Photo by rjs1322.Good morning, Washington. Do you remember where Taxation Without Representation Street is? Blanking? That’s funny — the way that D.C. Councilmember Michael Brown is talking, you’d think renaming streets with pro-voting rights slogans was an unbelievably successful tactic which demanded repetition. (It’s located along South Capitol Street near Nationals Park, by the way.) Brown wants to rename the space between the 1300 and 1400 blocks of Pennsylvania Avenue NW in order to “better inform the public of the democratic rights our city’s residents are denied.” Brown, who also wants to put a voting rights message on the city’s gateway signage, is planning on hosting a roundtable this evening to discuss potential names for the said section of pavement — but who wants to wait. I’m pretty sure we can come up with some pretty good ideas of our own this morning.
Rest in Peace, William Lockridge: The District has lost one of its most experienced local activists. William Lockridge, a sitting member of the D.C. State Board of Education who was hospitalized last weekend after suffering a stroke, died of respiratory failure yesterday. Lockridge was 63, and had served in several different government capacities; he also had over 20 years of experience working with D.C. Public Schools. “He fought for the children, the least, the last and the lost, and he would take on anybody, including myself, because he was a fighter,” said Marion Barry after Lockridge’s passing.
Library of Congress Temporarily Evacuated: Officials at the Library of Congress got a slight scare yesterday afternoon, when its Madison Building was partially evacuated after to the discovery of smoke. Fire trucks and police cars swarmed the building at 101 Independence Avenue SE as smoke was seen “billowing out” of the sixth floor. Fire officials were unable to locate a fire, though, and believe that the burning odor reported was a malfunction of the building’s heating system, which is located on the seventh floor.
Briefly Noted: Are you sitting down? City Paper reports that Taylor Gourmet secretly switched bread vendors and no longer gets their bread from Sarcone’s in Philadelphia. Get the torches!…Despite little snow this season, D.C. Department of Transportation has already spent 39 percent of its snow removal budget…Lydia DePillis examines D.C.’s shiny new libraries…Mike DeBonis compares the D.C. Democratic State Committee, thrust into the limelight last week, to his days working at a college radio station, in that “at the end of the day our stated ambitions were pretty far removed from what we actually did.”…MetroDash, which combines “30 elements into one insane obstacle course,” coming to Capitol Riverfront this summer…D.C.’s first private residential electric car charging station installed at 425 Mass…71 percent of the contiguous United States covered in snow at one point Wednesday.
This Day in DCist: Last year, we got our first whiff of the ten cent Maryland alcoholic beverage tax; and here’s an oldie-but-goodie from 2006 about the plans to open a Harris Teeter in Adams Morgan, including quotes from a rather pessimistic Bryan Weaver.
