D.C. Culture/History Thread

[pjfootballer]

47 minutes ago, Dan T. said:

 

Also, the staging.  There is a “theater sized“ TV on the wall, yet they are sitting in chairs facing AWAY from the screen. It is one of my all-time favorite ads, for many reasons. 

 

Jacoby also almost forgets what team he plays for. He hesitates.?

[thebluefood]

4 hours ago, hail2skins said:

What radio guys are people in the DC area going to remember?  I'm thinking the Greaseman from the 1980s, and the Junkies will have a place in the pantheon. 

Felix Grant on the music side - mainstay for jazz fans in the District for nearly 50 years. The video I posted in the OP would play right before his program started.

 

According to his Wikipedia page, he even received a civilian award from the government of Brazil for introducing American audiences to Bossa Nova music.

[Bozo the kKklown]

Petey Greene had a movie about his life starring Don Cheadle

[thebluefood]

 

I did not know HTS' reach went down to North Carolina.

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.washingtonian.com/2018/05/07/jeremiah-langhorne-the-dabney-dc-wins-2018-james-beard-award-best-chef-mid-atlantic/

 

The Dabney’s Jeremiah Langhorne Wins the 2018 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic

 

Quote

Chef Jeremiah Langhorne of the Dabney has won the 2018 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic—one of the highest accolades in the American hospitality industry.

 

The Shaw-based chef won over two other local talents in one of the most competitive categories of the awards, which were hosted in Chicago on Monday night by The Chew’s Carla Hall. Other DC finalists included Centrolina’s Amy Brandwein and Tom Cunanan of Bad Saint. Cindy Wolf of Baltimore’s Charleston restaurant and Philadelphia-based chef Rich Landau (Fancy Radish) were also in the running.

 

In a separate category, chef Kevin Tien of Himitsu was a finalist for Rising Star Chef of the Year, a category reserved for those 30 and under. He lost to Camille Cogswell of Zahav in Philadelphia.

 

Langhorne’s award is fitting. The DC and Shenandoah Valley native has championed Mid-Atlantic cooking since opening the farmhouse-like Blagden Alley restaurant in 2015. Previously Langhorne served as chef de cuisine at Sean Brock’s lauded Charleston restaurant McCrady’s, which is known for its in-depth exploration of heritage Southern cuisine and ingredients. Langhorne has applied a similarly sharp focus to regional cooking around Washington, using a wood-fired hearth and classic techniques to prepare hyper-local dishes like Chesapeake sugar toads with buttermilk dressing and hot honey or charred cabbage bathed in foie gras hollandaise.

 

[thebluefood]

Co-worker of mine was at James Beard supporting her brother! Unfortunately, he didn't win but a buddy of his did. Glad to hear we got a winning chef in the District.

 

- - -

 

Though this clip was before my time, it's from a staple of my Saturday mornings. My sister and I would watch "It's Academic" every Saturday morning after the cartoon blocks ended. If her schedule weren't already filled to the brim, she probably would have tried out for (and been on) Edison H.S.'s team.

[Bang]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this DC Icon:

Bill Wax and the Blues Plate Special on WPFW. Every day at noon for decades. He didn't introduce me to the blues, but he sure as hell showed me just how much of it there was, and how far it traveled.

On Saturdays he did a 2 hour blues show, and if you let it play when he was done WPFW played the best classic and deep-cut soul and R&B all day.

He does it on Sirius now. if you have Sirius and are at all interested in the Blues, find Bill, and he will educate you.

 

~Bang

Edited May 11, 2018 by Bang

[PleaseBlitz]

 

[China]

Lots of interesting stuff on this web page:

 

https://ghostsofdc.org/

 

 

[thebluefood]

10 hours ago, China said:

Lots of interesting stuff on this web page:

 

https://ghostsofdc.org/

 

 

I adore that website!

[PleaseBlitz]

11 hours ago, China said:

Lots of interesting stuff on this web page:

 

https://ghostsofdc.org/

 

 

 

I follow them on the twitter.  

