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.
private parties • celebrations • special events
2 Quail 2 Quail
Randolph Cree is bringing talent to Eastern Market.
Randolph Cree
hair etc.
325 7th Street, SE • Eastern Market • 202 547-1014
12 www.voiceofthehill.com
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.
ALVEAR STUDIO design & imports
furniture
handicrafts
art
accessories
705 8th Street, SE
Washington, DC
20003
Phone 202.546.8434
fax 202.546.1770
alvearstu@aol.com
¤Found it hard to stick to a workout schedule
on your own?
¤Failed to manage your weight by dieting?
¤ Put off starting an exercise program because
you are concerend about doing it safely?
CALL
BETSY AGLE
CERTIFIED PERSONAL TRAINER
Have you …
Because Fitness Matters…
202.546.0269 • fitness@agle.net
Training in:
Capitol Hill homes
Capitol Hill Sports Club
14 www.voiceofthehill.com
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
THE NATIONAL CAPITAL BANK
OF WASHINGTON
316 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, Washington, DC 20003 • 202-546-8000
5228 44th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20015 • 202-966-2688
When we made our
first mortgage,
a neighborh o od
townhouse
cost $2,000.
Over the last century, we’ve helped
many neighbors here on Capitol
Hill. We’ve helped turn their dre a m s
into reality by financing their homes.
We’ve handled their everyday banking,
helped them aff o rd to raise and educate
families, and safeguarded money for
comfortable re t i rements, too.
You’ll find everything you need right
h e re at The National Capital Bank,
including bankers who know who you
a re. Why go to a “big” bank for your
mortgage, or checking account, or
home equity loan? Stop in today and
find out how we can be a good
neighbor for you.
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.
My Fellow Americans. If all of these
THE BEST
“EXTRA
BEDROOMS”
ON CAPITOL
HILL
Corner of
5th & A Streets, NE
202-547-1050
reserve@
BullMoose-B-and-B.com
www.BullMoose-B-and-B.com
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
Serving Southeast for Over 80 Years ! Frager’s Hardware
Electrical
Plumbing
Heating
1115 Pennsylvania Ave., SE • 202-543-6157 • Fragers@erols.com
Hours: Mon-Fri 7am-7pm• Saturday 7am-5:55pm • Sunday 8am-5pm
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.
200 C Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003
phone: 202-543-6000
fax: 202-547-2608
• Closest hotel to the US Capitol Building
• 152 newly renovated suites
• Capitol Hill neighborhood rates available
• Short and long term lease rates available
• Guests have access to the dining
facilities of a prestigious private club
• Kitchenettes in every suite
• One block to Capitol South Metro
Doolittle
Guest House
506 East Capitol Stre e t
A spacious and
c o nveniently
located bed and
b re a k fa s t .
202 546-6622
www.doolittlehouse.com
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.
Cannot be combined with other offers
Expires May 15, 2001
Cannot be combined with other offers
Expires May 15, 2001
Cannot be combined with other offers
Expires May 15, 2001
Delivery Extra
Cannot be combined with other offers
Expires April 30, 2001
1107 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
202-543-0100
Monday - Saturday
7am-4pm
Housewares
Lawn & Garden
Paint
Nuts & Bolts
Glass Cut
Shades Cut
Building Materials
Pipes Cut & Threaded
and much more…
Tools
Keys Made
Lock Rekey
www.voiceofthehill.com 21
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.
THE VILLAGE
705 N. Carolina Ave. SE Eastern Market
Tues-Fri 11-6 Sat 10-6, Sun 12-4, 202 • 546 • 3040
And a Group Show of Ceramic art,
Paintings & photographs
by Alan Braley, E. Marshall
& Brenda Townsend. April 1- April 30
3Check out our new
colors on
flax clot h i n g .
plus sizes too!
22 www.voiceofthehill.com
TYPES OF UNITS
• Bookshelves—floor to ceiling
bookcases with adjustable or
fixed shelves.
• Curio Cabinets—deep base
cabinets with counter topped
with shelving system up to
eight feet high.
• Audio-Visual Units—entertainment
centers are spacious
units for your t.v. and
stereo, with room for videos,
CD and cassettes.
Custom Wood Work,
Without the Custom
Price…that’s
R o o t ,
Hog or
D i e - L t d .
A Maker-
Manufacturer of
Built-in Furniture
You needn’t settle for less,
when you can have your own
handcrafted furniture sized
to fit your space. We use
fine woods and finishing
techniques in a masterly way
to produce elegant furniture
to enhance the beauty of any
room.
Root, Hog or Die-Ltd.
Grupo Olmeca Corporation
1730 K St., NW Suite 304
Washington, DC 20006
202-508-3646
C R A F T S M A N S H I P
Root, Hog or Die-Ltd.
Craftsmanship is excellent. We
utilize the best joinery systems
to make our “bullnoses.” Our
counters are designed with or
without radiuses. We craft our
shelves to be aesthetically pleasing
and of the highest structural
integrity, for lasting beautify and
durability.
FINEST FINISHES
You may select from a range of
finishes. Any color you choose
can be matched to natural dyestains,
which is then sealed and
finished with clear top coats. Or
you may select any customized
color made in paint.
Please visit our website
www.olmecagroup.com
For additional information
call 202 438-7701
LARRY CHARTIENITZ Pardoe/ERA
(Direct) 202-546-7000 x 228
(Cell) 202-255-3731
E-mail: lchartienitz@pardoe.com
Licensed in DC, VA and MD.
For a FREE analysis of your pre s e n t
h o m e ’s worth, call or email:
Don’t forget the Capitol Hill Restoration Society
design guideline on paint called Capitol Hill’s
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
still hot! Maximize
your home’s
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
No house is too old or
too large for cent ral air
MD: 301-927-7100
VA: 703-527-9100
DC: 202-554-4800
TDD: 301-927-5763
LICENSED • BONDED • INSURED
Remember la st summer!
Now there’s Spacepak, the time-proven concept that makes
the installation of a central air system practical in any type
of home. It requires no conventional sheet metal ductwork…
uses much less space than conventional units, while
still providing the same cool comfort. Spacepak. It’s today’s
most economical and efficient way to install central air. Call
now for a free estimate.
Remember la st summer!
Central air for homes that can’t have central air.
Call now to schedule an
appointment for your free noobligation
estimate! Pay on
your gas bill. Serving MD, DC &
VA. Financing arranged.
$500 off System must be installed by April 15, 2001
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
www.voiceofthehill.com 25
1314 E. Capitol
Street… Sacrifice
Nothing! In this
Southern exposure 3
Bedroom home on prestigious
East Capitol St.,
Gorgeous wood trim &
floors! Fully renovated
and features Eat-in
Kitchen, Separate dining
room, fireplace, partially
finished basement, two
decks, deep enchanting
yard & Two car garage!
236 10th Street,
SE…Home Sweet
Home! All the charm of
a classic Capitol Hill
porch front with a splash
of today! Large wrap
around new eat-in
kitchen flooded with
light, deep sunny garden,
deck, three bedrooms,
sun room, full
basement— great for
projects & garage!!
302 E Street, NE…
Sunny Senate Side Bliss!
Every inch of this three
level home finished to
the 9’s! 4 Bedrooms 3.5
Baths with new gourmet
kitchen-Viking stove,
wrap around porch, separate
dining room, parking
potential and lots of original
architectural detailing
throughout! Stones
throw to Union Station!
414 15th Street, SE…
Charming Façade Tells
Nothing of What Lies
Beyond! Three story
atrium with enormous
skylight floods this
3,000 sq ft. home with
light! Three bedrooms,
2.5 Baths, fireplace,
deep garden, off street
parking AND 1
Bedroom Apartment!
Must see to believe!
$289,500
706 No. Carolina Ave.,
SE…More Market Talk!
So inviting! Elegant
move-in condition three
Bedroom home with
original marble mantle &
plaster moldings, partially
finished basement
with full bath, large skylight,
country kitchen &
patio garden oasis! Steps
to Eastern Market!
710 No. Carolina Ave.,
SE…Talk of the
Market! Beautiful brick
bay front with all the
right curves in all the
right places! Three
Bedrooms, 2.5 Baths, 3
Fireplaces, wonderful
wood floors, pocket
doors, and crown moldings.
Waiting for your
magic touch! $469,000
TOM &A L I C E settled or
sold an average of a house every other day
in March and already have over 5 Million
in Sales this year!
YES, The market is good but it cannot
be taken for granted. To Sell YOUR
P ro p e rty Properly Call:
Tom &Alice Faison
ASSOCIATE BROKERS , GRI
REMAX Capital Realtors
2 0 2 . 2 5 5 . 5 5 5 4
or email
FA I S O N @ R e a l t o r. c o m
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 at the foot of 8th Street, SE,
will include a bus tour of Pe n n s ylvania and
Massachusetts Avenues and the M Street, SE corridor.
(Real Tour is open to the public. If you’d like to go
along, call Harry Schnipper at 544-3230 or e-mail
him at HAS-IRG@EROLS.COM.)
26 www.voiceofthehill.com
they see the first jackhammer in here). I maintain
that when all is said and done, I won’t be able to
afford it.”
Frame of Mine
522 8th Street, SE
202-543-3030
I Love the Highlights. Unlike Frame of Mine, the
Randolph Cree Salon on Market Row had a quiet
opening a few weeks bac k. But that didn’t stop the
word from spreading quickly, or keep customers
from pounding up the stairs. Owner Evan Pehrson
says he turned away half a dozen people on a recent
Saturday. He and fellow stylist Dusty De Loach were
booked solid. Evan says, “Be patient. We’re building
the staff—and looking for great talent. It’s hard to
get an appointment right now, but it’s wor th the
wait.”
Evan is hardly unknown to Hill hair mavens. He’s
been clipping and coloring beautiful male and
female manes for years, most recently down the
block at As You Like It, where he leased space while
his salon was being built. (Evan asked that we pass
along a very public thanks to As You Like It’s owner,
Greg Woyens, for being so supportive.)
A Hill dweller for the last 16 years, Evan and his
wife Lee Glazer have 3 kids, the oldest is in pre-k at
Peabody. Talk about industrious.
T HOM BURNS
Knowledge and Integrity
Celebrating 24 Years
in the Capitol Hill
Real Estate Market
605 Pennsylvania Ave., SE • 202-546-7000 x305 EQUAL HOUSING
OPPORTUNITY
(continued on page 37)
www.voiceofthehill.com 27
Hotel
Capitol Hill Suites
200 C St., SE 543-6000
See our ad on page 20
Income Tax Services
Jackson Hewitt Tax Service
8th St., SE 554-8840
Internet Provider Services
DC Access
118 Kentucky Ave, SE 546-5898
www.dcaccess.net — a local ISP
Mason
Michaliga Masonr y
321 C Street, SE
544-4484
Mortgage Lenders
Apex Home Loans
301-474-7100
See our ad on page 15
Jeffrey A. Love, Loan Officer
Federal Funding Mortgage Corp
202-210--7106 jlove@ffmcorp.com
Pet Supplies
Doolittle’s Pet Supply
224 7th St., SE 544-8710
See our ad on page 21
Office Supplies
Capitol Hill Innervision
Art and Office Supplies
701 8th St., SE 544-4664
Photography
Motophoto
666 PA Ave., SE 547-2100
See our ad on page 2
Picture Framing
Frame of Mine
522 8th St., SE 543-3030
See our ad on page 35
Newman Gallery and Custom Frames
511 11th St., SE 544-7577
See our ad on page 31
Plumbing & Heating
John W. Fulcher
510 13th, SE, 544-8156
Service, replacements, installations
Accounting
Marina Martin, MBA
Innovative and versatile range of services for
small business and non-profits 547-9536
Antiques
Antiques on the Hill
701 North Carolina Ave., SE
See our ad on page 29
Astrology
Ajai
Good advice since 1979
543-9053
Attorneys
Rick Halberstein & Karen Byrne
705 D St., SE 543-1110
Arts Center
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
545 7th St., SE 547-6839
See our ad on page 40
Association
CHAMPS
621 PA Ave., SE 547-7788
Bank
National Capital Bank
316 PA Ave.,SE 546-8000
See our ad on page 17
Bed and Breakfast
Bullmoose B&B
5th and S Sts.,NE 547-1050
See our ad on page 18
Doolittle Guest House
504 E. Capitol Street, SE 546-6622
See our ad on page 20
Bicycles
Capitol Hill Bikes
709 8th St.,SE 544-4234
See our ad on page 35
Books
Capitol Hill Books
657 C Street, SE, 544-1621
Good Used Books Bought & Sold.
