Vol. 3 No. 1 April 20 2001

This Month

4 Tom Kelly’s First 78 Years on the Hill
8 It’s That Ti m e Again…May is Capitol Hill Month!
10 Tales of the Tour: Ever Wonder About Those Who Didn’t Make the Cut?
12 Community Achievement Awards: This Year ’s
Outstanding Group
14 Fundraising: Giving ’til it Hurts (sometimes)
16 Psst. Looking for Naked Men?
19 On Fires and Friendships

D e p a rt m e n t s
Vo i c e M a i l. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
Business Bits . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 3
Business Serv i c e s. . . . . . .2 7
D o w n L o a d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 9
Capital Kids. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 8
Kids’ Calendar . . . . . . . . . . . .4 2
H o ro s c o p e. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 3
Community Calendar . . .4 3
C l a s s i f i e d s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4 5

o f
T h e
H i l l
Tom Kellyta ke s
a look back.
A n t i q u e&
Con t e m p o r a ry
A n t i q u e&
Con t e m p o r a ry
L E A S I N G A N D S A L E S
709 12th Stre e t , S E
Wa s h i n g t o n , D C
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
S a t u rday 10am-2pm
709 12th Stre e t , SE
on Capitol Hill
F ree off-street parking
Convenient to Eastern
Market Metro
202.547.3030
w w w. a n t i q u e l e a s i n g. c o m
709 12th Stre e t , S E
Wa s h i n g t o n , D C
Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
S a t u rday 10am-2pm
709 12th Stre e t , SE
on Capitol Hill
F ree off-street parking
Convenient to Eastern
Market Metro
202.547.3030
w w w. a n t i q u e l e a s i n g. c o m
Get Your Home Ready
for the Spring Sunshine
Come Visit
our Huge
S h o w ro o m !
Over 20,000 square feet
of furn i t u re, carpets,
paintings, lamps and
a c c e s s o r i e s
Annual Post-Inventory
S A L E
Deep Discounts
S o f a s, L a m p s, Pa i n t i n g s,
M i r ro rs and More
50% off already
reduced prices.
Your Neighborhood Furniture Source for Leasing or Buying
CAPITOL HILL
What we have on Capitol Hill
exists not only because of the
swings of economic fortune over
time but because others did not
make major changes without the exer -
cise of restraint. Just because land
exists does not mean we need to fill it up
to the maximum. Just because we are
attracted to the latest designs described
in the glitzy decorating magazines does
not mean that we should build it in this
time and place, here on Capitol Hill.
The community we treasure is fragile,
based on comity and civility. It is so easy
to drive onward and to forget others. In
this day of the internet it is all too easy
to allow things to disintegrate into bedlam
with websites, accusations, rumors
and, ultimately, lawsuits…
PAT SCHAUER
Pat Schauer is a former Restoration
Society President and Historic District
Chair.
To the Editor:
I enjoy the VOICE very much. In regard to
the [business] survey, I agree with most
of the comments about restaurants and
shops but wish to comment on the issue
of CVS and Safeway. There is some histo -
r y involved.
We have lived on the Hill for 20 years
now. There has always been a drug store
on the corner [of 7th and Pennsylvania],
which is now CVS. There also used to be
a small Safeway on 7th, across from the
Market, and a similar one on 8th, south
of Pennsylvania. The store on 7th was
most convenient when coming home from
work on the Metro. One could stop at the
Market for meat and great bread, then
pick up some milk, etc. from Safeway and
get dinner quickly.
However, a few years later, Safeway
build the new Kentucky Avenue supermarket,
and closed the 7th St. store…
Subsequently, the drug store began to
stock milk, bread, crackers, etc. etc. This
continued even though the ownership of
the drug chain has changed a couple of
times.
…CVS is certainly providing a considerable
service to families who do not have
cars, or who want to stop on the way
home from work, but it is not adequately
stocked and is usually messy. The phar -
macy works reasonably well, though it
too has difficulty with keeping the
shelves stocked. We have occasion to
use it regularly.
I would have assumed that this pattern
was determined by the specifics of this
situation, except I also have experience
with another location. We spend time in
the eastern Ohio, W. Virgina area:
Weirton and Steubenville (about as different
from Capitol Hill as one could imagine),
and find that the drugstores are
exactly the same as here. CVS and
RiteAid in shopping malls are full of groceries,
and a lot of other stuff—also
replacing the old 5 & 10s. There are a
few specialty pharmacies like Grubbs,
though one has to search for them…
One can only conclude
that something
strange and undesirable
is happening
in this competitive
situation.
Capitol Hill
suffers along with
the rest of the countr y.
CECELIA E. SUDIA
To the Editor:
Congratulations to the Capitol Hill Scouts
for refusing to go along with the BSA’s
discrimination policy against gays [March
2001 Voice of the Hill ]. You obviously
have a better understanding of what it
means to be “morally straight” than do
those who run the national organization.
Thanks for giving me yet another rea -
son to love the Hill!
R O B E R T WRIGHT
To the Editor:
I am a proud gay resident of Capitol Hill. I
would like to express my gratitude and
admiration for the position taken by the
Capitol Hill Scouts and their adult leaders.
It is sad that the Baptist Church has
withdrawn the use of their facility for your
group to meet. Please do not let their
hard line approach deter you. Some day
they too will see the light! I don’t have a
place where you can meet, but if I can
help in any other way give me a call. I’m
in the book.
You may be interested to know that I
have been in contact with Gary Barbour. I
have assisted him in getting the Scouts
involved in the Earth Day clean up of 8th
Street SE/Metro Plaza sponsored by
Christine McCoy AND we are working
together with Margret Missian of Trees
for Capitol to get a young man involved
as part of his effort to become an Eagle
Scout.
Again, thank you.
STEVE KENNEBECK
To the Editor:
The BSA national organization has evidently
been taken over by a bunch of
knuckleheads. All it takes is a quick look
at history to realize that human sexuality
has always been richly diverse, reflecting
a natural part of our biology. Hopefully
someday the BSA leadership will get used
to this idea and teach tolerance to our
children, but in the mean time Capitol Hill
Scouts is way ahead of them.
J O N ATHAN MI LLER
To the Editor:
Capitol Hill Scouts ROCK! Congratu -
lations to the scouts and leaders for making
their position public...and shame on
the Capitol Hill Baptist Church for kicking
them out! I’m sure you’ll be receiving lots
of invitations re: other meeting places.
C ATHERINE PLUME
www.voiceofthehill.com 3
Vo i cem a i l
The Voice of the Hill is published and
distributed monthly to Capitol Hill
residence and business locations.
The focus is on the community and
includes contiguous neighborhoods
from Gallaudet University to the
Navy Yard and from the Capitol to
the Stadium Armory Complex.
Publication and distribution is the
third Friday of each month.
Advertising deadline is the first of
the month preceding publication.
Voice of the Hill
120 11th St., SE, Rear
Washington DC 20003
Editorial: 242 Kentucky Ave., SE
202-544-0703 Main office
202-544-2557 Editorial
202-547-5133 Fax
www.voiceofthehill.com
bruce@voiceofthehill.com
stephanie@voiceofthehill.com
adele@voiceofthehill.com
Staff
Stephanie Cavanaugh,
Editor
Bruce Robey
WebMaster
Adele Robey
Graphic Design and Production
Claudia Bell, Advertising Manager
Gene Miller, Church Editor
Larry Kaufer, Sports Editor
Patty Curran, Kids’ News Editor
Sarah Godfrey Intern
Phoenix Graphics, Inc.
T/A Voice of the Hill
and Stephanie Cavanaugh
Publishers
Community Action Group:
Distribution
Contributing Writers
Anita Altman
Judith Capen
Stephanie Deutsch
Kristen Hartke
Memberships
Printing & Graphic Communication
Association
Printing Industry of America
Capitol Hill Association of
Merchants and Professionals
Art Directors Club of Metropolitan
Washington
Barracks Row Business Alliance
Independent Free Papers of America
H Street Merchants Association
VOICE o f
T h e
H i l l
Valerie Jablow
Barbara A. Johnson
Tom Kelly

To the Editor:
Just when you think the Hill has turned a
corner and is starting to make a come
back, the bureaucrats in DC decide to
come up with some other terrible idea to
ruin this community. I am very distressed
by this talk of building a halfway house
for criminals near where I live. The crime
on the Hill is already bad enough without
the need of an additional location for 200
criminals. What, exactly, is Sharon
Ambrose, Voice of the Hill , et al, doing to
oppose this latest destructive scheme? I
know if this passes, I for one, will not be
the only resident seriously considering
the safer confines of Virginia. Is this what
the city of DC has in mind?
Sincerely,
BOB VANDERVOORT

For more on the halfway house see the
Download section
To the Editor:
On Capitol Hill we spend a good deal of
time praising what we regard as our very
special close-knit community. Indeed, our
tree lined streets, the parks and the rows
of historic brick houses create a sense of
order. The schools, the churches, the
arts, the sports activities and civic
organizations impose a myriad of networks
which, to many of us, means community.
Lest we forget, the framework
underlying it all is based on government
of laws and zoning and historic preservation
regulations.
But it takes more than buildings, activities
and rules to make a community
work. It takes both small courtesies and
large considerations. We all know how
important it is to welcome new neighbors
and share food and flowers as well as the
joys and sorrows of life. More than kindness
and good manners, we sometimes
have to respect our neighbor’s light, air
and space. Living in a row house area
cheek by jowl, we need to invite neighbors
to big parties, politely request a car
or truck be moved and, occasionally,
share the cost of snow removal.
Sometimes it is hard to recognize that
an additional burden is placed on all of us
to respect each other’s privacy if we are
thinking of building a deck. We need to
have the consideration to communicate,
inform and consult with our neighbors if
we are planning to alter our property in a
way which might impinge on others living
nearby.
We are lucky here on Capitol Hill to be
protected by Historic District regulations
from the depredations of those who tear
down existing houses to build towering
McMansions in their stead. We need to
remember that there may be an equally
historic house next to ours which needs
to be respected. Often the neighbors who
live there restored that house many
years, even decades ago, at some cost to
themselves. That may be why your house
is so attractive to you. They contributed
to the vitality of our community. You need
to too.
On the cover: Tom Kelly surveys his neighborhood. Photo by Charles Arnhold
4 www.voiceofthehill.com
attracting the attention of their
fathers.
Mrs. White, who had come to the
Hill as the bride of a doctor in 1884,
found the clang clang soothing and
the plink plink annoying.
The Hill was called The Hill by the
people who lived in the fifty-plus
square blocks between Stanton and
Garfield Parks, and Eastern Market
and the Capitol grounds. The people
who lived in the surrounding neighborhoods
were not jealous of the distinction.
The majority of Hill families were
respectable Southerners, one family
out of five black or brown skinned.
The homes of the white families
ranged in size and significance from
six to sixteen or more rooms, the
smaller ones housing members of
the artisan class, the middle sized
the doctors and druggists, and the
largest models the higher Civil
Servants.
The “Colored”, as they were called
by polite people of both races, lived
more humbly. They occupied the
four-room brick cottages in the
alleys, or the equally compact, older
houses facing the streets.
No one could properly be called
rich—though Major Samuel Walker
ON A SUMMER DAY IN
1929 Mrs. White sat
in her Victorian parlor
and heard the
clang clang clang of
the blacksmith’s
anvil from around the corner on
Fourth Street and the plink, plink,
plink of the Willis boy’s uke from
Margaret Miller’s front porch.
Russell Willis, who had wavy curly
hair in the manner of Rudy Vallee,
andwho ushered at the brand new
Stanton movie house on C Street,
aspired to be a “sheik” without his
parents, both Majors in the
Salvation Army, noticing.
“Sheiks, as drawn by John Held in
the slim new New Yorker magazine
wore pork pie hats, bell bottom
trousers and thick yellow oilskin
slickers on which they had inscripted
snappy saying like “Oh, You Kid”
and “Nerts” and some, actually a
good many, carried homemade gin
in hip pocket flasks.
Margaret and her best friend
Yvonne Beuchert sat on the porch
glider, listening to Russell’s serenade
and drinking ice tea. They were tr ying
to look like Mr. Held’s “flappers,”
who bobbed their hair and exposed
their knees and garters, without
course, the Colored with the
Colored. Everyone was content in
his place or so it seemed to Mrs.
White.
But times were changing and not,
according to Mrs. White, for the be tter.
The streets were loud with the
uuga-uuga of auto horns and the
orchestra music and precisely enunciating
voices of the radio broadcasters
that poured out of the open summer
windows from the Philcos and
Atwater Kents.
Mrs. White and her peers were
alarmed by the noise, the flappers’
knees, and the bathtub gin—and
particularly by the sight of strangers
on the streets: The Italian stone
workers over on C Street, NE, who
had come from Calabria early in the
century to build Union Station, and
had then brought over brides and
raised big families, and the immigrant
Jews living above the family
grocery stores that had sprung up at
every other intersection.
The white-gloved ladies in the
larger houses were never impolite,
but they kept their distance from the
foreign looking people, who apparently
wouldn’t bother to learn to
speak good English.
was certainly well off. A leading
Methodist layman, home builder,
insurance broker, and bank director,
who had been, briefly, the
Superintendent of the Metropolitan
Police, Major Walker lived with his
large family in the 19-room house
he’d built at 420 B Street NE, across
from Mrs. White.
No one was poor to the point of
going hungry, though the washerwomen
and handy job men who
lived in the alleys survived by ingenuity
as well as hard work.
