Good morning, Washington. Make it to the polls yesterday? If so, we hope you did so before the sun went down — it got cold in a hurry last night, as the area rapidly moved from warmer-than-usual temps to colder-than-usual ones. CapitalWeather is saying that the weekend should be warmer, at least. Election 2007: The results are in, and it looks like it was a good night for Virginia’s Democrats. The Dems picked up…

Good morning, Washington. It’s the last Friday in July, and we can already feel the impending doom and gloom of D.C.’s traditional No News August, a time when the Washington Post publishes lengthy ruminations on humidity and local TV news begins investigating whether your children’s toy water guns are really safe. But as if feeling the need to grant us one last interesting Friday before the new month begins, D.C. Council member Harry Thomas…

The Smithsonian Institution is searching for a public or private partner to redevelop and rent the historic Arts and Industries Building, since, according to the Smithsonian’s facilities director, William W. Brubaker, the Institution “does not have funding now or in the foreseeable future to rehabilitate” it. The 126-year-old building, the second-oldest next to the Smithsonian Castle, has been closed for three years “in preparation for renovation” since the roof began collapsing — but no work…

It’s not saying much when the part of the city named after the very person who designed the city just plain sucks. DCist has yet to find anyone who has any love for L’Enfant Plaza, that wasteland of urban design in Southwest where bad architecture and concrete have historically gone to die. But now the city may want to spruce the place up a little, make it a little less, well, crappy. According to an…

The Capital Children’s Museum will close perminently on Aug. 22. Museum goers shouldn’t despair – it will re-open in 2008 as the National Children’s Museum, to be located in a massive new development at L’Enfant Plaza (See background on L’Enfant Plaza from The Washington Oculus) The Post observes that: The museum’s current complex on Third Street, once a Catholic convent and home for the poor and elderly, has been sold to a developer who plans…