[thebluefood]

Coming up on one year since I moved back up north. Gonna be a busy summer but I'm hoping to spend some more time in the D.C. area - still feel like I need to make up for lost time. If I can be good and save my money, I think I'd like to go to the Kennedy Center to see this Audra McDonald concert. I only got to visit the Kennedy Center once - on a 3rd (?) grade field trip. It was a nice trip but I didn't really appreciate it. I'm long past due for a visit as an adult (and it's Metro accessible, which is always nice).

 

http://www.kennedy-center.org/calendar/event/NSPPG

[Kosher Ham]

On 5/11/2018 at 11:34 AM, thebluefood said:

Co-worker of mine was at James Beard supporting her brother! Unfortunately, he didn't win but a buddy of his did. Glad to hear we got a winning chef in the District.

 

Jeff Buben is a James Beard winner as well. I think it was around '99. 

He has Bistro Bis and Woodward table. Formerly owned Vidalia on M street. 

Expensive, but worth every penny. 

 

Johnny Monis won a few years ago from - Komi

 

EDIT: Here you go. DC reps strong. 

https://www.jamesbeard.org/awards/search?categories[Restaurant+%26+Chef]=1&ranks[Winner]=1&year=&keyword=mid+atlantic

 

 

 

Edited May 14, 2018 by Kosher Ham

[SoulSkin]

@uscapitol ‏is another good twitter follow 

 

 

[Dan T.]

A fun bit of DC food history...

 

24 Dishes That Shaped How DC Eats:

 

Ask anyone today about Washington’s food scene, and they’ll probably describe a landscape filled with bowls of ramen, Georgian flatbreads and cool restaurants with lines out the door. Such newfound obsessions reflect economic boom times in formerly boarded-up neighborhoods and exploding diversity across the region.

How did we get here?

 

The meals we’ve listed below, suggested by historians, food writers and chefs, were essential to the city’s food evolution — more than 100 years of dishes from within the District’s borders. They epitomized the dining aesthetic, shattered its segregated restaurant scene or defied the notion that Washington was ever “a culinary backwater.” (For that 1981 descriptor, thank the New York Times. It’s somewhat better than “swamp.”)

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/food/24-dishes-that-shaped-how-dc-eats/?utm_term=.c3b2a824d3f3

[thebluefood]

Thanks for the link and for the bump, @Dan T.. I actually wanted to bump it with this interesting map I found via WETA's website. 

 

https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/metromap/?src=carousel

 

See how much you can overlap some of the famous restaurants with the newly named Metro stops.  

[Dan T.]

 

Given the steamy weather in DC today:

 

"June 30, 1922. Washington policeman Bill Norton measuring the distance between knee and suit at the Tidal Basin bathing beach after Col. Sherrill, Superintendent of Public Buildings and Grounds, issued an order that suits not be over six inches above the knee."

 

10 minutes ago, thebluefood said:

Thanks for the link and for the bump, @Dan T.. I actually wanted to bump it with this interesting map I found via WETA's website. 

 

https://blogs.weta.org/boundarystones/metromap/?src=carousel

 

See how much you can overlap some of the famous restaurants with the newly named Metro stops.  

 

That map is a blast!  Nice find...

[thebluefood]

Thanks! The Boundary Stones blog is really cool - I suggest following it.

[China]

I had a celebratory dinner for my graduation at Blackie's House of Beef.

 

24 Dishes That Shaped How DC Eats

 

Ask anyone today about Washington’s food scene, and they’ll probably describe a landscape filled with bowls of ramen, Georgian flatbreads and cool restaurants with lines out the door. Such newfound obsessions reflect economic boom times in formerly boarded-up neighborhoods and exploding diversity across the region.

 

How did we get here? The meals we’ve listed below, suggested by historians, food writers and chefs, were essential to the city’s food evolution — more than 100 years of dishes from within the District’s borders. They epitomized the dining aesthetic, shattered its segregated restaurant scene or defied the notion that Washington was ever “a culinary backwater.” (For that 1981 descriptor, thank the New York Times. It’s somewhat better than “swamp.”)

 

Better to think of Washington as a city that moves — and eats — to the beat of its own drum. Here, in chronological order, are the 24 dishes that shaped how we eat in D.C.