Riverby Books
419 E. Capitol St., SE 547-3228
See our ad on page 17
Chimney Cleaning
Winston’s Chimney Service
Washington DC (301)571-8546
See our ad on page 28
Church
Christ Church Washington Parish
620 G St., SE 547-9300
See our ad on page 45
St. Peter’s Church
2nd & C Street, SE 547-1430
Clothing & Gifts
Art & Soul
225 PA Ave., SE 548-0105
See our ad on page 32
The Village
705 N. Carolina Ave., SE 546-3040
See our ad on page 21
Computer Consultant
Better Computer Solutions
623 N. Carolina Ave., SE 546-8084
See our ad on page 31
Drug Store
Grubbs Care Pharmacy
326 E Capitol SE 543-4400
See our ad on page 18
Electric Repairs
Bob Willett / K&W Electric
301-283-4004
Service work small jobs
Funeral Services
Pinckney-Spangler Funeral Home
524 8th St. NE, 544-7720
A full service funeral home. Traditional burial
or cremation services. Burial or cremation
can be accompanied by a viewing and/or
funeral or memorial service.
Garden and Landscape
Gingko Gardens
911 11th St., SE 543-5172
See our ad on page 32
Frager’s Garden Center
1115 Penna Ave., SE,
543-6157
Ornamental Garden
544-7831
District Cityscapes, Inc
202-544-4886
Hardware
Fragers Hardware
1115 Pennsylvania Ave., SE 543-6157
See our ad on page 20
Health & Fitness
GI Jane
645 Pennsylvania Ave., SE 547-7906
Results the Gym
3rd & G Sts, SE, 234-5678
See our ad on page 33
Finley’s Boxing Club
518 10th St., NE 202-544-9132
Women Members Welcome!
Home Furnishings
Woven History
311 7th St., SE 543-1705
See our ad on page 46
Home Repair
Handyman on the Hill
Washington DC 206-7185
See our ad on page 28
Business Directory Listings:
Voice of the Hill is including a yellow-pages style directory of businesses and services that cater to the Capitol Hill community.
To be included in the directory businesses must commit to a one-year contract, payable in advance by check, Visa or
Mastercard. The annual fee is $250. Display advertisers on annual contracts will be included in the directory at no additional
charge.
Each business will be given three lines in the directory; two must be used for the company name, address and phone number.
An extra line is available for your name, a description of your business or service, or a direction to see your ad. Additional
lines may be added at an annual cost of $60 per line (per year). If you would like to be included in the next directory, please
fill in the following form and send it, along with your check or payment information, to: The Voice of the Hill, 120 11th St., SE,
Washington, DC 20003. If you have questions please call Bruce Robey at 544-0703.
Your Name:_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Company Name: ________________________________________________________________________________________________
Address:_______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Phone: ________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Business Description: (30 character maximum) ____________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please charge my Mastercard or Visa
Name on Card: _________________________________________________________________________________________________
Card Number: _______________________________________________________________________Expiration Date:____________
Business Serv i c e s
Real Estate
Valerie M. Blake
Prudential Car ruthers Realtors
5025 Wisconsin Ave, NW 202-362-1348,
x111, www.DCHomeQuest.com
Thom Burns
Coldwell Banker Real Estate
109 8th St. NE 547-5805
Larry C
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
Tom & Alice Faison
REMAX Real Estate
220 7th St., SE 546-5881
John C. Formant
John C. Formant Real Estate
225 PA Ave., SE 544-3900
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
See our ad on the back cover
Jackie von Schlegel
REMAX Real Estate
220 7th St., 547-5600
Phyllis Jane Young
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
John Parker
Pardoe Real Estate
605 PA Ave., SE 546-7000
Real Estate Settlement
Congressional Title
650 PA Ave., SE 544-0800
See our ad on page 31
Eastern Market Title
210 7th St., SE 546-3100
See our ad on page 28
Restaurants
2 Quail
320 Massachusetts Ave. NE 543-8030
See our ad on page 11
Banana Café
400 8th St., SE 543-5906
See our ad on page 31
28 www.voiceofthehill.com
Business Serv i c e s
Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream
327 7th St., SE 546-CAKE
See our ad on page 34
Bluestone Cafe
327 7th St., SE 547-9007
Café Berlin
322 Mass. Ave., NE 543-7656
German American Cuisine
Hawk ’n’ Dove
329 PA Ave., SE 543-3300
See our ad on page 34
Sheridan’s Steak House
713 8th St., SE 546-6955
Stompin’ Grounds
660 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, 546-5778
See our ad on page 31
Salons
Randolph Cree
325 7th St., SE
See our ad on page 11
Social Services
Capitol Hill Group Ministr y
421 Seward Sq., SE 544-0385
Schools
Capitol Hill Day School
210 S. Carolina Ave., SE 547-2244
Winston’s
Quality Service since 1976
Cleanings • Repairs • Relinings
Expert second opinion
Air duct cleaning
301-571-8546
Licensed • Insured • Certified
202-CHIMNEY
(244-6639)
Recommended by
Washingtonian Magazine
1984-1987
DCHIC #3615
Chimney Ser v i c e
Edmund Burke School
2955 Upton St., NW 362-8882
Levine School of Music
2801 Upton St., NW 686-9772
St Peter’s School
422 3rd St., SE 544-1618
Spiritual Advisors
Corrin Bennett
920 G St., SE 543-5825
Vacation/Travel Consultants
Jan Cammarata
Judiciary Express Travel
7th & Penn SE, 547-3007
Workshops
Writer’s Way Workshops
Make time for you! 547-3506
www.dcwritersway.org
Yoga Studio
Dancing Heart Center for Yoga
221 5th St., NE 544-0841, www.dancingheartyoga.com
See our ad on page 13
St. Marks Yoga Center
3rd & A St., SE 546-4964
www.us.net/edow/1/stmch/yoga.htm
Computer We e n i e s
• Repairs, Upgrades, Troubleshootong
• Network & Lan Installation
• Internet Web Page Development
• Quality Work at Reasonable Rates
202-543-7055
Eggs-traordinary
Capons • Turkeys •
Ducks • Cornish Hens
Eggs-traordinary
Capons • Turkeys •
Ducks • Cornish Hens
Mel, Sr. Mel, Jr.
MARKET POULTRY
Eastern Market
225 7th St., SE 202-543-7470
MARKET POULTRY
Eastern Market
225 7th St., SE 202-543-7470
Maids-N-Things
www.maidsnthings.com
HOUSE CLEANING/
ERRAND SERVICE
202-547-7557
Visit our website for your
FREE estimate or call
202-547-7557.
Mention this ad and receive a 15%
discount for all Capitol Hill residences.
H a n d y m a n
on the Hill
Masonry Brick & Stone
Concrete Brick Pointing
Carpentry Decks & Fences
Roof Repairs Painting
2 0 2 - 2 06 - 718 5 email: maisonorln@aol.com
bbonline.com/dc/maisonorleans/
www.voiceofthehill.com 29
d o w nL o a d
AN T I QU E S
BU Y SE L L
TR A D E
701 N. CAROLINA AVE, SE
WASHINGTON, DC
202-543-1819
Toll Free 877-509-3772
t h e c a n c e r d i a g n o s i s
frightening, maddening,
confusing
individual, couples and group
psychotherapy for those with cancer
joseph tarantolo, md
board certified psychiatrist
certified group therapist
202/543-5290
but also a time for
self-reflection and enhancement
of personal development
We’re loaded at the Forecast
with clothes and shoes for your way of life
EILEEN FISHER…STUART WEITZMAN…YANSI
FUGEL…PS: we carry plus sizes
218 7th Street, SE
Eastern Market
202.547.7337
Marine Barracks Turns 200
Celebrate at the “Friends, Family and Neighbors”
Parade on April 20
All summer long you hear them fifing their fifes,
drumming their drums. It’s nearly impossible not
to get into step with the beat of a John Philip Sousa
March as you schlep your Ferragamos to the shoe
repair shop at the corner of 8th and I.
What you’re hearing is a sneak preview of the
music played every Friday night at sunset from May
4 through August 31 by the “President’s Own” US
Marine Band and the US Marine Drum and Bugle
Corps. The Marine “Parades,” as they’re called, are
extraordinary pageants. Between the music, the
marching, and the precision moves of the Silent
Drill team it’s a sight to thrill the most jaded.
It’s hardly a surprise to hear that the concerts are
“officially” sold out through July (particularly in
this, the bicentennial year of the Barracks)—but a
couple of major buts:
Colonel Rick Tryon, the Commanding Officer of
the Barracks, cordially invites us all to attend the
first Parade of the season, on Friday, April 20th at
8:45 PM. Says the Colonel, “This parade is a ‘closed’
parade only open to Friends, Family and Neighbors
of the Marine Barracks. This special evening of ceremonial
pageantry and patriotism is our way of
showing off “your” Marine Corps and thanking
you for your support, understanding and cooperation.”
To grab a slot on the bleachers, all you need
do is call the Barracks’ protocol office at 433-4074 to
reserve your seat(s).
Our second “but” is courtesy of Marine Public
Affairs Officer, Captain Fred Catchpole, who tells us
that even though the Parades are sold out through
July, the Marines never turn anyone away. You
might not get a primo location, but if you just show
up as the sun is fading, you will get in.
More info on the Parades can be found on page 8
and in our calendar.
Two Down, One To Go
Adieu to Halfway House and Impound Lot
April 9: Last minute lobbying through the City
Council halls by a group of 25 Hill residents and the
unwavering opposition of Councilmember Sharon
Ambrose paid off today with the Council Judiciary
committee’s 4 to 1 rejection of the $10.5 million
plan to turn building 25 at DC General Hospital
into a 200-bed pretrial halfway house.
Councilmembers Harold Brazil, Jack Evans and
Kevin Chavous joined with Ambrose to defeat the
p roposal, which was supported to the end by
Committee Chairman Kathy Patterson of Ward 3.
Also dropped in the drink, the auto m o b i l e
impoundment lot that was proposed for the RFK
Stadium parking area. An article that appeared in
the Washington Post late last week hinted that the
plan had been scotched, but Sara K. Blumenthal of
the National Park Service confirmed it at Saturday’s
Anacostia Waterfront Workshop. A reliable source
tells us that Blumenthal said, “The proposal is off
the table. You can take that to the bank.”
One more to go: Boys Town.
Eastern Market: Yet Another New
Wrinkle
Who’s Minding the Store?
April 3. The changing of the guard at Eastern
Market has hit yet another SNAFU. The ceremonial
turning over of the keys which was to take place on
April 1, never happened. Instead, the day dawned
as it has every other Sunday for the past 20-some
years, with Richard Glasgow unlocking the doors.
Two things are happening we hear.
Glasgow, who has managed the Market’s South
Hall, Center Hall and parking lot since the late
1970’s, has filed suit against the city and directed
tenants to continue to pay their rent to his management
comp a ny, East e rn Market Corp o ra t i o n .
Glasgow has maintained throughout the negotiations
for new Market management that he was
unfairly excluded from the bidding.
In a letter to tenants, Glasgow wrote: “Eastern
M a rket Corp o ration disputes the intent of any
other entity to assume control of the East e rn
Market facility until such time as certain legal issues
have been resolved…. Eastern Market Corporation
is and will remain the prime tenant until a resolution
of these issues is reached.”
At the same time, Millennium Corp o ra t i o n ,
which was to take over management of the Market
on April 1, couldn’t have opened the joint even if
they’d wanted to. Ellen Opper-Weiner, chair of the
Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee
(EMCAC) confirmed that their agreement with the
city has not yet been signed—appare n t ly th e
Control Board “is holding it up.”
The city, says Opper-We i n e r, intends to ta ke
action against the Glasgow’s “in an expedited manner
in the courts.” Which means what? The legal
dickering over control of the Nor th Hall art gallery,
which remains under the management of John
Harrod, is now entering its second year.
In the meantime, we can still get our groceries,
flowers, and dose of chat. The Market doors will
continue to swing open in the morning. Opper-
Weiner says, “This is another bump in the road, and
who knows.”
Waterfront Planning Packs Them In
by Doug Siglin
April 11. April 7th was a busy day in DC, with the
Cherry Blossom Festival, the annual Potomac River
cleanup, the beginning of Passover, and a host of
other important activities throughout the District.
Nonetheless, more than two hundred DC residents
chose to spend almost half of their Saturday discussing
ideas for creating a new waterfront for the
Anacostia River.
30 www.voiceofthehill.com
Y O U R S E L F
L I F E Sometimes the best way to add meaning
to our lives is to move outside ourselves
and give something to others.
At St. Mark’s on Capitol Hill, we re a c h
out to those in our church, city, and
global communities. Preparing food
for the homeless. Hosting a homeless
s h e l t e r. Helping our sister churches in
Honduras rebuild their lives after
H u rricane Mitch. Providing care to
those with AIDS. Investing time in our
youth. Being a care giver for someone
in our community. We all have something
to share. Come visit us. Be a part
of us. Our door is open.
w w w. s t m a r k s . n e t
2 0 2 . 5 4 3 . 0 0 5 3
THIRD AND A STREETS, SE, JUST BEHIND THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. SUNDAY SERVICES AT 9:00 AND 11:00.
Under the auspices of the Dist ri c t - Fe d e ra l
Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, citizens fanned out
among five Saturday morning workshops to share
ideas with a consulting team of some of North
America’s best-known planners, urban designers,
landscape architects, and transportation engineers.
The general idea was to begin to develop a plan that
would make the Anacostia waterfront a more valuable
recreational and economic asset to District citizens
in the 21st century.