Except for the occasional old
Maryland Catholic, like Dr. Bowie
who lived in the big house at Third
and B Streets, NE, the established
residents were, almost without
exception, law-abiding, churchgoing
Protestants who kept the ten
commandants most of the time and
were ashamed when they slipped.
Everyone nodded to everyone else
when they passed on the street. But
at work, play and public worship the
doctors and dentists hobnobbed
with doctors and dentists, the government
office printers with printers,
the Navy Yard machinists with
machinists, the relatively rich with
the relatively rich, the relatively
poor with the relatively poor, and, of
My Fi rst
78 Ye a rs
on Capito l
H i l l
BY TOM KELLY
Tom, front left, with his sister and parents in 1948
www.voiceofthehill.com 5
They were less sure of what course
to follow with the new families who
lived in the non-Victorian houses
which had been built on B Street,
just before the World War: The Soos
in number 400, the Nokes in 402,
the Kellys in 404, the Beucherts in
406 and the Miller’s in 408.
The Millers, Margaret’s folks, were
respectable Protestants from some
place like Ohio, and not really a
problem, but each of the other families
was disconcerting in its own
way.
Mr. Soo, who had been born in
China of all places, was foreign to
the point of being frightening.
Mr. Nokes, a tall, solemn man
dressed in well-tailored conservative
clothes, was from the Eastern Shore
of Maryland, perfectly acceptable.
But he was employed as a bodyguard
by Jimmy LaFontaine, who ran a
gambling casino on the border
between the District and Prince
Georges County. Mr. LaFontaine, a
Canadian, seemed as close to being a
mobster as a native North American
could hope to be. By association, so
was Mr. Nokes.
Mr. Bichert had a Catholic,
Bavarian-born mother, though he
had married a non-Catholic from
Louisiana and had, as they said,
“fallen away.” Mrs. Bichert was large
and gregarious, laughed loudly, and
wore clothes that were, from Mrs.
White’s point of view, more striking
than tasteful. Mr. Bichert had been
an enlisted sailor in the World War,
which was another troubling point,
since Mrs. White’s daughter, Mrs.
Turner, who lived with her, was the
widow of an Army major.
The Soos and the Nokes and the
Bicherts maintained a distant dignity,
which allowed Mrs. White to act
as if they weren’t there.
My mother was more of a challenge.
She and my father, Michael Kelly,
spoke good English but with broad
Connemara accents. My father,
though a bit of a dandy when he
first arrived in Washington, now
dressed somberly except for a gold
watch chain across his vest.
My mother, on the other hand,
dressed up in fox furs and big hats
when the opportunity presented
itself. She had been exposed to high
fashion as a paid companion to a
wealthy Georgetown spinster, but
the neighbors knew nothing of that.
She was friendly, but never fawning,
and she nodded to the old neighbors
and they nodded back.
One Saturday morning when we
were at Eastern Market—an exciting
place for a three-year-old boy, with
horses drinking from the big green
iron trough at one end, the farmers
drinking from the pump by the curb,
and crates of chickens waiting to
have their necks wrung—Mrs.
Turner said hello to my mother,
adding that she was pleased to see
that my father had stopped drinking.
She had made a natural mistake,
having concluded—with impeccable
syllogistic logic—that since my
father was Irish, and since all Irish
men drank excessively, and since he
now seemed to be always sober, he
must have stopped drinking.
Actually, he drank a single shot of
Irish whiskey each night before
going to bed.
Mrs. White and Mrs. Turner and
Mrs. Turner’s daughter, Katherine,
were adjusting to the unfamiliar,
slowly in Mrs. White’s case, less
slowly in Mrs. Turner’s. Mrs. Turner’s
daughter would marry, bear a son,
divorce, and come home to B Street.
She would remain my neighbor until
her death in the 1990s but would
never feel at ease in the changing
world.
THEGREATEST CHANGE CAME at the
close of that pleasant summer
of 1929. On a Friday in
October, the stock market, which
had been moving ever higher like
the boy in the poem “Excelsior”,
plunged abruptly into the abyss.
Mr. Miller lost $5000, and was a
cautious man forever after. Mr. Soo,
the owner of a small hotel and a sizable
restaurant, lost $90,000 but did
not display his emotions for the
neighbors to see.
People were profoundly shaken,
but they would survive with relative
ease. The country had a lasting case
of double pneumonia, but the Hill
escaped with a persistent cough.
The federal bureaucrats were given
month-long payless furloughs, but
most kept their jobs. Their wages stabilized,
and President Hoover
assured everyone that, “Prosperity is
just around the corner.”
Optimists—there were a few—
could sing, “Tomatoes were cheaper/
Potatoes are cheaper/ Now’s the time
to fall in Love.”
Falling in love, however, presented
new difficulties. There were no jobs
for the young. Boy graduates of
Eastern High spent the summer of
1932 playing baseball day after day
in the Peabody schoolyard behind
our house. The girl graduates stayed
home day after day, waiting for the
boys to get jobs so they could get
married.
The bonus marchers—veterans
of the World War who had arrived in
the spring in hopes that Congress
would give them their scheduled
bonuses ten years early—came across
the 11th Street bridge from their
camp on the Anacostia flats every
morning and knocked on the back
doors offering to do chores.
Housewives gave them sandwiches
and soup and sometimes a dime for
cigarettes.
That fall, General Douglas
MacArthur and a company of tanks
led by Major George Patton burned
down their sheds and shacks and
sent them home empty-handed.
Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New
Deal put thousands of craftsmen and
laborers to work tearing down row
the houses along First and Second
Streets and putting up the Supreme
Court and the new House and
Senate Office buildings. Scores of
African-American boys—and a good
many poor white ones—joined the
CCCs, the Civil Conservation Crops,
and went off to build paths and
bridges in the national parks.
The government grew and grew
and grew some more and men fleeing
the desolation of their hometowns
came to Washington. Joe
Bowers from Indiana got a job at the
Navy Yard and with his first pay
check in his pocket he rented a six
room house on 9th Street, NE for
$30 a month, then he sent for his
wife and kids.
We shared the little boom. When
Congress repealed the prohibition
amendment, my father bought a
neighborhood restaurant, “The Nip
and Sip Buffet” on L Street off
Connecticut Avenue, re-named it
“Kelly’s,” and got a beer and liquor
license. His faithful customers,
unmarried civil servants, showed up
for meals and a few beers seven days
a week.
The government was building big
buildings, but no one was building
small ones. Some of the older Hill
houses succumbed to time and termites,
the empty lots soon covered
with weeds and tin cans and small
boys playing cowboys and Indians.
When the rare new house went up
the neighborhood rejoiced.
A middle-class African-American
family built a handsome house with
a side porch and garden in the 100
block of 4th Street, NE. The neighborhood
saw it as an omen of good
times. If some white folks were
unhappy to have an African-
American neighbor who was better
housed than they were, they did not
disturb the peace.
Major Walker died in 1935 and Mr.
Soo, who had been the President of
the On Leong Merchants
Association, died in 1938. Their
funerals tied up the traffic on our
block for hours. The bus that carried
the Soo mourners to the Calvary
Baptist Church had his picture on its
side. The Chief of Police walked up
to the coffin and saluted saying, “So
long, Charlie.”
The nation’s economy took a mild
upturn in 1935, and a mild downturn
—called, hopefully, a recession
—in 1936. It then acquired new
vigor as war grew closer in Europe.
Congress proclaimed a short-term
draft. “Good By Dear,” the song said,
“I’ll be back in a year.” Men and boys
too young or too old for the Army
found well-paid jobs in the new
defense industry, and Rosie became a
riveter.
Mr. and Mrs. Soo
6 www.voiceofthehill.com
MOSTOF
THE FAMILIES
moving
in were young
white professionals,
and the prices
in the Fifties and
Sixties for these
solidly built brick
houses, with their
big rooms and
high ceilings—
and the increasingly
prized
amenities of city
life—were obvious
bargains.
The inner Hill—
which would
gradually become
“the Historic
Hill”, grew whiter.
Many of the
African-American
families, like the
Warrens at 4th
and A, NE, who
had a household
moving business,
sold their homes
for a profit and
left. But others,
like the Peyton’s,
in the 300 block
of Constitution,
didn’t budge.
As the number of African-
Americans in the old Hill diminished,
the number east and south of
Lincoln Park grew. Alphonso Ware
paid $9000 for a house in the 1500
block of E Street, SE in 1948, and was
the first Black to move in.
Most of the white newcomers were
young couples, the man a professional
with a future, and the woman
a new (or soon to be new) mother.
Frank and Joan Keenan moved
into 115 Sixth SE, Cliff and Bea
Hackett to 505 Constitution, Pat and
Bill Driscoll to Fif th, SE and Liz and
George Cheeley to North Carolina,
SE. Mrs. Detwiler’s daughter, Mary
Sheltema, moved to G Street across
from her parents. Many, most of
those just named, would remain on
the Hill for the rest of their lives.
The newcomers painted the red
bricks gray—annoying some of their
older neighbors. When we painted
ours, sometime in the 1950s, Anita
Soo stopped speaking to us for six
months.
When the gray began seeming
drab, they advanced to pastels.
The newcomers included gay as
well as straight couples. There had,
of course, always been gays on the
Hill, usually called confirmed bachelors
or spinsters. The new arrivals
were out in the open, and wher e
there were continuing alliances they
regarded themselves, and were
regarded as, couples.
An ancient farmhouse that had
ONE DECEMBER SUNDAY IN 1941,
while the Redskins were suffering
a humiliating defeat
by the Chicago Bears, the Japanese
bombed Pearl Harbor.
On Monday morning, the
enrobed Supreme Court Justices
walked across First Street to the
Capitol and heard the President
declare the infamy of the agg ressor.
Washington soon evolved from a
small Southern city into a metropo -
lis, pregnant with the future, and
the home owners on the Hill rented
any room they had to spare to the
Government Girls who were arriving
by the train load at Union S tation.
We won the War, and the Hill
entered an age of unaccustomed
change.
Many of the Italian and Jewish
families, who had never been made
to feel particularly welcome, headed
for Silver Spring.
Young men who grew up on the
Hill came home from the War, married,
and bought $17,000 ramblers
on curving suburban streets, with
bar-b-ques in the big back yards, in
anticipation of living forevermore
surrounded by peaceful and prosperous
families exactly like their own.
In the early 1950s Barbara Bolling,
the wife of a Congressman from
Missouri, and Hazel Detweiler, began
restoring old houses on G Street, SE,
across from Christ Church—the
adjacent blocks would be called by
the residents, Christ Church Village.
In 1958, Realtors Barbara Held,
Harry Brogden and Henry Lange,
backed by a lawyer named E. Fulton
Brylawski, bought out Heckman
Street, SE, which had become a
crowded haven for some of the poor
black people who had been driven
out of Southwest by the brave new
world of Urban Renewal.
Brylawski agreed to pay up to
$8000 for the houses, and Heckman
became Duddington Place. Barbara
Held promised to find equal or better
housing for the displaced, which she
did, without great difficulty—most
housing anywhere would have been
equal or better.
The Capitol Hill Restoration
Society became a force in the land.
Eisenhower came to the White
House, the Korean War wound
down, and more Vets came home.
They were soon followed by refugee
Korean families who took over the
corner grocery stores.
In 1959 Barbara Held and her six
salespeople sold eighty pieces of Hill
property, sixty-three for less than
$20,000, sixteen for less than
$15,000. The most expensive house
in the old core, in the 100 block of C
Street, SE, went for $35,000. One in
the 600 block of A Street, NE, went
for $30,000. The old alley dwellings
in the newly named Brown’s Court
went for as low as $1700.
First Communion procession, 1924
Tom “subbing” in Mike Kelly’s class, 1964
www.voiceofthehill.com 7
stood for a hundred years on
Constitution Avenue came down in
the 1950s and was replaced, first by a
community playground for toddlers,
and then by a row of new “townhouses”
erected by Barrett Linde.
They blended familiar style with
modern conveniences and were
bought immediately by up-to-date
thinkers, including a couple of
Congressmen.
By the sixties facsimiles were
going up all over the Hill. In 1966,
Clifford Alexander and his wife
Adele bought one of them on C
Street SE, just beyond Eastern
Market.
THEASSASSINATIONOF MARTIN
LUTHER KING touched off
tumult on and beyond H
Street, NE. The Hill grew tense, but
escaped with minor damage. Ray
Gamble, the most energetic member
of the Congregation of Faith
Tabernacle, the African-American
Church at 2nd and A, NE (once the
Waugh Methodist Episcopal), came
to our house at midnight to see if we
were safe and sound.
Restoration slowed, and house
prices drooped a bit, but they
climbed again in a year or so.
Senator Daniel P. Moynihan paid
more than $100,000 for a sizeable
dwelling at Sixth and East Capitol.
The handsome houses on A Street
SE, across the cobbled stone alley
from St. Marks, became show places
with elegant owners and sculptured
shrubbery. Cliff Alexander, who
would soon be the Secretary of the
Army, moved to the five hundred
block of A Street SE in 1972.
Tree boxes became flower gardens,
and stained glass transoms—once
considered embarrassingly old fashioned
—were now
prized. Penelope
Comfort Starr set
up in Douglas Alley
and started designing,
producing and
selling vivid new
ones.
Louise Lague and
Ned Scharff, married
but modern,
bought a restored
house in the 1500
block of E Street SE,
in August, 1975.
Anthony Ware,
who had been the
first African-
American on the
block back in the
Forties, was there to
welcome them.
The in-flow of
young professionals
continued, and the
first babies were
now going to
school: some to
Peabody, some to
St. Peter’s, some to
Capitol Hill Day.
