>> The 1930s-era Hecht's building in Northeast has been bought by a Philadelphia developer who plans to incorporate the historic structure into a new retail hub off New York Avenue. [WaPo] >> D.C.’s State Education Office established new criteria for free- and reduced-price-meal programs in an effort to increase enrollment. [Examiner] >> Construction has begun on Alexandria's 167-acre Potomac Yard development. [Washington Business Journal] >> The death of musician Casey Calvert last month outside......

Happy Thanksgiving, Washington. The streets are quiet this morning in the capital; one cab driver remarked to this writer that it was his favorite day to drive in the city -- no traffic, no tourists, and everyone he picks up tends to be cheery and a big tipper. The forecast in D.C. today is calling for an unseasonably warm high of 72 degrees, with a solid chance of afternoon showers and gastrointestinal distress. What's the......

We here at the DCist constantly extol the virtues of living in a city with abundant resources of all kind. Do you need to see an awesome show at a small venue? Check. Do you need to look at physical copies of the country's most important documents? Check. Do you have a need to see Matthew Lesko now and again? Got it. Other than that whole "vote in Congress" thing, D.C. probably has what you......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. It was good that the lunch keynote didn’t last any longer; I was ready to hand Jim Abdo a check. Those of us on the academic side of the development industry aren’t used to such raw displays of enthusiasm. After following Abdo through his slide presentation on the history of his business and the mammoth project he’s begun on New York Avenue......

We kid. Kind of. According to the Washington Business Journal, the Uline Ice Arena and the surrounding area may be the next frontier in development in the District. The arena, which is just north of Union Station and hosted the first Beatles concert in the U.S. in 1964, is being looked at by developer Douglas Jemal as the anchor for a new entertainment district along the lines of the popular East End/Verizon Center area. While......

Former Editor-in-Chief Ryan Avent writes a weekly column about neighborhood and development issues. He'll be on vacation for the next two weeks; this column will return on August 19th. It’s been a hard summer for many loved and local businesses, some of which have been a part of the city’s life for decades. This week, long lines trailed down New York Avenue as customers waited to get a last meal at A.V. Ristorante. In June,......

The pattern has become almost predictable -- if violence breaks out somewhere in Ward 1, you can bet D.C. Council member Jim Graham will find the closest bar or restaurant, call it a "magnet for --------- (enter violent incident here)" and try to shut it down. Sometimes Graham's crusades are welcome, other times they are excessive. Graham last focused his energies on Joe’s Steak ’N Eggs, an eatery on 9th Street NW that was the......

The controversial plan authored by Ward 1 Council member Jim Graham to relocate a number of strip clubs displaced by the new Nationals stadium into Ivy City, a neighborhood in Ward 5, got even more interesting this week. The D.C. Council on Tuesday agreed to spend $3.6 million to reduce the "impact" of the relocated clubs, in a rare earmarking of funds for a specific neighborhood. Ivy City is bordered by Bladensburg Road, New York......

Unless you enjoy wasting your weekend sitting in traffic, you may want to avoid driving downtown on Saturday. Three street-closing events—the National Asian Heritage Festival, the National Police Week 5K race, and the DC101 Chili Cook Off (which will feature two DCist staffers as judges, stay tuned for more details!) — will be joining forces Power Rangers-style to snarl traffic. Pennsylvania Avenue will be closed between 3rd and 6th streets NW from 2 a.m.......

UPDATE: DDOT has also postponed the previously scheduled closures of the inbound lanes on the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge this weekend to accommodate the marathon. DDOT has rescheduled the bridge work for next weekend, weather permitting. Nearly 5,000 runners will take to District roads tomorrow to compete in the Wirefly National Marathon. The race is set to start at 6:30 AM at RFK Stadium. As it takes runners through every quadrant of the city,......

Time to put on your bow ties and ball gowns, because it's inaugural season — at least it is here in D.C., where Mayor-elect Adrian Fenty is planning on holding an inaugural ball January 2. And guess what? You're invited! Yes, you. I know; we feel special too. Starting today at 9 a.m. and going till 6 p.m., free tickets to the inaugural ball will be handed out in the rear lobby of the Frank......

Damn alarms. We're a little late on flipping through our newspaper this morning, so stay tuned as we live-blog the news. 9:29 a.m.: Since Adrian Fenty doesn't already have enough to do, he'll be fielding questions in an online chat over at the Post at 11 a.m. We'd like to know how he can spend the time keeping his head so nicely shorn when we're still trying to balance sleep, work, and shaving once......

Remember last week when we told you to mark your calendar for this evening? Force yourself away from the One Tree Hill season premiere and head down to the Corcoran Hammer Auditorium for Night 1 of the second Experimental Media Series. Presented by the Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran, tonight promises Cowboys, Clichés, Codes, and Conspiracies. In this show curated by Peggy Parsons, the Head of the Department of Film at the National Gallery of......

Staffers at the Washington Times just don't get a break, do they? Apart being regularly lambasted for working for a money-bleeding newspaper owned by the odd Rev. Sun Myung Moon, now they're getting a in-depth look into the struggle for the paper's leadership. This week The Nation features as its cover story a 4,200-word expose on the battle between current Editor-in-Chief Wesley Pruden and Preston Moon, the reverend's son. According to the piece, Pruden, now......

Last Sunday, Michael Grunwald took to the pages of the Post to discuss, and malign, the District's building height restrictions. His piece is an interesting read, but Grunwald's analysis of how the restriction has affected the city is fairly spotty, as Mark Jenkins notes in a City Desk post from yesterday. For one thing, it's difficult to say that height restrictions have created a space crunch in the city, when for so long so much......