Separate workshops were held for the Buzzards
Po i n t / Wa s h i n g ton Channel area, the South e a st
Federal Center to Barney Circle area, the Poplar
Point/Anacostia Metro area east of the river, the
Robert F. Kennedy Stadium area, and the length of
Anacostia and Kenilworth Parks.
In the five wo rkshops, the consultants introduced
design concepts from ri ve rf ront pro j e c t s
done in other cities throughout North America,
including Vancouver, Toronto, San Diego, and New
Yo rk. DC residents responded with ch a l l e n g e s
unique to the District—and thoughts on how to
handle them.
Participants at each of the sessions overflowed
with ideas for cleaning and protecting the water,
improving access to the waterfront through a river -
walk along both sides, creating new mixe d - u s e
ri ve rside neighborhoods, attracting new re sta urants
and other businesses (which would also create
jobs for residents), enhancing recreational opportunities
in Anacostia and Kenilworth Parks, and
creating new riverside festivals.
Reactions to the wo rkshops we re cautiously
upbeat. “We’ve spent a lot of time planning for the
waterfront area before, including three days last
May,” said Capitol Hill resident Dick Wolf. “This
process has to build on those efforts, and the Office
of Planning has to make sure it really gets implemented
this time.”
Fred Grimes, a real estate agent associated with
development efforts in historic Anacostia, echoed a
similar concern that wa t e rf ront rev i ta l i z a t i o n
efforts might falter if another Mayor takes office.
Further, Grimes said, the waterfront planners needed
to make sure that economic development is generated
around Poplar Point and other areas east of
the river, and “that those who have lived with the
lack of development for so long are able to participate
in the economic development’s benefits.”
The April 7th meetings were just the beginning
of the public process that will lead to a master
vision and plan for the waterfront. According to the
project schedule, the consultants will take the ideas
generated on Saturday and report back in a public
m e eting on May 19 th at the National Building
Museum. Further wo rking sessions will be held
with interested residents in July, September, and
early next year. The final vision and plan is scheduled
to be completed and made available to the
public in March 2002.
Doug Siglin is a principal in Capitol Hill Partners, a
consulting firm that promotes both economic develop -
ment and environmental protection.
Holladay Corporation Returns With
Bigger Plans for Hospital Site
Four Buildings Would Contain 335 Condos and
Apartments
April 4. Representatives of Holladay Corporation
returned to the community last night with their
latest plans for developing the Capitol Hill Hospital
site at 8th and Massachusetts, NE—and the project
is bigger than ever.
Last year, Holladay unveiled a plan to create 228
luxury rental apartments using just the front portion
of the existing hospital. Since then, the developer
has negotiated the purchase of the entire
Medlink/Capitol Hill Hospital complex and is proposing
to raze all but the “historic” section, built in
1928, for 335 rental apartments and condominiums.
The studio, 1 and 2 bedroom units would be
spread over four buildings: 160 of them would be
condominiums priced bet ween $290,000 and
$450,000; the remainder would be luxury rentals,
going for $1200 to $2000 per month.
H o l l a d ay spoke s p e rson, Rita Bamberger, says
they’d “like to s tart construction this Fall.” But the
architect had only sketches to show at the public
meeting—the design is still early in the concept
stages.
This means, says Brian Furness, President of the
Capitol Hill Restoration Society, “We weren’t able
to get a good sense of was how the facades would
read—how they’d pick up on Capitol Hill’s architectural
patterns.”
When the Historic Preservation Review Board
looked at the project late last year, CHRS leaders testified
that they would prefer a more vertical orientation
to the lines of the building and the windows
than what was being proposed. With no elevations
on display, Furness says, he couldn’t see “if they
picked that up or not.”
Furness does feel that Holladay’s gaining control
of the entire site is a positive: “This insures that it’s
developed in a fashion that’s consistent with a resi-
www.voiceofthehill.com 31
Banana Cafe
& Piano Bar
SIMPLY EXQUISITE
Lunch,
Dinner
and Sunday
Brunch
7 Days a Week
No Cover!
Piano Bar
Upstairs
Every Night!
1/2 Price
Fajitas Monday
Nights
(Chicken, Beef or Veggie Only)
no coupons on 1/2
price specials
202-543-5906
Happy Hour
5-7:30
Drink Specials
with Free
Hors d’oeuvres
Serving the Best Cuban,
Puerto Rican, & Mexican
Food in the City!
500 8th St, SE
We have been located on
Capitol Hill for more than 20
years serving the District of
Columbia and Maryland
Let us make your refinance,
purchase or sale hassle free
with no stress
Call us
202-544-0800
650 Pennsylvania Ave., SE
Suite 170
Washington, DC 20003
Co nly Robe rt
PERSONAL COMPUTER FLUENCY
Training and application support
for MS Office • Word • Excel •
Access • Outlook • Powerpoint
623 North Carolina Avenue, SE
Washington, DC 20003
Phone/Fax 202.546.8084
email rconly@bellatlantic.net
Call Charlie!
• Remodeling
• Old and New Work
• Quality Work
• Low Prices
202-397-2273
Fax 202-397-2127
Lic. DC EM900042
NEED A GOOD
ELECTRICIAN ?
dential neighborhood—we’re not getting a mental
health center [in the hospital building].” Furness
was referring to a proposal that was made several
years ago to convert the hospital to an outpatient
mental health clinic.
Also a positive, said Furness, is that “they have
followed the dictates of the Historic Preservation
Review Board (HPRB) in saving the 1928 building.”
From the sketches, Furness discerns, “the buildings
that they have proposed are not dissimilar in bulk
and orientation to the buildings that are there now,
and the new structure they’d build at 8th and C,
NE, over the parking garage, is not outsized. As they
point out, it fills in where the density was really too
low, visually.”
The HPRB will be looking at the latest design
scheme on Thursday, April 26—though the time of
the review won’t be set until that week. Holladay,
Bamberger says, “is looking for a pre l i m i n a ry
review…What we said at the outset is that we’re
continuing a dialogue with the community and
getting as much input as possible. The goal is to
come up with the best plan we can.”
She points out that they have already demonstrated
their willingness to work with residents. The
architect has lowered the height of the tallest building
from 7 1/2 floors to 6 1/2—a particular community
concern—and th ey are willing to consider
other modifications.
But it’s difficult to see how the developer can ever
mitigate an issue that has many residents doing a
slow boil—parking.
Holladay has included a significant amount of
resident parking into the plan—allowing a space for
each apartment, when zoning only requires a single
space for every three units. Though no visitor parking
is provided, Bamberger indicated that th ey
might be able to provide some spaces in the complex
courtyard.
(They are also providing 2 parking spaces for each
of the 18 townhouses that will be built in a lot adjacent
to the hospital. The townhouse designs have
already received HPRB approval and construction is
to begin this summer.)
Says Brian Furness, “Is the parking adequate? I
just don’t know.” Furness points out that sometime
this month the Department of Public Works will be
doing a study of parking around the hospital, looking
at space availability for two blocks in every
direction. “When we have that,” he says, “we’ll at
least have some studies that will put a more objective
spin on parking usage and availability.”
Study or no, Furness continues, “Will there be an
impact on parking? Yes. Will it be good? No. But we
don’t know how bad it will be—if it stimulates some
people to clean out their garages and actually use
them, it might be a good thing.”
Boys Town Task Force
What’s This?
March 20. Office of Planning Chief, Andy Altman,
got just about eve rybody juiced when he
announced the other day that the Mayor was “putting
together a task force” to look at the Boys Town
p roject th a t’s soon to be developed on
Pennsylvania Avenue, SE.
The occasion was the March 17 “Strategic Action
Planning-Community Workshop,” the second of
four public events that will shape what the city will
be budgeting next year for improvements to our
“quality of life” on Capitol Hill.
Altman’s Boys Town announcement came during
his opening remarks, when he told the crowd of
50-some residents that he was aware of our many
and va rious angsts, including the Medlink
Hospital/apartment building proposal, the halfway
house behind DC General Hospital—and Boys
Town. “We know these issues are there,” he said.
“But today I want to focus on priorities.”
The participants did manage to dredge up other
irritations, our population of rats, weak schools,
trouble catching cabs, noise, crime and pollution
from the Freeway—but over and over, the group
ret u rned to the theme of being sandbagged by
development.
One 20-year resident said, “I don’t like the 2 to 5
year cycle of fighting to keep our quality of life,
fighting some project.”
A 30-year resident deemed the problem more
intense, calling for, as many did, a 6-month moratorium
on new development so we can take a close
study of our zoning.
And consummate activist Ellen Opper-We i n e r
( s h e ’s invo lved with East e rn Market and th e
Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, as well as being
one of the leaders of the charge against Boys Town)
n oted, “We shouldn’t have to pay attention to
every single thing. It ’s too exhausting.”
What of this “Task Force” the Mayor’s putting
together? Councilmember Sharon Ambrose, who’s
convinced the Boys Town project is unstoppable,
figures, “it’s probably just insuring that we can
monitor what’s going on. While Boys Town can
build on the $8 million parcel they bought last year
at 14th and Pennsylvania Avenue as a matter of
right, at least we as a community should be able to
weigh in one what goes on at the group home
32 www.voiceofthehill.com
CAPITOL HILL
REAL ESTATE
KITTY KAUPP
202-546-7000 x257
25 years experience
RESIDENTIAL AND COMMERCIAL
Pardoe Real Estate ERA
STANTON DEVELOPMENT
CORPORATION
Developing architecturally significant
commercial buildings on
Historic Capitol Hill for over 15 years
Frank Reed, Kitty Kaupp
and Ken Golding
666 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Suite 203
202 544-6666
Completed projects
317 Massachusetts Ave, NE (offices)
320-324 Massachusetts Ave., NE
(Office, 2 Quail, Café Berlin)
518 C Street, NE (Office, AIA Award)
216 7th Street, SE (Office, AIA Award)
325 7th Street, SE (Randolph Cree, Ltd.)
327 7th Street, SE
(Bluestone Café, Ben & Jerry’s)
656 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
(Yes! Organic Market)
666 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
Office, Floral Studio, Stompin’ Grounds,
Bread & Chocolate, MotoPhoto, Taylor and
Sons Fine Art, Future Communications)
which will house neglected and abused teens from
Wards 6, 7 and 8.”
So far, Boys Town’s local management has been
less than cooperative. Last month they held a community
meeting—to which only those in favor of
the project were invited. That was a very short list.
Says Opper-Weiner, “The Task Force will happen,
and the Mayor will stand behind his expressed concern
that we have been overlooked and not talked
to by Boys Town—that this thing has come in without
any consultation with the folks that live here.”
Meanwhile, our problem with the social service
agency is beginning to get broader coverage. The
Washington Times gave good play to the story in
their March 19 edition, Opper-Weiner and fellow
activist, ANC6B Commissioner Will Hill, have been
hitting the radio waves, and a piece is scheduled for
Fox News.
On the Metro Plaza, Bikes, and Buses
DPW Studies the Motion of Barracks Row
by Jill Dowling
April 5. The Department of Public Works is setting
a high standard for planning and public involvement
in their appro a ch to st re etscape imp rovements
slated for 8th Street SE. On Wednesday
March 28, more than thirty local residents participated
in the first of three scheduled public meetings
as part of the traffic mitigation study addressing
issues associated with the Barra cks Row
streetscape project.
A fter an introduction by Barra cks Row
MainStreet Board President Linda Gallagher, Ken
Laden, Associate Dire c tor for Tra n s p o rta t i o n
Planning for the District of Columbia, Department
of Public Works, explained that DPW has hired
consultants to look at means to improve parking,
loading and deliveries, transit service, pedestrian
and bicycle circulation on 8th St re et th ro u g h
streetscape reconstruction designs being developed
by Federal Highway Eastern Lands.
The reconstruction will involve resurfacing the
street and installing new curbs, gutters, crosswalks
and brick sidewalks and is scheduled to begin in
October 2001. Recommendations that result from
this study will be finalized by the end of May and
incorporated into project plans advertised for bids
in June, 2001.
The consultant team is also reviewing and developing
conceptual plans for the use of public spaces
along or adjacent to the corridor, including potential
gateway sites, plazas, alleyways, and the area
under the highway overpass. Aspects of these concepts
will be coordinated with the design of the
reconstruction project, and may be added to it or
developed as independent subsequent projects.
At the first meeting, consultants from DM/JM
Frederic R. Harris, Inc. summarized what they have
learned about the key issue areas, and sought audience
input. The audience raised familiar concerns,
highlighting the poor design of the Eastern Market
Metro Plaza as the 8th Street gateway, parking and
speeding problems, street trash, and bus stop locations.
A second meeting—to report on the study—is
scheduled for Wednesday April 25 at 5 pm at the
Old Naval Hospital. The final meeting will present
findings from the study on Wednesday, May 23
from 5:00 – 6:30 pm at the Old Naval Hospital. For
more information, or a copy of the official minutes
of the meeting, call me at the Barra cks Row
MainStreet office (544-3188.)
