How about we allow people to write messages to the president? Could we let them hit a stuffed Republican elephant until candy comes out? Maybe we could put up flags to show how international we are? And what about all that piss?

Check, check, check, check. "We're prepared," says Kristen Barden, executive director of the neighborhood business improvement district (BID). Yesterday, six portable toilets were installed---three in the SunTrust alley and three more in the alley near the parking garage, next to Little Shop of Flowers. They'll be there through Inauguration Day, with pickup scheduled for Wednesday.

The BID also switched out the Festivus pole at 18th Street/Adams Mill/Columbia Road, replacing it with what Borden describes as a "low-tech Listserv" for the inauguration.

Read More "Adams Morgan Ready for Public, Public’s Piss" »

Adams Morgan, never known for its bipartisanship, is offering up a few parting shots for George W. Bush and his buddies. Tomorrow at 5:30 and 7 p.m. and Saturday at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. Adams Morgan MainStreet (the good folks who bring us Adams Morgan Day) will dole out free swipes at an elephant-shaped pinata. The "light-hearted bashing" takes place at the huge expanse of sidewalk at 18th Street and Columbia Road in front of the BB&T Bank. What's inside the pinata is anyone's guess. Ours? Hope. A whole lot of hope.

The Alcohol Beverage Control Board met today to consider revoking Madam's Organ's liquor license for a groping incident that happened in June 2007. Marc Fisher has the definitive take on how this came to pass. The Sexist also weighed in.  So what happened? Basically five hours of testimony and, in typical ABC decisivenes, especially when there's media around, a decision to "take it under advisement." Of course, one must consider the source of this information, the bar's owner and everyone's favorite businessman, Bill Duggan.

"I'll tell you what I told them," he said this evening, while waiting for the report on Fox 5 News. "I would rather put needles in my eyes than be at that hearing today....It's fucking ridiculous."

Duggan reports that both sides---the AG's prosecutor and Duggan---agreed to throw out the report of the ABC investigator, although she testified at today's hearing and her testimony will be, say it with me now, taken under advisement.

For his part, Duggan says it's quite the coincidence that he won his appeals case on occupancy (Amanda Hess, late of CP's Show & Tell column, has the definitive back story on THAT one) three weeks before the AG office pushed this groping case forward.

All of that, of course, is pure speculation. What we do know is this: Bill Duggan will live to fight again, which he acknowledges. "But I'm sick of fighting," he says. "It's not funny. It's not fun anymore."

(City Paper photo by Charles Steck)

ANC Commissioner Bryan Weaver knew Derrell "Willow" Goins for years. On December 10, the 21-year-old Goins was shot and killed in Adams Morgan.

Goins was different than most of the kids Weaver tracks. "The thing that messed up every community activist in Adams Morgan is that he was off your radar. All of us internally make a list of kids who are immediately of concern and on the border....Derrell was beyond that. He was a kid that when he wanted community goods, when he came to [us], it was light, things that are goodness."

Goins received community money for art classes, and an after-school photography program. He craved a normal suburban teenager's existence. The job at the Hilton swimming pool. The time and resources to do his pen-and-ink sketches.

But pen and ink sketches aren't enough to escape the old Adams Morgan, the Adams Morgan in which the teenage rite of passage is joining the 1-7. Teenage boys divide themselves based on whether or not they're part of 1-7, affiliated loosely with 1-7 or ignore the 1-7 altogether. Goins wasn't part of the gang at all. He had no criminal history. Police didn't know him.

Read More "The Life And Death Of Derrell ‘Willow’ Goins" »

DCmud reports that an Adams Morgan mixed-use development project has hit a roadblock---the tanking economy. The new residential has been nixed. The Popeyes has beaten death.

Borderstan warns 'Beware Roof Top Burglars in Borderstan." In other Borderstan news, the Borderstan name suddenly has some respectable converts in the media.

Free In DC highlights a show this Wednesday: "Community Sing with Ysaye Barnwell of Sweet Honey in the Rock will be this WED, Dec 17th at 7:00pm at the Levine School Campus at 2801 Upton St, NW. This is a wonderful opportunity to see, hear and sing along with Ysaye and the others in attendance. All are welcome, no musical training required." Sounds like there is gonna be some audience participation. Yikes.

One Photograph A Day posts an awesome photo of a window display featuring Obama, some bikini-clad ladies, and the Virgin Mary.

Congress Heights On The Rise has the details on tonight's Ward 8 Holiday Party. Hot and cold refreshments will be served.

The Vinyl District is posting MP3s of some great Beatles Christmas Fanclub records.

*photo courtesy of One Photograph a Day.