Results tagged “adamsmorgan>”

If you've been up at the intersection of 18th Street and Columbia Road NW today, you've no doubt noticed the freestanding scaffolding and truck parked there on the plaza. No, it's not construction beginning on the controversial plaza sculpture (that's been tabled for the moment), but rather a temporary art installation — or advertisement, depending upon your level of cynicism — from HBO and their "Imagine" project.

D.C. taxicab drivers made good on their promise to boycott the busy Adams Morgan nightlife district between the hours of 1 a.m and 4 a.m. on Saturday night. WJLA covers the reaction, and at least one friend of DCist told us he nearly managed to flag down a taxi on Columbia Rd. during that time, but then the driver, apparently suddenly remembering the strike, abruptly pulled away before he could enter the cab.

   

Greater Greater Washington has been following the selection process for a planned public art installation that's going in at the northeast corner of 18th and Columbia Road for at least a few months now, so we tip our hats to them for first drawing our attention to it. Despite the call for artists having been initiated over a year ago, a list of semi-finalists having been selected back in March, a community survey posted online at the end of April, and a decision on the artist made in June, the thing simply managed to go largely under our radar until Friday, when GGW posted an announcement that the selection had been finalized. The chosen artist, James Simon, is planning a large set piece of statues called "The Bicycle Musician," depicting a musician playing a guitar while perched on a bicycle, with a little dog looking up at him. It hasn't been a popular choice with everyone. Writes David Alpert:

Many residents dislike the piece, and KCA President Denis James editorialized against it. It was my least favorite of the three, as well, and doesn't provide seating while the other two do. In our poll, it came in last.

Update: Washington City Paper's Tim Carman followed up with Ray's Owner Michael Landrum, who told Carman that there are no plans to open a Hell Burger in Adams Morgan. He chalks up the chatter to his business relationship with property owner Wilma Roumel, who he is assisting with modernizing the space. However, he is not ruling out a location there in the future.

                     

The number of people at the corner of 18th and Columbia Tuesday night looked more like what you'd expect on a Saturday night. Except that it was as bright as day. From around 9 p.m. to well beyond midnight, a sizable crowd gathered on the sidewalks that weren't in use by the teeming film crew to get a close-up view of the complexities involved in making a big-budget film.

Mayor Fenty, Chief Lanier and Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham today showed off the new Closed Circuit Television camera that's been installed at Kalorama Road and Champlain Street NW. The intersection has been the site of several recent violent crimes, including an officer involved shooting in which a suspect was fatally shot and two police officers were injured. "This technology is instrumental to our work as we continue to fight crime, and make our neighborhoods safe," Mayor Fenty said in a statement. Does the camera make you feel safer at that corner/in that tunnel, Adams Morgan residents?

The Going Out Gurus are reporting that two Adams Morgan bars, Bossa Bistro & Lounge and Bobby Lew's Saloon, have had their liquor licenses revoked by the D.C. Alcohol Control Board for low food sales. Both bars had restaurant-class licenses, which require 45 percent of gross receipts to be derived from food sales. Neither establishment has ever been in trouble regarding their liquor licenses before, but it's unclear what will happen now, as the board seems bent on sticking to the letter of the law and making an example out of the two.

D.C. police have released surveillance video of an armed robbery perpetrated on Wednesday, March 11 at 10:24 a.m. p.m. at Metro Wine and Spirits, in the 1700 block of Columbia Road NW. FOX 5 reports that four businesses have been robbed in the same block in the last two weeks: Crumbs and Coffee, Casa Lebrato, and Banco National were all also robbed recently.

On top of the smoking manholes and subsequent road closures, Adams Morgan is now facing a water main break at 17th and Euclid Streets NW. WASA has reported that 100 customers are affected by the outage in the area. No word on whether the underground fire that caused the smoke had any effect on the water main.

In what will surely come as a relief to DCist readers, the Examiner's Michael Neibauer reports this morning that the Adams Morgan Taxi Stand pilot program has been torpedoed after less than three months. What's especially interesting is that the program was apparently discontinued by DDOT all the way back in December, though as far as we know, the agency never announced that change. DDOT issued formal notice on Friday that the 90-day pilot program has been postponed.