Jill Dowling is the Executive Director of the Barracks
Row Mainstreet Project
Market Row Re-do Proposed
Sidewalks, Streets, Lighting Part of the Package
April 4. This fall the Department of Public Works
will begin a major renovation of 8th Street, SE—
Barracks Row. The commercial corridor is due for
n ew bri ck sidewa l ks, granite curbs, Wa s h i n g to n
Globe lighting, and accessories like tree box grates
and new trash conta i n e rs. Now, we hear, th e
Department of Public Works (DPW) is planning a
similar transformation of 7th Street, Market Row.
DPW’s Ken Laden, who is also involved in the
federally funded redesign of Barracks Row, says the
budget for fiscal year 2002 includes a request for
$1.7 million dollars for the Market Row re-do. The
b u d g et is curre n t ly being rev i ewed by the City
Council, and if it passes muster with Congress this
s u m m e r, Laden says, “we could sta rt spending
money on design in the Fall 2001, and we might be
able to start construction in the Fall of 2002.”
The re n ovation would be “comp l e m e n ta ry to
what’s happening on 8th Street,” he says. Sidewalks
would be bricked, curbs and gutters granite, the
st re et would be re s u rfaced, and trash cans—th e
tasteful dark green metal framed ones that are in
use downtown—would replace the Caribbean blue
eyesores that provide such a fine canvas for graffiti.
April Showers Burst
Into May Flowers at
Ginkgo Garden s
www.voiceofthehill.com 33
34 www.voiceofthehill.com
E a s t e rn Market 327 7th St., SE • (202) 546-CAKE
5/18/01
Hours: Mon-Fri 7am-8pm
Sat & Sun 8am-8pm
329 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE
C A P I T O L H I L L
202-543-3300 FAX 202-543-2529
El Hawk Y Dove presentarle
EL GRANDE MARGARITA
(32 Ounces!)
Para Cinco de Mayo!
And Bring Your Softball Team for Specials!
(Because Baseball’s Been Very Good to Us)
Wreath Laying at Lincoln Park Honors
Freeing of Slaves
An Old Holiday Gets Revived
April 4. On April 16, 1862 President Lincoln signed
an order freeing Wa s h i n g to n’s slaves—9 full
months before the emancipation proclamation was
signed. Starting in 1866, this day was celebrated as
a major local holiday: the President presided over a
big parade in front of the White House, schools
were closed, and church bells rang out all over
town.
Sadly, the festivities ended in the 1890’s. There
was dissent in the African American community
over how the day was to be commemorated—some
felt it was a time to put on their best and celebrate
in style. Others wanted a more working class event.
It was all such a stew that the President stopped
officiating at the parade, and the holiday drifted
into obscurity.
One hundred years later, it became the personal
mission of Loretta Carter Hanes to make it a citywide
event once again.
Hanes, the President of DC Reading is
Fundamental, discovered the holiday a few years
ago, when she was researching Frederick Douglass
and his advocacy of reading as the road to freedom.
In the mid-1990’s she started a tradition of laying a
wreath in front of the statue of Lincoln at Lincoln
Park, an event now co-sponsored by the National
Parks Service and the DC Historical Society, though
it’s still organized by Hanes and her son Peter.
That event was held April 14, in front of the statue
of Lincoln in our own Lincoln Park.
Last year, Councilmembers Vincent Orange and
Carol Schwartz passed a bill making the day a private
legal holiday—the first stop on the road to
restoring it as public legal holiday.
M a ny th a n ks to Mychalene Giamp a o l i ,
Education Director and History Day Coordinator of
the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. for the
background on this event. For more information
she invites you to call her at 202-785-2068 x 105, or
e-mail mgiampaoli@hswdc.org
The Bricks and Mortar of Repointing
May’s Preservation Café
BY KATIE MI L LER
“Making the Point in Repointing” will be the topic
for the final 2000-2001 Preservation Café, sponsored
by the Capitol Hill Restoration Society at
Trattoria Alber to, 502 8th St. SE (top floor) at 6:30
p.m. on Wednesday, May 2.
Repointing homeowner Rob Nevitt and historic
p re s e rva t i o n i st Marie Fennell will describe th e
plans, pitfalls, calamities, and eventual successes of
re sto ring the façade of an histo ric building.
According to Rob, “I’ll be the victim, and she’ll
coolly and professionally rescue me.”
Marie Fennell wrote the case study on repointing
the Nevitt house for the Capitol Hill Restoration
Society’s Historic District Committee. She is a graduate
of the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s
degree in architecture and a master’s in urban planning.
A long-time Capitol Hill resident, Rob is a
CHRS board member and chair of its Public Safety
Committee.
To avoid conflict with meetings of the Stanton
Park Neighborhood Association, Preservation Cafes
are now held the first Wednesday of the month.
Dates, topics, and location of the 2001-2002 Cafes
will be announced later.
Katie Miller is the Restoration Society’s publicist
BP Amoco Update
BZA Postpones Public heari
The Board of Zoning Appeals hearing on BP
Amoco’s proposed state-of-the-art super duper gas
station on H St re et NE that was scheduled fo r
Tuesday, March 20 has been postponed until June
19th.
As Dru ry Tallant, Chair of the Sta n ton Pa rk
Neighborhood Association, reported to the ANC6A
e-mail list: “…In large measure this delay was to
allow time for ANC 6A to hold a meeting and take
another vote (the vote taken on March 1 was set
aside for technical reasons)…Although the BZA did
not hear the case today, the many letters of opposition
which the community submitted had a material
effect on the Board, and were crucial in the
B o a rd ’s nega t i ve comments to BP Amoco. B P
Amoco was strongly advised by the Board to work
more closely with the community in developing a
plan that garnered community support.”
Town Planning
ANC6B Briefed on Commercial Overlay
The Planning and Zoning Committee of Advisory
Neighborhood Commission (ANC) 6B was briefed
earlier this month on a proposed zoning overlay
that will apply to much of Capitol Hill’s commercial
area.
The area affected by these modifications to existing
zoning includes Pennsylvania Avenue to 13th
Street, 8th Street (Barracks Row), 7th Street (Eastern
M a rket), and the commercial portion of
Massachusetts Avenue. These streets are now zoned
C2A, a moderate density commercial zoning category
that imposes rather burdensome usage restrictions
on owners.
The main difficulty with existing zoning is that it
impedes 100% commercial (office and retail) usage
of many of the buildings unless the owner obtains a
zoning variance. C2A zoning requires many of the
commercial buildings on Capitol Hill to include
residential space—apartments. Though variances
to allow full commercial use of the space are normally
approved with no fuss, the process is still
time consuming and expensive.
The Capitol Hill Association of Merchants and
P ro fessionals (CHAMPS) and the Capitol Hill
Restoration Society have been working together on
this overlay for several years. Both organizations
feel that increasing the stock of properly zoned
commercial space will stimulate our commercial
economy—and may also relieve some of the press
u res on our residential areas caused by illega l
offices.
Though the zoning ove rl ay was ori g i n a l ly
intended to cover the length of Pe n n s ylva n i a
Avenue out to Barney Circle, for now it stops at 13th
Street—the eastern boundary of the Capitol Hill
Historic District. Development within this area is
ove rseen by the Histo ric Pre s e rvation Rev i ew
Board.
“There is no desire or intention to leave the area
[beyond 13th Street] out of the equation,” says
Frank Reed, who chairs the CHAMPS Planning and
Zoning Committee. The Office of Planning advised
stopping the overlay at 13th because “there was
concern that if it were extended there would be no
safeguards in place to insure that decent buildings
were constructed.”
The Hill’s east end will not be included in the
overlay, says Reed, “until some mechanism can be
established to approve building design; otherwise
you have a totally unrestricted license to build in
any style.” A similar overlay for H Street, NE which
was also being planned, has been temporarily set
aside for the same reason.
CHRS, CHAMPS, Councilmember Ambrose and
the Office of Planning are currently looking into
various options to safeguard growth in both areas.
If legislation is necessary, Ambrose has pledged her
support.
www.voiceofthehill.com 35
709 8th Street, SE
Washington, DC
202-544-4234
capitolhillbikes@aol.com
We’re open Tuesday—Friday, 11-7
Thursday ’til 9 Closed Monday
Saturday 10-6 Sunday 12-5
Hours:
Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday
10-9
Friday, Saturday 10-6
Sunday 12-6
522 Eighth Street, SE
202.543.3030
• Drymount & Lamination
• Conservation Framing
• Pre-framed gifts
• Commercial Discounts
• Calligraphy
Major Credit Cards Accepted
Frame of Mine offers custom
framing…but we specialize
in do-it-yourself picture
framing. We cut all the
materials and work with you
to put it all together.
You leave with a picture
that’s ready to hang!
www.frame-of-mine.com
The zoning overlay proposal, you should note,
has not yet been formally submitted to the Zoning
Board. Once it has been, it will come back to the
ANC for official comment.
ATT: Singers, Actors
GLBT Auditioning for Summer Show
The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Tra n s g e n d e r
(GLBT) Arts Consortium will be auditioning singers
and actors for lead roles and the chorus of their production
of Iolanthe: The Dyke and the Fairy, which
will be presented this summer at the Capitol Hill
Arts Workshop.
Jill Strachan will direct this adaptation of the
Gilbert and Sullivan classic, which has been morphed
in time and space to Dupont Circ l e .
Choreography will be by Alvin Mayes, and music
direction will be by Scott Barker of DC’s Different
Drummers. The musical will be performed in repertory
with other CHAW-Theater Alliance of Capitol
Hill productions and is scheduled for three consecutive
weekends beginning July 5. Rehearsals will
begin in May.
Roles up for grabs: Iolanthe, Dyke Chancellor,
D y ke To l l o l l e r, Dyke Mounta ra rat, St re p h o n ,
Queen of the Fairies, Celia, Leila, Fleta, and Phyllis.
Also being auditioned, the chorus of Dykes and of
Fairies. There is one non-singing role:The Narrator.
Auditions will be held Saturday, April 21, from 2
to 4 PM at CHAW, 545 7th Street SE, corner of G and
7 th St re ets, SE, a short walk from the East e rn
Market Metro stop. Please prepare 16 bars of a song
and bring music for the accompanist. You will be
asked to do a cold reading from the script.
For more info rmation, call 202 - 54 6 - 1549 or
ch e ck out the GLBT Arts Consortium
web page http://www.tagdc.org/resources_consortium.
htm
Mayor’s Call Center Up and Running
THE Place for Complaints
BY TAWANNA SHUFORD
March 22. The Mayor’s City-Wide Call Center, 727-
1000, is now fully operational.
In order to more efficiently manage city
re s o u rces, all Councilmember offices have been
advised to ensure that citizen complaints are submitted
to the Call Center first. We have been
assured that city agencies will respond as quickly as
possible.
In addition, the statistics compiled by the Call
Center on the types of complaints (and/or service
requests), and which neighborhoods they come
from, will assist programming and budget officers
to better allocate resources for on-going and future
efforts to improve responses to needs across the
board.
For example, a statistically high number of calls
for pothole re p a i rs from a specific block might
result in a higher priority being assigned for a completely
new street.
Due to the imp l e m e n tation of the Hansen
System at the Department of Public Works (DPW),
the Call Center is now able to assign a Service
Request Number to all DPW-related complaints.
This includes things like trash collection, recycling
pick-up, dead animal removal, tree planting,
trimming, or removal; street, sidewalk, and alley
repair or construction; street light repair, public
space concerns, and parking services. When you
initially give your complaint to the Call Center, you
will be given a Service Request Number, which will
be used for tracking.
If your problem is not addressed in a reasonable
amount of time, you can contact the Call Center
again and give them your Service Request Number.
They will access your case in the Hansen System
and provide you with an update on the status of all
actions taken, or programmed, in response to your
complaint. If you are dissatisfied with the response,
the Call Center can connect you with the DPW
office responsible for the type of service yo u
requested, and you can speak directly with them
regarding your Service Request Number.
With regard to your requests for service from
other city agencies, like the Department of
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (DCRA), which
are not yet fully integrated into the Hansen System,
the Call Center will connect you directly to the
responsible office. No Service Request Number is
assigned in a case like this, but you can always follow
up with the office concerned.
In all cases, if you ultimately are not receiving the
service you deserve from one of the Mayor’s city
agencies, despite the effo rts of the Call Center
and/or an office you have been dealing with directly,
please give us a call. As explained above, it is
important that you contact the Mayor’s Call Center
FIRST and give the city’s new system a chance to
work. If, in the end, you are not being served, let us
k n ow. We will look into the matter and will
Our Spring Line of
Cycling Togs is Now in
Stock .Come See !
Our Spring Line of
Cycling Togs is Now in
Stock .Come See !
36 www.voiceofthehill.com
Hey Everybody!
It’s Back for 2001!!!
Friendship
House
Market Day
SUNDAY MAY 6, 2001
11 AM to 6 PM
attempt to assist you with a resolution.
It will help us assist you if you can provide us
with the date of your initial request, a history of
your complaint, letters you may have, and any
other info rmation that we can use when confronting
the agency in question.