Beverly
Baumgart’s father
sent Friendship
House 100 rose
bushes from
Oregon to be sold at
Market Day, and the
Spring House and
Garden Tour took
on new significance.
Friendship
House developed an
acting company
and produced
recent Broadway
hits to sincere
applause. Vic Hirsh
and Bonnie Horan
starred in “The Moon is Blue.”
The Nineties came, and Katherine
Turner Harrison died at the age of
79. Waring Myers, who had spent
the first 75 years of his life at 407
Constitution, moved in with his
daughter in Northern Virginia. Ray
Soo, who was as old as the century,
moved to his stepdaughter’s home in
Montgomery County.
I became a senior resident.
IN THE LAST FIVE YEARS OFTHE CENTURY,
Washington ran out of new,
commutable suburbs.
Suburbanites stopped being afraid to
live in the city, and young and old
couples realized that living in high
ceilinged houses, on tree-lined
streets, within walking distance of
coffee houses, drug stores, antique
shops and restaurants had its appeal.
As Don Denton, who manages
Pardoe Real Estate on the Hill puts it,
“After 50 years of an unbridled love
affair with the suburbs, there are a
growing number of people who just
can’t take it anymore.”
Three large, handsome, and
expensive new Victorians were built
in the 500 block of East Capitol in
1995. David and Stephanie Deutsch
bought the one with the conservatory
on the corner.
This past year, the handsome old
East Capitol Street house with the
deer in the big front yard, sold for
over a million, setting a new real
estate benchmark. Now Senator
Mary Landrieu and her husband are
building a million-and-half dollar
house a few blocks to the west.
Some people who buy houses at
the new highs spend a couple of
hundred thousand dollars fixing
them up before moving in. Some of
the less rich couples who came to
the Hill thirty years ago feel a sentiment
along the lines of, “there goes
the neighborhood.”
Will their closely-knit community
unravel?
Don Denton says there is no reason
for alarm—but shares a reg ret.
Most of the new sales, 52 percent
he estimates, are to people who were
already living on the Hill. A great
many of the buyers started modestly
and moved up the scale, one house
at a time.
His regret is the fact that the Hill is
running out of houses to sell or rent.
Since 1997, 1200 rental properties
have disappeared. In the same three
years, the average number of listings
for single-family homes has plunged
from 350 to just 50 or so. There were
but 58 houses on the market as of
April 3rd, 2001—a figure, says
Denton, “that we’ve hovered around
for the past year.”
Nothing like this has every happened
before—but things that never
happened before have always happened
on the Hill. Young people
arrived and became old Hill people,
the men and women selling live
chickens at Eastern Market were long
ago replaced by men and women
selling flowers and cheeses. The little
white kindergarten kids who were
watched over by Miss Rosalie
Walker—the Major’s favorite daughter
—in 1929, have been succeeded
by little kids of various shades. The
playground equipment has greatly
improved.
Journalist, Tom Kelly, was born 78
years ago this August, and has lived
almost his entire life in the 400 block of
Constitution Avenue. The author of The
Imperial Post, has written for maga -
zines and newspapers in Washington
and Louisiana—where he met his wife,
Marguerite, who writes the “Family
Almanac” column for the Washington
Post. Tom wrote a piece similar to this
one some 30 years ago for
Washingtonian Magazine.
Marguerite and Tom with Nell, Meg, Kate and Mike, 1963
8 www.voiceofthehill.com
plaints—paying for a sundae vs. eating
a free cone is a no-brainer!
This year, for the third year running,
Free Cone Day will support
May 2: Ben & Jerry’s Free Scoop
Day: Ben & Jerry’s Capitol Hill, 327
7th Street, SE
The Scoop Heard ’Round the World!
Every spring—for one day only—Ben
& Jerry’s Ice Cream shops offer free
cones filled with butterfat ambrosia
as a thank you to their cus tomers,
and to increase the visibility of a
worthy cause.
On May 2, Capitol Hill’s Ben &
Jerry’s will be serving up the free
stuff from noon to 8 PM. Store manager
Henry Lewis says that, typically,
the store does not take any specialty
orders during free cone day, but it is
doubtful that he receives any com-
May 5: Cinco de Mayo
This is a local event? You betcha. The
Hill is fast replacing Adams Morgan
as ground zero for Mexican restaurants
—we are nearing a 1:14 restaurant
to resident ratio—and Cinco de
Mayo is getting to be almost as wild
as St. Patrick’s Day. You can toast the
beginning of Margarita season just
about anywhere tonight, every Tex-
Mex and Latin eatery has some thing
special going on. Just be prepared to
wait in line (though these are about
the jolliest lines you’ll ever be stuck
in), and by the time dinner ’s over
you’ll be ready to salsa around the
maypole.
May 6: Friendship House Market Day:
Eastern Market
Now in its 38th year, Market Day at
Eastern Market is always one of the
highlights of Capitol Hill month—if
the sun shines, we can expect
15,000-plus revelers. Last year,
organizers pulled back a bit, holding
the festival at the home of the sponsoring
organization, Friendship
House. This year, Market Day is back
where it belongs, at Eastern Market.
Starting at 11AM, 7th Street will be
closed to traffic and filled with frolic.
Many of our favorite craftspeople
will be on hand, but many more are
due to arrive from places as far-flung
as North Carolina and New York.
There’ll also be food stalls, a “beer
garden,” music and entertainment
from the Dance Institute of
Washington on the main stage, and
more music from Magic 102.3, the
KaBOOM! a Hill based non-profit
that builds and refurbishes children’s
playgrounds across the
nation. Ben & Jerry’s has created a
special flavor—KaBerry KaBOOM! If
you love the flavor, drop a couple of
bucks in the collection jar.
Everything collected today goes to
support the organization.
May 4: Marine Parade Season
Begins: Marine Barracks, 8th & I
Streets, SE
This year, the “Oldest Post of the
Corps” promises to deliver the best
summer “parade” series ever as
Marine Barracks Washington celebrates
its bicentennial.
Beginning tonight at
sunset, and continuing
every Friday through
August 31, the crowds
will be lining Barracks
Row waiting for admission
to what is handsdown
one of the most
stirring shows on earth.
The Marine Parade features
performances by
“The President’s Own”
and the “The
Commandant’s Own”
United States Marine
Bands, The United States
Marine Drum and Bugle Corps, and
the Marine Corps Silent Drill
Platoon.
Admission to the Parades is free,
but reservations are strongly suggested.
Gates open at 7:15 PM for guests
with reservations, but get there
before 8 PM or you risk losing your
primo space to stand-bys! (If you
don’t have a reservation, by all
means stand by. We’re told that no
one is ever turned away from a
Parade, even if they have to set up a
folding chair under the bleachers.)
Reservation requests should be
addressed to: Protocol Office, Att:
PARADES, Marine Barracks, 8th & I
Sts., SE, Washington, DC 20390. For
recorded parade information, call
433-6060 or visit the Marine
Barracks website at
www.mbw.usmc.mil.

Ready Or Not Here It Comes:
CAPITOL HILL MONTH!
BY SARAH GODFREY
It seems like everything under the sun has a month
dedicated to it. Women’s History has a month
(March). Kite Lovers have a month (April). Dairy has
a month (June). Should Capitol Hill residents be left
behind? Nah. Hill residents have their very own
month as well (though we share the honors with
Asparagus, Mural Awareness and Older Americans),
and that month is—MAY!
Hey, we tirelessly toil away at countless ANC and
PSA meetings (March is Go To a Meeting Month?) to
nurture one of the world’s greatest neighborhoods—
now is the time to reap the benefits! And you won’t
have to elbow your way through throngs of tourists
who are not versed in “stand on the right, walk on
the left” escalator etiquette. Just open your door and
enjoy all that the neighborhood has to offer.
Offered below is a mere sampling of the goings on.
You’ll find many other great events in the
Community Calendar on page 43 of the paper. The
concerts, festivals, exhibits and other neighborhood
happenings included here (and there) are guaranteed
to fill your calendar (unless, of course, you’re already
booked solid for Asparagus Month).
www.voiceofthehill.com 9
“Oldie’s Station,” which will be spinning
discs and giving out plenty of
station freebees.
Then there’s the parade!
Kids from nineteen neighborhood
schools and day care centers have
been invited to dress up and march
along a short but sweet route from
6th and South Carolina, to 7th,
across Pennsylvania Avenue and
onto the main festival grounds (so
we can all scream, “oh my gosh, is
this cute or what?”)
Throughout the day there’ll be
plenty more for the kids to do over at
Friendship House, 619 D Street, SE,
where a full program of activities has
been planned–and where the kiddy
rides will be set up.
Market Day, by the way, benefits
Friendship House, the oldest settlement
house in the Washington.
Friendship House has been serving
the city since 1904. For more information,
call 675-9242.
May 12: PEN/Faulkner Awards:
Folger Shakespeare Library, 201
East Capitol, SE
The 21st Annual PEN/Faulkner
Awards Ceremony is hardly a homegrown
celebration, but it’s right at
that funny edge where the Hill
meets—the world.
Named for William Faulkner, who
used his Nobel Prize funds to create
an award for young writers, and affiliated,
with PEN (Poets, Playwrights,
Editors, Essayists and Novelists), the
international writers’ organization,
the PEN/Faulkner Award was founded
by writers in 1980 to honor their
peers. It is the largest juried prize for
fiction in the U.S.
This year Phillip Roth will take
home the $15,000 purse for his political
parable, The Human Stain. His
fellow nominees: Michael Chabon,
Millicent Dillon, Denis Johnson, and
Mona Simpson will receive $5,000
each.
The gala celebration at the Folger
Shakespeare Library (which happens
to be home to the PEN/Faulkner
Foundation) will include readings by
the winner and the nominees, followed
by a lavish buffet in the Great
Hall and music by the Joe Harris
Band.
The program begins at 7 PM, and
tickets are $85. For reservations call
the Folger Box Office at 544-7077.
May 12th and 13th: The Capitol Hill
House and Garden Tour
Here’s another humdinger. The
Capitol Hill Restoration Society
House and Garden Tour, now in its
44th year, is guaranteed to satisfy
the curiosity of those who yearn for
glimpses of the insides of the Hill’s
most gorgeous (or interesting)
homes. For a night and a day in May,
folks that usually content themselves
with peering through holes in
fences and gaps in drawn curtains,
can ogle crown moldings and camellias
with reckless abandon.
Charlotte Furness of the CHRS
says there are some “off the wall”
properties included on the tour this
year. Besides the beautiful houses
and gardens, you’ll be treated to a
grand tour of one of the neighborhood’s
oldest buildings,
the Old Naval
Hospital, which was
built in 1866. You’ll
also get a rare peek
at the fine Victorian
lady on Barracks
Row that’s home to
the Shakespeare
Theatre’s administrative
offices. Also
promised is a
glimpse at a truly
unique artist’s studio.
With the tulips
nodding, and the
roses and peonies
providing their
heady scent, the
tour is always a joy
for strollers—but if
the tootsies get
tired, a jitney is
available to take
attendees from site
to site.
The candlelight tour is on
Saturday evening May 12 from 5-8
PM. The tour picks up again on
Sunday from 1-5 PM. A tea-reception
will take place on Sunday from 3-6
PM at a location that is not yet
announced (but is always very special).
Tickets are $20 in advance and
$25 on tour days. They can be purchased
at the CHRS ticket kiosk at
Eastern Market on weekends or
ordered by mail from the Capitol
Hill Restoration Society, P.O. Box
15264, Washington, DC 20003.
Mail-in requests must be received no
later than May 4th.
May 12: Second Saturday
Second Saturday is pulling out all of
the stops in celebration of Capitol
Hill Month!
With the monthly tour of galleries
and shops coinciding with the
House and Garden tour, the organizers
of the two events are joining
forces. Between them there will
hardly be a closed door in the neighborhood
on Saturday night!
Watch for new art shows, entertainment,
hors d’ouevres, and special
events along Pennsylvania
Avenue, Barracks Row and Market
Row (and a few locations farther
flung).
A complete list of offerings will
appear at www.voiceofthehill.com
the week of the event.
May 16: Capitol Hill Community
Achievement Awards Dinner, Folger
Shakespeare Library, 201 East
Capitol St., SE
This dinner is so popular that by the
time this paper goes to press there
may not be any tickets left!
Every year the CHAMPS
Foundation, the charitable component
of the Capitol Hill Association
of Merchants and
Professionals,
honors three people
who have distinguished
themselves
in service to
the community.
This year’s nominees
are Will Hill,
Phyllis Jane
Young, and Lois
Kauffman. (Read
more about this
trio on page 12 of
this issue.)
Although the
dress is black-tie,
the mood is lighthearted
—which is
helped along by a
gala dinner in the
glorious Great
Hall of the Folger
Shakespeare
Library. If you can
manage to snag
one of these coveted
tickets, you are guaranteed a fabulous
time. If you miss out, mark it on
your calendar so you won’t miss next
year’s dinner! For more information
about the awards dinner, contact
Nicky Cymrot at 547-3228.
May 20: The 22nd Annual Capitol Hill
Classic 10K, 3K and Children’s Fun
Runs
The Capitol Hill Classic—such a
healthy Hill tradition—benefits the
Capitol Hill Cluster Schools:
Peabody Early Learning Center,
Watkins Primary Center and Stuart
Hobson Middle School, while at the
same time celebrating (and showing
off) the neighborhood.
We don’t go through Hanes
Point,” says race chair, Shad Ewart.
The Classic course runs through our
beautiful neighborhood, looping
around RFK and the Capitol, and
passing our most wonderful landmarks
(including, maybe, your
house).
