Walter Gagliano is an interior designer who has designed 25 restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area. Tonight, he’s accompanying Young & Hungry columnist Tim Carman on a whirlwind architectural tour of District eats to reveal which offerings are hot and cold, off the menu.

Station 9, 1439 U Street NW

Hot: Originally an old post office, Station 9’s Greek revival facade and large stone columns create an imposing presence on U Street. “Walking into the space, the first impression is good,” Gagliano says. The interior boasts a “large open space”—one required by historic regulations which don’t allow Station 9 to divide the room up with walls. Station 9 deals with the wiggle-room well, Gagliano says. “The elements are handled in such a good way that it prevents the space from feeling cavernous.”

The decor is “stagey and theatrical, and all done to the right scale,” Gagliano says. “There are big curtains, big bold stripes, and large spherical chandeliers” that—on further inspection—look to be stapled-together plastic cups. It all gives off the impression of “a reality TV-show where things must be done creatively, fast, and inexpensively.” The tiered seating, completed by dramatic high-back leather chairs, “improves the view for those on top of the tier and below the tier,” Gagliano says. The larger-than-life set-up would be quite impressive, actually, if there were enough diners to fill the space. On a Thursday at 8:30 p.m., the dining room served only two.

Cold: All that space can sometimes invite too much function. Station 9 suffers from what Gagliano calls “confused expectations.” The space “feels like a restaurant ready to erupt into a nightclub at 10 p.m.,” he says—and perhaps the place is better equipped for the weekend club scene than the quiet Thursday dinner.

The martini-goggles might help to soften some of Station 9’s less savory design elements. Gagliano says that Station 9’s free-standing exterior is accompanied by an “air of neglect.” An outside window looks right into a cluttered storage room. Says Gagliano, “There’s obviously a manager here that doesn’t care anymore.” In contrast to the ironic glamour of Policy, Gagliano says, “the overall effect just doesn’t feel fresh. The glamour here has no irony.”

Walter Gagliano is an interior designer who has designed 25 restaurants in the Washington, D.C. area. Tonight, he’s accompanying Young & Hungry columnist Tim Carman on a whirlwind architectural tour of District eats to reveal which offerings are hot and cold, off the menu.

Policy, 1904 14th St. (202) 387-7654

Cold: Policy’s unmarked entrance can make Policy’s first impressions a bit unmemorable. “When you first walk in, it’s a little cold,” says Gagliano. “There are chartreuse-colored walls, a utilitarian stair-case, and a hostess stand on the inside—it’s like you’re going into a closed nightclub. It gives no impression at all of what you’re walking into. It’s a shame, becuase once you walk in through the second door, it all becomes very cool.”

Hot: Policy’s decades-spanning pop design appeal is beyond eclectic—it’s clashing. To Gagliano , that’s a good thing. “The more clashing the better these days,” he says. A stroll through policy’s restaurant, bar, and lounge areas conjures up a lot of culture clash, from “Rat Pack Las Vegas to “80’s glam” to “the Sputnik-glam of the 50’s and 60’s,” Gagliano says. Thankfully, everything is “filtered through a 21st-centure sensibility,” he says. “There is nothing undone here. It’s very designed. It’s all very different, but all very controlled. I mean that in the best way.”

Once past the entrance, guests are greeted with a dining room that could be home to both Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, Gagliano says. “You walk into a room that’s almost totally black with red accents and reflective surfaces that stop it from being dungeon-y,” Gagliano says. The inviting lounge area also plays with dark glam, in red patent-leather and black crocodile-like apholstery that Gagliano calls “very 1959 Cadillac.” Upstairs, says Gagliano, “it’s not a restaurant anymore—it’s a club.” A staircase leads to loungy booths, chain-mail curtains, crystal chandeliers and New York-style subway graffiti gracing the walls. “It has a very high-energy vibe,” Gagliano says, one that might even outshine Policy’s downstairs set-up: “It looks like it should have its own name.”

Like Cork Wine Bar, Policy flirts with “cold” again with its lighting scheme—what Gagliano calls “weird little glaring headlights” that he suspects “could make customers feel like a deer-in-the-headlights.” Policy softens the glare “by adding an incongruous element to each table—fresh flowers in small vases to block and diffuse the light,” Gagliano says. The floral displays prove a potent counterpart for the road-kill lighting: “It works pretty successfully,” he says.

Reporting by Tim Carman

Cork Wine Bar is located at 1720 14th St. NW, in a spot formerly occupied by Sparky’s espresso cafe.

Hot: Cork’s retooling of the caffeine joint’s space achieves “a familiarity that looks totally at home with the block,” says Gagliano. “It’s a sophisticated but not-overdone look.” The bar’s tin ceilings, wood floors, and exposed brick contribute to the unexpected elegance. “I’m bemused at the ability of those elements to reinvent themselves and look fresh,” says Gagliano. Cork’s interior design makes sure its wine list is exposed, as well. “The wine-bar theme is instantly reinforced by a distant view of an open wine cellar. It lets you know that they’re serious about wine without looking like some showy suburban wine cellar.” A central loft dining room perched atop the mock cellar “looks like a great space for a party of 12-19,” Gagliano adds.

Cold: Not all of Cork’s simplified solutions come off as quite as earthy. “There are energy-inefficient Edison bulbs, but they have great character and warmth,” says Gagliano. “And the back room is pleasant, but unless they’re very busy it would be like being in Siberia—it’s so removed from the main action.”

Reporting by Tim Carman

The tenant landed in court back in March for failing to pay $7,000 in back rent to her landlord. When she finally forked over the payment, she also signed a new agreement stating that she wouldn’t be late on rent again.