Tawanna Shuford is the Director of Councilmember
Sharon Ambrose’s Constituent Services Division
Using Leaf Mulch in Your Garden
Tips From GROW
Garden Resources of Washington (GROW), a nonprofit
that helps create community and school gardens
—many of them on Capitol Hill—sent along
some GREAT tips on using leaf mulch in the garden,
and how to get it for free from the city:
What is leaf mulch? Leaf mulch consists of leaves
collected from yards and along streets by the city
and composted for several years until it decomposes
and forms a good soil amendment. It is then
made available to the public. Leaf mulch is also
referred to as ‘composted leaves’ when trying to differentiate
it from ‘finished’ compost or ‘finished’
commercial grade mulch.
How do I use it? As a soil amendment (mix a one to
two inch layer into your soil—not more because it is
acidic). As a mulch (use a 1” layer as mulch, not
more, also because of the acid). As a biodegradable
walkway weed deterrent (spread a two inch layer of
leaf mulch on your walkway, wet it down with a
hose, cover with thick layer of cardboard—no colored
inks please—wet it down again, cover with
three inches of wood chips, and wet it down once
again). This is known as ‘sheet composting.’
Is leaf mulch a substitute for compost or for mulch?
Not really, but it is a great, cheap or free organic
material and can help you need less compost and
less mulch. It is a good soil amendment (adding
one or two inches when preparing planting areas)
and as an ingredient in walkway sheet composting.
What does leaf mulch cost? It is free if you pick it up
yourself (see below for more details). If you order a
delivery from the Washington DC Department of
Public Works and the mulch is for a community or
s chool ga rden project, it will also be free (see
below).
How much leaf mulch will I need? One cubic yard
will cover approximately 162 square feet with a 2”
layer. So— measure your garden plot(s) and your
walkways (if you will be sheet composting). Find
out your total square footage. Multiply by .1666 (for
a 2” layer). This is the total cubic ft you need.
Divide by 27. This Example = 5’x32’ bed = 160
square ft x .1666 = 26.65 cu ft, divided by 27 = .98
cubic yard. You need one cu yard.
How many cubic yards will fit in my truck if I pick it
up myself? Measure the floor of the truck bed and
the depth. Then multiply the length x width x
depth for the answer. i.e., 3ft x 4 ft x 1 ft = 12 cu ft
or less than 12 cubic yard. A truck bed of 3ft x 6 ft x
1.5 ft depth = 1 cu yd.
Should I have it delivered, or pick it up myself? This
depends on the location, the amount of leaf mulch
you need, your schedule and ability, etc. There are
pros and cons to both, depending upon the location,
your schedule, etc. Figure out what works best
for you.
• Location & Site Conditions: Leaf mulch cannot
be dumped in an alley or on a sidewalk or street
even if you promise to move it right away, or over a
fence. Delivery trucks are large, so a driveway is
needed and the truck will need to be able to back in
to be positioned to dump the leaf mulch. And if the
gate is locked, an appointment will be needed and
someone will need to be there. The trucks are also
heavy, so they cannot drive across a moist or soggy
field to dump.
• Explaining Where to Put the Leaf Mulch: This
can be hard to describe over the phone. Two other
options are: make a delivery appointment and be
there yourself to show the driver. Second, draw a
detailed map of the site with an “X” where the leaf
mulch should be dumped and fax in your request.
• Amount you need: The smallest municipal
truck delivers about 3 cubic yards, so if you need a
lot less you will be wasting their time. But if you
need a lot, delivery might be best.
• Delive ry Schedule: Delive ries may ta ke 1-2
weeks depending upon the demand and the weather.
If you are in a hurry, you will need to pick it up
yourself.
• Picking It Up Yourself: You don’t need to have a
truck if you take garbage bags or buckets or tubs
(don’t overload them!). Take your own shovels. If
you have a truck, you can shovel the leaf mulch
onto the truck yourself. If you are hoping to have a
front-end loader scoop the leaf mulch onto your
truck for you, you will need to call and make an
appointment in advance. Please take extra care to
keep away from the front-end loader, a big and dangerous
piece of equipment. And don’t overload
your vehicle (so the mulch doesn’t cascade onto the
street while you are driving and isn’t too heavy for
your truck).
How do I get it delivered? Call or fax Mr. Norris
Green, DC DPW, Helping Hands Program, 202-645-
7190/phone, 202-645-5066/fax. Deliveries are generally
made Thursdays or Fridays, sometimes on
Saturdays. Ask about the cost; usually free for community
and school projects.
Where do I pick it up myself? From The Department
of Public Works Yard in the 900 block of New Jersey
SE, between I and K; contact person is Mr. Cleophus
Pointer, 202-442-4253.
When you arrive, stop in at the office (up the
ramp and on the right) to tell them you are there to
pick up leaf mulch (same whether using your own
s h ovels or looking for a front-end loader
operator). The yard is always open, but it is staffed
Monday-Friday from 7AM to 3PM (if you need help
from the front-end loader).
(Note: We hope you find this useful, but please
let us know if we need to make corrections or additions.
Garden Resources of Washington, 1419 V
St re et NW, Wa s h i n g ton, DC 20009, e-mail
GROW19@aol.com, telephone 202-234-0591.)
Got a Hot Community Project?
Restoration Society to Donate 20% Of Tour Profits
April 12. The Capitol Hill Restoration Society will
be donating 20% of the net proceeds from this
year’s House and Garden Tour for projects that benefit
the Capitol Hill community. The House Tour
will be held Mother’s Day weekend, May 12-13.
A ny Capitol Hill organization or group may
apply—non-profit status is not a requirement. The
S o c i ety may divide the awa rd bet ween seve ra l
organizations or projects, and the total awarded
will depend on the financial success of the Tour.
Last year, the Society awarded just over $7,000 to
the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop for renovation of
the exterior of its headquarters, and to Trees for
Capitol Hill, to refurbish the historic bollards and
chains in the triangle parks at the intersection of
North Carolina Ave., SE at 9th St., SE.
Proposals should be submitted in writing to the
Society no later than May 15, 2000. Please provide a
one-paragraph summary of the project, a discussion
of how the project will benefit the community,
www.voiceofthehill.com 37
BATTER UP!!
• Summer League starts on June 16
• Registration Deadline is May 26
• T-ball (6-u coed) Coach Pitch (7-8 coed)
Machine Pitch (9-11 coed)
Registration forms may be obtained at Pardoe Real
Estate, 605 Pennsylvania Ave, SE or by calling
202-546-7000 ext. 251
John Parker, Commissioner
and an explanation of how the project will be
implemented. You will also need to indicate the
amount of money you’ll require (note if you’re
receiving other funding, how much, and from what
source.) Please include a description of your organization,
including its objectives and activities, and
give the names and addresses of the officers, or senior
paid staff.
All project proposals should be signed, and
should provide full contact info rmation (telephone,
address, fax, e-mail, etc.).
Proposals will be judged on the basis of clarity,
feasibility, innovativeness, benefits to the Capitol
Hill community, measurability of results and
degree of reliance on CHRS funding. More information
on the evaluation criteria, and the weighting
of the principal facto rs, is available from th e
S o c i et y’s headqu a rt e rs at 420 10 th St., SE,
Washington, DC 20003; by telephone or fax at
(202) 543-0425 or by email at CapHRS@aol.com.
What? Fridge Not Internet Ready?
Next Best Thing: Print Out the Voice Business
Directory
Coming this June, a telephone book of neighborhood
businesses and services that you can download
and print from the Voice Website—and then
tuck next to the kitchen phone. Designed in an
easy to use, Yellow Pages-style format, the directory
will be updated quarterly, so you’re always cur rent
on what’s where.
Can’t wait? The Voice of the Hill already offers an
on-line directory of Capitol Hill businesses in the
“Community” section of the website: Just click on
the bar to get the pop-up list, and select th e
“Capitol Hill Businesses and Services Directory.”
Wonderfully flexible, this directory allows you to
find what you’re looking for by typing in any part
of a business name, or by address, category or a keyword.
Businesses please note: There are terrific advertising
opportunities available for the new directory!
Contact bruce@voicofthehill.com or 544-0703.
The Download section of the Voice of the Hill is just a
taste of the news that’s been posted to www.voiceofthe -
hill.com over the last month—articles and newsbites
that are still timely, and worth including. The date pre -
ceding each article is the date the piece appeared on the
site. Unless otherwise noted, all Download articles are
written by the Voice of the Hill’s Editor-In-Chief,
Stephanie Cavanaugh.
By the way, Harry says he clipped the analysis of
the Vo i c e Business Survey that appeared in th e
March issue of the paper and is using it as leverage
with Firehook (and others). That is exactly its purpose.
If you haven’t yet completed a survey please
do so. The analysis will be reworked for distribution
at the Real Tour Fair, and also published in the
p a p e r. Click on “Survey” when you log onto
www.voiceofthehill.com.
Sometimes It Gets a Little Too Romantic. Two of the
Hill’s most charming restaurants, 2 Quail and Café
Berlin, frequently share top marks for their romantic
dining rooms and fine fare. They also share the
same building, one occupies the upstairs, the other
occupies the downstairs at 320 Massachusetts Ave.,
NE. Unhappily, there’s one more thing they share,
the building’s main power box.
While candlelight and a flaming soufflé may be
recipes for romance, blazing fuses are a recipe for
disaster. But that’s what happened a few weeks ago,
the main power box went up in smoke and both
restaurants were forced to shut down.
It could have been much wo rse, says Ire n e
Khashan, one of the owners of Café Berlin, “We’re
lucky we’re still here.” Neither restaurant suffered
damage to their charming interiors, though their
kitchens were temporarily kaput.
But it’s all over now, sigh of relief. If you’ve been
putting off popping the question, dust off the diamond
and call for a reservation—both restaurants
are open and bustling.
For “Tunnies” Read “Stoney’s”
BY MAGGIE HAL L
News on the defunct Tunnicliff’s front. It’s now
(pretty) official—Stoney’s is moving in.
Joint-owner of the downtown bar and grill, Tony
Harris tells us that taking-over the Eastern Market
bar is down to the very fine print: “There’s still
details to iron out, but we’re working hard towards
a deal that will allow us to open mid-June,” he says.
Tony and his business partner, Med Lalhou, are
excited about getting involved and making a contribution
to the Hill’s social life. Whether the name
will stay the same remains to be seen. They’re
undecided, but would be happy for old Tunnicliff
habitués to weigh-in with their thoughts.
A link with Tunnicliff’s—which previous owner
Lynne Breaux walked away from earlier this year,
after an increased rent demand—that Tony and
Med are keeping intact, is one of the most popular
members of the former staff. George Cromartie is
already hard at work at the original Stoney’s on L
Street, NW, finding out how it operates. (Stoney’s
has been around for 30-odd years, so it apparently
operates pretty darn well.) George will transfer back
to his old place behind Tunnie’s bar when it takes
on its new life.
But gone the gumbo and other Cajun touches. In
their place, good old-fashioned “pub-grub”—hamburgers,
meatloaf, lasagna. But there will be one
thing unobtainable in our parts and lusted after by
many: pastrami!
Both Tony and Med have strong connections
with the Hill. Med, of French-Moroccan descent,
has lived on 10th Street, SE, for five years.
Tony’s association goes back a generation. His
father owned and ran two restaurants locally, up
until the late fifties. He had the long-gone Lincoln
Park Grill, followed by the Stanton Park Grill—also,
now a memory. “As a kid I used to help my dad - so
I have very happy memories of Capitol Hill,” Tony
says. “Now I’m looking forward to comingback and
h o p e f u l ly adding to people’s enjoyment of th i s
wonderful neighborhood.”
Maggie Hall last wrote about Chelsea Clinton’s visit to
Stompin’ Grounds for the Voice of the Hill.
Helping the Needy. Appalachian Spring at Union
Station and the Capitol Hill Group Ministry will be
celebrating “Capitol Hill Month” by helping the
needy in our community. (Actually, as far as helping
the needy, every month is Capitol Hill month
for the Ministry). The classy craft shop (pick up
something for Mother’s Day while you’re there) will
be doing the collecting, and the Ministry will be
taking care of the distributing.
Here’s the “wish list”: Soap, Deodorant, Shaving
Cream, Disposable Razors, Shampoo, Tooth Paste,
Tooth Brushes, Shoe Laces, Baby Wipes, Disposable
Diapers, Baby Shampoo, Baby Lotion, Baby Oil, and
Vaseline.
H e re ’s what to do: Bring your donation to
A p p a l a chian Spring, in the East Hall of Un i o n
Station between May 1 and May 31. For more information
call, 682-0505
Unless otherwise noted, Business Bits is written by
Voice of the Hill Editor in Chief, Stephanie
Cavanaugh.
Business Bits continued
38 www.voiceofthehill.com
C a p i t a lK i d s
BY PAT TY CURRAN
S-M-A-R-T K-I-D-S
Hill Students Shine at City Spelling Bee
As I write this, VCRs are whirring in homes all over
Capitol Hill, taping the broadcast of the citywide
Washington Informer Spelling Bee where 5 of the
26 finalists hailed from Capitol Hill Cluster School
campuses.
