D.C. Culture/History Thread

[PleaseBlitz]

22 hours ago, Kosher Ham said:

 

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. 

 

 

 

Maybe you are, like, old. 

 

 

 

[China]

2 hours ago, PleaseBlitz said:

 

Maybe you are, like, old. 

 

 

 

 

Says the guy so old he needs surgery to fix his worn out and failing legs.  

[PleaseBlitz]

6 minutes ago, China said:

 

Says the guy so old he needs surgery to fix his worn out and failing legs.  

 

Repetitive stress ailment from being TOO ****ing awesome. 

[PleaseBlitz]

Maydan was named the #2 new restaurant in the country by Bon Apettit. 

 

http://projects.bonappetit.com/hot10/p/1

 

i haven’t been yet, it’s on the list. 

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/17/donald-trump-washington-dc-poorly-managed-219371

 

Actually, Mr. President, D.C. Is Pretty Great

 

Quote

President Trump picked the wrong week to throw down on the District of Columbia.

On Friday, Trump complained that the city which surrounds his temporary quarters at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was run “poorly” and had inflated the cost of his coveted military parade, forcing him to postpone it.

...

No, Mr. President, the city behind the monuments is far from “poorly” run. In fact—and it pains me as a critic of the government and its leaders to say it—Washington, D.C., functions as well as, or better than, any other major U.S. city.

 

Long list of things DC does as well or better than most other major cities. 

[c slag]

How much did the Stanley Cup champions parade cost?

 

[PleaseBlitz]

10 hours ago, c slag said:

How much did the Stanley Cup champions parade cost?

 

 

About $400,000.  It was split between the team and DC's events fund.

 

[GhostofSparta]

10 hours ago, c slag said:

How much did the Stanley Cup champions parade cost?

 

Most estimates I saw put it at $400,000 tops. Couldn't find hard numbers.

 

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/dc-thinks-stanley-cup-parade-will-cost-up-to-400000/65-564456031

[thebluefood]

Trump's got a lot of nerve throwing shade on the District considering the order of his own house.

[thebluefood]

Map of the District's neighborhoods (via Wikipedia)

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/food/wp/2018/09/13/the-inn-at-little-washington-earns-its-third-michelin-star-a-first-for-the-d-c-region/?utm_term=.dfedbc2454bf

 

The Inn at Little Washington earns its third Michelin star, a first for the D.C. region

 

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There’s an old French adage about the Michelin Guide, the famed little red restaurant rating book: “It takes three generations to get three stars,” the guide’s top rating. It used to be that top European restaurants would be handed down through families, each descendant improving on his father’s work.

 

In the case of chef Patrick O’Connell of the Inn at Little Washington, it took only three years to get three stars. The Michelin Guide announced Thursday that it added a coveted third star to the Inn’s previous designation, making it the first restaurant in the Washington area to earn three stars.

 

“That a kid from South Capitol Street, via Clinton, Maryland, who worked in a Mr. H hamburgers … can teach himself to cook and measure his progress every year against the greatest restaurants in the world, realizing that if he kept at it and [was] committed and willing to sacrifice, [he] could make an achievement like this, it’s like being in the midst of a fairy tale,” O’Connell said.

 

The Michelin Guide’s arrival in Washington three years ago cemented the city’s status as a serious food destination. But with its first three-star restaurant, “it’s clear that Washington now has joined the ranks of the great gastronomic capitals of the world,” said Michael Ellis, the outgoing international director for the Michelin Guides.

 

José Andrés’s Minibar and Aaron Silverman’s Pineapple and Pearls kept their two-star ratings. There were two new additions to the one-star list: Chef Ryan Ratino’s Bresca and Robert Wiedmaier’s Siren, the latter with a kitchen led by executive chef and partner Brian McBride. They are the first Michelin stars for all three chefs. Bresca and Siren joined the previous list of one-star restaurants, all of which maintained their stars: Komi, Métier, Blue Duck Tavern, the Dabney, Fiola, Kinship, Masseria, Plume, Rose’s Luxury, Sushi Taro and Tail Up Goat.

