The Issue: The never-ending battle (read: 10 years) over construction of a new and improved Giant on Wisconsin Avenue seemed to have finally ended last summer when the Zoning Commission voted unanimously in favor of the project. Not so! There's another twist that has tied things up - potentially for a few more years.

Read More "Neighborhood Watch: The Cleveland Park Giant Grocery Controversy Lives On" »

Barry Farm Re(mixed) praises a local dance troupe that gained fame(?) on a reality show: "I'm sad to say that I didn't get a chance to watch America's Best Dance Crew on Sunday, and as a result, missed the final performance of River East's dance crew, Beat Ya Feet Kings. But I will say, that I'm proud of them for making it this far..."

Brookland Avenue praises some Franciscan Monastery honey: "I was lucky enough to get a behind the scenes tour from Chris Schierkolk a Brookland resident, co-moderator of the Brookland Listserv, FMGG member, and apiarist. Chris gave me a pretty in depth tour of the bee keeping operation on the monastery grounds. There are a total of 5 beekeepers that manage 2 apiaries at the monastery."

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Which Ward Has Heard The Most Gunshots?" »

The other day, City Paper asked: Is Cleveland Park dead?

Well, this blogger submits that it can't be, even if the Starbucks and 7-Eleven did close. Because its neighborhood listserv - #1 in CP's "Best of D.C." issue - now has its own advice columnist! And she, like, used to dole out advice at Playboy U, the ULTIMATE online campus!

Read More "Dear Abby: Should I Take Advice from My Neighborhood Listserv?" »

Cleveland Park is starting to look like an old steel town. Last week, Starbucks and 7-Eleven closed, adding to a growing list of shuttered shops: a Blockbuster, a Magruder's, a Cold Stone Creamery, etc. WUSA's Bruce Johnson examined the corpse last week wondering why such an elite 'hood had fallen on hard times. Councilmember Mary Cheh characterized the decline as a problem.

Colbert King recently wrote a column on the racial paranoia bubbling up on Cleveland Park's listserv. He followed up our own blog post on the subject. Whether residents there are racist or not we can not say. Those stories only prove that people still live in Cleveland Park. There are always the holdouts.

Video and more, below the jump! Read More "VIDEO: Is Cleveland Park Dead?" »

Good Morning, City Desk readers!  While City Paper is busy commemorating Sexist Day here at the office, all sorts of newsy events are happening all over the city, so here it is.

• Alexandria Police Chief David P. Baker announced his retirement yesterday afternoon, ending a 40-year career in law enforcement.  This comes in the aftermath of his arrest on DUI charges Saturday night, following an accident that sent another driver to the hospital.  The best part about retiring now is that Baker gets to retain his full benefits, regardless of the outcome of today's court hearing in Arlington.

• Sonia Sotomayor is one step closer to joining the Supreme Court.  The Senate Judiciary Committee voted 13-6 to endorse the candidate, sending her nomination to a full Senate vote next week.  She's expected to be confirmed with little struggle, but as usual, party affiliations are limiting unanimous support. Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Hung Up Edition" »

Another day, another Red Line delay.  This time, it's due to a train striking a man as it pulled into Van Ness/UDC  station around 12:30 this afternoon.  According to Metro's press release,

"A six-car Red Line train headed toward Shady Grove was pulling into the station around 12:30 p.m. when witnesses report the man intentionally placed himself on the tracks.   Emergency crews responded to the scene and removed the man from underneath the first rail car of the train. The man was transported to a local hospital."

Single-tracking is in affect between Friendship Heights and Cleveland Park so expect to wait for trains.  Nothing like a delayed Metro to kick off the weekend rush-hour!

Magazine sellers and Bible studiers---especially those who are well-dressed and African-American---beware. The people of Cleveland Park are onto you. For months they've been posting suspicious interactions with you and your efforts this week? They are well-documented on the all-knowing Listserv.

To wit:

Read More "Cleveland Parkers Refusing to Open Doors to Well-Dressed African-American Men" »

Smokey

Princess

Mike and Ginny Spevak, the well-known Friendship Heights couple murdered in their home last November, left behind a daughter and son, their spouses, a grandson, siblings---a loving family. They also left behind three cats they adored. Two of them now need homes.

