Pet Worth: This Month's Highly Adoptable Animals
New Whole Foods to Open Up Exactly Where it is Needed Least
Jack Evans Hops Aboard a SmartBike at Bike Lane Unveiling
The Weekly Feed: Experimentation Edition
Morning Roundup: Change Edition
Good morning, Washington. Make it to the polls yesterday? If so, we hope you did so before the sun went down — it got cold in a hurry last night, as the area rapidly moved from warmer-than-usual temps to colder-than-usual ones. CapitalWeather is saying that the weekend should be warmer, at least.
Election 2007: The results are in, and it looks like it was a good night for Virginia's Democrats. The Dems picked up four seats in the Senate, giving them control of that chamber. They also gained three house seats, leaving the House of Delegates in Republican hands by a margin of just under a dozen. The Post has a nifty Flash graphic showing how things shook out. The most notable local race was probably that of Republican incumbent Jeannemarie Devolites Davis, wife of Congressman Tom Davis, who lost her state senate seat to challenger Chap Peterson.
Maryland held elections too, of course, although not for any non-local offices. You can find Maryland results here.
Children's Museum Official Arrested For Child Porn: Via WTOP, the AP reports that Robert A. Singer, the spokesman for the National Children's Museum, has been arrested in Falls Church on charges of distributing child pornography. Singer allegedly contacted what he thought to be a mother and her daughter over the internet, then sent them pornographic images involving children. But, like every stranger on the internet, his IM partner proved to be a federal agent. The Children's Museum, which has been closed since 2004 for renovations pending a 2012 reopening in Maryland, has issued a statement indicating that Singer will be suspended and barred from the property until his legal situation is resolved.
Briefly Noted: Arrest made in fiery strip club assault... Head-on collision in Charles County leaves threefour teens dead, three two other people injured... Committee amends Gov. O'Malley's tax proposal into less-progressive form, allows slots referendum to proceed... Doctor denies making sex tapes of Naval Academy midshipmen... Four men arrested for Gaithersburg stabbing...
This Day In DCist: One year ago we held forth on mumbo sauce and gave NextBus a try. Two years ago PostSecret was getting turned into a book and we kicked off our epic quest for the District's best burger.
Image posted to DCist Photos by Flickr user outdoor_type
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"The Children's Museum, which has been closed since 2004 for renovations"
Unless Abdo's got some plans for Senate Square that I'm not aware of, the museum is just plain closed. It may re-open somewhere else (L'Enfent Plaza has been mentioned, I believe) but it sure ain't going to be re-opened were it was, unless it will be repurposed as a museum to overpriced condos in "emerging" neighborhoods. Which, come to think of it, would be a lot more appropriate for this town than a Madam Toussauds.
Hmm. The WTOP story certainly makes it sound like it's just a matter of renovation and rebranding. Got a link indicating that they're moving? I'll update the post if necessary.
its going to be in National Harbor.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/26/AR2007072602045.html?hpid=moreheadlines
Thanks, hungeegirl.
Well, like I said, the only thing left of the old museum is condos now:
http://www.senatesquaretowers.com/
That's too bad for the District that it's moving to National Harbor. What an awful fumble by our government. This should have been part of the baseball stadium neighborhood plans. It's a shame that we'll give the Nats and Abe Pollin hundreds of millions of dollars, but can't come up with some money to secure a museum like this that could have gone a long way towards making the Ballpark neighborhood a 365-day a year center.
aids cannon was on the right track: the Good Guys burning perp was Romanian, not Russian. Need to get your accents right.
The Romanian Embassy isn't too far from there, either.
the romanian language sounds nothing like the russian one. I doubt accents in English are much alike.
My favorite quote was from Jeannemarie Davis in Fairfax who lost yesterday. She said something like, "It just isn't a good year to be a Republican." hahaha No shit.
Capital Children's Museum at 800 Third Street, NE was a horror. The building - formerly some kind of Catholic residential facility - leaked like a sieve and never got the repairs and maintenance it needed. Charismatic founder Ann Lewin charmed massive infusions of direct federal pork out of Congress and obtained some decent touring exhibits, but permanent exhibits and programs were a disaster.
CCM was Fort Apache off H Street. Two burly gents guarded each end of a drive-in "airlock" where Volvo wagons with MD and VA plates would enter, drop off kids, and proceed to the fenced parking lot. There were some token programs with local kids - grant-funded - but little real community involvement until a Charter School moved in. PG County is welcome to it.
I used to take my kids to the CCM before it closed (and I had gone there and to the original location on the other side of the Hill in the early 1970's). While it was tattered around the edges, there was and is no replacement for what it meant. Sure there are museums, but there is no where to take kids on a crappy weather day where you are sure that they will have fun and perhaps even learn something.
I had thought part of the ABDO deal was the assurnace of a locationa t L'Enfant Plaza? What happened to that? Why not the Arts and Industries Building on the Mall?