 

1858

Oysters at Harvey’s Oyster House

Chesapeake Bay oysters were once everyone’s food. In the 19th century, workers and soldiers consumed shucked-to-order oysters at popular “raw bars,” and small taverns sold fried oysters to families. A new trend of palatial seafood restaurants arose by the 1850s, but none was more famous than Harvey’s Oyster House, an iron-fronted building at Pennsylvania Avenue and 11th Street NW where Abraham Lincoln’s penchant for the signature “steamed oysters” sparked a craze for the dish. Oystermania hit its peak in the mid-1880s, when between 14 million and 20 million bushels were pulled from the Chesapeake Bay.

 

1907

Senate Bean Soup at the Senate dining room

 

1950

A bowl of soup at Thompson’s Restaurant

 

1950

Matzoh ball soup at Duke Zeibert’s

There was a time in Washington when “power lunch” meant a three-martini meeting of minds at Duke Zeibert’s, the city’s swingingest power restaurant. Its tables were packed with the likes of J. Edgar Hoover, Vince Lombardi, Jack Kent Cooke, Larry King and President Bill Clinton, thanks to the joie de vivre carefully cultivated by proprietor David “Duke” Zeibert. The food? It’s now remembered as unremarkable and not delicious and also beside the point: Since Duke Zeibert’s arrival in 1950, patrons have come to accept power dining as a chance to mingle with boldface sorts of people rather than eat star-worthy food. 

 

1953

Prime rib at Blackie’s House of Beef
For decades, critics have made fun of Washington’s expense-account steakhouses — a stereotype that’s rooted in truth. Politicians have long had their favorite clubby hangouts, including Wormley’s Hotel near the White House — a black-owned steakhouse where politicians negotiated an end to the disputed election of 1876 — and the grill room at the Occidental Hotel, which, in 1912, didn’t allow women because the owner planned to cater to “officialdom.” The steakhouse became an ostentatious outlet for the powerful to display their wealth, reaching its apogee with the opening of Blackie’s House of Beef in 1953. The restaurant’s unofficial motto was “You eat beef or you don’t eat nothing” and had a reputation for its well-connected regulars: Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey was known to greet guests at the host stand in the 1960s, while powerful Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.) held court in a dimly lit dining room in the 1980s. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2018/07/06/forbes-declares-navy-yard-one-of-the-12-coolest-neighborhoods-around-the-world/?utm_term=.c75bcbe9a6dd

 

Forbes declares Navy Yard one of the ’12 coolest neighborhoods around the world’

 

Quote

When considering the coolest neighborhoods in the world, one may think of those in cultural hubs such as Barcelona and Athens.

Forbes magazine included such cities on its list, but Washington also landed a spot. The magazine put the District’s Navy Yard neighborhood on its list of “the 12 Coolest Neighborhoods Around the World.”

 

“With its waterfront location, industrial infrastructure and historic roots (it was established in 1799), the Navy Yard — or ‘the Yards’ — has a cool factor that most other D.C. neighborhoods lack,” travel expert Melissa Biggs Bradley told the magazine.

 

The Forbes list, which was not a ranking, included neighborhoods in Seoul, Johannesburg and Cartagena, Colombia. The only other U.S. neighborhood on the list was Chicago’s Pilsen.

 

Citing 3 million square feet of residential and office development, Bradley called Navy Yard “the fastest growing neighborhood in Washington D.C.”

“While the main attraction is still the Nationals’ baseball park, which hosts not only games but also popular events like a craft beer festival, the restaurant scene is gaining a strong following,” the article said.

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Interesting, and very long, article on how Nats Stadium revitalized the area around it. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/sports/nationals-park-brings-growth-worries-to-southeast-washington/?utm_term=.030577cabe80

 

And a video about the Wharf building up the Southeast waterfront.  I went to the Wharf for the first time on Sunday.  It's really nice and impressive, if a bit corporate (which is to be expected given the price tag).  

 

 

Edited July 16, 2018 by PleaseBlitz

[China]

So I saw this article:

 

WHAT WAS 1980S METRO CONSTRUCTION LIKE ON WISCONSIN AVENUE?

