Photo via @christylezbacon

A public memorial for Chuck Brown is still being planned and will likely be held sometime next week, according to a note from Brown’s manager. In a text message sent to reporters, Tom Goldfogle said that arrangements for an event giving the Godfather of Go-Go’s fans an opportunity to say goodbye are still being “finalized,” but Goldfogle did not offer any further details.

Almost immediately after Brown’s death last Wednesday, District officials began discussing potential venues that could host the presumably thousands that will want to send off the D.C. music legend. Councilmember Yvette Alexander (D-Ward 7) told the Post she’d like to see a memorial service at 40,000-seat Nationals Park, while Marion Barry (D-Ward 7) suggested the 18,000-seat (and indoor) Verizon Center.

The last big, public go-go funeral, for the trumpeter Anthony “Little Benny” Harley,” packed hundreds into the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in June 2010.

But the conventional wisdom is coalescing around the notion that Brown’s mourners will demand a much larger venue. Ron Moten, the go-go producer turned civic activist and now the Republican nominee running against Alexander, said on WAMU today he, too, thinks the Verizon Center is the place for Brown’s memorial. On top of that, Moten said he’d like to see the pioneering guitarist lie in state: “He’s a statesman; they probably should put his body somewhere for a couple of days that the city can view, and then have a funeral,” Moten told WAMU.

Moten was one of the organizers of another makeshift celebration of Brown’s life and career held this weekend outside the Howard Theatre, which lies off a stretch of Seventh Street NW designated “Chuck Brown Way.”

Tributes to Brown popped up throughout the weekend. Outside Sweet Mango Café at Georgia and New Hampshire Avenues NW in Petworth, artists covered a wall with a painted, blown-up version of a photo of Brown taken in 1992 by City Paper photographer Darrow Montgomery.