 

 

[SoulSkin]

 

[thebluefood]

One of my ancestors: James Wormley 

 

http://www.blackpast.org/aah/wormley-james-1819-1884

 

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Wormley also became active in Washington, D.C. community politics. On July 21, 1871, Wormley led a successful campaign to persuade Congress to fund the first public school for the city’s African Americans. The school, named after Wormley, was built in Georgetown at 34th and Prospect Streets.  Despite Congress’s allocation local politics delayed the opening of the school until 1885. 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

Not really sure where to put this, but Dan Steinberg wrote a thing today that is pretty awesome.  If you live in or around DC, or root for any of the DC teams, or just have an affinity for the people of the DC Metro area, you should read it.  It's pretty remarkable that a guy that is beloved in this town for being pretty unserious about everything, and started something called the DC Sports Bog, has a vastly better perspective on life in this city than just about every serious journalist, commentator, politician or other dummy with a Twitter account.  

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/09/25/please-keep-nats-out-your-political-screeds-thank-you/?utm_term=.f46d1c9d21c7

 

Quote

There’s a school of thought that everything is inherently political, which means everything in sports is inherently political, and I’m not sure I disagree. From revenue distribution to labor battles to stadium financing to racial and gender relations, sports are jam-packed with the sort of fraught larger issues that animate our most partisan battles.

 

And yet, I don’t think rooting for the Nationals is an inherently political decision. That’s just, like, going to Bethesda Bagels, or walking around Hains Point, or appreciating Ledo Pizza, or visiting the Delaware shore. It’s something you do when you live in and care about Washington, the real place where Washingtonians live because everyone lives somewhere, not the downtown theater of wicked partisan maneuvering the rest of the country imagines when they hear “Washington.”

 

So I always physically cringe when I read those stories about the Nats uniting divided Washington, or the Nats paralyzing the hallways of Capitol Hill, or the Nats bringing high-powered Democrats and Republicans together. Those fans exist, but that’s not whom I think of when I think of Nats fans. I think about my general practitioner, who wears his Nats jersey to work; or the retired librarian at my older daughter’s elementary school, who had the largest collection of Nats bobbleheads I’ve seen; or the Nats-loving music director at my synagogue who rides his bike to games; or the Sad Dads I sometimes meet at games, who are bureaucrats or nonprofit workers or tech guys brought together by their shared memories of Nick Johnson.

 

Well, this week appeared the latest such story to make me physically cringe, from Deadspin, about a certain segment of politically conservative Nats fans. It was prompted, in a sense, by the Brett Kavanaugh nomination, but my feelings about it have nothing much to do with Kavanaugh.

 

“For the men who make respectable livings in the nation’s capital advancing the self-serving interests of powerful reactionaries, caring about Washington’s underachieving baseball team is as much a shared article of faith as disdain for the Clean Air Act,” read the item, which took aim at both famous conservative Nats fans (like the late Charles Krauthammer) and unfamous people with whom I’m unfamiliar. “The stagey and shallow and inauthentic nature of elite D.C. Nats fandom owes a lot to how stagey and shallow and inauthentic powerful D.C. people tend to seem,” the item later argued.

 

That's the setup for a a remarkably well-written and even-keeled, yet nevertheless savage, takedown of the above-linked dumb-as-**** article from some random Deadspin writer. 

 

Quote

Here’s what I say to that: Pfffffffttttttttt. Are there stagey and shallow and inauthentic Nats fans? I’m pretty sure there are, same as for every sports franchise. Is Kavanaugh a big Nats fan? He is, same way he roots for Maryland basketball, and for the Caps, whose owner hosted a Hillary Clinton fundraiser. Would a lifelong Washingtonian be somehow more authentic if he didn’t root for local teams?

 

More importantly, do the men in service of powerful reactionaries unduly care about “Washington’s underachieving baseball team?” Guys, I don’t know. I know one of my regular readers is a Nats-loving writer for The Nation, and that at the last game I attended my daughter invited the daughter of two labor organizers, and that the grandfather of another of her friends is another Nats-loving labor organizer.