There are two main races, a 10K
race and a 3K race, and several “fun
runs” for kids. All races start at the
Peabody School, with the 10K begin -
ning at 8:30 AM, the 3K at 9:45 AM,
and the fun runs at 10:45 AM.
The 22nd edition of this race will
feature an array of activities besides
running—live music, t-shirts, and
post-race refreshments. Music comes
courtesy of Lauren Hill (no, not that
Lauren Hill). Lauren, a former race
director, also happens to be an ace
DJ.
Registration fees are $20 for the
10K ($22 on race day), $15 for the 3K
($17 on race day), and $10 for the
fun runs. Cluster School students
who want to try their hand (or foot?)
at the 3K receive a special registration
rate of $10. For slow pokes, late
registration will be held at Peabody
School on May 18th from 5-7 PM
and on May 19th from 9 AM to 2
PM. For more info on the Capitol
Hill Classic, call 301-871-0400 or
visit www.runwashington.com to
learn more and to register online.
Friday, May 26, Saturday, May 27,
and Sunday, May 28: Memorial Day
Concert at the Capitol
The National Symphony Orchestra’s
Memorial Day Concert is the first of
three summer starlight performances
on the west lawn of the Capitol,
(there’s also the July 4 event and the
Labor Day concert). However, sharpeyed
readers may note that there are
THREE dates listed above: Friday,
Saturday and Sunday.
While Sunday at 8PM is the big
televised deal, with a cast of thousands
crowding the lawn, insiders
will head for the dress rehearsals on
Friday and Saturday night at 7:30PM.
They’re just as picnicable, and far
more neighborhoody. The kids will
even have room to romp around and
gather fireflies.
One more date we should mention:
If it rains, the main concert will
be Monday, May 29. No word of
what will happen if it rains on that
day too.
Sarah Godfrey is the Voice of the Hill’s
Editorial Intern
10 www.voiceofthehill.com
It’s our beloved spring ritual:
2500 people traipsing and
tromping through eight or ten
well-manicured and interesting
houses, earnestly admiring wall
coverings and windows, paint
and plaster, furniture and fol de rol.
For over 40 years, in fact, the Capitol
Hill House Tour has showcased the
bold and beautiful for the benefit of
the Capitol Hill Restoration Society.
By now, of course, the select group
of tour houses is not exactly small.
But there’s an even larger, and in
some ways more select, group of
houses that never gets the publicity
or fame of their more celebrated
neighbors. Maybe it’s the wallpaper.
Or the paint. Or the historically
uncool vinyl siding. Or a desperate
bid for privacy in our know-all, tellall
world.
Whatever it is, consider this a few
minutes of fame for the ones we
never see—the Houses that Didn’t
Make the Cut
“You’re kind of looking at
each other and you know it
won’t work and you’re trying
to figure out a way to
get out of it.”
E ven after the space of a year, real
e state agent Alice Faison, form e r
chair of the house tour selection
committee, is uncomfo rtable recalling
its mission of delicate diplomacy.
As she tells it, there is no glory or joy
in rejecting a house—even when it is
o bvious that if eve ry decora tor in th e
c o u n t ry we re to adopt Elvis on ve lvet
themes, the house will never do.
But how bad is bad? Faison hesitates.
“I’ve been in houses that ar e
messy or tacky,” she begins, then
quickly, discreetly, shifts strategy.
Some houses, she notes, are too
small to accommodate the steady
traffic of the tour. Or perhaps they
overlap with other candidates that
same year in terms of location or
style. Or maybe they simply lack
something a bit more esoteric—the
good feelings you take away after
seeing particularly memorable
places. That is, the kinds of places
that inspire, or entertain, or educate.
At least, those were her criteria.
In the end, though, when as many
as 30 or 40 prospectives are winnowed
down to the Final Cut, rejection
is the name of the game. It may
not be the tearful scene of Miss
A m e rica countdowns, but Fa i s o n
admits nobody likes it—least of all
h e rself. “Eve ry thing is so pers o n a l
and it’s such a small community,” she
s ays. Then she laughs—nervo u sly.
“I was desperate and
probably even cried.”
Architect Judith Capen speaks calmly
now of her own house’s rejection
several years ago. Days spent cleaning
the house were for naught, she
recalls, because no one from the
committee even walked into her
house before rejecting it as too modern.
It was a bitter blow, but not
unheard of.
And Capen is the author of many
of the Society’s historic district
guidelines, and has served, several
times, on the House Tour selection
committee.
The selection committee,
Restoration Society President Brian
Furness notes, often consists of a
diverse group of people, some chosen
for their knowledge of zoning
issues, others for their knowledge of
houses on the Hill. Local realtors
and decorators are obvious picks, for
their jobs allow them to sample hundreds
of Hill homes. Though arguments
can, and do, arise between
committee members who prefer
dressers to ductwork, or historical
accuracy to inspiring decoration,
“the objective is to find houses that
showcase the Hill,” says Furness.
And, he adds, to avoid violations of
zoning and “good taste.”
Of course, as with anything in the
realm of human artistic endeavor,
most of these criteria are in the eye
of the beholder.
“The house was a mess
the day they came in,”
recalls David Ochmanek of his
Constitution Avenue home’s viewing
by the selection committee se veral
years ago. “We were redoing the
living room and I had the hearth
down and was stripping it. The committee
sort of looked disdainfully at
that, then marched upstairs to my
son’s room.”
That, it turned out, was the final
nail, so to speak, in the coffin of
tastefulness. “The room was a typical
teenage mess,” says Ochmanek. “It
was pretty horrifying to look in
there.” Though his house was summarily
rejected afterward, Ochmanek
is sanguine. “We weren’t at all
offended,” he laughs. “It wasn’t
ready for the prime time.” He adds—
without even a hint of wistfulness
for the glories that might have
been—“The house is still not done,
by the way.”
Yet, even in the sometimes wooly
world of Hill history and taste, diplomacy
forever reigns supreme.
“You’re always trying to disguise
why you didn’t use a house,” Alice
Faison says. That may be why longtime
tour volunteer Renee Braden
can only surmise why her house was
rejected several years ago. “They
never told me why!” she says with a
little laugh of horror.
Given all the neighborly fame and
homeownerly pride that houses on
the tour naturally accrue, it may
seem impossible that there are some
people who simply do not want their
houses chosen. In fact, this is the
case more often than not, says
Faison. “A lot of people with the
nicest houses say they’re not ready.
They say they’ll call us.” Judith
Capen, echoes the sentiment.
“Sometimes you have to
beg people to be on the
tour.”
Gabrielle Hill was one of the begged.
Starting in 1985, after her large
house on East Capitol Street was renovated,
Hill was approached by the
EVER WONDER
ABOUT THE
O T H E R
H O U S E S … ?
BY VALERIE J ABLOW
www.voiceofthehill.com 11
house tour every
couple of years.
And every time,
she gave the
same answer for
the same reason
—privacy. “I
could quite
understand
their desire,”
says Hill genially,
noting that
their 18-monthlong
renovation
had piqued the
interests of quite
a few Hill
denizens. Some,
she says, had
even teased that
their contractor
was building the
Sistine Chapel.
Only in 1999
did she and her
husband relent.
But not everyone
does. Several years ago, committee
members never even got over the
threshold of Karen Zizmor’s house
before being turned down. “I said
absolutely not!” explains Zizmor
about declining her chance to be
part of tour history. “I didn’t want a
bunch of strangers tramping
through my house.”
Resident Patrick Lally was just as
firm when approached this year. The
period restoration of his 1891 home
is not finished, he explained. As a
volunteer with the tour, Lally also
understands, like Zizmor, that the
tour can be a strain in and of itself.
“To have thousands of people walk
in and out of your house is really
challenging. You have to steel yourself,”
he says. Then, too, there’s the
issue of more mundane concerns—
say, teenager bedrooms. “As a homeowner,
you have to be in a place
that’s not common among Hill families,”
Lally explains, noting that having
a showcase house and a family
home are often two very different
things.
Well, it’s all very fine to be so reasonable.
But what about the pain,
the real pain, of exclusion from that
most exclusive of exclusive house
clubs? “In many ways, we’d all be
greatly flattered if someone called
and said they wanted to put our
house on the tour,” admits Renee
Braden.
Despite that real desire, notes
Alice Faison, most people do not
complain once rejected, perhaps
because most, if not all, have been
approached about their houses
ahead of time. “You peek into windows,
you talk to people,” explains
Faison, noting that committee members
often bring house suggestions
to the table as a result of their work.
Thus, if anything, a quiet (tasteful?)
shame prevails
after a rejection.
“Right
when you say
‘no,’ people are
kind of mortified,”
she
explains.
Still, this
being a story of
human aspirations,
there is
always someone
who will
not go gently
into that good
night of decorative
and architectural
obscurity
that is the
fate of the
unchosen and
unwanted.
Once her
house was
rejected, for
instance, Judith
Capen turned to a time-honored
Washington tradition: lobbying. She
approached friends and colleagues at
the Restoration Society, where she
served on the historic district committee.
She argued. She politicked.
She schmoozed. Finally, in 1997, her
house was chosen “through pure,
old-fashioned backroom pull and
politics,” she says with a laugh. Fair?
Depends on who you talk to.
Effective? Yes.
So, inspired, I decide to approach
Brian Furness. My husband and I are
going to get our house painted this
year, I explain. And since the ancient
underlying paint, a brilliant pink, is
bleeding through, we thought perhaps
that was a sign that we, too,
should go for baroque—say, shocking
pink with lime g reen trim. Such
a Bermuda approach would
undoubtedly enliven the cold winter
months. Would that not be, well,
nice for the tour?
There’s a discernible silence.
“There’s nothing on color that has
the force of law,” Furness begins.
Then, like a true diplomat of taste,
he adds tactfully, “I suspect that people
in pink houses with lime green
trim have not done the kind of
restoration we like to showcase on
the tour.”
I listen calmly, considering that
perhaps our beloved domicile may
lack a few, minor, details such as dec -
orative interest or historic character.
Just when I am almost resigned to
agree that this year, perhaps ours
isn’t the most desirable choice,
Furness plunges in the dagger.
“That lime green trim is just the
tip of the iceberg.”
Valerie Jablow, an assistant editor at
Smithsonian Magazine, wants to dis -
pel all rumors that her house will be
pink in the future.
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Will Hill, Consummate
Activist
Will Hill, a soft-spoken man who
describes himself as a “workaholic”
and a “people person,” has been
deeply involved in neighborhood
activities of all kinds since moving
here in 1970.
He’s been a commissioner for ANC
6B for many years, acting as liaison
between the community and the
District government, ensuring that
citizen complaints get a hearing—he
also is the chair of the First District
Citizens Advisory Council which has
a similar function with the police
department.
He is a past president of the
Capitol Hill Garden Club, an organizer
of the Barney Circle orange hats,
part of the Citizens’ Committee on
Lorton, and a leader in the battle to
keep Boys Town from putting a facility
for troubled youth at 14th and
Pennsylvania Avenue SE.
Will is also the neighbor kids stop
to talk to on their way home from
school, and the man people know
they can ask to care for their houses
and pets when they go away.
Every New Year’s day for twentyfive
years, Will and his mother,
Minnie B. Hill, have hosted a reception
for neighbors at their home on
14th St. SE. It’s a pot luck with
people bringing food from the tradition
they grew up in. “Everyone
knows about it now,” Will tells me.
“They’d come even without an invitation.”
Will grew up in Culpeper, Virginia
where “people were friendly” and
neighbors really did help neighbors
— despite the fact that segregation
was still in effect. “Black and
white intermingled,” Will remembers.
“I played with white boys,
spent nights at their houses. When
integration came, it was peaceful.”
Even as a youngster, Will was
ambitious. At 14 he got an afterschool
job working in a jewelry
store. By the time he was 15 he had
his own charge account at
Culpeper’s most exclusive store, the
White Shop, and was proud to be
able to pay for his own clothes.
When he graduated from high
school, he was voted “Best Dressed”
in his class.
“I had a good life coming up as a
kid,” Will says. “I never got into
trouble.” His father was a construc -
tion worker, his mother was at
home—he credits her with giving
him a good foundation.
When, as a young man, he left
Culpeper for DC, Will was told,
“Sooner or later everyone comes
back.” But he was determined not to.
“I wanted to make my home town
proud,” he says.
Soon he had an apartment in D.C.
and a job. He started as a stock clerk
in a sporting goods store. After his
father’s death, Will’s mother joined
him in Washington and began working
as a private duty nurse. One of
her patients was the Vice President
of the National Bank of Washington
and he got Will a job there as a messenger.
When the bank closed at two
in the afternoon he’d go help out at
a printing company. At the bank he
worked his way up from messenger
to coin room operator and then
teller at a time when there were ver y
few black tellers.
Will recounts the story of the
American Institute of Bankers banquet
to which employees who had
reached a certain level in the bank
were invited. But when the time
came for him to be invited, he wasn’t.
When he inquired about it he
was told that blacks had never
attended the banquet and it was
thought that he’d feel “out of place.”
Will decided to push for an invitation,
which he finally received. He
remembers the attack of nerves he
had before entering the ballroom. “I
took a deep breath and said to my
date, Ruby, ‘We are the king and
queen of this ball tonight.’” Some of
the people assigned to their table got
up and left when Will and Ruby
showed up; but by the end of the
evening friends from his bank were
seated around him and his table was
the center of animated conversation.
Describing his career, Will says,
“One door would always open
another door.”