 

This is something I am familiar with firsthand, having lived near Wisconsin Ave and gone to Wilson HS, graduating in 1983.  In fact, during construction of the Red Line during my high school years I, along with one of my delinquent friends, snuck into the Tenleytown metro while it was under construction.  The escalators had not been installed yet so there were wooden ladders the construction workers had in place.  We climbed all the way down and walked along the tracks towards Friendship Heights metro for about a mile before getting bored and going back.

[PleaseBlitz]

Really good story on the cleanup of the Potomac and Anacostia rivers. Without this project, it would be impossible to build up the city’s new and vibrant riverfront areas like the Yards and the Wharf.  It’s DC’s biggest infrastructure project since Metro. 

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/from-smelly-to-sparkling-a-27-billion-cleanup-of-the-anacostia-potomac-rivers/2018/07/21/dcd2a75c-8055-11e8-b660-4d0f9f0351f1_story.html?utm_term=.dbd7bcd1eec9

[Chew]

A woman from Baltimore who writes for MTV did a lengthy piece about the DC gogo scene in the late 80s through mid 90s.  She talks about her experience at the Black Hole.    I must've seen Backyard Band at the Hole 50-60 times from 96 - 01

http://www.mtv.com/news/3019154/go-go-forever/

"One fight, goodnight!"
 

Quote

We had made plans to walk the more than 10 treacherous blocks to the show that Saturday autumn night in the Chocolate City. So we walked from my friend Cheryl's building on 14th and Fairmont Streets all the way to The Black Hole, one of the most popular go-go spots in town, strolling past hustlers and the infamous Clifton Terrace projects as we went. We weren't in heels, like most girls going to nightclubs. We wore New Balance tennis shoes with our Guess jeans. At The Black Hole, you had to be prepared to run at any moment.
 

In Washington, D.C.'s 1980s go-go scene, The Black Hole was what CBGB was to punk rock, what The Paradise Garage was to dance music. You couldn't call yourself a true go-go head if you'd never stepped past its hefty bodyguards after wading through the mass of bodies stretching down Georgia Avenue whenever a show was happening. It was a hole in the wall, really — a former car garage that regularly packed in excess of 400 sweaty teenagers. And it was our spot to hear uncut go-go, dance all night, and be seen. Dancing there was the closest thing that a non-churchgoer could find to catching the spirit at a Pentecostal church, and as close to a juke joint as a saved soul could experience. The Black Hole offered some kind of gutter-funk bucket madness that you just had to have. Once you did, you were willing to sneak out the house and walk through murderous blocks to get back to it.

Go-go clubs like The Black Hole could be a safe haven of sorts from the epidemic of violence that would eventually force the NBA's Washington Bullets to change their name to the Washington Wizards in 1997. Even so, it was the height of the crack era, and despite the widely replicated social programs that Mayor Marion Barry created for young people in the city, there were ridiculous amounts of fast money to be had, and territorial rivalries were never far behind. Teenagers from all walks of life, from various parts of the city, ended up at the go-gos, and fights broke out regularly between warring crews who ended up in the same space. Bands would shine the spotlight and stop the music when a fight broke out. Some, like The Junkyard Band, came up with slogans like, “One fight, good night!”

 

Edited July 28, 2018 by Chew

[Kosher Ham]

On 7/17/2018 at 9:31 AM, China said:

So I saw this article:

 

WHAT WAS 1980S METRO CONSTRUCTION LIKE ON WISCONSIN AVENUE?

 

This is something I am familiar with firsthand, having lived near Wisconsin Ave and gone to Wilson HS, graduating in 1983.  In fact, during construction of the Red Line during my high school years I, along with one of my delinquent friends, snuck into the Tenleytown metro while it was under construction.  The escalators had not been installed yet so there were wooden ladders the construction workers had in place.  We climbed all the way down and walked along the tracks towards Friendship Heights metro for about a mile before getting bored and going back.

 

That China dude... always makes me feel old. 

The nostalgia and absurd things we used to do as kids. 

Cops and such knew we were just being kids...slap on the wrist...these days...locking those guys up...at least for an hour or so. 

 

Damn... now Chew is making me feel old also.