Melody Records, a fixture of Dupont Circle for 34 years, announced yesterday it is closing its doors. more ›

Just getting word that D.C. Public Schools will be closed tomorrow, January 27. According to Office of the Chancellor, administrative offices will follow the schedule of the D.C. government, which will also be closed for non-essential personnel tomorrow. more ›

The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that the Walt Disney Co. plans to shutter most of its ESPN Zone stores, and the Wall Street Journal has since confirmed that among those to close will be the Washington, D.C. and Baltimore locations. more ›

The Federal Center SW Metro station has been evacuated and temporarily closed due to a report of smoke inside the station. WMATA has established shuttle bus service around the closure. The smoke is believed to have been caused by a burned-out lighting fixture near the station platform. No injuries have been reported, but D.C. Fire/EMS is still on the scene investigating. Stay tuned. UPDATE 2:30 p.m. WMATA reports the station has re-opened. more ›

The downtown location of Gifford's Ice Cream (555 11th Street NW) hopes to reopen in about a week, following a temporary closure ordered by the D.C. Dept. of Health. more ›

The Mt. Pleasant Interim Library will reopen on Saturday, May 15, following the completion of repairs to a wall next to the building's rear exit, library officials announced. more ›

Capitol Hill neighborhood newspaper Voice of the Hill has announced that it will cease publication effective immediately, citing a decline in advertising revenue. more ›

On Friday, the District of Columbia celebrates Emancipation Day, commemorating the date in 1862 when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Compensated Emancipation Act -- an act which freed the slaves of the District of Columbia about nine months before the Emancipation Proclamation. The city has only been officially celebrating Emancipation Day since 2005. It's also the only holiday observed by the D.C. government that is not also observed by the federal government, and every year, there's inevitable confusion about what parts of the city will be functioning like normal and which will be closed. Here's how it breaks down: more ›

The massive Nuclear Summit heading to the Washington Convention Center next week is bringing along with it major road closures, barricades, checkpoints, bus rerouting, the shuttering of an entire Metro station, and all sorts of other headaches for the Mt. Vernon Square, Shaw and Chinatown neighborhoods. For all the specific details on what will be closed and when, see our earlier post and map. more ›

Satirical newspaper The Onion plans to scale back its presence in Washington, D.C. after Friday, shutting down the web version of the localized A.V. Club and significantly scaling back its local coverage in the print edition. more ›

Heads up, Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge users. The bridge is going to be closed Thursday morning for up to 2 hours to allow a water vessel to pass, according to DDOT officials. The swing span of the bridge is set to open at 10 a.m., at the request of the United States Coast Guard, and the bridge will be out of commission until about noon. Drivers and pedestrians are advised to use an alternate river crossing during that time, including the 11th Street, Sousa (Pennsylvania Avenue) and Whitney Young Memorial (East Capitol Street) bridges. more ›

The University of the District of Columbia canceled all classes and campus activities today due to heat conditions, spokesperson Alan Etter confirmed this afternoon. The campus closed at noon today, but will reopen tomorrow on its regular schedule, according to a message posted on the school's web site. more ›

As excellent neighborhood chronicler Southwest ... The Little Quadrant That Could reminds us, the Southwest Waterfront Safeway is set to close tonight at 6 p.m. until April 15, when it will reopen in a brand new building adjacent to the old one (1100 4th St. SW). The interim period will find Southwest residents without a nearby grocery option (unless you count the 7-11 on South Capitol Street), but Safeway has arranged for a shuttle to take shoppers to the 14th & Kentucky SE location on Friday, Saturday and Monday (schedule is here). more ›

The long-awaited overhaul of the Mount Pleasant Library is just about to begin. The building as it currently exists will lend its last book at 5:30 p.m. on March 27, and will then be closed for about 17 months. more ›

If you're a fan of Adams Morgan nightlife spot Left Bank, Saturday will be your last chance to stop by for a drink. As the Washington Business Journal reported, the bistro has been sold, and the space will reportedly reopen as an as yet unnamed new restaurant. The Going Out Gurus have a bit more, noting that the owner, who has been there since way back when the place was called Cities, says the recession is to blame for the decision. more ›

We'll be updating this list as the various closing announcements are made. You can also check our Twitter feed for the latest info. more ›

Tomorrow's closure announcements are starting to trickle in. DCPS has already declared it will not open on Wednesday, and notes that while administrative offices so far plan to open on time, employees are advised to check back for additional updates as the storm progresses. more ›

