We were alerted yesterday via the Art Law Blog that the U.S. Department of the Interior is gearing up to change motion and still photography rules on federally run lands. In an amendment to current regulations, three DOI agencies, the Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Services, and the National Park Service, will be authorized to charge standardized fees to and require a permit from commercial photographers who want to shoot in an area......

There have been so many fun shots in the Flickr pool this week; it probably helps that summer has officially started and we're leading up to some vacation time in a few days. We've always thought one of the fun things about living in a big city is that people just stake out a spot in a park or on a street corner to show off their talents. One day you'll run into the......

This is so great. I don't know which part is better: the dude just randomly tightrope walking in Meridian Hill Park, or the two people engrossed in coversation like there's not a circus act going on ten feet behind them. We need more information! Has anyone else seen this guy besides our photographer Kyle Walton? Is it part of a formal act or is he just practicing? Does he do parties? EXIF.......

This may look like the grounds of a European palace, but it's actually Meridian Hill Park (aka Malcolm X Park) in Northwest. The park was so named because it once straddled was next to the Washington meridian, the American version of the Greenwich meridian. We liked the sharpness and vivid colors of the grass and gravel in the shot by allyzay — it feels like a nice, cool day. And if you view the......

Officials are warning drivers that roads around the 2400 block of 16th St, NW are partially closed while crews repair yesterday's water main break. This morning only one southbound lane was open in the are around Meridian Hill Park, with northbound traffic diverted to Florida Ave. At 12:45 p.m. Alert D.C. announced that the 2400 block of 16th St. will be closed for six to eight hours. Obviously this could dramatically impact this evening's rush......

Today activists around the country are planning demonstrations supporting immigrantions. You'll recall that last year organizers staged a national boycott to highlight immigrants' contribution to the American economy. In D.C. several demonstrations are slated. The National Immigrant Solidarity Network sponsors a few of the events. WTOP has a fairly exhaustive list: A May Day Asian American rally is planned for noon at Taft Memorial Park, north of the Capitol. A hunger strike and rally at......

Yesterday was Budget Day, which is one of those big deal days for official Washington that no one else notices. It's the day when the President formally submits his budget for the next fiscal year to Congress. Sexy, right? If you happen to work for an appropriator or one of the budget watchdog groups, it is. Each Department holds its own budget roll-out event complete with powerpoint, Secretarial speechifying, and usually some sort of bunting;......

Today at the Fringe, ethnicity is explored through dance, a pair of cabaret acts make their debut, and some drenched French whores finally get their star-crossed production off the ground. But first, it looks like we spoke too soon about ticket availability for the One-Man Star Wars Trilogy--an alert DCist tipster dispensed the bad news last night--sold out straight up and down. A pity, because Charles Ross is headed to Edinburgh after the Capital Fringe......

Of all the non-traditional spaces hosting performances hosting Fringe Festival performances, none was more...uhm, Fringey, than the one obtained by Solas Nua, a young arts organization devoted to modern Irish culture and DC's go to source for all the latest in Enda Walsh plays. For their Fringe presentation, La Corbiere-Anne La Marquand Hartigan's poetic drama about a boatload of French whores whose travel plans go awry (as they so often do), Solas Nua sought to......

Good morning, Washington -- it's Friday! Rejoice in all that start-of-the-weekend goodness. And note that on this date in 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first earthlings to walk on the moon. In their honor, go check out the Apollo to the Moon exhibit at the Air and Space Museum and see their spacesuits or touch a moon rock. Suitcase Forgotten, Results in Union Station Closure: WTOP notes that last night around 8......

I was just wondering if DCist knows about a movie that is being filmed today on 16th & Kalorama, right across from Meridian Hill park. When I walked by on my way to work there was a camera crew set up filming in front of the building right on the corner that has recently been renovated. They were filming someone dressed in what I think was a military uniform walking out of the door. Any......

Today's evening commute could be a wild one as around 180,000 demonstrators are expected to gather on the Mall this afternoon, many after marching through the downtown area from Meridian Hill Park. The National Day of Action for Immigrant Justice is expected to draw large crowds of supporters in cities across the nation (and has already begun to do so -- some 300,000 gathered yesterday in Dallas). The march through the city will begin around......

We've watched for a while now as development crept up 14th Street, from the Whole Foods at P Street to the rebuilt blocks north of Rhode Island Avenue, continuing on to the restaurants and condo buildings around U Street. We've also seen the complete overhaul of the land around the Columbia Heights Metro station, a development project that's rendered the blocks between Columbia Road and Monroe Street unrecognizable. And we've followed along as buildings popped......

What is D.C.'s motto? Any idea who's always riding a horse in Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park? More importantly, who doesn't love a good online quiz? They are spectacular for passing the time as the hours creep and crawl towards the weekend. Today's D.C. edition of Daily Candy brings us a little "How much do you know about D.C.?" quiz. It's a mix of classic questions (when was D.C.'s flag adopted?) and ones that are slightly......