WTOP's Mark Segraves has a nice little scoop—apparently President-elect Barack Obama played basketball at the Marie Reed Community Learning Center in Adams Morgan on Sunday. According to his spokesperson, he left the Hay Adams Hotel at 5:15 p.m. and and played basketball for 45 minutes. But wouldn't the center have been closed at that hour? Indeed, but Mayor Adrian Fenty arranged for it to be opened for the president-elect.

A little more than three weeks ago, DCist checked in with how the new taxi stands on 18th Street in Adams Morgan were faring -- the findings were fairly disappointing. Have things gotten any better? In no uncertain terms: not really. A tipster let us know that trying to get a cab at a stand around 1:30 a.m. "was like trying to get a cab from Union Station after Thanksgiving" and that more than one cab driver wouldn't take a party of four into the busy corridor in order to avoid the fray. With temperatures bordering on the teens last night, getting people in and out of cabs efficiently is of paramount importance -- in hindsight, the brink of winter was probably not the best season to work out the predictable logistical kinks with this idea.

You already knew about the new Ciculator route planned for Adams Morgan, which looks set to replace the 25 cent 98 "link" route as early as March. The Examiner reports today that another new Circulator route, this time running from Union Station to the brand new Capitol Visitor Center to Nationals Park, is also in the works. This Circulator route would replace the N22 Metrobus route. Metro's board meets on Thursday, and plans to discuss the proposed routes then. Both new lines, if approved, would begin March 30.

As the Going Out Gurus reported last Friday, this past weekend marked the beginning of the long-awaited Adams Morgan Taxi Stand pilot program. As Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham published on his web site, the program is designed to reduce the killer traffic congestion on the 18th Street nightlife corridor on weekend nights.

So sayeth The Examiner, which has Ward 1 Council member and Metro board member Jim Graham confirming that the buses have already been ordered and are scheduled to arrive in March. The new Circulator route is intended to replace the 98 bus, the 25 cent shortbus link that connects U Street to 18th Street. The $1 Circulator will go much farther than the 98, and will include parts of K Street, U Street, up through Adams Morgan and Woodley Park as well as Columbia Heights - we'll be excited to check out an exact route map when it's ready. There's a public hearing set for Wednesday, Nov. 19 about canceling the 98 bus, at 600 5th Street NW at 6:30 p.m.

Paul Ruppert, via his kickass arts-focused real estate blog, says Kokopooli's is for sale:

Commercial condos in the heart of Adams Morgan that are currently operating as the Kokopoolis Nightclub. Units 1 and 2 have been combined totaling 2,931 square feet. The auction includes the business and all the contents: 10 televisions, 1 projector, 3 commercial refrigerators, commercial deep fryer, 8 regulation sized pool tables, furniture, 2 refrigerators with 8 keg capacity, surround sound stereo, full inventory of liquor plus many other items in the nightclub. The ABC license is a “Retailer CR 01” and is within the Adams Morgan Moratorium Zone. The unit has exposed brick, open floor plan, 2 entrance doors, 2 bathrooms, office, commercial kitchen, popcorn machine and full complement of glasses and plates. All liquor and food licenses are active and also convey with the sale.

District police arrested a teenager on Thursday in connection with an attack on three gay men in Adams Morgan this summer. The teen's identity has not been released since he is a juvenile. The attack is considered a hate crime, according to a report from the Washington Blade. The MPD's announcement of the arrest -- released as a statement last night -- said the teen is charged with aggravated assault.

Crooked Beat Records on 18th Street in Adams Morgan had some bad luck this past week, flooding numerous times. In an email last night, owner Bill Daly said these were the 21st and 22nd water-related problems they've had at the location since 2002. Daly said they're still open and have no plans to close, but have had enough of the flooding and are now looking for a new location.