Read More "Murdered Couple’s Cats Need Homes" »

First up: Fresh stuff right here on this very Web site. Jason Cherkis has the cops, in their own words, explaining themselves for the DeOnte Rawlings shooting. Of special note: why they not only left the boy bleeding from the back of the head, but why they never even checked to see if he's still alive. Stunning.

Tim Carman's got even more on the eviction of celeb chef Spike Mendelsohn; Amanda Hess is wondering who can tell a rape joke; Ruth Samuelson finds a juicy condo conversion story peopled with phantom tenants; and Dave McKenna finds a guy to lay out in telling detail why DCPS is dysfunctional. LL Weekly to be pimped in forthcoming LL Daily.

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, except when it comes to the Cleveland Park Cititizens Association. Marc Fisher today goes after George Idelson and Friends after old George, rather than welcome a bunch of people who don't agree with him into "his" neighborhood group---designed to "make your voice heard and help preserve and improve our neighborhood"---decided instead to postpone/cancel elections. Idelson's a classic NIMBY, of course, who favors "preservation" above development, even if that development includes replacing a crappy grocery store with a noncrappy one. But what Fisher didn't get into is just how quietly effective old George has been over the years. The battles being lost in Cleveland Park now are connected to the "overlay"---the complicated, esoteric formula that dictates how much property and which kind can be commercial. Idelson is its most vocal defender and has successfully fought off scrapping it and drastically changing it. As a result, Cosi fell victim. The Giant project has been stalled for more than 10 years. Empty storefronts at the Park and Shop remain that way. But if old George is forced to open up his fiefdom? Things could finally get interesting in CP.

Moving on to the fact that Virginians are not allowed to smile for their license photos anymore. But they are allowed stupid vanity plates? Oy vey.

More from the D.C. blogoworld:

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: Communism in Cleveland Park Edition" »

*INDOGURATION UPDATE: Yesterday afternoon, following the President's latest round of cautious optimism, Ted Kennedy presented the Obama famiy with Bo, a six-month-old Portugese water dog .  The Post has video, a bombastic lede, and some Us Weekly-worthy niceties:

About 10 minutes later the First Family emerged again, racing up the hill, with the president doing a nifty maneuver to switch the leash from one hand to another to avoid getting tangled and tripping.

"Pshew! Close call," the episode concludes.

Read More "Our Morning Roundup: First Dog Edition" »

The Washington Business Journal is reporting that the ubiquitous coffee chain is shuttering more of its local coffee outlets. Starbucks is pulling out of Northwest! OK, parts of northwest--Cleveland Park and Georgetown are losing an outlet each:

"In D.C., Starbucks will close the 3301 M St. NW location, which has been boarded up for months. Also being closed is the Cleveland Park store at 3420 Connecticut Ave. NW.

Starbucks said 6,000 of the job cuts announced in January would come from the store closures. The company also announced plans to cut an additional 700 non-store jobs, including about 350 at its Seattle headquarters."

But why stop there? Why not kill off at least one in Dupont Circle?

(Via DCist)

This just published on D.C.'s best Listserv is too good not to post:

I am a little horrified that the moaning and groaning from the neighbors is a deterent for doing business in Cleveland Park, I'd just assumed that rent was prohibitively high. Now I'm annoyed. People should keep in mind that there are a lot of non-drivers in Cleveland Park and when you behave in a way that discourages business owners from setting up shop in the neighborhood, you may be working a real hardship on your neighbors. NIMBY is easy to shout from the rooftops when you're mobile. So for the love of Mike, the next time you're in the car, heading to an establishment that isn't in your backyard, remember, I'm headed there too, ON FOOT. And if you're tempted to shrug your shoulders and say, "there's always Metro," you haven't been riding it enough lately.