Written by DCist contributor Rob Birgfeld While stories are often traded about "that guy" who made millions because he was ahead of the real estate curve, few match that of a Brazilian family interested in little more that auto repair. Just one year after riots decimated much of downtown Washington in 1968, Pedro Petrovich opened an auto repair shop on 13th Street, one block north of Logan Circle. Soon after, he moved Petrovich Auto Body......

This picture, uploaded to DCist Photos by photogene, is of the statue of Dante in Meridian Hill Park. Sadly, the subject's signature work makes it appropriate to this morning's news: the situation in New Orleans is still awful. In response, the relief efforts from the D.C. area are growing. A few examples: yesterday about 300 newly homeless veterans were welcomed to the Armed Forces Retirement Home in Northwest; Governor Warner has declared a limited state......

FRIDAY: >> Kaiser Chiefs, a Leeds, England five-piece, hits the stage at the 9:30 Club tonight. Their music is infectious (you know, in a good way), confident, and sure to get you dancing. And they're cute, in a quintessentially British sort of way. $15. Doors open at 9, openers The Cribs go on at 10:15, and the Kaiser Chiefs will be on stage at 11:30. At which point we'll be asleep. Because we are old.......

Long before Thelma and Louise and Charlie's Angels, the first "action-babe" was a 19-year-old cross-dressing French girl who claimed she could see angels, gave the French one of their few military victories, and altered the course of English history before -- not much later -- getting executed. For this bizarre-but-true story, she was canonized by the Catholic Church in 1920 and immortalized on film by Hollywood dozens of times, most famously by the "Fifth Element"......

For this Presidents Day installment of DCist's ongoing series featuring overlooked local monuments, we asked ourselves: Who was the worst president of all time? It is always popular to maintain that the current officeholder is it, especially these days. But it's worth looking a bit further back to consider the legacy of James Buchanan, our 15th president, who nonetheless managed to rate a memorial. Buchanan can be found along the eastern wall of the Italian-inspired......

Today the whole world counts lines of longitude away from Greenwich, England. But the globally accepted prime meridian running through the Royal Greenwich Observatory is a relatively new development. At one time, most every important city had its own line: Rome, Jerusalem and St. Petersburg, among others. Of course, for a meridian line to be taken seriously by navigators and mapmakers, one had to publish an ephemeris, viz. an almanac of points on the ground......

D.C. locals Monopoli are probably the envy of their musical peers, as they’ve earned a surprising amount of buzz and a loyal group of fans after only a year together. We’d heard a lot of things about the four-piece band; on paper they sound excellent, having been described as everything from polished indie rock a la Spoon to a post-shoegaze act not unlike Coldplay. So our expectations for their show Friday night at DC9 might......

We hope you had a good weekend. This photo was taken at Meridian Hill Park, looking south from a stairway leading to 16th Street. Or should we say Malcolm X Park? (Meridian Hill Park was once rechristened as Malcolm X Park. While that name is still in use, do you think the gentrification and development in the surrounding neighborhoods will eventually cause the Malcolm X name to disappear? Feel free to post your thoughts......

Joan of Arc, seen here at her perch in Meridian Hill Park (in this photo taken by DCist contributing photographer Grayson Shepard) has witnessed many political battles take place in the District of Columbia over many decades, but one perhaps not as poisonous as the recent baseball stadium drama that has unfolded before us this past fall. With Major League Baseball officials seemingly ready to give up on the dream of bringing America's game......

There's lots going on this weekend. What are you up to? FRIDAY: -- "Team America: World Police" opens tonight at theaters everywhere. Reviews from the NYT, Post, Rotten Tomatoes -- Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players at Iota in Arlington, $12 -- Grand opening of Eclipse, an "electro, industrial, darkwave, alternative" dance night slated for the second Friday of the month at Between Friends (11th and U St). Resident DJs include Dirty B, MindCage, MissGuided, and Ras......

Two weekends back, DCist took a trip to the Old Post Office Pavilion. We weren't there to mingle with tourists in the food court, we went for the view. With the Washington Monument closed for security upgrades, the tower of the Old Post Office is the next best thing. Its free access and normally low traffic is one of the best relatively low-key tourist sites in the city. (Please note that the National Park Service's......

What's a young, literary-minded D.C. denizen to do, when she's bored with this "boring/overly political/unartistic/gentrified/dangerous" city? If you're anything like "Zoe," the answer is of course: start a blog. Don't let the simple title, "Fun things to do in DC", deceive you: imagine one part existential angst, one part irony, and a whole lot of literary references. It's fun, but ultimately a list: Drum in a circle at Meridian Hill Park (Part I) (Part II),......

Here's a quick sampling of what's going on around town this weekend. Stay dry! TONIGHT: Music. Local bands you probably haven't heard of: The Routineers, Two If By Sea, People Who Know People 9:30 @ Black Cat, 1811 14th St. NW Movie. Monty Python and the Holy Grail Midnight @ Visions Cinema Bistro (repeats Saturday at midnight) Help Visions kick the keg. $10. SATURDAY: Book Sale Starts 9 a.m. @ Radisson Barcelo Hotel, 2121 P......