Taking the now, National Children's Museum out of the District is a bad choice on so many levels.
aids cannon was on the right track: the Good Guys burning perp was Romanian, not Russian. Need to get your accents right.
Ah, their accents are too similar to tell apart. The best way to tell is that Romanians generally smell like boiled onions. Not because any sort of genetic flaw, mind you; they just generally REALLY like boiled onions.
You are not going to have a children's museum in any city and not have it include provisions for suburbanites. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have them, though. I think if you looked at the boards of most of the local museums you'd find that they are typically filled with people that live in the suburbs -- as are their membership. If you are a museum you have to at some level attract the money. And the visitors. And the silly war against the suburbs is just that: silly. And doesn't take into account the modern realities of this region. Most of the District itself was developed as suburban. Following the same patterns of growth and development that Bethesda and McLean did -- build transportation to an area, sell land, build houses. And families, like it or not, have been following that tip for decades now. That doesn't mean the central city can't still be a gathering point. In fact it should be. And the loss of the children's museum is a real shame. Families and kids need more than just free museums to entice them and there are fantastic children's museums in every major city in the middle Atlantic: Port Discovery in Baltimore, and the Please Touch Museum in Philly. It's not a good thing that we don't have something comparable. My favorite childhood memories are going to museums in Chicago (from the far western suburbs), including the very family-oriented, hands-on Museum of Science and Industry and then getting a special dinner out with my family (probably at some place like the Hard Rock Cafe -- hey it was the 80s!). That's money in the coffers for the city of Chicago. Better for the central city to be attracting money in then watching it all stay on the outside.
DC Guy: Even on a rainy day there was no excuse for CCM's awful, stereotyped and just plain wrong Mexico exhibit and its ilk. CCM was nowhere near the SF Exploratorium or Brooklyn Children's Museum. Take kids to the Smithsonian - all SI museums have children's programs - or little-known museums like the Textile Museum or the Bead Museum, which are less touchy-feely but cool enough to keep kids minds occupied.
Mike,
I can't disagree with you on the Mexico "exhibit". However, nothing in this region compares to the Exploratorium or the BCM. My point is that as the Nation's Capital, it is a travesty to not even have something that is remotely close.
On your other suggestions, I would submit that you have never had a 2 or 3 year old boy, otherwise you would never suggest taking him to the Bead Museum or Textile Museum. While the SI has children's programs, many of the exhibits are worn and cannot sustain multiple visits over the course of a winter. Further, many are not age appropriate for the younger set.
Sadly the best we have right now is the second floor room a the National Building Museum, and I think that is closing too (the room, not the museum).
DC 1974: Nothing wrong with including suburbanites, just in actively excluding city kids, like CCM did, except for a few city kids in a few grant-supported programs.
It is not enough to have an idea for a children's museum. If you can't do it adequately, call it a play center and buy some toys. CCM was totally inadequate as a museum or educational facility.
DC Guy: Nope, I never took a 2-or 3-year-old to a museum. A museum is over-kill for a 2- or 3-year-old. Any activity a museum may add for kids that young can be found elsewhere - a good library system will schedule events for kids of that age so families will get in the habit of using their facilities. Lots of churches and community centers have play groups for 2- and 3-year-olds.
Slightly older kids will use an appropriate museum to direct their curiosity in a way they can't at home or school. CCM never came close to adequately providing the means for this. Kids can get mis-educated elsewhere; they don’t need to have erroneous information reinforced by something calling itself a museum.
It would be great if DC had a children’s museum, but CCM was one in name only.
And that assumes DC has an adaquate library system, or DC Parks and Rec system (which it doesn't).
Again, the CCm was good for some limited purposes, which as of now, are completely void in the city and region.
DC Guy: Some DCPL branches are good, and the Arlington Public Library is excellent for families. Fairfax has a great parks and rec system, with wonderful activities, and they are pretty cheap.
Also:
Discovery Creek Children’s Museum in DC
Chesapeake Children’s Museum in Annapolis, MD
Port Discovery in Baltimore (seems pretty commercial to me)
Shenandoah Valley Discovery Museum in Winchester, VA
Virginia Discovery Museum in Charlottesville, VA
A science museum for kids, Port Science, is supposed to open in NoVA, but I don't know the details.
Appreciate the tips (and we have been to almost all of the places you listed), however with the exception of Discovery Creek, none of those are in the District, and further Discovery Creek doesn't provide much of an option for bad weather days.
All of this continues to underscore my point that the lack of this kind of facility in the District is a major void for residents.
And you are right, some of the DCPL branches are ok, but it is spotty as to the hours of operation and/or programming.
hopefully not sounding stupid here but (I'll try), "good morning Washington did you make it to the polls?". Did we have an election I missed in the District? Just curious....