She was late in June, landlord Barrington Bowen claims—and now she owes him an additional $1,150 in rent, plus fees. The landlord wasn’t happy to be involved in a second run-around. “I’m tired of chasing after this woman,” he told the court. “I’ve had it, and I want my property back.”

The tenant’s lawyer, who was communicating with the tenant in Spanish, protested that the woman didn’t understand what she was agreeing to, since the court failed to supply an interpreter during the proceedings.

Judge Joan Zeldon—she of cell-phone borrowing fame—wasn’t buying the language barrier excuse.

“I simply don’t believe that,” Zeldon said, adding that the court “bends over backward” to provide interpreters during hearings. A Spanish interpreter is on-hand at the court each morning, and other language-speakers are summoned on request—an Urdu interpreter, in fact, was on the way.

Zeldon went back to the record to settle the bilingual dispute. According to court documents, Zeldon pointed out, the March agreement had been “read by an interpreter in open court.” Zeldon pointed to the line in the document and shook her head. The tenant, at least, understood the body language.

Reporting by Ruth Samuelson

Joseph has been trying to secure the rent from Karina Okoro, who occupies a one-bedroom unit in Joseph’s 23-unit Petworth apartment building, since November of last year. At one point, marshals arrived at the complex ready to evict Okoro, who asked for an hour to get Joseph his money. When he came to collect, she was gone.

At her court date in front of Judge Joan Zeldon this morning, Okoro again proved a no-show. During the course of the proceedings, it was suggested that Okoro may be in a more relaxed state than her anxious landlord—she was spending some time in Florida.

Zeldon, unable to make long-distance phone calls from the court’s land line, asked to borrow Joseph’s cell phone in order to give Okoro a little tinkle. Later, Zeldon realized that despite Okoro’s exotic locale, the number was kosher to call from court.

But Okoro failed to make a long-distance appearance as well. “Tell her this is Judge Zeldon calling from the bench,” Zeldon said to whoever was screening Okoro’s calls. She had a message regarding the landlord. “It looks like she’s just stonewalling him, and I just really can’t permit that to happen.”

Reporting by Ruth Samuelson

As someone who writes on the Internet all day for a living, you’d think I’d just suck it up and spring for the wireless. Hell, you’d think my employer would suck it up and spring for the wireless. But you would be underestimating my laziness, cheapness, and hubris—not to mention the whole bankruptcy thing.

I used to be like you. I had my own ten-character password consisting of numbers, letters, and symbols. I could stream entire episodes of Lost without interruption. I paid for the Internet. But a few months ago, one of my house-mates moved out and, in a bizarre act of vindication—long story—took our shared wireless router with her. My housemates and I are still “thinking about getting wireless.” In the meantime, I’ve been living on the edge, searching for rogue, unprotected wireless connections that lurk just within my windows.

Join me.

* Survey the landscape. Boot up your laptop. (If you don’t have a laptop, buy a laptop and boot it up). Take a look at your neighbor’s Internet connection names that pop up in your wireless menu. Begin speculating as to which neighbor chose the name “fuzznuggets.” Take note of the names that aren’t password-protected, and prepare to both cherish and resent them, depending on their signal strength. “Linksys,” baby, if you’re reading this, I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.

* Maneuver. Make sure your laptop is good and charged, and then stalk through every floor and room of your house, holding the computer open and checking signal strength every couple of steps. Check out the front and back yards, too—you might be putting in some overtime on the stoop this summer. Take care to scope out the wireless scene near walls and windows, but don’t discount the idea that there may be some pockets of signal strength in the interior. If you find a good spot and then lose the connection, moving or rotating the machine a couple inches can sometimes work wonders.

* Rearrange your furniture to fit the hot spots. In my living arrangement, the desk is pushed all the way to the back of the house for a reason. Our other workspace (okay, my bed) is pushed all the way to the front. Downstairs, you’ll often find a stray living-room chair cozied up next to the trash near the back door of the kitchen—it may not be the loveliest space in the house, but it’s the sweetest spot we’ve got.

* Prepare to brew some conspiracy theories. I am firm in my belief that the nearly-transluscent bedroom curtain that hangs between my laptop and the open window causes airspace interference, and must be tied back for optimal connection speeds. My boyfriend, who finds this preposterous, believes that the couple squatting in the abandoned row-house next door lack electricity, but still shell out the cash for their own wireless signal. Alas, it is password-protected.

* Don’t try to watch videos. It’s not worth it.

* Don’t panic. A couple months ago, there were a few days where we thought our main source of poached Internet would be lost to us forever. This particular access-point is kind of like the neighborhood bicycle of Internet connections—we can get it in the front of the house, in the back of the house, on the first floor and on the third. The connection didn’t suddenly decide to require a password to access it—it just disappeared. For days. It eventually came back, but there was an upside to it leaving us unconnected for a time—we were forced to find another unprotected connection that we’ve been hooking up with ever since.

* Look on the bright side. On days when the rogue Internet connections just aren’t coming your way, take it as an opportunity to leave your work—and useless online procrastination—in the office. Also, take a step back and realize that you’ve begun bestowing your neighbors’ Internet connections with pet names. (”Here, neener neener!”) Sometimes, it’s good to take a break.

* Know the risks. The FCC defers to local law-enforcement on this one. On the local level, unauthorized use of another’s wireless network is usually only prosecuted when a crime is committed—if you use the network to download illegal pornography, say, or to send out spam.

* Never tell your neighbors that you do this.

* Give back to the community. When you get your own Internet connection, you can always leave it unprotected in an act of solidarity. For a more secure option, you can also give a donation to Open Park, a local non-profit committed to providing free public Internet in hotspots around the Washington, D.C. area. Some open wireless networks are meant to be that way—find one near you.

Photo by altemark.