 

But that's all besides the point, because the point is that Nats fans aren't really making some sort of political declaration (shallow or otherwise) by expressing frustration over Spring Training camels. They're just living in Washington. It's like dismissing “elite” Yankees fans as wolves of Wall Street, or “elite” Lakers fans as Hollywood producers, or “elite” Astros fans as oil barons. Those are caricatures, designed to elicit a weird emotional response. Real life has texture and nuance.

 

Rooting for the Redskins has in some ways been tainted by politics, because so much of the debate over the team’s name broke down along party lines. That’s sad, but it happened. That hasn’t happened with Nats fandom. I hope it doesn’t. People root for the Nats because they live in or feel loyalty to Washington, and yes, some of those people might be conservative functionaries, and some more might be liberal functionaries, and it isn’t even that the Nats can bring them together, because barf. It’s that their politics don’t matter. People who live in a place often like things rooted in that place; you might as well slam Bethesda Bagels or Ledo Pizza for having customers either conservative, or liberal, or both.

 

Sports fandom isn’t some beautiful, pure, politics-free state of bliss. But I do think caring about the stupid local baseball team hasn’t yet become a political statement; that Brett Kavanaugh and my real-state agent pal in Ashburn cheering for the same team is an accident of geography that says nothing about the franchise; and that calling “elite” Nats fans “stagey and shallow and inauthentic” probably feels good but just adds to the trope of D.C. as a vile swamp, which seems to make everyone (on both sides!) happy, everyone except the mostly normal people who actually live here.

 

[thebluefood]

WETA-TV goes on the air, Oct. 2, 1961 from Yorktown HS

 

https://watch.weta.org/video/weta-specials-wetas-first-broadcast-a-new-era-1961/

[PleaseBlitz]

The Washingtonian released a sneak peak at it's top restaurants for 2019.

 

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/01/24/minibar-is-the-best-restaurant-in-washington/

 

Quote

1. Minibar At José Andrés’s newly redone tasting room, chef Jorge Hernandez leads a 28-odd-dish progression that is surprising, thrilling, and above all, very delicious. 

2. The Dabney Jeremiah Langhorne uses mid-Atlantic and Southern flavors as a springboard, then makes magic in his Shaw restaurant’s giant hearth. 

3. The Inn at Little Washington For lovers of luxe mod-American dining and whimsical touches—a four-star popsicle, truffle-laden popcorn—there is no better place to celebrate than Patrick O’Connell’s Rappahannock County hideaway.

4. Sushi Nakazawa Its Trump Hotel location might deter some, but they’re missing out on the city’s best sushi experience, an all-nigiri omakase.  

5. Tail Up Goat We’ve never had a dull meal in this cozy Adams Morgan dining room run by three Komi vets. 

6. Pineapple and Pearls Tasting menus can sometimes feel like Sunday mass. Aaron Silverman’s Capitol Hill prix fixe place is the opposite—unfussy and fun. 

 

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.washingtonian.com/2019/02/27/here-are-the-dc-area-semi-finalists-for-the-james-beard-awards/

 

Quote

The James Beard Foundation just released its list of semi-finalists for their annual awards (the so-called Oscars of the food world). The actual finalists will be announced March 27, and the awards will be handed out in Chicago on May 6. 

 

The DC area makes a good showing—perhaps promising for the finale. In contention for the Best New Restaurant category are Elle, the Mount Pleasant bakery/cafe/restaurant, and Spoken English, Erik Bruner-Yang’s standing-only hideaway inside Adams Morgan’s Line hotel. Other biggies in the mix include Rasika’s Vikram Sunderam and Fiola’s Fabio Trabocchi, who are both up for Outstanding Chef and who have each taken home awards in the past. Brothers and Sisters cake master Pichet Ong is up for Outstanding Pastry Chef. Kith and Kin’s Kwame Onwuachi is a semi-finalist for Rising Star Chef. Veterans Komi and Jaleo are both possibilities for Outstanding Restaurant. Pizzeria Paradiso’s Ruth Gresser has a shot at Outstanding Restaurateur. And Marcel’s is in play for an Outstanding Service Award, along with a happy wild card—Falls Church’s Peking Gourmet Inn. 