We mentioned it briefly at the end of the day yesterday and it's been reported several other places since then, but we wanted to share some more details on how our good friend Brian Beutler was shot early Wednesday morning in Adams Morgan. Brian, 25, is the Washington Correspondent for the Media Consortium, a network of progressive news organizations like Mother Jones and the American Prospect. He's being described as a "well known liberal blogger" and while that's not incorrect, Brian is a hardnosed reporter. You can read some of his work here.

When The Black Squirrel opened in late February, it seemed at first glance that the new dining spot would be a standout among the restaurants and bars along Adams Morgan's 18th Street strip. An early review by the Washington Post was positive and it appeared that diners in the area had a place that would provide food as enticing as their extensive beer list.

Yesterday City Desk pointed us to the YouTube video above concerning something that always fires up District residents -- parking. The video in question creatively makes a point that's long been a reality for residents of Adams Morgan and its surrounding neighborhoods -- people who go out in Adams Morgan tend to park pretty much anywhere they want.

        

We can hardly believe it ourselves, but the Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan celebrated its grand opening this morning. The ribbon cutting ceremony for the store, only about five years in the making, took place at a little after 10:30 a.m., with Mayor Adrian Fenty, Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham, and countless Harris Teeter officials on hand to deliver run of the mill remarks and welcome to the store to the neighborhood.

In the department of hey, that's a really friggin' good idea, Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham put up an announcement late yesterday that the D.C. Council unanimously passed an emergency bill Tuesday to create a pilot taxi zone in Adams Morgan.

The pilot taxi zone will require taxis to report to a central location to pick up riders rather than drive through the streets to find their fares. Hack inspectors will be involved in enforcing this program.

It's a hard act to follow, opening a bar where the Common Share used to be. The Common Share closed last September when it was sold by its owners, and the Adams Morgan community's outpouring of grief at the closing was truly memorable. It turns out that people attach a lot of sentimentality to $2 beers and a divey atmosphere, but after a few months of renovations, the new owners have reopened the old space, now named Blaguard.

In yet another sign that the ridiculously long-awaited Harris Teeter grocery store in Adams Morgan is actually going to open, Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham has posted a notice on his web site that the store will hold a Job Fair on January 9 at the Columbia Heights Community Center on Girard St. NW. Both full-time and part-time jobs at the Harris Teeter are available, and applicants are asked to bring copies of their resumes and be prepared to interview that day. (hat tip: City Desk)

This past Friday night and with little fanfare, Alberto’s in Dupont Circle restarted its ovens and pizza-making operations, less than four months after a fire seriously damaged the P street location and left a pizza shaped hole in many pizza lovers' hearts. The same fire also forced the closure of the DJ Hut located above Alberto’s and the Subway next door, both of which remain closed.

Adams Morgan residents on the streets surrounding the new Harris Teeter received official notice at the end of last week that the District Department of Transportation is changing the flow of traffic to accommodate the anticipated increase in cars on the surrounding residential streets. As it stands right now, all three streets that bound the block containing the store are two-way thoroughfares. As of January 21, they'll all become one-way. As detailed in the letter:

This is actually the first snow-covered Photo of the Day for this season. Clearly I was just waiting for something monumental. Oh, what do you want? It's Monday. And Flickr user *Toshio* does, in fact, have an impressive photo here -- I'm even more surprised by daytime photos of D.C. cultural sites that don't have a single person in sight. EXIF. Speaking of impressive, last night we reached 15,000 photos in the DCist Flickr...

A new report from the Brookings Institution shows that the D.C. metro area has the most “walkable places” per capita of any American city -- one for every 264,000 people, beating out even New York City for walkability. Visiting Fellow Christopher B. Leinberger says that the Washington region could serve as the model for the direction the country’s other metro areas are heading over the next generation. The Associated Press already picked up on the...

A recent spate of armed robberies and muggings in Adams Morgan prompted Jonathon and Laura Lunardi to launch a new community website. AdamsMorganCrime.org aims to connect residents to discuss and solve crime issues in the neighborhood. Residents are invited to register on the site and share their stories in the forum, namely details on where and when crime happens in the neighborhood. The site is just getting off the ground, so it's difficult to tell...