Since his days at the bank, Will
has worked at a variety of jobs,
including ten years of running his
own printing shop on Eighth Street
near the old Capitol Hill Hospital.
He is now a riding page for the U.S.
Senate, delivering important mail
and packages all around the city.
Will says he’ll think about retiring
when he’s got ten years of government
service. Then he would like to
tend the day lilies, irises and peonies
in his garden—and maybe open an
antique shop.
Whatever he does in the future, he
says he has no regrets about the past.
He sums up his career here saying
“I’ve been very fortunate.”
Phyllis Jane Young,
Consummate People
Person
Like Will, Phyllis Jane Young is from
Virginia and credits her background
with shaping her values. She is from
rural Madison County and says, “I
grew up in the country where neighbors
always helped neighbors.”
She has brought that attitude to
her life here—to her work as an
agent for Pardoe Real Estate, to
organizing the Pumpkin Patch for
Hill-O-Ween and Santa’s visits to the
Eastern Market, and to her service as
a member of the Board of the
CHAMPS Community Foundation.
Phyllis also brings high energy, a
joyous attitude—and a hearty
laugh—which have sustained her
through some rocky times.
In 1969, two weeks after graduating
from Roanoke College in Salem,
Virginia, Phyllis was driving her VW
bug to a wedding reception when
she was broad sided by a
drunk driver. “I wasn’t wearing my
seat belt because it would have
mussed my pretty dress,” she
remembers.
She speaks of it lightly now, but
her injuries were serious. It was pure
luck that a plastic surgeon was in the
emergency room when she was
brought in, saving her face from
being scarred. A series of surgeries
repaired her crushed legs.
Phyllis lived at home and worked
as a substitute teacher during her
recovery period, including a stint in
her schoolteacher mother’s own
classroom. But the world beckoned,
and she soon moved to an apartment
in Alexandria and a job as a
lobbyist.
Three Who Live the
Expression:
NEIGHBORS HELPING NEIGHBORS
BY STEPHANIE DEUTSCH
Will Hill, Phyllis Jane Young and Lois Kauffman will receive
this year’s Capitol Hill Community Achievement Awards at
the CHAMPS Community Foundation dinner on May 16. The
Foundation, which gives grants of financial assistance to local
groups and individuals whose projects enhance life on the
Hill, uses the Community Achievement Awards as another
way to affirm people who live out the motto “Neighbors
Helping Neighbors.” It is hard to imagine three individuals of
whom that is more true than Hill, Young and Kauffman.
Left to right: Phyllis Jane Young, Lois Kauffman, Will Hill
www.voiceofthehill.com 13
She moved to the Hill (“I couldn’t
afford Georgetown”) a year or two
later, when traffic made her so late
she missed the opening number of a
much-anticipated performance by
the Bolshoi Ballet. “I said to myself,
this will never happen again. No
more rush hour traffic.”
Once here, she dove right in to
re n ovating a house, then began selling
real estate after a friend suggest e d
it, saying, “You love people, you love
the Hill and you love old houses.”
Phyllis says she didn’t even know
how to write a contract when she
made a sale her first week on the
job.That first real estate post was
with Millicent Chatel, who taught
her, “Look for the gleam in the eye
and you’ll know you have a sale.” In
1983, she joined Pardoe.
Since then, her commitment to
the neighborhood has continued to
deepen. She chaired the Restoration
Society House and Garden tour in
1990. She’s been involved in many of
Pardoe’s community outreach programs,
like decorating Christmas
trees at Hine Junior High and creat -
ing holiday programs for children at
Eastern Market, and she has given
financial support to many others.
Since 1995 she has chaired the
dinner that the CHAMPS
Foundation gives to honor the
Community Achievement awards;
this year she’ll be choosing the
menu and keeping the guest list for
the dinner in her own honor.
She is also a lively presence on her
block near Eastern Market, walking
her standard poodle, Hunter, and
decorating the tree in her front yard
each fall with ghosts and each spring
with brightly colored Easter eggs.
Phyllis figures she gets back as
much from this community as she
gives. When she was sideswiped by
illness several years ago, “My friends
and neighbors got me through it.”
They brought her food and checked
on her every day. It makes her think
of her mother, who died last year at
95. “Mother missed a lot in her life
by being so isolated,” Phyllis says. “I
think I’ll be very lucky if I can live
out my life right here.”
Lois Kauffman,
Consummate Idealist
Lois Kauffman, retired public school
teacher and the dynamic director of
education at the Capital Area Food
Bank, is a country girl too.
She grew up on a
farm in Oregon, the
youngest of eight children
in a Mennonite
family. Her father
raised rye and grass
seed, but insisted that
his barley be used only
for food—not for alcohol,
which he never
touched.
Mennonite culture,
with its emphasis on
service and profound
respect for each individual
human being, is an important
part of who Lois is. It helps explain
why, after thirty years in classrooms
and six months of retirement, Lois
was happy to help a neighbor who
was volunteering, sorting salvaged
food at the Capital Area Food Bank.
“I loved it,” says Lois.Before long she
was working full time again, finding
and implementing hunger and
nutrition education programs for
the Bank.
Lois calls “Hunger 101,” a poverty
and hunger awareness program for
the general public, “my heart.” It ’s a
course, developed at the Atlanta
Food Bank, that invites participants
to experience what it’s like to live in
hunger and to try to provide family
meals on a small income. Thanks to
Lois’s efforts, it has been offered at
many area private schools and
church groups and even at a Bat
Mitzvah (it was called a “Mitzvah Bat
Mitzvah,” and instead of being
entertained, guests learned about
hunger).
Another of the Bank’s programs is
Operation Frontline, which brings
volunteer professional chefs and
nutritionists to teach classes in cooking
and nutrition offered
through rehab programs, shelters
and other emergency assistance
organizations. One of the classes
takes place in a grocery store so participants
can learn how to shop.
Lois is used to working hard. One
of the best things she
got from her childhood,
she says, was
the work ethic. As a
young girl she would
come home from
school, get a snack,
then do farm chores
until dark. Her mother
was ill for much of her
childhood so there
was housework to do,
as well.
At 16 she was sent
to a Mennonite boarding
school in Kansas where all she
had to worry about was algebra and
English and “it was like paradise.” At
boarding school, Lois met Ivan
Kauffman, from a Mennonite family
in Kansas. They married when they
were both 20 years old.
The couple took turns working
and completing school, attending
Oregon State so they could help
Lois’s parents, and then Goshen
Mennonite College in Indiana. Lois
got her degree in family life and
child development which led to her
career in teaching, specializing in
kindergarten and pre-kindergarten.
Ivan became a journalist, story
writer and poet.
Asked what brought her young
family to Washington, Lois replies
firmly, “idealism.” Though they had
never lived in a big city, the couple
dreamed of creating an urban refuge
center where people experiencing
certain kinds of difficulties could
find refuge.
They visited Chicago, Boston and
New York but when they came to
Washington they knew this was the
place for them. “It was a beautiful
April day, the cherry blossoms were
out, people were everywhere,” Lois
remembers. “We just loved it.”
So in August, 1966, Lois and Ivan,
their young children, Conrad and
Eda, and their cat, arrived with a UHaul
full of furniture, no jobs and no
place to live. Their first apartment
was on Connecticut Avenue so near
the zoo that the noise of the lions
roaring made Lois wonder if they
were living near “some kind of a
cult.” They came to Capitol Hill in
1976.
The urban refuge center didn’t
exactly work out as planned and yet,
Lois says, she’s recently become
aware that without knowing it, she
and her husband have accomplished
much of what they wanted to:
“We’ve always rented rooms out;
we’ve always had a lot of young people
in our home. Because of the way
we grew up, we were not afraid of the
stranger in the house.” Some of
those folks have come back to say
how much that time meant to them.
Continuing the family tradition
are the Kauffmans’ two children,
both consider themselves
Mennonites and live lives focused on
service. Eda is a social worker, doing
programs for women in drug and
alcohol treatment and raising her
two children; Conrad is a stay at
home dad to three kids.
Lois’s career, teaching kindergarten
and pre-kindergarten to a
whole generation of Capitol Hill
kids, then running the computer lab
at Eastern High school, and now,
working with volunteers to increase
understanding of hunger, has been a
happy fit of opportunity to talent.
“I’ve been extremely happy,” says
Lois. “This work has been a privi -
lege.”
Stephanie Deutsch interviewed
Marguerite Kelly for the January 2001
Voice of the Hill.
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At the 4th Annual Jazz Gala and
Auction to benefit the School-
Within-School at Peabody on March
31st, widespread support from
Capitol Hill’s business community
was definitely in evidence. There
were gift certificates from Las
Placitas and The Monocle, a velvet
three-piece ensemble from Art and
Soul, and theater tickets from the
Folger. Giant signs proclaimed the
generosity of underwriters from
Pardoe Real Estate, RE/MAX
Properties, Grubb’s Pharmacy, and
Asman Custom Photo Service.
Parents eagerly outbid each other on
a party for 150 at Politiki.
So goes yet another fundraising
event on Capitol Hill. That particu -
lar auction raised $26,000 for one of
the Hill’s public schools, and will
soon be followed by other events for
other groups. Our local calendar is
already filled with everything from
the Capitol Hill Community
Achievement Awards and the
Capitol Hill Cluster School 10K to
the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop’s
Winter Revelry and auctions for the
Capitol Hill Day School and St.
Peter’s School.
Really, you could spend nearly
every day around this neighborhood
either planning or attending a
fundraiser.
But none of these fundraisers
would get off the ground without
the support of the business community
in one form or another. Jorge
Zamorano, owner of Banana Café,
gets some 30 fundraising requests
each week, asking for everything
from food to money to bartenders.
“Everybody’s in some kind of
group,” says Zamorano, “and we
have some very good customers, so
we go ahead and help them as much
as we can. But you can’t help everybody.”
Dennis Bourgeault of Doolittle’s
Pet Supplies concurs, “We get asked
for every church, every school, every
event. We get e-mails constantly
from dog groups all over the country,
let alone in the neighborhood. It
can become a real drain.” Already
this year, Doolittle’s has agreed to
sponsor the Capitol Hill Community
Achievement Awards, the Humane
Society’s Bark Ball, two local concerts,
and the Capitol Hill Children’s
Baseball League. In between, they
may also support customers who are
training for the AIDS Ride or donate
merchandise for a silent auction.
For small, independently-owned
businesses like Doolittle’s and
Banana Café, the trick to giving
seems to be in setting a budget and
sticking to it. Don Denton of Pardoe/
ERA Real Estate believes that it is rea -
sonable for businesses to set aside
5% of their g ross yearly income for
charitable giving, saying “The mistake
that business owners make is in
not realizing that this is really good
marketing. Two years ago, St. Peter’s
asked us to underwrite their auction
and I said yes. Then they put up a
banner outside the school that told
everyone about our support. That
banner hung out there for a good
two or three months — it was the
best damn money I ever spent. And
when they asked me the next year to
support them again, I was happy to
do it because that positive exper ience
was so fresh in my mind.”
Denton believes strongly that it is
in the best interest of businesses to
support the community, because it
builds a stronger community in
which to do business. He is also
keenly aware of the connection
between the residents whose causes
he supports and his business. “When
Libby Clarke calls me as a parent
from Peabody School and asks for
$250 for their auction, I’m going to
say yes,” says Denton. “I know her
and her husband, I like them, and
they’ve bought and sold a couple of
properties with me.”
Still, Denton thinks that local
organizations should be doing a better
job of educating their member s
about supporting the businesses
who support their cause. “It’s a twoway
street,” he says. “It can be frus -
trating to give money to an event
year after year and then see that the
person who asked you for that support
has a different real estate company
—which has not been so generous
in their contributions—selling
their property.”
Dennis Bourgeault agrees, “It
doesn’t help us if we give money to
some event on the Hill and then
those people go shopping at
PetSmart.”
A customer did walk into Grubb’s
Pharmacy and tell Jeanette Partilla
that they were shopping there precisely
because of the support
Grubb’s had given to a local event.
“It’s nice to know that we’ve helped
people in the community and
they’ve noticed it,” says Partilla. “I
think we’re all partners in supporting
the neighborhood. I would certainly
rather support CHAMPS
members when I’m doing any business
on Capitol Hill, and I think it’s
important to support the schools
and other groups that are serving
our customers. It’s a give-and-take
relationship.”
Telling local businesses that their
support makes a difference is crucial,
according to Don Denton. “When
you go into Trattoria Alberto for dinner,”
says Denton, “you should go
right up to Nico and say “Thanks for
donating that gift certificate to my
kid’s school auction.” Then Nico
knows that it matters and that it’s
appreciated.”
Barry Hayman of Antiques on the
Hill would like to see donor’s lists
out in the community that would
clearly let people know which businesses
are supporting neighborhood
events: “I think people have attention-
deficit disorder when it comes
to this stuff. They forget which businesses
are out there making contr ibutions,
whether cash or merchandise
or in-kind, and they need to be
thinking about those businesses
when they are going shopping.
Maybe then they’d shop at the
Forecast instead of Nordstrom the
next time they need a nice outfit.”
Now in her sixth, or maybe se venth,
year of chairing the Capitol
Hill Community Achievement
Awards Dinner (“I’ve been doing it
so long I can’t remember when I
wasn’t chairing it”), real estate agent
Phyllis Jane Young has been on both
sides of this issue many times, either
raising money or doling it out. “I
think quite often you get the same
group of people supporting these
events year in and year out,” says
Young, “and each year we get a couple
of new players. I’m always tickled
about getting new people involved,
especially if they have time as well as
money to give. I mean, money is
great, but you also need people with
time to put into making an event
work.”