Katherine
Quebec Street

Cleveland Park isn't a neighborhood smacking of huge displays of sports fandom. But Libby Kavoulakis, 45, is a lifelong, season-ticket-holding Steelers fan. And besides, she says, "we're world champions." So she put up two banners, one on her garage and another, larger one across the second story of her house on Reno Road at Warren Street. The garage banner was stolen in February. On Saturday morning, as she was about to leave for her office, she noticed the 8-foot "You're in Steelers Country" banner was gone, too.

Last night, someone left her a creepy message about the thefts.

Read More "Local Woman No Longer in Steelers Country, Receives Ransom Call for Stolen Banners" »

My duties have lagged in regard to keeping City Desk readers up to date on the played-out drama regarding the proposed Giant grocery complex on Wisconsin Avenue. And do you know why? Because this NIMBY crap has gone on with this project for 10 YEARS and no one gives a shit anymore.

Please, for the love of God and decent produce, just build the damn thing.

So what's the news? Misery has company. According to a telling but very unscientific poll prompted by Bill Adler, co-founder of the Cleveland Park Listserv, 77 percent of online voters (or 205 people), agree with me. Also-rans include 16 percent (44 votes) who still want to build it, but with conditions; the ANC wants a whole host of those, including a demand that there be no deliveries between 9 p.m. and 7 a.m., which seems rediculous for a) running a grocery store and b) running a grocery store in what is already a commercial corridor. Six percent (a whopping 16 votes) agreed with the poll's statement: "This isn't good for the neighborhood: I oppose the Giant's development proposal."

As for where the project stands, Greater Greater Washington has a good summary piece from a recent public meeting. Zoning hearings resume April 6 and could carry on for a night or two after that, so that every NIMBY who's had his say can continue to talk.

Photograph of the current Giant on Wisconsin Avenue by me

Nora Greer, a 55-year-old woman who lives in Barnaby Woods, posted a message to the Cleveland Park Listserv in the hope of finding a kidney donor. It reads:

SOS. Next year I'll need a transplant as I slip closer to acute renal failure. I haven't been able to find a compatible match from family or friends. I'm seeking a healthy person with TYPE O blood willing to consider the donation of a kidney. I know it's a huge gift and can only come from a very special person. I'm desperately trying to avoid dialysis. The official waiting time for a cadaver kidney in DC is four to seven years. All donor expenses will be covered by the recipient.

She also posted to the Chevy Chase board and plans to put a message out on the Listserv for Tenley Circle. So far, she says, she's received well wishes, but no takers. She remains encouraged. Another woman who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., Beth Abramowitz, received a kidney from a donor who read a plea on Facebook. The plea was posted by an old high school boyfriend and was read by a mother in Tallahassee, Fla., who agreed to give up an organ to a stranger. Abramowitz found out about Greer's appeal and got in touch to tell her to keep trying.

Greer's kidneys are 21 percent functional. As that number dips lower, she'll be forced to go on dialysis. Her doctor told her last summer she'll need a new kidney in 2009 and that she should start asking people she knows. It's a prospect that doesn't thrill her.

"Some of us have trouble asking for rides," she says. "It's a huge thing....Some people I know have come forward, but they're the wrong blood type, or they have physical limitations, or they're the wrong age."

This is a huge problem nationally---and in D.C., where Greer says there are more than 1,000 people in need of kidneys. "There are not enough cadavers, not enough people want to donate their organs."

Greer, a freelance editor and writer, came to D.C. from her native Chicago in 1977. She's married and does not have kids, in part because of the damage to her body caused by lithium treatments administered before she moved here. (She is diagnosed with bipolar disorder; her family, she says, has a history with the disease.) The lithium, widely administered after gaining FDA approval in 1970, also scarred her kidneys, she says.  A study published by the National Institutes of Health states that renal damage is a known side effect and that "although this effect of lithium is probably functional and reversible early in treatment, it may become structural and irreversible over time."

Greer's ideal donor is between 20 and 60 years old, is Type O or Type-O compatible, and has no health problems. For her part, Greer plans to continue to pursue whatever legal means to find a kidney. "But it's scary to me. I'd probably be more of an expert on how to do this at this point, but I put it away some days. Sometimes I don't want to accept this is happening."