 

The Shaw ****tail tasting room/bar the Columbia Room is a contender for Outstanding Bar Program, and Adams Morgan’s Tail Up Goat, whose quirky-cool beverage list is overseen by Bill Jensen, is up for Outstanding Wine Program. 

 

And of course, there are plenty of talented local chefs in the Best Chef: Mid-Atlantic category, including Chloe’s Haidar Karoum and Sweet Home Cafe’s Jerome Grant, plus Centrolina’s Amy Brandwein and Bad Saint’s Tom Cunanan, who were both nominated for the award last year. 

 

[HOF44]

I've been to Rasika, Kith and Kin and Peking Gourmet Inn.  Gotta get out more.  

[PleaseBlitz]

From that list, I've been to Rasika (West End, like 15 times), Trabocchi's Fiola Mare and Del Mar, Komi, Jaleo, Pizzaria Paridiso, Marcel's, Kith & Kin, the Columbia Room and Centrolina.  

 

It's actually a really surprising list.  I haven't been to Jaleo in awhile, and I am a huge Jose Andres fan, but Jaleo is not in my top 20 in DC right now.  Del Mar is okay, but nothing to write home about.  I do agree that the service at Marcel's is phenomenal and the Columbia room is the best bar in DC purely in terms of the quality of their ****tails. 

[HOF44]

5 minutes ago, PleaseBlitz said:

From that list, I've been to Rasika (West End, like 15 times), Trabocchi's Fiola Mare and Del Mar, Komi, Jaleo, Pizzaria Paridiso, Marcel's, Kith & Kin, the Columbia Room and Centrolina.  

 

It's actually a really surprising list.  I haven't been to Jaleo in awhile, and I am a huge Jose Andres fan, but Jaleo is not in my top 20 in DC right now.  Del Mar is okay, but nothing to write home about.  I do agree that the service at Marcel's is phenomenal and the Columbia room is the best bar in DC purely in terms of the quality of their ****tails. 

I LOVE the fried Spinach App thing they have at Rasika, one of the best things ever.  You gotta make it over to Peking Gourmet Inn.  Get the Duck, and then toffee peaches for dessert.  I want to go to Fiola Mare next.  

Edited February 28, 2019 by HOF44

[PleaseBlitz]

14 minutes ago, HOF44 said:

I LOVE the fried Spinach App thing they have at Rasika, one of the best things ever.  You gotta make it over to Peking Gourmet Inn.  Get the Duck, and then toffee peaches for dessert.  I want to go to Fiola Mare next.  

 

Yes, the Palak Chat.  Rasika is right by my office, so I go there for lunch quite a bit (on my firm's dime).  I always make sure the table gets 1 order of Palak Chat PER PERSON.  

 

I've heard that there is an amazing Chinese place in Falls Church, so I'm assuming it is this place.  I've been meaning to check it out for a long time but .... well, it's in Falls Church.

[PleaseBlitz]

Went to Maple ave in Vienna tonight. On a 1-10 scale, it’s a 8.5. That makes it tied for the best restaurant I’ve been to in NoVa (with Trummers). 

[PleaseBlitz]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/chuck-schumer-says-dc-statehood-is-a-priority-a-first-for-senate-democrats/2019/03/07/4b490ea2-4107-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html?utm_term=.fc2d48e93019

 

Charles Schumer says D.C. statehood is a priority, a first for Senate Democrats

 

Quote

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday made D.C. statehood a priority for the Democratic caucus for the first time.

 

Schumer touted statehood among his top three ways to bolster voting rights, a day before the House is expected to pass a sweeping resolution on the topic that includes a call to make the District the 51st state. It would be the first time either chamber of Congress has endorsed D.C. statehood.