Young says that once she gets
business people to come to the
Awards Dinner, which raises money
for the CHAMPS Community
Hey, Buddy,
Can You Spare
A Dime?
The Give and Take of Fundraising on Capitol Hill
BY KRISTEN HARTKE
www.voiceofthehill.com 15
Foundation, they are thrilled with
the event and its purpose. “I firmly
believe,” says Young, “that businesses
on Capitol Hill are really prepared
to step up, go the distance, and be
good neighbors.”
However, when she’s got her real
estate hat on, Young has certainly
noticed that, at least on the Hill, real
estate agents seem to get hit up a lot
for donations, saying, “One time I
finally asked someone ‘Do you go to
lawyers and doctors as much as you
come to us?’”
(Phyllis Jane Young, by the way,
has done so much for the neighborhood
over the years that she’s being
recognized with a Community
Achievement Award of her own this
year.)
Don Denton agrees that the real
estate businesses do probably bear
the brunt of contribution requests,
although he also feels that the benefits
of community-building so directly
affect real estate that it’s simply a
necessary part of doing business in
the neighborhood. “In general,” says
Denton, “a lot of businesses don’t
really make that connection, and so
you tend to see the same places contributing
to all the various events.
All you can do is to try to build that
support one business at a time. You
hope that a light suddenly comes on
and another business realizes the
importance of their support.”
When chairing the recent benefit
auction for School-Within-School at
Peabody, parent Kathleen Penney
saw that it was important to think
outside of the box when seeking sup -
port from businesses. “We recognized
from the beginning that we
needed to expand our base of support,”
says Penney, “first, because we
wanted to alleviate the pressure on
those businesses who contribute frequently,
and, second, so that we
could bring new stakeholders into
the system.”
The result was a true success for
the event and its future, because by
asking parents to think creatively,
several businesses new to both the
school and the auction were tapped
for support in a variety of ways.
Gingko Gardens, for instance,
allowed Penney to borrow large
plants to use for decoration at the
event, while another parent who
works for Crawford/Edgewood
Management, Inc. asked for and
received a $700 cash donation from
her employers. Antiques on the Hill
donated two wooden kitchen chairs
which were colorfully painted by the
school’s students and then auctioned
off for a hefty sum. “We
found that these businesses were
enthusiastic about our event,” says
Penney, “and willing to help. Some
of them had never been asked
before, so they really enjoyed participating.”
In addition, many of Capitol Hill’s
new businesses are owned by local
residents who are already invested in
the community in other ways.
Riverby Books, which was opened
recently by Nicky and Steve Cymrot,
is underwriting this year’s Capitol
Hill Community Achievement
Awards Dinner. The Cymrots have a
30-year history of supporting
Capitol Hill’s charitable causes and
Nicky Cymrot says, “We’re really
pleased to support the Awards
Dinner in this way, through our new
bookstore rather than just as the
Cymrots.”
Meanwhile, Results, The Gym was
quickly tapped as the main sponsor
for the upcoming Capitol Hill
Classic 10K—a deal made all the
sweeter when Results’ owner and former
Hill resident Doug Jeffries
returned to living on Capitol Hill
and bought a house across the street
from his new gym.
Don Denton has also found
recently that businesses are eager to
jump on a cause that gives them
good visibility at a fair price, such as
the Capitol Hill Children’s Baseball
League, where a business or individual
can support a team for just $250
a season. “I’d have to say that
(Pardoe agent) John Parker really had
no trouble getting people to suppor t
the Baseball League because he did
such a good job of making it really
affordable,” says Denton. “For a lot
of small independently-owned businesses,
$250 is a lot easier to swallow
than $1000. People were so supportive
that JP raised enough money to
get a $3000 batting cage for the kids
this year.”
But the bottom line is, whether it’s
Pardoe Real Estate spending $20,000
a year supporting local causes or Joe
Shmoe’s Hair Hut spending $200, it
all counts in creating the communi -
ty that we call Capitol Hill. Says
Antique on the Hill’s Barry Hayman,
“You just do it because it’s important
—it’s part of the fabric of the
community and we are all bound
together by that fabric.”
And don’t forget to thank Joe the
next time you go in for a shave.
Writer Kristen Hartke recently cochaired
the School-Within-School at
Peabody auction, and gratefully
acknowledges the enormous support of
Capitol Hill’s business community.
Thanks!
A RT
A rtistic and creative expre ssion
can teach us much about
life. At St. Mark’s on Capitol
Hill, we have a dynamic art s
p rogram that celebrates our
gifts and talents while
enhancing our search for
meaning. Imagine: Visual art s
exhibits for young and old.
Theatrical productions by the
St. Mark’s Players. A lively
Dance Studio for children.
P e rf o rmances by the St.
M a r k ’s Dance Company.
Yoga classes. Seasonal conc
e rts. And the beautiful voices
of our Sunday morn i n g
choirs, both adult and child
ren. Come visit us. Be a part
of us. Our door is open.
LIFE
www.stmarks.net
202 .543.0053
16 www.voiceofthehill.com
Ask most runners why they run
where they do and you are likely to
get a wide range of responses having
something to do with logistics,
schedules, convenience, and perhaps
safety. Some may even say that
where they run is a non-place, “The
better to focus on the running.”
Runners on Capitol Hill, however,
often respond very differently. They
mention things like neighborliness,
stunning scenery, and other sorts of
stunning sights—members of
Congress, famous folk, bewildered
tourists, and the occasional naked
man.
Those prepping for the Capitol
Hill Classic this May 20th, have
much more to consider than the
roads they travel. We share some of
the pleasures, and the trials, of our
fleet footed neighbors.
A Most Friendly Place. Morning,
noon and night, you’d better be prepared
to say “hi” to the people you
meet on the sidewalks, because Hill
folks are about the friendliest people
you’ll ever come across. When my
friend from New England visits, she
is always astounded when we jog
along the streets to waves and halloos.
No one in her small, cozy, picturesque
town, she tells me, ever says
hi. We are so fortunate.
Looking for Naked Men? While lots
of runners are content to go round
and round Lincoln Park sniffing the
cherry blossoms and hurdling
German shepherds, the most pleasurable
—and unpredictable—experiences
belong to those who venture
off that well-worn track.
Like heading down to the Mall in
the summertime and running into a
little Mozart on your return trip.
Concerts happen almost daily, at
noon and dusk, from Memorial Day
to Labor Day on the Capitol
grounds.
Or seeing how many famous faces
you can count. Sighting Congresswoman
Eleanor Holmes Norton on
her early morning walk. Or spotting
a Senator, maybe Wellstone or
Breaux, emerging from their digs.
A Runner on Capitol Hill
BY BARBARA A. JOHNSON
www.voiceofthehill.com 17
BUYING BOOKS EVERY DAY…SELLING BOOKS MOST DAYS.
ENJOY THE BIGGEST SELECTIONOF CAPITOL HILL AUTHORSTHAT WE COULD MAKE.
Top Ten Reasons to Visit Rive r by Books
Now open
We try to sell as many books as we buy.
Shakespearean actors, Floyd King
and Wallace Acton, can often be
caught dashing about on foot or
bike. You might even glimpse a
Supreme Court justice—that always
gives a humdrum run just the right
touch of pomp.
And yes, there is the occasional
naked men. Once I was running by
the Lincoln Memorial around 7AM
and there was a man standing totally
starkers in the reflecting pool. Park
police were in the water with pant
legs rolled up coaxing him to give it
up, while helicopters were overhead
doing who knows what.
A Thrill for the Senses. Be prepared
to be absolutely astounded by the
beauty of the sights you will behold
on your run, and the pleasure it
brings.
Sniff the gardens on the Hill—
your neighbor’s roses and peonies,
the herb garden at the Folger Librar y,
or the verdant spread along the
south side of the Supreme Court.
Run barefoot down the hill in front
of the Capitol in the dewy morning
(without needing to care about what
you might be stepping in).
Look up and catch the light (early
morning or at sunset) hitting the
very tops of the trees, buildings and
monuments, revealing shapes and
colors often missed: the golden pink
sunrise reaching out over the
Potomac and under the arches of the
Arlington Memorial bridge; the
scullers almost silently slip-slipping
through the water by the Kennedy
Center; our neighborhood covered
in a fresh morning snow.
Know Where Sandra, Hillary and
Monet Hang. Running around here
requires the skills of a tour guide, the
directional sense of a homing
pigeon, and the equanimity to stop
short and chat while jogging in
place.
Be ever ready to respond to questions
about where the stores are on
“The Mall,” and to distinguish
between the Supreme Court, the U.S.
Capitol, and the National Gallery of
Art’s West Building—each is, at
times, mistaken for the other.
Once I came upon a father kneeling
by his young son’s side with his
arm around the boy’s shoulder
pointing up at the National Gallery.
With great pride in his voice, the
father said, “This is the Capitol
building where important laws get
made.”
You’ll also be asked for directions
to the White House, the Kennedy
Founded 1889
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10. Sometimes there’s a long line
at Jimmy T’s.
9. Practice pronouncing
Neitsczhe, Van Gogh and
Jung in safe, encouraging
environment.
8. Hot tea every afternoon at
4:30.
7. Remind us to water the
orchid.
6. Aisles wider than at the health
food store.
5. Sometimes Phyllis Jane Young
stops by.
4. Authors welcome to come visit
their books.
3. In high school you didn’t finish
reading Huckleberry Finn so you
don’t even know how it ends &
you’ve been living in fear that
someone might ask you, all
these years.
2. No book priced more than
$1,200 this week.
1. BOOKSTORES ARE COOL!
417 East Capitol Street, SE
202-543-4342
Paul Cymrot Steve Cymrot
riverby@erols.com
18 www.voiceofthehill.com
Center and Georgetown. No matter
where you are on your run, expect to
be able to point the way, give the distance
—and judge if the folks asking
you where these places are can, in
fact, walk to their destination
(which means you’ll need a handle
on Metro and bus stops as well).
And don’t be surprised if you get
the follow-up question: “Are you
sure?” (This happens so frequently,
you begin to wonder who keeps leading
our poor visitors astray.)
Stop. Take the Shot. Here’s another
thing about those tourists: be prepared
to stop your running at any
and all times to take photographs of
smiling people in front of any and
all buildings, statues, bodies of
water—reflecting or not—and plots
of grass.
To my eternal shame, the fir st
time this happened to me I was not
prepared. What happened was this:
A woman was standing by herself
about halfway down the hill on the
Senate side of the Capitol. As I came
running up towards her, she politely
reached out to hand me the camera
and asked if I could I please take her
picture. I said I couldn’t stop. Oh,
where was my head.
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museums, shrines and marble edifices
say home to you, know that
this feeling—with a twist of entitlement
—is shared by all U.S. citizens
visiting the capital.
This sense of “ownership” is a
comforting one for every American
to have; however, when large groups
of citizens with this demeanor gat her,
and they are walking toward you,
and they all have on the same color
t-shirt, know that not only your
serenity and stride are about to be
challenged, you are in danger of
being run over.
Honestly, I have come to accept
this and just figure that I am invisi -
ble.
Let’s Do the Monuments! If you
think jogging in place while giving
directions to passing tourists is a
skill, try leading a running tour for
your houseguests.
They can’t wait to “do the monuments,”
and are always at the front
door the morning after they arrive,
raring to go. It ’s the middle of
August? Ha. Grab your propeller
beanie on your way out.
Here’s a route guaranteed to bring
them to their knees (with happi -
ness):
Start out on East Capitol Street,
heading for the Mall—there’s no better
place for a view of the Capitol
dome looming unreal before you.
Give a wave toward the Folger
Library, the Supreme Court and the
Library of Congress as you run by
(you might make mention of the latter’s
new copper dome. Such insider
tidbits spice things up).
Sprint down the hill past the
Capitol, then jog along the Mall
indicating the museums and galleries
—and noting what exhibits are
currently available and where—then
zoom up the Washington
Monument grounds, reminding
your guests of the remarkable renovation
just completed.
As you crest the hill, point out the
White House, then trot on toward
Lincoln, making a slight swing
north to get over to Constitution
Gardens and a look at the waterfowl.
As you pass the Vietnam War
Memorial remember to look for the
special memorial honoring women
who served. (If you edge in close to
the wall, stop and walk and be
quiet!)
Keep an eye peeled for naked men
as you approach the Lincoln
Memorial, then do a Rocky up the
steps to see the honest one. (He’d
never give a tourist a bum steer.)
The dramatic Korean War
Memorial is a must see on the return
trip, but once you’re past, cut over to
the pools and fountains of the FDR
Memorial—a gorgeous stopping
place for a stroll and some water.
Now on to Jefferson and the Tidal
Basin, then a swing past the Bureau
of Engraving and Printing and the
Holocaust Museum. Cut through the
beautiful Enid Haupt Garden in
front of the Smithsonian Castle to
reach the Mall for your return trip.
I really hope they don’t build too
many more monuments; this tour
could get out of hand.
The Finish Line @ EM. Be prepared—
on any day, but especially on
Saturdays—to end your run at
Eastern Market and pig out on pancakes
(you deserve it, right?). Then
wander with your coffee past the
fresh fruits and vegetables, the hand
made soaps and flowers, chat with
vendors and friends, and maybe pick
up some dinner before limping
home.
Barbara A. Johnson has lived in the Hill
since 1977. A Professsor of Education at
Gallaudet University, she’s been a run -
ner since 1965 (and has recently added
yoga to her life as well.)
www.voiceofthehill.com 19
fire extinguisher while I made
another call. “It’s a fire, come
quick. My house is burning,” I
cried.