The winner? Drum roll please…Stuart-Hobson
eighth grader Justin Wheeler! Justin won a new
computer, a dictionary, and a chance to compete in
the national finals to be held here in the District in
late May.
Justin’s road to the citywide Spelling Bee began in
February, when he competed in a school-wide comp
etition for his age group, seve n th and eighth
graders. In that competition he placed second;
classmate Jessica Wa s h i n g ton placed first, and
Charles Davis came in third.
Fo rt y-one students comp eted in the fifth / s i x
grade competition at Stuart-Hobson where Philip
Barbash took first place, Burton Wheeler second
(seems spelling runs in the family), and Jessica
Edwards took third place.
The first 2 placers from each competition then
went on to the citywide bee, where th ey we re
joined by fourth grade winner from the Cluster
School’s Watkins Campus, David Mayers, and Kayla
Jones of Ludlow-Taylor Elementa ry School, also
here on the Hill.
This wasn’t Justin’s first trip to the citywide competition.
Two years ago, as a sixth grader, he came
in second at the Bee. He says spelling comes to him
naturally: “I’ve always been a good speller, since I
was a little boy. My family are all excellent spellers
too, and I just love spelling.” Still, boning up for
such high-level competition takes a lot of time and
patience. For the school competition, there is a
5 00 - wo rd list to study; divisional comp et i t i o n s
mean another 500-word list, and those who make it
all the way to citywide, find a 3,800-word spelling
and pronunciation guide awaiting them.
The citywide list has words organized into categories
such as sports, weather, and, new this year,
Spanish words. Spellers do not have to define a
word but must be able to recognize it (and some of
these words are quite obscure), pronounce it, and
spell it. In the final winning moment, Justin had to
spell two words consecutively: “elytra” (Justin says
he still doesn’t know what it means, but luckily
he’d memorized it); and the winning word, the
Spanish term for an apprentice bullfighter,
“novillero.” You knew both of those, right? (My
spell check sure didn’t.)
Justin and his mother Karen are busily preparing
for the national bee, held here at the Grand Hyatt
from May 27 to June 1: “I’ve just got to study hard,
I’m looking at the words right now, during Spring
Break.”
Good luck Justin! We’ll let you know how he fairs
in the June issue of The Voice.
The Bard Beat
Seems no matter where you look on Capitol Hill our
kids are quoting Shakespeare. Maybe the Bard’s
omnipresence has something to do with the proximity
of two gre a t
re s o u rces—The Fo l g e r
Shakespeare Library and
the Shake s p e a re Theatre
—in any case, it’s clear
that students benefit
f rom these luminous
neighbors.
On Friday, April 6, students
from Capitol Hill
Day School and St. Peter’s
I n t e rp a rish School perfo
rmed in the 21 st
Annual Emily Jord a n
Folger Secondary School
S h a ke s p e a re Fe st i va l — a
we e k-long event th a t
a t t racted hundreds of
7th through 12th graders
from public and private
schools around the metro
p o l i tan area. Na m e d
for Emily Jordon Folger,
who founded the Fo l g e r
S h a ke s p e a re Libra ry along
w i th her husband, Henry Clay Fo l g e r, the fe st i val is
held each year in the Libra ry’s auth e n t i c a l ly styled
Elizabethan Theatre.
This year, the seventh grade class from Capitol
Hill Day School performed “Seven Deadly Sins,” a
selection of scenes chosen for their common
themes of vice and scandal. Making their debut at
the festival was the eighth grade class from St.
Pet e r’s Interp a rish Sch o o l — w h i ch re c e n t ly re i nvented
the Bard with an original adaptation of
Shakespeare’s Hamlet (see the Voice of the Hill’s
March 2001 issue). Helping to prepare the students
was Susan Wilder, a professional actor currently
enrolled in the Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for
Classical Acting, which is based in the theatre’s
building on 8th St., SE. (Ms. Wilder has a son, Nick,
in the third g rade at St. Peter’s.)
Students at Capitol Hill Day School are no
st ra n g e rs to Shake s p e a re — n e i ther are th ey
strangers to the Folger Theater’s s tage. The school
has a deep tradition of classical theater st u d y,
th a n ks to faculty member Annie Houston who
started her Shakespeare Alliance Program ten years
ago: “It all s tarted when a group of kids said to me,
‘where are we going to perform our play?’ I suggested
a local church basement, but they said no,
they wanted to per form at the Folger Theater. So I
called, and much to my surprise they said yes!
We ’ve been perfo rming th e re each spring eve r
since.”
Houston then approached Sarah Hill, a language
arts teacher at Stuart-Hobson Middle School (part
of the Capitol Hill Cluster Schools), about creating
a partnership: “Sarah hemmed and hawed because
she’d taught Shakespeare but never any theater. I
twisted her arm and now we have a wonderful
alliance that affords the students opportunities to
attend workshops, perform, and really become saturated
with Shakespeare.”
The schools share four workshops: two are on the
language and culture of Shakespeare’s time, one is
led by Bill’s Buddies, a group of Shake s p e a re a n
a c to rs who demonst rate tech n i que, and a final
wo rkshop cove rs the ch o re o gra p hy invo lved in
staging combat scenes.
The culmination of the year-long program is performing
on the Folger’s stage. This year the eighth
grade students from Capitol Hill Day will perform
The Te mp e st; their counterp a rts from St u a rt -
Hobson will perform Twelfth Night . Everyone gets
involved in these productions. Students that are
not acting are busy behind the scenes, scoring the
plays, designing sets and costumes and working the
lights. In the Day School’s production, four students
are actually writing and performing original
music to accompany the play.
While each year’s performance is a highlight for
Houston, she said she gets her real reward when for-
Fifth and sixth grade spelling bee winners, left to right: Philip Barbash, first place;
Burton Wheeler, second place; Jessica Edwards, third place.
www.voiceofthehill.com 39
mer students come back from high school and
b eyond to tell her how easy th ey find th e i r
Shakespeare classes. The Shakespeare Alliance performances
take place on Monday, May 14, at 7 PM
in the Folger Theatre, 201 East Capitol Street. The
performances are free, and the public is welcome.
CAPITOL HILL DAY SCHOOL NEWS
Students Prevail Again in CHDS
Basketball Classic
An outstanding Capitol Hill Day School eighth
grade basketball team narrowly edged out the heavily
favored faculty team to win an upset victory in
the annual faculty/board vs. eighth grade basketball
game, held March 9. The final score was 47-44.
The time-honored rivalry, which pits the experience
and wisdom (if not the ability) of many
board/faculty-parents against the youthful exuberance
of the graduating class, is now in its fourt
e e n th ye a r. St eve Ney, an upper grade math
teacher who coached the faculty team, and also
coaches student sports teams at the school, said
“It’s a great way to build school spirit and morale. It
gives the eighth graders—who are in the waning
months of their Day School careers—a chance to
strut their stuff.”
Here’s Ney’s account of the game as published
originally in the CHDS Sports newsletter:
“The crowd cheered as Jim Watkins paired up
against M.J. Watkins; Mary Beth Moore matched up
against Alex Ruby; Nancy Lazear went toe-to-toe
against Megan Coyne; Linda DeGraf tried to run
circles around Galen DeGraf (she was later assisted
by Scot); and Megan Rosenfeld came down court
a ga i n st Marina Spencer. Short ly th e re a ft e r,
Jennifer Newton went head-to-head against Abbey
Agresta, and Pam Sommers tried to keep up with
Gabe Pinkney.
“The lead changed hands many times, with the
faculty up by seven points going into half time.
Nathaniel (Bird) Ingram wowed the crowd with a
tip-in and dunk, and Jason Fowlkes (the faculty’s
new secret weapon) scored a trifecta of threes. But
in the second half, the eighth graders began to wear
down their opponents.
“Using good teamwork and led by the strong
inside games of Ethan Foote and Robby Barnett and
the passing game of point guard Megan Wheeler,
the eighth graders took command. The faculty
tried to come back, and even got a stunning bucket
from Mary Beth Moore, reflecting the faculty’s deep
bench. But with only six seconds left, the faculty
was still down by three points.
“After a timeout, on an in-bounds pass, Wally
Mlyniec launched a three-pointer, but it bounced
off the rim. Steve Ney grabbed the rebound and
went up for a shot, but it was blocked by Alex Ruby
and Aaron Berger, sealing the students’ victory.”
Ney said that the whole school gets involved in
the game. Teachers sold tickets, parents volunteered
to coach and referee, students in the afterschool
program painted banners to decorate the
D.C. Boys & Girls Club gym where the game was
held, and seventh g raders sold tickets and worked
as timekeepers. As for next year’s game, given the
students track record, faculty would be well advised
to get out on the court—now!
Lights, Camera, Auction!
Day School Goes Hollywood—and Online—for
Annual Auction
With its feet planted on a red carpet and its head in
cyberspace, the Capitol Hill Day School is hoping
to have another profitable (and fun) evening this
Friday, May 4, when “Lights, Camera, Auction!”
hits the stage of St. Peter’s Church hall.
The big news is that this year the school’s auction
is going on line—to the eBay Charity Auction Site.
O r ga n i z e rs are offe ring items like auto gra p h e d
books, Washington Senators and Baltimore Orioles
s p o rts memorabilia, and a plot of land in
Ladysmith, Virginia. To bid on line, go to the eBay
home page (www. e b ay.com), click on “A l l
Categories” and then look for “Charity Auctions”
under the “Fun Stuff” button.
Transforming the St. Peter’s community hall into
a luxe theater, dozens of volunteers will create the
electric atmosphere that will spark dancing, dining,
and (hopefully) heated bidding. Music will be provided
by Those DJ s, and the buffet dinner is being
catered by W. Millar and Company. Paparazzi can
catch neighborhood stars on film as they enter the
gala, which begins at 6 PM.
Two auctions are planned for the big evening.
The live auction at 8 will fe a t u re tre a s u res like
Superbowl tickets, a week at a Vermont country
home, and a medieval dinner. Meanwhile, a silent
auction will offer everything from hotel getaways,
to restaurant meals, to books, CDs, and sporting
goods—all of it donated by local businesses, families,
alumni, and staff. (Please see page 14.)
Proceeds from all three auctions will be dedicated
to providing financial aid to students at the Day
School. Tickets for the dinner may be purchased at
the door for $45 per person, which includes dinner,
drinks, dancing, and a chance to bid on the many
star-quality items for sale.
PEABODY NEWS
Look for Laura Bush at the Northeast
Library
From Friends of the Northeast Library
When First Lady and former librarian, Laura Bush,
picked up a library card at Capitol Hill’s Northeast
Branch of the DC Public Library, she was joined by
Mr. Havner’s Kindergarten class from the Peabody
School, who were signing up for their first librar y
cards.
“Libraries are among my favorite places,” the
First Lady told the young students, adding that her
library card is “the most valuable thing in my wallet.”
Then Mrs. Bush, joined by Baltimore Oriole
All-Star Shortstop Mike Bordick, read the students I
Took My F rog to the Library, a story about a girl who
learns she is welcome at the library but must leave
her pets at home.
Mrs. Bush and Bordick, were at the library in celebration
of National Library Week—and the unveiling
of “@Your Library, The Campaign for America’s
Libraries,” a five-year educational initiative from
the American Library Association that’s designed to
speak loudly and clearly about the value of libraries
and librarians in the 21st century.
M e a nwhile, the No rth e a st Libra ry used Mrs .
Bush’s visit to kick off an initiative of its own, the
“Regular Readers Rock” program.
The Regular Readers Club is a reading incentive
program for first through eighth g raders. Children
can enroll anytime in April and will re c e i ve a
Regular Readers card (like a frequent flyer card but
easier to use) once they’ve signed up with Rachel
Meit, children’s librarian, or Ev Barnes, library associate.
For every five books read between enrollment
and June 1, Regular Readers will receive a free book
as a reward!
For more information, contact the Children’s
Room at 698-3299, or at noecr8@hot m a i l . c o m .
The Regular Readers Rock program is only available
at the Northeast Library.
Garden Shapes Up for Spring
BY JANICE MAC KINNON
After two years of planning, the natural space garden
at Peabody Elementa ry is sta rting to ta ke
shape. The project has been waiting for spring (and
for completion of the new office building next
door).
Volunteers are now planting all manner of vegetation.
Pa rent Coord i n a tor Victo ria Lord, seen
below shouldering her shovel, was one of many volunteers
who worked on the project on Saturday,
April 7, as part of Hands-on D.C. Day. As a result,
much of the area has been planted.
Most of the plants purchased so far were funded
through the school’s D.C. Department of Health
Grant, but donations of plants are still welcome. If
you would like to donate a plant or tree, you can call
Ms. Lord 544-1921 and choose from a list of plants
that are compatible with the landscaping plan.
What a great way to honor your very own Peabody
student—past or present!
Pre-K Plays Post Office
In a ribbon-cutting ceremony on March 6, the
Prekindergarten students at Peabody officially
opened a new postal s tation on Capitol Hill.
Located right in their classroom, the Po st
Office was the brainchild of student teacher
Brooke Caplan, a student at Trinity College,
who is teaching in the Pre K Classroom of
Heidi Mauldin.