 

“Even though we don’t talk about it enough, we have a population larger than two states living here in Washington, D.C., without full congressional representation,” Schumer said in a Senate floor speech Thursday.

 

[China]

Interesting how word of mouth stories differ from real history.  I grew up in NW DC.  When I was growing up we would routinely go down Massachusetts Avenue past Embassy Row on our way to pick up my father at the Dept. of Labor on our way out of town for the weekend.  On our way we would pass the Miller House.  I was told that the cat sculptures were in commemoration of a cat that had woken up the owner's and saved them during a fire.

 

  

 

The truth is more convoluted.  There was a fire at the house, but that was much later.  It turns out that because Miller had been a Naval officer, the house includes a number of maritime architectural accents.  Among them is the cat on the ledge facing Massachusetts Avenue, which is intended to depict a ship’s cat.  Ship cats were a common feature on many trading, exploration, and naval ships of that time. The cats not only offered companionship to sailors who could be away from home for long periods, but would catch mice and rats aboard the ship, which could otherwise cause damage to ropes, woodwork and other parts of the ship, as well as damage to the cargo and provisions the ship was carrying. The ship cats could also be integral to preventing the spread of disease, which could be carried by the rats and mice, to other parts of the world.

[PleaseBlitz]

This story is wild.  

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/the-music-will-go-on-t-mobile-ceo-says-go-go-music-will-return-after-complaint-silenced-a-dc-store/2019/04/10/ceab190a-5ba8-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html?utm_term=.058c8d26618d

 

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The go-go music outside an electronics store in the Shaw neighborhood of D.C. returned Wednesday after days of protests and outrage from residents and elected officials.

 

John Legere, chief executive of T-Mobile U.S., said in a tweet to The Washington Post that he “looked into this issue myself and the music should NOT stop in D.C.!”

 

 

The story that led up to this:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/wheres-my-go-go-music-residents-say-turn-up-the-music-after-a-complaint-silenced-a-dc-intersection/2019/04/09/fde12318-5af4-11e9-9625-01d48d50ef75_story.html?utm_term=.449a73c83408

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Central Communications, a Metro PCS vendor on the corner of Seventh Street and Florida Avenue NW, has become ground zero in what some call the District’s latest culture war.

 

Days of protests and a town hall have sprung up to address issues at its root: gentrification and a growing feeling that D.C. culture is being eroded.

 

About a month ago, a resident of a nearby luxury apartment complex, the Shay, complained to T-Mobile about the loud thrum of go-go emanating from the store. The cellular company asked Central Communications’ owner, Donald Campbell, to “tone it down,” Campbell said.

Employees tried turning down the volume and playing softer, jazzier strains of go-go. But about a month ago, as first reported by DCist, the speakers that usually sat outside the Shaw neighborhood store were unplugged and moved inside.

 

“That was the day the music died,” said Julie Guyot, 47, who lives in the neighborhood. “I walk my children to school every day, and we pass this shop every day, and we move to that go-go as we cross the street because this is the beat of D.C. I don’t understand how one person’s discomfort is enough to trump the will of the people in this community.”

Residents who were used to the loud corner beat were confused at first. They thought the store had closed. Those who noticed the shop was still open walked in to demand the business put the music back on, employees said. But, the workers told them, there was little they could do.

Then, on Sunday, the hashtag #DontMuteDC was born.

 

Julien Broomfield, a senior at nearby Howard University, published a series of tweets, including a video contrasting the quiet outside the store with the lively music of a street festival nearby.

 

The tweet was shared thousands of times. An online petition titled “Don’t Mute DC’s Go-Go Music and Culture” followed. As of Tuesday afternoon, it had been signed by more than 44,000 people.

 

Campbell has received dozens of calls from city officials, journalists and D.C. activists. On Monday, a protest convened outside the store’s front door.

 

Much more at both links.  Like, the Mayor and the freaking CEO of T-Mobile got involved.