We heard them coming. So
did my neighbors. They were
all out on the sidewalk.
So was I, with my hair not
washed, my face not yet made
up, wearing sweats over pajamas.
Normally I would have
showered and dressed and
locked my front door before going
downstairs, but that day I
didn’t.
A quarter inch of sheetrock
saved my second floor, a fireman
told me. I knew the fire
extinguisher stopped the
flames until the professionals
arrived.
The fire had moved from the
wire downstairs, up through
the flexible dryer hose,
through a closet and under the
stairs, burning everything
along the way and bursting the
hot water tank.
I was weeping over the loss of the
mink and leather coats I had inherited
from my mother, and the irreplaceable
fur and wool wraps I had
collected from pawn shops and flea
markets over the years, when my
neighbors started draping me in
their coats. Within minutes, I had
three new pieces of old outerwear.
Physically, these coats couldn’t
replace the lost garments, but emo -
tionally they meant more to me
than what was now a pile of rubbish
on my front stoop.
I had only moved to Capitol Hill
last November. It was a few days
before Thanksgiving, and the first
holiday I had spent in America in six
years. I had moved back from
Budapest in April 2000, and a month
later I walked into an open house
and decided to buy. For six years I
had lived in one room smaller than
the bedroom of the house I wanted
to purchase.
Years ago, a very wise old
woman told me: “What
doesn’t happen in a lifetime
can happen in an
instant.” She was referring
to romance and living happily
ever after, but I’ve often thought of
this statement in times of tragedy,
because it takes only a very brief
time for life to turn upside down.
In a few minutes this past winter,
my life completely changed. That
first Sunday in February, my house
caught on fire. It was awful, and in a
way it was very grand. My moans
were interrupted by kindness. Some
things burned, but I gained so much
from people I barely knew or didn’t
know at all.
Big red trucks, sirens, and big men
carrying huge hoses up brick steps
through a front door leading to
black smoke and flames might have
made my neighbors nosy, but my
fire also made them wonderful. The
experience confirmed everything I
had heard aboutCapitol Hill as a
community.
On that fateful morning, my
roommate, Pat, was praying at the
Thankful Baptist Church. Steve, my
new English-basement tenant of
three days, was visiting his partner
in the hospital. My boyfriend Dan
and I were finishing some work on
their apartment when the lights
went out.
Dan flipped the breakers and all
the lights came on except for the two
in the kitchen. He removed one of
the bulbs, tested it, and was ready to
put it back in when we smelled
smoke.
“Get me the fire extinguisher!” he
yelled, “And call the fire department
and tell them we have an electric
short.”
Grabbing my cell phone, I dialed
911 in a panic. The operator wasn ’t
impressed.
Then I saw flames shooting up
through the windows and into the
atrium. Dan ran upstairs with the
my refrigerator so I wouldn’t lose
any food until the power was turned
back on. Oh what a neighborhood
we live in.
But that day, my neighbors were
anxious when the firemen entered
their attics to clear smoke that had
circulated from my house into
theirs. IfI hadn’t been home, the
fire would have spread even further.
IfI had been home and in my loft, I
would have likely died. If I had
locked the front door that morning,
the fire would have spread to the second
floor.
The firemen were as gentle as the
people who watched as my house
turned from its newly painted yellow
to a dark, dingy gray. They asked my
permission before removing stairs
and punching holes through walls
to see if the fire was sneaking up and
behind hidden spaces. They grabbed
rags and wiped soot from the top of
my rosewood dining table and its
brass base.
My roommate, Pat, had heard the
fire trucks at church, and of course,
she saw it as a miracle that she was
not home when the fire started. I
drove her around the neighborhood
to find a place to stay for a while,
and Capitol Hill Suites offered a discount
for being a local resident.
That evening, my neighbor Jane
alerted my tenant Steve when he
returned from the hospital. The last
thing he and his partner needed was
a fire in the apartment they had just
rented three days earlier.
I returned the rent and hoped
they could move back soon. But
they couldn’t, and neither could
anyone else.
The insurance company was amazing.
Men were sent in to wash walls
and clean furniture before it was
stored or refinished and reupholstered.
Another man came in to
remove all my clothes and bedding
to be dry-cleaned, especially to
remove smoke smell.
Electricians and plumbers fixed
My offer to the absentee owners
allowed for the current tenants to
remain for awhile, and I had to wait
months and months for them to
decide not to match my offer. Then,
I had to adhere to DC’s strict tenant
rules about eviction after purchase.
More than six months after I made
my deposit, the house was finally
empty and I could move in.
I had heard that Capitol Hill was a
great place to live. I just knew I liked
the architecture. And I loved my
master bedroom suite with its lof t
and private bath. Better still was
when I needed a ride to the Metro
some mornings, and I asked neighbors
—then complete strangers—for
rides, and we all felt comfortable
with the ar rangement. Imagine
doing that in Foxhall.
After the fire, my neighbor to the
right, Ethel, gave me two coats. My
neighbor to the left, Jane, agreed to
allow an extension cord to attach to
Our Neighborhood
Neighbors Bring Warmth After
House Fire
BY ANITA ALT M A N
20 www.voiceofthehill.com
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the wiring and the pipes and put in a
new hot water heater. Floor experts
were assigned to put in new oak .
Carpet installers were contracted
with to replace that which was
ruined by smoke and water. Tile men
were hired to fix new problems.
As I look at the sign in the window
of the bayfront saying that the city
permit is to repair minor smoke
damage, and then look inside at my
empty, dirty house, I wonder what a
major fire would have been like.
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I also can’t help but to think back
to my one-room apartment overseas
where none of the furniture was
mine and I didn’t have to worry
about roommates or tenants and
paying a jumbo mortgage. There, I
bought my food fresh each day in
Europe’s biggest indoor market.
Eastern Market is smaller but very
similar in atmosphere, and that’s one
reason I can’t imagine living anywhere
else. But one thing was vastly
different in Budapest. There, the
paranoia that remained after communism
tarnished relationships.
There, my Hungarian neighbors
resented me and my easy life compared
to theirs.
My house will soon be beautiful
again. I will have new tenants and a
new roommate. The furniture will be
clean, the walls freshly painted, and
new oak and carpeting will be on the
floors. I will hang the artwork and
use my new washer and dryer now
attached to a metal hose that can’t
burn the way the rubber one did the
day of the fire.
And as I sit in my loft office near a
chain ladder I can throw out the window
if there ever is another fire, I will
forever be grateful for the fact that I
live in a place where my neighbors
truly care and make me feel welcome.
Anita Altman, former Style Editor of The
Budapest Sun, is an international
recruiter.
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Ask Judith
Dear Judith:
I repainted my hideously mustard colored brick
house fifteen years ago after very good preparation.
Now it’s peeling. Since removing the paint just isn’t
in the cards, I’m going to paint it again. What
should the preparation for painting the brick be?
P E R RY MASON
Dear Perry:
As you know, I’m against painting brick. My first
choice would be to sit tight and let the current topcoat
peel. That’s the cheapest way to strip the building.
Personally, I would rather see a peeling paint
job on brick that never should have been painted in
the first place than yet another coat of paint.
My second choice is, if you can’t stand the color,
and stripping the paint is problematic because of
c o st and/or many generations of repointing, to
repaint the building brick red, which is what the
original pressed brick was.
You can see how the first wrong action, painting
pressed brick, leads to repeating the mistake when
it begins to peel or you hate the color. Down the
slippery slope, throwing good money away after
bad.
Painted pressed brick is perhaps the only area of
house maintenance for which I advocate benign
neglect. The rationale for creating the need for
maintenance where there was no previous need
escapes me.
One day I will share with you my Theory of
Denial. This th e o ry explains why people with
porches on the front of their houses take them off,
while people with flat front houses put them on. Or
why people with brick houses install aluminum
siding over the bri ck, while people with wo o d
houses install brick on the front elevation. Or why
people with pressed brick houses paint them.
(It occurs to me that if you let me write this column
long enough I will have insulted just about
everyone on the Hill…Then you’ll have to print my
personal advice columns. It also occurs to me that
this is indeed just advice. I can’t make people do
what I recommend. Thus, all I’m left with is poking
fun at folly in various flavors—as I see it. But then
again, I have the Master’s Degree and am writing
this column…)
However.
When we bought our house in 1979 we were fully
mortgaged-out and had very little money to spend
on decoration. But the house was pale gre e n ,
obnoxious to us. And, the brick is common brick,
likely to have been painted in the fir st place. So, we
hired the high school dropout friends of a young
Princeton graduate who was working for us and
they painted the front of the house with a brick red
that I selected by matching it to the pressed brick
house two doors down. Of course, our painted common
brick house looks like a different color than
the pressed brick house, but the color match is
actually precise, telling you something about that
black hole of “matching.” We did buy premium
paint, Benjamin Moore, and, thank goodness, the
paint job is still fine.
Now, about your house, with its painted pressed
brick.
I think your paint job is peeling because the God
of Preservation is giving you another chance to do
the right thing and paint the house brick red, like it
really wants to be. I went by your house and the
current paint is peeling back to the original pressed
brick. That means your blue layer is well adhered to
that old mustard yellow layer. This means that no
matter the preparation, if you decide to repaint the
brick, in ten or fifteen years it will peel again, right
back to the pressed brick surface. Your house is
telling you it doesn’t want to be painted. Your
house is rejecting the paint!
Besides the repugnance any self-re s p e c t i n g
pressed brick feels about being painted, there is
probably another reason the paint won’t adhere. It
could be that your house front was coated with a
linseed oil and pigment coating when it was built.
You can find the remnants of this nineteenth
century coating on many pressed brick fronts by
running your finger down the brick. If your finger
comes away with brick red powder, it is probably
the remnants of this slippery coating. If th e
painters didn’t wash down the entire façade before
applying that first coat of paint, the powder interfered
with good adhesion and will continue to be
the weak link indefinitely.
The use of a brick red coating on already brickred
pressed brick by our Victorian-era predecessors
seems a little puzzling until you recall that their aesthetic
was one of monolithic planes on which the
highly ornamental and textured bricks and panels
would show well. Thus the butter joints, mortar
often colored charcoal for less contrast to the red
bricks, and the brick red coating to make the mortar
joints disappear altogether.
Then again, your current difficulty with flaking
paint may also be because of inexpensive paint.
If paint you must, the essential prep is to remove
all loose, flaking, and/or peeling paint. Your contractor
can use a wire brush as long as it doesn’t take
him down to the brick where the brush could cause
damage. They can use scrapers—again judiciously
—so as not to damage the brick below. You might
also check into power washing.
I would make sure the contract for painting
includes an inspection by you before painting proceeds
to allow you to accept or reject the prep job.
Consider having the contractor do a test panel to
demonstrate his proposed techniques and work. If
acceptable, that test panel becomes the standard for
the work.
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For a FREE analysis of your pre s e n t
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Don’t forget the Capitol Hill Restoration Society
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Unpainted Ladies.
Dear Judith:
I wanted to get the exteriors of my windows painted
this spring so I had someone come over to take a
look. He told me the old paint is probably leadbased
and he would have to abate it, apparently
both complicated and expensive, and suggested I
just get new windows. I was set on restoring, not
replacing, until I read a recent article in th e
Washington Post about the new rules (and fees) for
lead abatement. Now I’m panicked. What should I
do?
CHERRY FRAME
Dear Cherry:
The Post recently discussed lead in another article,
titled, “Tobacco Toxins in Bloodstream Hit 10-year
Low.” They said, “Lead in children under age five—
the part of the population in which low levels of
the metal can cause cognitive damage—fell from
2.7 micrograms per deciliter of blood in 1994 to 2.0
micrograms. Elevated blood lead is considered to be
10 micrograms or higher.”
The big picture is that we are making progress in
getting lead out of the environment—and that the
real hazard of lead is to young children.
The little picture, of course, may be less sanguine.
We, after all, live in old houses, which are likely to
have had lead-based paint applied somewhere, at
some point. Lead was only banned from paint in
1976.
But regardless of anything else, replacing your
windows because of lead in the paint is like having
your feet removed so you won’t get bunions. Or like
having all your tee th removed when you’re twenty
to save on dental work for the rest of your life.
Now for some facts: (this is from a certified lead
risk assessor at a local environmental consultant
firm with whom our firm has worked for over fif -
teen years.)
First, the EPA does not regulate one’s personal
residence for lead (though if you rent your house
out you do become subject to regulations). Second,
while OSHA’s safety regulations apply to everyone,
the responsibility for worker protection falls with
the wo rker him/herself or the emp l oyer of th e
worker.
If you’re really worried about lead content, you
can have the paint tested by an environmental lab
and/or have a lead risk assessment done, in which
appropriate strategies would be developed for the
risk or various risk levels identified.
Thus, if the paint on a particular window is in
good shape, requiring little or no prep-work that
would disturb any lead-containing paint, you may
simply paint over any lead-containing paint.
If, howeve r, lead-containing paint is in bad
shape, peeling or flaking, so that preparation for
new paint would entail significant disturbance of
the lead-containing paint, the contractor would
need to employ all the proper methods of containment,
disposal, and worker protection that apply.
Even so, it is likely the work would come under
the heading of “renovation” and it is unlikely that
blanket abatement or removal of all the lead would
be required.
Abatement would only be necessary if a significant
danger were identified—as in young children
exposed to high levels of lead within your house.
Since we ’re talking exteri o rs of windows, th e re
should be minimal exposure to lead or risk for you
or any other residents.
