Photo by fdmount

Good morning, Washington. It’s cold. Heck, it might even snow a bit today.

Creaks and Leaks: Cities around the country are in dire need of upgrades to their water systems, perhaps nowhere more urgent than in Washington, the Post reports. Cracks and fractures abound, and the system here is especially old—the average D.C. pipe was laid 77 years ago, the sewers are even more ancient and decrepit.

No Filming Here, We’re Congress: Over at Housing Complex, Lydia DePillis says that the recent transfer of Union Square from auspices of the National Park Service to the control of the Architect of the Capitol is bad news for film and television crews looking to shoot in the District. Though the Capitol has always banned film productions (news operations are allowed, obviously), crews would use the Grant Memorial to get their shots of the building. The memorial might now be off-limits, too.

Occupy Long Underwear: With this week’s cold front comes one of Occupy D.C.’s biggest weather-induced tests to date, WAMU says. With the frostiest temperatures of the season so far coming this week, the encampment is buckling down with “hot soups, hot foods, hot coffee,” a protester says and preparing to distribute warm clothes to those that need them. But don’t bet on the group to erect any sturdy housing any time soon.

Briefly Noted: WaPo gets a real estate blog … MPD looking for suspect in May 2010 killing … Chesapeake restoration could provide as many as 230,000 jobs … Wizards fall to Boston Celtics 100-92 and remain winless … Dec. 30 Chinatown attack might have been premeditated … Prince George’s split on slot machines.

This Day in DCist: In 2011, Terry Bellamy moved in at DDOT, and we scratched our heads at how someone walked into a Bethesda hospital and stabbed a patient to death. In 2010, we learned the 2009 homicide total had a big finish, and longtime Corcoran curator Paul Roth left for New York.