UPDATED BELOW Saturday, 11:20 a.m.
As a Census-mandated vote on redistricting the city's ward boundaries vote looms, Tommy Wells has a PR strategy for keeping his territory intact in the face of an attempted land grab by Marion Barry. The important part: Don't make it about Marion Barry.
“With Ward 6, with how well it’s working, the [...]
Saturday morning's Phase 2 public meeting on the Anacostia streetcar line began with a message from Councilmember Marion Barry, relayed by staffer Brenda Richardson.
"The councilmember wants you to know that he supports whatever the community wants," said Richardson.
"But," she continued, "he doesn't want to see the streetcar go past the Anacostia Metro station. He'd rather see [...]
It is by now a familiar pattern in gentrifying District neighborhoods: A brutal, unprovoked attack prompts neighborhood outrage and an examination of what might have caused the violence.
In eastern Capitol Hill, those periodic cycles often center around Potomac Gardens, the 352-unit public housing complex that occupies a full city block between 12th and 13th streets [...]
Walking into the Temple of Praise near the end of a service is like lifting the lid of a tea kettle: The energy inside the Southern Avenue SE church is so intense, with worshipers dancing and wailing and fainting in the aisles, that it seems like it could boil over at any minute. Even when [...]
Last Thursday, the New York City Council held a hearing on Walmart's attempt to enter the market (it had to be rescheduled from December because a bigger room was needed). Walmart itself declined to show up, leaving a parade of anti-Walmart speeches to go largely unanswered. Council Chair Christine Quinn, an outspoken critic of the [...]
A few months ago, we learned that the Department of Housing and Community Development had bought up the decaying houses along Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue SE known as the "Big K" properties, after their long-time owners, Ann and Lenard Kushner. The pair had been trying to raze the buildings, but since they fall within [...]
In proof positive that long-running development projects make for nearly as long groundbreaking speeches, today's ceremony to mark the official start of construction on the $520 million Marriott Marquis hotel downtown was a doozy, with speakers thanking everyone from former mayor Marion Barry (seated proudly in the front row) to Washington Convention and Sports Authority [...]
With the 45-day review period triggered by Councilmember Marion Barry's hold on the contract having expired, Gage-Eckington Park at 2nd and V Street NW will get finally underway with a groundbreaking ceremony at 10:30 a.m. tomorrow. It's one of those D.C.-esque ironies: The interim use at the site of Bruce Monroe, another school that closed [...]
The Department of Real Estate Services tells me that Councilmember Marion Barry has dropped his disapproval resolution on the District Department of Transportation's move to 55 M Street SE, which momentarily put the whole thing in limbo. That means the move can go forward as planned, without having to wait through another 35-day review period until [...]
LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale erupted in indignation this afternoon over the news that Councilmember Marion Barry had introduced a disapproval resolution for the planned Gage-Eckington Park at the site of a former school on V Street. Typically, these contracts are submitted to the council for approval, but don't have to be actively voted upon–they'll automatically [...]