Metro has unveiled its February weekend and weeknight track maintenance schedules, among them another holiday weekend closure of two Metro stations. The Rosslyn and Arlington Cemetery stations will be closed for the entire Presidents' Day weekend, starting at 10 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 12, through midnight on Monday, Feb. 15. The closures will allow Metro to perform a major track rehabilitation project at the Rosslyn station. more ›

In case you hadn't guessed, all D.C. Department of Parks and Recreation facilities and fields are closed for the rest of the day today due to snow. All athletic fields will also be closed through the rest of the weekend, and all athletic games have been canceled. On Sunday, only three aquatic facilities and one recreation center will be open: Wilson Aquatic Facility (4551 Fort Drive NW), William H. Rumsey Aquatic Facility (635 North Carolina Avenue SE), Takoma Aquatic Facility (300 Van Buren Street NW), and the Southeast Tennis and Learning Center (701 Mississippi Avenue SE). more ›

The Safeway on Rhode Island Ave. NE reopened late Thursday, after a follow-up health department inspection deemed the store in compliance and all issues related to its vermin infestation corrected. The store had been temporarily shuttered on Wednesday evening after a routine inspection discovered evidence of rodents. more ›

View Safeway closed due to vermin in a larger map more ›

It's been at least a few years since we had a good crackdown on any of the city's "happy ending"-style massage parlors, but the wait is no more: D.C. Attorney General Peter Nickles has ordered five such businesses shuttered, as D.C. Wire reported last night. If you've been frequenting any of the "technicians" at Orange Spa (617 Pennsylvania Avenue SE), Star Spa (1829 M Street NW), or VIP Spa (719 8th Street SE & 1429 Parkwood Place NW), you'll have to take your business elsewhere, because they're now closed. Also included in the closure list is the "D.C. Wrestling Club" at 1618 14th Street NW, aka the gay sex club where a man died in October. more ›

We mentioned it at the beginning of the month, but wanted to remind you about this weekend's major Metro closure at the Grosvenor-Strathmore station. The station will be closed completely for a major track rehabilitation project starting at 10 p.m. on Friday, Jan. 15 all the way through closing on Monday, Jan. 18, which is the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. more ›

We'd been hearing the rumors that Vegetate, the popular vegetarian restaurant on 9th Street NW in Shaw, would soon be forced to close its doors, and now the Convention Center Community Association has posted this farewell message from owners Dominic & Jennifer Redd, confirming the news. Fans of the restaurant will be relieved that the Redds say they are planning on opening in another location as soon as they find one. more ›

The U.S. Postal Service today released yet another revised list of possible branch closures, and one D.C. office has been trimmed. The Northeast branch, located at 1563 Maryland Ave. NE, will stay. In Maryland, two other branches were also spared: the Friendship Heights branch, and the Silver Spring Center branch. The total list is now at only 241 post offices still under review nationwide, down from almost 3,300 at the beginning of the process. more ›

Incredibly sad and surprising news for the LBGT media world, not to mention the local media scene: The Washington Blade has been shut down. The LGBT publication's twitter feed first alerted us to what was going on just a little while ago: "Washington Blade, like all Window Media publications, is closing today. Thank you for your support. (Keep following us for developments.)" Sure enough, even the Blade's web site has been taken down. more ›

At 11:30 a.m. this morning, the Black Rooster Pub will reopen its doors at 1919 L Street NW. The pub had been closed for several weeks after the building's landlord declined to renew its lease, but a combination of online petitions and intervention from local politicos ultimately helped save the business. more ›

Swann Cleaners, the laundromat/dry cleaner located at the corner of 14th and Swann Streets NW, has closed its doors, 14th & You reports. This was one of the few remaining laundromats in the area, and the small dry cleaner inside it joins two other cleaners that have recently closed along the 14th Street corridor. more ›

Capitol Hill Bikes sent out an email to its customers on Thursday announcing that the store has lost its lease and must liquidate its entire inventory while it searches for a new location. The cycling store has been located at 709 8th Street SE for about a decade. more ›

Joe Englert's H Street NE bar The Argonaut was closed last night, thanks to a dispute with the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue, as Frozen Tropics reported earlier this morning. Englert tried to explain his side of what happened in a statement to the neighborhood blog, outlining a process that started with being notified that three of his businesses owed tens of thousands of in back sales and use taxes. He said two of those accounts were quickly resolved, but The Argonaut's was more complicated, and "even though we kept in daily contact with the Department and even though we were told repeatedly that we were working in compliance, they came any way and shut us down," Englert wrote. more ›