I can’t imagine that your house would fall under
a blanket requirement for abatement. And, since
lead is undoubtedly present, simple re p a i n t i n g
probably entails the least disturbance of it.
If you’re worried about health risks, I think your
best survival bets include being in bed by midnight,
refraining from buying drugs from anyone at any
hour, and staying off the Beltway and out of commuter
traffic. The one death per day in our metro
area on the roads is a considerably greater hazard to
you than the lead paint on your windows. And then
there is salt, and fat, and lack of exercise…
Get a new contractor, keep the windows, paint
them regularly so you don’t have peeling and flaking
paint, and join a gym.
Judith Capen, AIA, practicing restoration architect, is
the author of many of the Capitol Hill Restoration
Society’s award-winning guidelines for work on Capitol
Hill homes.
If you’re thinking of moving, take an
e x p e rt with you.
This market is
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potential.
www.voiceofthehill.com 23
Business Bits
“Some friends of mine—and this is
shocking—came in from the suburbs
for lunch. They went to the
Banana Cafe, then went shopping at
Through the Grapevine, and then,
of course, stopped by to say hi to me. I said, ‘if you
go down to the next block there’s Alvear Interiors,
and they’ve got all kinds of great gifty sorts of
things. Damn!” says Cissy Webb, owner of Frame of
Mine, “There’s a new phenomenon. That’s the fun
of Old Town—where you can park the car and
browse the shops! This is the first time I’ve ever
known anyone to come to 8th Street and browse at
lunch. Hopefully this is a little taste of what we’re
headed toward.”
Cissy’s spent a lot of years helping this to happen,
wo rking with the Barra cks Row Business
Alliance — serving as its President last year — and
now working on the Barracks Row/MainStreet
Promotions Committee.
One of the oldest businesses on the row, Frame of
Mine fits right in with the revival of 8th Street, with
the spiffy newc o m e rs like Alvear, Through the
Grapevine and Capitol Hill Bikes that are bringing
the cup from half to three quarters full.
When Cissy opened up shop in 1980, she remembers
the prostitutes, male and female. With increasing
prosperity, panhandlers became more of a problem.
(Never thought about panhandlers as heralds
of positive transition, did you?)
Now the push is to get all the shopkeepers and
restaurants to drape their windows in white lights
for the summer season, putting them on timers so
the st re et fairly twinkles—particularly for the
Friday night Marine Parades that run from May
through August. These grand exercises in patriotism
attract hundreds of visitors who might be lured
to stay for dinner, and then a little shopping.
Cissy doesn’t think she’ll stay open that late, but
you never know. She’s getting on the bandwagon
with the Hill’s monthly Second Saturday gallery
and pub-crawl. The shop will stay open until 7PM
those evenings and Cissy and company — the
employees are artists all—will grab the opportunity
to showcase their own work.
“There have been lots of good changes ,” she
grins. Cissy’s no stranger to change; she’s a veritable
chameleon.
Her first career, back in Chicago, was as a high
school Biology Teacher. It’s too bad she quit, really.
She’s funny and irreverent with a great crackling
laugh, pre c i s e ly the kind of teacher that could
reach the science-impaired (a type I know well). But
then, if she hadn’t quit, she wouldn’t have become
an intensive care nurse which led, in most curious
fashion, to her opening Frame of Mine.
Cissy and her husband were living on the Hill in
1982, and she was wo rking at Georgetow n
University Hospital, when she had a “series of misfortunes.”
In February she got mononucleosis from
a patient. In May she was bitten by her cat who’d
gotten tangled in a fence and apparently thought
mama was trying to kill her, not save her. The cat
bite landed her in the hospital for four days with a
s e rious infection. Then she developed hepatitis
from another patient, and the hospital put her on
leave. This was all within six months.
It was her husband who asked, “If you could do
anything in the world, what would you do?” Cissy
says her reply was immediate, “I’d have a do-ityourself
custom picture frame shop.”
Besides a keen love for dissecting frogs and caring
for the wounded, Cissy is a photography buff who
was used to doing her own framing at shops in
Chicago. “Of course,” she says, “ when we moved, I
was still fooling around with photography. I pulled
out the phone book expecting there to be many doit-
yourself frame shops—there was nothing, except
out in the ‘burbs.”
It was during her forced lay-off that she began
doing market research. Rejecting the idea of
a franchise as too costly, she crunched numbers,
enlisted friends to scope out the competition,
did a demographic study of the
Hill, and took a one week course in framing
at a school in Jackson, Mississippi.
Re a l tor Barry Hayman (the owner of
Antiques on the Hill used to peddle houses)
found her the shop. Why Eighth St re et ?
“Because,” she explains, “it was similar to
the neighborhood where we lived in
Chicago, upwardly mobile but at the same
time fighting a glass ceiling. Seedy, but also
wonderful.”
Her leave from the hospital ended on
September 15. She returned to work, handed
in her two - week notice, and opened th e
shop on October 17.
And was it a fabulous, instantaneous success?
“After we closed that first day,” says Cissy,
“ we went across the st re et to th e
K n i cke r b o cke r, a New Yo rk deli, and I
remember putting my head down on the
table and crying that I will never set foot in
that shop again.”
Seems Cissy thought you held a Grand
Opening the day you opened the store. “We
did it stupidly,” she says. “This was a wet
opening—as opposed to a dry opening,
when you simply open the doors and people
wander in and you shake out all your problems.
Then you have your Grand Opening.”
She’d put a full-page ad in the paper, and
there was a line out front when she arrived to open
the doors. The shop stayed jammed all day, as much
because of problems as popularity. Cissy’s pretty
blunt, “It was amazing. It was stupid. I didn’t know
what I was doing. Glass was falling through frames,
I didn’t even have work orders. I had researched it, I
had a prospectus, I had a plan, but there were just
these little details you know—like how to measure.”
Things remained lumpy for several years; she
even took herself off the payroll for a time and
worked several shifts at Capitol Hill hospital to keep
things afloat. “Fortunately,” Cissy says, “those days
are long gone.”
By 1986 she’d opened a second shop in Adams
Morgan, but she only kept it for a handful of years:
“The rent was high, it was hard to find good people
to work, and the community was very transient. It
was easier to close that and come back and be
happy back here on the Hill at the end of the day.”
Capitol Hill, she says, “is unique. There are no
huge high-rises, or apartment complexes. It’s filled
with family dwellings, so that makes it a much
more stable community. It’s also fair ly well to do.”
D o - I t - Yourself, Or Not, at
Frame of Mine
24 www.voiceofthehill.com
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That last, she feels, makes it possible for residents to
support local shops. People say, “I would rather
spend a few dollars more and support a small business,
than go to Wal-Mart. And I have the means to
do that.”
Cissy and her husband actually landed a house at
15th and F Street, NE, because of the shop. She and
her husband walked in and there was a picture on
the wall that she recognized as having been framed
at her place, “and I thought, ‘Oh my god. Was it a
good experience or bad?’” It must have been good.
The owners already had an offer on the place, but
took Cissy’s instead, because of her commitment to
the Hill.
And the Hill has developed a commitment to her
too.
Cissy has just finished framing “a fabulous pict
u re for Senator Kennedy. A handwritten letter
from Jack to his parents when he was on the PT109.
It was really something.” She does a lot of framing
for the Senator, though she’s never met him. “He’s
an artist himself,” she says. “He does oils that are
very nice. He’ll do an original and then have prints
made and give them to staff people as wedding
presents, with a little salutation.” The shop also
f ramed Joseph Ke n n e d y’s Medal of Honor. Te d
Kennedy was giving it to one of the kids.
Actor Bob Prosky’s a long time customer, as is
S e n a tor Mitch McConnell. Ac to rs from th e
Shakespeare Theatre, she jokes, “keep her in business.”
Ted van Griethuysen’s in and out, and Ed
Gero has a “fabulous collection of English etchings
of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays.”
While much of the shop’s work is fairly straightforward
(once you learn how to measure), Cissy’s
artsy staff can get very playful if given the opportunity.
When Koli Marcus was asked to frame a photograph
of jazzman Miles Davis standing in the glow
of a neon-lit nightclub, Marcus inserted a strip of
neon tubing between the picture and the frame so
when the light was on, says Cissy, “the picture
glowed with the same color as the neon in the photograph.
It was fabulous.”
Some people aren’t looking for an extraordinary
frame, but to frame something extraordinary, like a
chunk of the Berlin Wall, or an ancient pottery
shard brought back from Isreal.
They’ve done lots of antique linens. One woman
framed three christening gowns, which would be
displayed on the wall alongside her staircase. “They
were gorgeous,” says Cissy.
Another woman inherited from her grandmother
a handful of kitchen implements, among them a
wooden spoon worn from use, and a wire whisk.
“She had tears in her eyes as we started to put the
project together,” says Cissy. ‘We put them all in a
shadowbox frame, and they looked so neat.”
A man brought in a bunch of fishing flies that his
grandfather had tied. That collection also went into
a shadowbox, as did one of the most unusual things
that Cissy has framed, “an Incan Child’s sandal,
just 3 or 4 inches long. We suspended it from a cord.
It was the neatest thing I’ve ever seen.”
While about 50% of Frame of Mine’s customers
choose to do it themselves, framing is still a pretty
expensive proposition. “Framing from here to New
York is expensive, period,” explains Cissy. “In the
20 ye a rs I’ve been here I’ve seen wood cost s
absolutely skyrocket.”
“Framing it yourself is somewhat of a misnomer,”
she continues. “We cut everything. We cut the
frame, the glass, the mat. We join the frame—if it’s
wood. So it ’s really assemble-it-yourself.” What the
customer does is clean the glass, put it in the frame,
and put on a backing, wire and hooks. The pleasure
is more in the tinkering than the money saving:
“It’s immediate gratification in a town that offers
none,” says the framer. “This is also a very cerebral
town, you don’t do anything with your hands here,
and framing gives you something to do with your
hands.”
There’s also easy camaraderie. Frame of Mine frequently
feels like a great art class, at once focused
and playful, with folks chatting quietly, munching
donuts and sipping coffee, and nebbing in on conversations.
People just drop in to visit.
T h e re ’s no “us and them” here. No dividing
counters, no uniforms. “It’s all sort of loosy goosy,”
says Cissy. “You end up spending a lot of time with
people. You learn their life stories.”
Standing in a shop for 20 years you see a lot of
change, and hear a lot of stories. People get married,
have kids, the kids grow-up and go to college.
“I say the words you used to hate when you’d go out
with your mom,” laughs Cissy. “’I remember you
when you were this big!’ I’ll be in my walker saying,
‘I remember your…grandmother.’”
She hopes to be around that long time. “The
good thing about framing is it doesn’t rot. So it’s a
lot easier to be in the framing business than it is to
be in the restaurant business. Thank god.”
Besides, “It’s a glorious time to be on Eighth
Street. I literally feel that we’re on the precipice of a
huge change—everything is coming to pass at the
same time, (though many won’t believe it until
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The salon is a smashing mix of hi tech and mellow
wood. The ceiling rises to the roof beams, and is
studded with skylights so the room is flooded with
light. F rench doors at the rear will soon open to a
deck. “Everyone comes in and says, ‘Oh, my god,”
says Evan.
There’s a rack of cool styling products too, some
that you read about but rarely see. There’s stuff
from U.S. Rumble Boys, and a whole array of really
hard to find products from Redken. And there’s the
Hair Sexy line, with jucily named, cleverly packaged
products like Curly Sexy, Straight Sexy, Big
Sexy, and Short Sexy Hard Up Gel. (One woman
says she just buys them to display in the bathroom,
“who cares what they do.”)
Randolph Cree Hair Etc.
325 7th Street, SE
547-1014
Waiting for the Right Stuff. We’ve been holding our
breath since last November—and that’s no mean
feat— waiting for commercial realtor Harry
Schnipper to announce a new tenant for the
Chesapeake Bagel slot in the 200 block of
Pennsylvania Avenue, SE. Finally, we have definitive
word. Nothing (yet).
Harry says he’s been waltzing with the owner of
Firehook Bakery for the past 4 1/2 months, but didn’t
want to make us any promises. It seems Firehook
is still a possibility, but due to this and that they
wouldn’t be ready to firm things up until June.
And, remember, that’s still a maybe.
That the building is vacant, says Harry, does no t
mean that there hasn’t been interest—of the wrong
sort: “You should be happy no one is in there. I
could have rented it a long time ago.” Several lowend
fast food chains have been clamoring for the
space, Harry notes, but he’s holding out for a higher
level of taste: like Marvelous Market, or Au Bon
Pain, if Firehook doesn’t pan out. Something, he
says, “that’s bakery oriented, or a high-end deli that
will serve the Library of Congress and Capitol community
during the week, and the Capitol Hill community
on weekends.”
Luckily, Harry promises, the building’s owner
has the patience to wait for a business that has the
right stuff.
Stanton Development which recently remodeled
325 7th St re et, SE—which is now occupied by
Randolph Cree—is also holding out for a tasteful
tenant. Ken Golding, one of the partners in the
development firm, says they “keep turning down
fast food places.” Also pressing for the space are real
estate offices, and dry cleaners. But Stanton is holding
out for a nice little restaurant.
Schnipper expects, however, that the situation is
about to change—and quickly. “There’s a tremendous
interest right now. Ever yone wants to know
what’s happening on Capitol Hill.”
On June 1, the Commercial Association of
Realtors will be holding their annual “Real Tour” on
the Hill. Harry, who’s organizing the event, says
they’ll “be bringing 350-400 office and retail br okers
up here to look at the commercial potential.”
The 4-hour “fair,” which will be held at th e
Washington Navy Yard a