Yesterday this intrepid DCist reporter took to the street on his bike, searching high and low for rain-related news. It didn't take long--traffic alone became THE post-work story. Traffic was backed up everywhere from Georgetown to Capitol Hill, with cars and buses routinely stuck in the middle of intersections as lights turned red. Traffic seemed heaviest along H Street from 17th Street to New York Avenue, with stopped cars clogging every patch of road......

I've walked by the old Convention Center site recently, and there's this weird artsy-looking walkway between H Street and New York Avenue. What the hell is it? You'd be surprised how many emails we've received with this exact question. You'd also be surprised how a staff of writers and editors as big as our own could be so easily stumped. We had no idea. Until today. According to a press release from D.C. Mayor......

Last month the Experimental Media Series, a showcase of video/audio mashups and original work, debuted at the Corcoran. The first part in a three part series, featuring the video work of Noah Angel, Champ Taylor, and D.C. blogger Rob Parrish, ended in a rawkus punk delivery by The Videohippos. That performance incorporated gas mask microphones, Mario Paint visuals, and sound that smashed iPod 110 decibel caps. Needless to say it's gonna be loud when the......

WAMU news is reporting that there is a fire at the escalator in Union Station, preventing Metro trains from stopping there. Metro's website is repoting the station as closed. Buses are running from Judiciary Square and New York Avenue into the Station. It doesn't appear as if regular trains or the rest of Union Station is affected at this time. Here's hoping everyone has already left work! Update 6:25 p.m.: According to WMATA, the entrance......

Below, we take a brief look at development stories along the Red Line, but first, a brief Ask DCist: Any idea what this 10th Street project is? The question, posed by blogger dl004d, refers to the structure visible in the image at right. The metal work is going up along what would be 10th Street between New York Avenue and H Street, through the old Convention Center property. Actual plans for that site have......

Several news organizations are reporting that employees of the Federal Government working at 1425 New York Avenue should not come to work today due to an oil spill. The building involved houses the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General. There's no word on the cause of the spill or the condition of wildlife inside the building; according to NBC4, officials are not yet saying what kind of oil was spilled, so all the......

We spend plenty of time complaining about the state of the region's public transit network, be it delays on Metrorail, unpredictable arrival times for Metrobuses, or just too much traffic along area roadways. But at least we don't have to hitchhike to work. Today the Post features an entertaining feature on John Schindel, a Stafford County man whose decade-old DUI conviction has left him at the mercy of fellow motorists to get him to and......

Good morning, Washington. This house is the entry by the University of Maryland in the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon, the student competition we told you about last week. The houses are viewable on the National Mall until October 16th. Today will be cloudy with a 30 percent chance of rain and highs in the 60s. How'd You Like $100,000? The latest chapter in the story of the city's hot real estate market is a......

Just as DCist reported earlier this month, the brand-spanking-new, New Orleans-style restaurant Acadiana (901 New York Avenue NW) held a benefit today for the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation. The bill of fare included a $25 shrimp or roast beef po'boy with a bag of Route 11 sweet potato chips. We enjoyed the chips but were at first befuddled by the Virginia-based chip company's inclusion. With sweet potatoes' prevelence in Creole cooking, the chips added an......

Thanks to a DCist reader, we bring you more info on another worthy fundraiser for the victims of Hurricane Katrina, this one taking place on September 12. Please keep directing information our way, and we'll keep posting it. ---------------------- A group of high-profile chefs and restaurateurs here in Washington is donating its time, food and energy to raise money for New Orleans, in sympathy with all their fellow food and restaurant workers who have lost......

Good morning, Washington. Today will be sunny with highs in the upper 80s, so you can leave that umbrella at home. We were happy to read that the steamy hot temps will ease all week with highs expected in the 80s and evening lows in the 60s. While we were cruising Flickr to find today's photo, taken by Aziz Gökdemir of the ever-photogenic interior of the National Building Museum, we came across an interesting......

In an interesting article highlighting the power of blogs and internet forums in promoting democratic discourse, the Examiner today reports on a heated debate that has developed on D.C. Watch's bi-weekly online newsletter concerning a new $400 million, 250-bed hospital being planned for Southeast. Gary Imhoff, longtime city activist and the newsletter's publisher, recognized the importance of new forums in allowing residents access to large audiences, stating, "There are few places where someone who......

Don't get us wrong, we like public art initiatives. But this DCist (and we know many others) have grown somewhat tired of the animal-themed public art/charity fundraiser displays. We think they may have run their course. Sure, Pandamania and the Party Animals were great ways to showcase the talents of local artists, but in a city that also serves as a world capital, we would hope that there would be a little more investment in......

We told you earlier about the public meetings to examine proposals for the future of Wisconsin Avenue. Now this Saturday, there will be a public gathering to discuss the plans to reshape the New York Avenue corridor. The meeting will be tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon at the Reeves Center and U and 14th streets NW. We haven't had that much time to look at the electronic version of the city's report, but you......

There's more trouble at the Corcoran. OK there always seems to be trouble at the troubled art museum. But this is big. The Post reports that the cash-strapped and lackluster institution may be forced to scrap its plans to give the museum's New York Avenue facade some luster: Frank Gehry's shiny metal addition (seen here). And then there's more trouble: It appears that David Levy, the president and director of the Corcoran, is being forced......