Photo by dracisk 365/365. Town & Country Lounge, the Mayflower Hotel’s historic bar, will be serving its last drinks tonight. The bar, open in 1948, has served drinks and food to everyone from J. Edgar Hoover to Eliot Spitzer to Sam Donaldson. The bar is closing to make way for the expansion of the menswear store Thomas Pink. Another to-be-named restaurant and lounge will open in the space in the Mayflower that the Pink…

The Renaissance Mayflower Hotel sent word around today that DeSales St. NW between Connecticut Ave. NW and 17th St. NW will be closed starting at 4:30 p.m. for a traditional Hindu wedding procession. D.C. residents Shilpa Maheshwari and Neil Agarwal are getting married today, and the Baraat ceremony will involve the groom arriving on an elephant as he and his family proceed down DeSales St. The hotel is offering local media interview opportunities with the…

About 100 people gathered on the sidewalk around the Mayflower Hotel in downtown D.C. this evening to catch a glimpse of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. Obama was scheduled to make a statement to the press at the hotel after leaving a meeting about the economic bailout package at the White House. Obama had met with President Bush, Republican presidential candidate John McCain, and congressional leaders. Neither McCain nor Obama made an immediate statement…

It’s always exciting when major sex scandals elsewhere turn out to have local connections. If you somehow haven’t been inundated with the news already for the past couple of hours, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has publicly apologized after having been caught on a federal wiretap arranging for a prostitute to meet him in a hotel room. Turns out, the hotel room in question was right here in D.C., though it’s unclear which hotel that…

Good morning, Washington. Not that you could have missed the fact that it’s awfully windy this morning after yesterday’s late fall rainstorm, but the National Weather Service has issued a wind advisory for the metro area, effective through 1 a.m. Tuesday morning — this wind will consistently be 25-30 mph until late tonight, with gusts over 46 mph expected. If you drive an SUV or another type of high profile vehicle, you’re asked to use…

You’re probably sick of hearing it by now. We’re sorry about that. But we’re only thinking of your well-being when we say it: you really ought to be watching The Wire. The stunningly complex and believable series about Baltimore’s drug trade and pervasive institutional decay is only a couple of weeks into its fourth season on HBO, but the plaudits are already here in force. A 98 out of 100 on metacritic should provide some…

In case you thought the past several days were just some wretched dream, yes, it really is September. Summer, for all intents and purposes, is deceased. School is back in session, the Amazonian humidity is behind us, and we can all look forward to a successful and productive fall. If that doesn’t cheer you up, perhaps leaving the house this weekend will? Go on, give it a shot. FRIDAY >>In honor of the impending bicentennial…

Really, what isn’t filming in DC these days? Major Hollywood muscle has been spotted all over town, giving us celebrity gossip hounds a rare and local fix. Last night’s premiere of the Miramax movie “The Great Raid” at the Uptown in Cleveland Park brought out more then a few famous faces, but the buzz was all about Mayor Willams and Michael Douglas shaking hands in front of the Mayflower Hotel. In addition to the movie…

Good morning, Washington. There’s a 70 percent chance of showers today in both the morning and afternoon, so remember to bring along an umbrella. Temps will max out at the positively cool lower 80s. Aziz Gökdemir uploaded this photo of the Awakening statue to DCist photos. The huge statue can be found on Hains Point. Our Mayor, Film Star: Mayor Anthony Williams participated in the filming of a 30-second scene with Michael Douglas for the…

Thousands of hotel employees at 14 major D.C. hotels will go on strike at 11:59 p.m. tonight unless a last-minute deal is negotiated between the hotels and their union. UNITE HERE Local 25 joined that union’s other locals in five other cities when they voted overwhelmingly to authorize a strike if negotiations with the Hotel Association of Washington D.C. failed to yield a contract. (See the potential strike covered by the AP/WTOP, Post, W. Times.)…