Students write “letters” and deposit them
into the classroom mailbox, which was made
by students. “Postal workers” take the mail out
of the mailbox, stamp it as received, and sort it
into boxes according to the first letter of the
first name of the recipient. The mail is then
distributed to individual student-made mailboxes.
In addition to the classroom work, the children
visited the National Postal Museum near
Union Station to learn more about the history
of communications th rough mail. They
worked to learn their address by writing it on
e nvelopes. Now that the ch i l d ren are ve ry
familiar with the mail process, they are able to
recognize mail trucks, mailboxes, and mail
carriers throughout the community.
Capital Kids is compiled by Patty Cur ran, section edi -
tor. Let her help you brag about your kids! Please send
news from your school, or news about your children, to
Patty at: 1371 A St., NE, Washington, DC 20002, or
via e-mail to pdtki@erols.com. The deadline for sub -
missions is the last Friday of the month prior to publi -
cation.
40 www.voiceofthehill.com
545 7th St., SE /Washington, DC 20003
call for info!
202-547-6839
LOG ON
for FULL
DETAILS!
www.
chaw.org
Above: Dorian takes her turn at the sorting boxes.
She is quick to say, “May I help you?” to her fellow
students. Right: For the ribbon cutting, Brooke made
sure that each child had scissors and could cut a portion
of the ribbon during the opening ceremony.
REGISTER NOW! for Summer Arts Camps 2001
Session I June 25 – July 7: Visual Arts Camp
Session II July 9 – July : Theater Camp
Session III July – August : Movement Camp
Session IV August – August : Music Camp
M A R K T H E D A T E S !
Arts in the Park
5:30 – 7 pm, every Friday, July 7 through August 17
at Lincoln Park here on Capitol Hill!
Featuring Summer Arts Camp productions and local performers!
CHAW’s MADCAP Players
present The Root of Chaos, by Douglas Soderberg
MAY 3, 4, 5, 10 and 12.
Directed by Christopher Snipe at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop
Tickets $10. 20% discount for groups of 10 or more
Capitol Hill Chorale: “Remembrance”
The Capitol Hill Chorale will perform the American premiere of
contemporary French composer Tristan Foison's Requiem Masse
Scored for chorus and organ.
MAY 18 and 20, 2001 7:30 pm
at the Capitol Hill Presbyterian Church
Tickets: $10 general admission/$15 reserved seating
WATCH FOR SUMMER 2001 ADULT CLASSES
(8-week session)
Homelessness doesn’t
just affect grownups…
Volunteer to make a difference in a child’s
(and your own) life.
Call Master Dong 202.544.9537 to find out how
www.voiceofthehill.com 41
CA P I TO L HI L L
Attention Book Lovers!
The Northeast Library’s Regular Readers Club is a
reading incentive program for first through eighth
graders. Sign up with Rachel Meit, children’s librarian,
or Ev Barnes, library associate anytime in April and
you will receive a Regular Readers card (like a frequent
flyer card but easier to use). For every five
books you read between enrollment and June 1, you’ll
get a free book as a reward!
For more information, contact the Northeast
Library’s Children’s Room at 698-3299, or e-mail
noecr8@hotmail.com. The Regular Readers Rock program
is only available at the Northeast Library!
Friday, April 20
Kids too jaded by half? The first Marine Parade of the
season is for community only—and it’s a guaranteed
jaw dropper. Call the Barracks’ protocol office at 433-
4074 to reserve your seat(s). 8:45PM. Free.
Saturday, April 21
Earth Day Extravaganza at the Postal Museum!
Welcome spring with crafts inspired by flower and
nature stamps. Make and decorate a paper garden
hat using recycled materials. 1-3PM. 2 Mass. Ave.,
NE. (202) 357-2991.
• This and every Saturday: Films: 3-10 year olds
can watch filmstrips based on children’s literature.
11:30 AM. NE Librar y. 7th and Maryland, NE. 698-
3299.
• Why do we knead the earth? Learn how the earth
provides the ingredients to make cups, plates, and
jars and color your own clay ornament! 11 AM, 1 PM,
3PM. Also today: papermaking at 11AM and preserving
our wilderness at 11AM. Capital Children’s
Museum. 800 Third St., NE. 675-4133.
Sunday, April 22
Shakespeare’s Birthday Open House: Enjoy jugglers
and jesters, music, song and dance, stage combat
workshops, and more. Folger Reading Room is open to
all—plus, birthday cake for everyone! 201 E Capitol
St, SE. Noon. 544-7077.
• Earth Day at the Capital Children’s Museum!
Make clay ornaments and paper, learn about the
wilderness, meet the Madagascar Hissing
Cockroaches and snack on sautéed crickets!!! An
entire day of activities. 800 Third St., NE. 675-4133.
Tuesday, April 24
This and every Tuesday: Toddler Story Time. Stories,
songs, films and more. Ages 3-5. 10 AM. NE Library.
7th and Maryland, NE. 698-3299.
Wednesday, April 25
This and every Wednesday: Enjoy filmstrips after
school! 4 PM. NE library. 7th and Maryland, NE. 698-
3299.
Thursday, April 26
“Young Voices from the Nation’s Capital,” a poetr y
presentation at the Library of Congress featuring students
in grades 4-12, with additional readings by
renowned adult authors. Madison Building. 6:45 PM.
707-5394.
Saturday, April 28
Bonsai for Kids. Today and tomorrow, Bonsai masters
teach kids ages 10-15 the tricks. National Arboretum,
10AM-Noon today, 2PM to 4PM tomorrow. 3501 NY
Ave., NE. Register:245-4523.
• Poetry by Post: Use recycled words from magazines,
newspapers and other items sent through the
mail to create poetry! National Postal Museum. 2
Mass. Ave., NE. 1 PM. 633-9360.
• Make a cartoon with food? Come push, smoosh,
and squash it up and see what you can do. 10:30AM
and 2 PM. Capital Children’s Museum. 800 Third St.,
NE. 675-4133.
Sunday, April 29
Arbor Day at the Capital Children’s Museum.
Celebrate our trees. 11 AM. Capital Children’s
Museum. 800 Third St., NE. 675-4133.
• Ben & Jerry’s Free Cone Day: Enjoy free ice
cream from 12-8PM at the Capitol Hill Ben & Jerry’s.
Free Cone Day benefits KaBOOM, a non-profit organization
that builds and refurbishes playgrounds. 327
7th St, SE. 546-2253.
Friday, May 4
Postcards on Parade: Celebrate National Postcard
Week by learning their history and then making and
mailing one of your own. National Postal Museum. 2
Mass. Ave., NE. 633-9360.
• Capitol Hill Day School presents, “Lights, Camera,
Auction!” The schools annual auction supports the
financial aid program. St. Peter’s Church hall. $45
includes dinner, drinks, dancing and admission to both
the live and silent auctions. 7PM. 547-2244.
Sunday, May 6
Market Day celebration features special activities just
for kids! Kid Central - a series of kid-focused programs
that will be held at Friendship House, 619 D St., SE.
At noon, a special children’s parade will leave
Friendship House. 11 AM - 6 PM. 675-9242.
Sunday, May 13
Give mama a big hug on Mother’s Day!
Monday, May 14.
Capitol Hill Day School and Stuart Hobson School students
present: The Bard. Shakespeare Alliance performances
take place at 7 PM in the Folger Theatre,
201 E. Capitol St. Free. All are welcome.
Saturday, May 19
International Museum Day at the National Postal
Museum. Learn about museum jobs through engaging
hands-on activities. Groups larger than 10, please call
in advance, (202) 357-2991. 1-3PM
42 www.voiceofthehill.com
PROUDLY SPONSORED BY Jackie
PEACHES AND POOH BEAR
K i d s ’ C a l e n d a r Activities of Particular Interest to Kids and Their Pare n t s
Jackie von Schlegel, CBR, GRI
Capitol Hill and Chesapeake Beach are our neighborhoods, we hope you’ll make them yours.
202-547-5600 (W) • 202-543-4296 (H) • 301-855-6443 (H)
email: jackiev@realtor.com / Licensed in DC, MD and VA
REMAX Capital Properties
www.voiceofthehill.com 43
S TA R RY
DAYS
Your Astrological Guide
to the Pursuit of
Happiness
BY AJAI ©
Got something you want
to do? This calendar
helps you get things
done, and it works for
everyone! There are more
Planets in Astrology then
just your Sun Sign. The
pull of all of the Planets
impacts every one of us
regardless of our birthday,
and using this calendar
can help us all in our
Pursuit of Happiness.
4.20 – Friday 4.20.01
Today’s movements of the
Planets bring change to
recent challenges.
Saturday 4.21.01
How do vegetarian elephants
get so big and
strong?
Sunday 4.22.01
Are you giving anything
back to Mother Earth?
Maybe some mulch?
Monday 4.23.01
Start a new diet: Eat only
organic.
Tuesday 4.24.01
Sing songs all the while
you are cooking.
Wednesday 4.25.01
Mind your manners at
lunch: Don’t talk with
your mouth full. Chew.
Thursday 4.26.01
Mail greetings cards.
Friday 4.27.01
Water your plants.
Saturday 4.28.01
Like attracts like. Think
Positive.
Sunday 4.29.01
Let your light feet be an
inspiration to your hear t
tonight.
Monday 4.30.01
Go swing on a tree.
Tuesday 5.1.01
Organize your desk.
Wednesday 5.2.01
Eat a light b’fast. Fruit.
Not donuts.
Thursday 5.3.01
Focus your mind on one
single thing.
Friday 5.4.01
Dine with friends.
Saturday 5.5.01
Simplify your life.
Sunday 5.6.01
Turn the corners of your
mouth up.
Monday 5.7.01
Full Moon today: Abandon
all fear when you enter
the Gardens of Love.
Tuesday 5.8.01
What’re you going to do
this summer?
Wednesday 5.9.01
Double check the details
of your Memorial Day
plans.
Thursday 5.10.01
As the Planet Neptune
turns Retrograde around
9 tonight, get out your
journal.
Friday 5.11.01
Slow way, way down with
Mars as it turns retrograde
during lunch.
Saturday 5.12.01
Be thoughtful and considerate
of others.
Sunday 5.13.01
Surprise Mom with a gift
that clearly could only be
for her.
Monday 5.14.01
After lunch exile all but
pleasant thoughts.
Tuesday 5.15.01
This morning reflect upon
the positive characteristics
of America.
Wednesday 5.16.01
Look both ways when
crossing the street.
Thursday 5.17.01
When things get foggy,
it’s OK to slow down.
Ajai once lived nine years
in a yoga ashram. Now he
lives on Capitol Hill,
teaches yoga, and stud -
ies astrology and cats.
May you be happy,
Ajai
Arts Calendar
Second Saturday is May 12.
Really big doings for our
monthly art walk/pub crawl
as the event collides with
another blockbuster: the
annual Capitol Hill
Restoration Society House
and Garden Tour. Watch for
new shows, new participants,
new shopping and dining
specials all around the
Hill. Check in at www.voiceofthehill.
com the week
before to get a rundown on
all the activities.
• The Bird-In-Hand
Bookstore & Gallery presents
“City Views”, color and
B&W linoleum block prints of
urban landscapes by New
York artist, Karen Whitman.
On exhibit April 5 through
May 17. 3237th St., SE.
202-543-0744.
• This month’s Capitol Hill
Art League juried exhibit is
Stars and Stripes, which will
be judged by Kathleen
Moran, curator for the
Glenview Mansion, and will
hang from May 1-25, 2001.
On May 3, Moran will give a
judge’s gallery talk at the
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop.
545 7th St., SE. 7:30 PM.
Call 547-6839 of visit
www.chaw.org for more info.
• Group Show at the
Village. Ceramics, paintings
and photography by Alan
Braley, Elizabeth Marshall
and Brenda Townsend.
Through April 30. 705 N.
Carolina. 546-3040.
• The National Arboretum
presents: The first American
exhibition of original cher ry
blossom and nature paintings
by renowned Japanese
botanical illustrator and
artist, Mieko Ishikawa.
Lobby of administration bldg.
through June 30. The
Arboretum is at 3501 NY
Ave., NE. 245-2726.
• Group Show. Seven marvelous
Capitol Hill artists
open a festive mixed media
exhibit at 325 7th Street,
SE. April 26 from 5-8PM.
EXHIBITS
The Library of Congress
The Empire that Was
Russia: The Prokudin-
Gorskii Photographic
Record Recreated
New exhibit in the South
Gallery of the Great Hall of
the Jefferson Building
includes 58 color images
taken throughout Imperial
Russia from 1907 to 1915.
The photographs, which have
been digitally reproduced for
the first time from the origi -
nal glass plates, have been
selected from the Prokudin-
Gorskii Collection of some
1,800 negatives that were
purchased by the Library in
1948. The exhibition will be
on view through August 11,
from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.,
Monday-Saturday.
By Securing to Authors:
Copyright, Commerce, and
Creativity in America
Exhibition features a wide
range of items that have
been copyrighted in America,
including original Ken and
Barbie dolls, Martin Luther
King, Jr.’s I Have a Dream
speech and the statue of the
“Maltese Falcon” that was
used in the film of the same
name. Madison Building.
