The Big Bear Café was a new thing for Bloomingdale when it opened at 1st and R Streets in 2007. The neighborhood didn’t have a proper coffeeshop, and it’s become a magnet for the young professionals who’ve been coming to the area in droves. Mostly, the older neighbors haven’t seemed to mind.
Now, the Café would [...]

I've been living in a group house in Bloomingdale for about a year and a half. In that time, our dealings with our landlords have been – shall we say – interesting. In short: they take forever to make repairs. Beginning last Wednesday, things took a turn for the worse when we requested a contractor [...]

Bloomingdale's Boxer Girl mural. Drama, drama, drama.
This is how it starts.
You see a pleasant, little announcement about a city-sponsored mural program. It asks whether you'd allow people to paint an exterior wall of your house. Pretty innocuous.
Then, the thing goes up, and your neighbors start complaining about how they can See it from [...]

Feelings about Boxer Girl are pouring onto the Bloomingdale listserv—everything from a high-minded "let's consider this in a historical context" response (3) to a general screed about gentrification and bigots. (4) I don't quite follow it.
(1) From a W Street NW resident: “Having just bought a house on W street, I also wanted [...]

Now, here's a controversy that just shouldn't be one. A Bloomingdale woman allowed an artist—with a DC government grant—to paint a mural on the side of her house. She calls it "a boxer girl," saying "It's about strength. It's about creativity." The neighbors apparently think it's about...Annoying them. They look outside and have to see [...]

Plenty of people have pointed out Bloomingdale's striking gentrification. But last week, neighborhood resident Natalie Hopkinson again analyzed the yoga studio/public housing dynamic in an article for The Root about 'Do the Right Thing.'
The movie, directed by Spike Lee, is now 20 years old. In its pivotal moment, a black man throws a [...]

If Energy Secretary Steven Chu had his way, Americans would be painting their roofs white as often as homeowners in the Greek isles.
While speaking in London in late May, he extolled the virtues of white roofs as one of the easiest, simplest ways to lower energy costs.
“If that building is air-conditioned, it’s going to be [...]

EYA-representative Aakash Thakkar, center left in the blue shirt, opens the tour.
On Saturday morning, I joined roughly 100 other people for a tour of the McMillan Sand Filtration Plant.
Given the weekend morning time, I figured the crowd would be docile and relatively quiet. But true to what's now becoming classic McMillan, there was an early [...]

I've written a ton about the development of the McMillan Sand Filtration site: The plan for the 25-acre Bloomingdale parcel, the opposition to the project, the various conspiracy theories surrounding McMillan:

The people that think cheap chicken joints will dominate the supposedly classy retail
The people that think the developers are planting supporters in community meetings
The people [...]

There's more than old sand swirling around plans for the McMillan site.
On a recent Tuesday evening, about a dozen Bloomingdale-area residents gathered around a fire for wine, cheese, mini spinach pastries, and their shared desire to take down a group of D.C. developers. It was one of two strategy sessions-a pre-public meeting before a big [...]