Open indefinitely
Here to Stay: The Legacy
of George and Ira Gershwin
The George and Ira Gershwin
Room is a permanent exhibition
area for materials from
the Library’s George and Ira
Gershwin Collection, the
world’s preeminent resource
for the documentary legacy
of the Gershwin brothers.
Includes: George’s piano and
desk, Ira’s typing table and
typewriter, a self-portrait oil
painting of each brother,
handwritten musical manuscripts
and other documents
that chronicle their lives and
careers. Jefferson Building.
Open indefinitely.
American Treasures of the
Library of Congress
240 “American Treasures”
represent the breadth and
depth of the Library’s
American historical items.
Thomas Jefferson Building.
For additional information,
call 707-3834.
Folger Shakespeare
Library
Designer Bookbinders in
North America
Designer Bookbinders is the
principal bookbinding society
in Great Britain and one of
the foremost in the world
devoted to the craft. It has
been many years since
Designer Bookbinders has
exhibited the work of its
members in the United
States. Their current ambitious
exhibition begins a
seven-venue tour with this
exhibit at the Folger Librar y.
Over forty bindings, representing
the best of British
fine bookbinding, are on dis -
play. Through August 2001.
EVENTS
Friday, April 20
First Marine Parade of the
Season! Says the Colonel:
“This parade is a ‘closed’
parade only open to Friends,
Family and Neighbors of the
Marine Barracks. To grab a
slot on the bleachers, all you
need do is call the Barracks’
protocol office at 433-4074
to reserve your seat(s).
8:45PM. Free. 8th and I SE.
• Feast of Love.
PEN/Faulkner lecture at the
Folger Shakespeare Librar y
features authors Francine
Prose and Charles Baxter.
8PM. 201 E. Capitol. $13.
544-7077.
•Hill Havurah. Shabbot
observance followed by a
potluck dinner. Bring a vegetarian
and/or ‘milkeh’ dishes.
Please invite friends,
neighbors, or others whom
you think would like to shar e
in this special moment. 6:30
PM at the home of Ann
Mesnikof and Howard
Crystal, 629 E St., SE. Ann
and Howard also ask that we
mention that they have two
cats, in case anyone has a
cat allergy.
Saturday, April 21
Celebrate Spring! The
National Arboretum’s annual
Garden Fair and Plant Sale is
a blooming wonder. Free
admission, free parking. 9AM
to 4 PM. 3501 NY Ave., NE.
• Amnesty International
Capitol Hill Chapter Meeting.
Discuss human rights and
write letters for prisoners of
conscience. 10 AM to Noon.
XANDO, 3rd and PA. Ave SE.
Info call Carmen Reed 544-
6304.
Sunday, April 22
Shakespeare’s Birthday
Open House: Enjoy jugglers
and jesters, music, song and
dance, stage combat workshops,
and more. It’s the
one-day of the year when the
Folger Reading Room is open
to all—plus, there’s birthday
cake for everyone! 201 E.
Capitol St., SE. Noon. 544-
7077.
Tuesday, April 24
Honor the Bard. Mark Cohen,
Bill Davis, Peggy Scott and
Susan Warner from the
Academy for Classical Acting
at the Shakespeare Theater
and the George Washington
University will read—and
members of the audience
may sign up to read too!
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. Noon. 707-1308.
• Films: A Life for a Life
(Khanzhonkov, 1916), and
The Revolutionar y
(Khanzhonkov, 1917). Part
of the Library’s Pre-
Revolutionary Russian cine -
ma series. Library of
Congress, Pickford Theater.
7 PM. Reservations may be
made by phone, beginning
one week before any given
show. Call (202) 707-5677
during business hours
(Monday-Friday, 9 AM to 4
PM). Reserved seats must
be claimed at least 10 min -
utes before show time, after
which standbys will be
admitted to unclaimed seats.
All programs are free, but
seating is limited to 64
seats. The Mary Pickford
Theater is located on the
third floor of the Library of
Congress Madison building.
Wednesday, April 25
DPW Traffic Planning
Meeting for 8th St., SE.
5PM, 921 PA Ave., SE. 5-
6:30PM. See Download section
for stor y. Info call 544-
3188.
• Treasure Talk: Elizabeth
Bazan, of the Congressional
Research Service, discusses
the Constitution and Laws of
the Cherokee Nation of
1871. Library of Congress,
Jefferson Building. Noon.
707-9203.
• Twilight tour of the azal -
eas at the National
Arboretum. $7. Register by
calling 245-4523.
Thursday, April 26
HPRB Looks at Medlink
Hospital Plan. Check in at
www.voiceofthehill.com for
the time of this hearing by
44 www.voiceofthehill.com
the Historic Preservation
Review Board on the plan to
develop Medlink/Capitol Hill
Hospital as an apartment/
condo. See Download section
for stor y.
• “Young Voices from the
Nation’s Capital,” a poetr y
presentation at the Library of
Congress featuring students
in grades 4-12, with additional
readings by renowned
adult authors. Madison
Building. 6:45 PM. 707-
5394.
• Film: The Appointment
(MGM, 1969). Part of the
Library’s National Film
Registry series. Library of
Congress, Pickford Theater.
7 PM. See April 24 for reservation
information.
• The Beaux Arts Trio
presents the first of two performances
in the Coolidge
Auditorium of the Library of
Congress. 8 PM. All Librar y
of Congress concerts are
free, but tickets are required
(maximum: two per person).
Free tickets are distributed
by TicketMaster (432-SEAT)
for a nominal service charge.
Tickets for popular events
are claimed quickly, but
there are often empty seats
at concert time. Interested
patrons are encouraged to
try for standby seats by
appearing at the will-call
desk in the Jefferson
Building by 6:30 PM on con -
cert evenings. 707-5502.
Friday, April 27
Ikebana International Flower
Show Opens. Dozens of bonsai
arrangements, and
demonstrations by master
teachers. National
Arboretum. 10 AM to
3:30PM. Through May 6.
• Atlantic City (Paramount,
1980). Susan Sarandon
and Burt Lancaster star
in the multi-award winner.
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 7 PM. See April 24
for reservation info.
• The Folger Consort presents
the Fairest Isle: Hear
the work of Henry Purcell
and other talented composers
working in late 17th
century England. 201 E
Capitol St, SE. 8 PM. Preconcert
discussion at 7 PM.
Tickets: $28-$38. 544-7077.
• Concert: The Beaux
Arts Trio performs in the
Coolidge Auditorium of the
Library of Congress. 8 PM.
See April 26 for details.
Saturday, April 28
Earth Day Clean-up. Bring
your gardening gloves and
hand tools to the Easter n
Market Metro Plaza at 9AM
to help with the annual beau -
tification of 8th St.. For info
call 546-2539.
• Have a cup of joe and
listen to the music of Cletus.
Stompin’ Grounds, 666 PA
Ave., SE. 2 - 4 PM. 546-
5228.
• River of Words
Environmental Poetry and
Art Award ceremony, with
presentations by former Poet
Laureate Robert Hass.
Library of Congress, Madison
Building. 2:30 PM. 707-
5221.
• The Folger Consort presents
the Fairest Isle: Hear
the music of Henry Purcell
and other talented composers
working in late 17th
century England. 201 E
Capitol St, SE. 8 PM.
Tickets: $28-$38. 544-7077.
Sunday, April 29
The Folger Consort presents
the Fairest Isle: Hear the
music of Henry Purcell and
other talented composers
working in late 17th centur y
England. 201 E. Capitol St,
SE. 2 PM and 5:30 PM.
Tickets: $28-$38. 544-7077.
Monday, April 30
Artist Frank Bernal discusses
his book “Birds of
Jamaica” and displays some
of his original paintings.
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 6 PM. 707-2013.
Tuesday, May 1
Foreign Film Festival begins
at Library of Congress:
Tonight’s program, culled
from the Library’s vast collection,
includes L’Inferno
(“The Inferno”) (Milano,
1909) and Journey to the
Beginning of Time
(Gottwaldov, 1960). Library
of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 6:30 PM. See April
24 entry for details.
• “The Lawyer as
Reformer.” The Library of
Congress Law Library and
the American Bar Association
host a panel presentation
in celebration of Law
Day. Madison Building. 5
PM. 707-9866.
• Super Tuesdays at the
SE Library: Joan Williams
speaks about her new book
“Unbending Gender: Why
Family and Work Conflict and
What to Do About It.”
Sponsored by the Friends of
the SE Librar y. 403 7th St.,
SE (across from Easter n
Market Metro). 7:30 PM.
698-3372.
Wednesday, May 2
Ben & Jerry’s Free Scoop
Day: Supports the work of
Kaboom! Noon to 8PM. Ben
& Jerry’s Capitol Hill, 327
7th Street, SE
• Treasure Talk: Leonard
Bruno of the Manuscript
Division discusses aviation
pioneer Igor Sikorsky and the
development of the helicopter.
Library of Congress,
Jefferson Building. Noon.
707-9203.
• Preservation Café.
“Making the Point in
Repointing,” the final Café of
the season features homeowner
Rob Nevitt and preser -
vationist Marie Fennell on
the plans, pitfalls, calami -
ties, and eventual successes
of restoring the façade of an
historic building. Sponsored
by the Capitol Hill
Restoration Society, at
Trattoria Alberto, 502 8th
St. SE (top floor) at 6:30
PM.
• “The President’s Own”
United States Marine Band,
Maj. Dennis Burian conducting,
presents a free concer t
of Mozart, Neruda, Respighi,
Grieg and Dvorák. Library of
Congress, Coolidge
Auditorium. 8 PM. No tickets
are required.433-4011.
Thursday, May 3
CHAMPS Prospective
Member Breakfast. If you
have a business on Capitol
Hill, or provide a service to
the Hill community, you may
be (should be) curious about
what CHAMPS—the Capitol
Hill Association of Merchants
and Professionals—
has to offer. Grab a little
breakfast and find out more.
8-9:30AM at Appalachian
Spring in Union Station.
•ANC 6A meeting. Check
www.voiceofthehill.com for
place, time and agenda.
• Don Byron, virtuoso clarinetist
and jazz scholar,
hosts a jazz-in-film evening,
screening clips from his per -
sonal collection. Library of
Congress, Pickford Theater.
7 PM. 707-8432.
• Gallery Talk. This
month’s Capitol Hill Ar t
League juried exhibit is Stars
and Stripes, which was
judged by Kathleen Moran,
curator for the Glenview
Mansion. Moran will talk
tonight at 7:30 at the
Capitol Hill Arts Workshop.
545 7th St., SE. 7:30 PM.
547-6839.
• The Root of Chaos: A
production by the Capitol Hill
Arts Workshop’s MADCAP
players. This show is the cul -
mination of a 12-week exper -
imental course. 8 PM. 545
7th St., SE. Tickets: $10.
Call 547-6839 or visit
www.chaw.org for tickets
and information.
Friday, May 4
Pulitzer Prize winning poet,
Galway Kinnell, reads tonight
at the Folger Shakespeare
Library. 201 E. Capitol St.,
SE. 8 PM. 544-7077.
• World premiere at the
Library of Congress.
Composer Don Byron
explores music from Rober t
Schumann and Leonard
Bernstein to Ornette
Coleman, Stevie Wonder and
Roy Orbison. Coolidge
Auditorium. 8 PM. See April
26 listing for details.
• Film: Variety (UFA,
1925), part of the Library’s
free film series. Library of
Congress, Pickford Theater.
7 PM. See April 24 entry for
reservation information.
• Marine Band Parades:
Celebrate the Marine
Barracks bicentennial! This
series features precision
marching and music ever y
Friday evening beginning
May 4th and continuing
through August. Admission is
free and open to the public,
but reservations are strongly
suggested. 8th & I Sts, SE.
For recorded parade informa -
tion, call 433-6060 or visit
www.mbw.usmc.mil.
• The Root of Chaos: A production
by the Capitol Hill
Arts Workshop’s MADCAP
players. This show is the cul -
mination of a 12-week exper -
imental course. 8 PM. 545
7th St., SE. Tickets: $10.
Call 547-6839 or visit
www.chaw.org for tickets
and information.
Saturday, May 5
GLBT Arts Festival. “Day of
artistic collaboration” bene -
fits the Mautner Project for
Lesbians with cancer.
Features DC premier of
“Where I Live,” Minnesota
composer Diane Benjamin’s
breast cancer oratorio. Noon-
4 PM, Capitol Hill
Presbyterian Church, 4th and
Independence Ave, SE.
Suggested contribution, $10.
• Stompin’ Grounds coffee
house +hosts a Writer’s Way
Workshop Poetry Reading.
666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE.
Time: TBA. 546-5228.
• The Root of Chaos: A production
by the Capitol Hill
Arts Workshop’s MADCAP
players. This show is the cul -
mination of a 12-week experimental
course. 8 PM. 545
7th St., SE. Tickets: $10.
Call 547-6839 or visit
www.chaw.org for tickets
and information.
Sunday, May 6
Market Day: Come to
Eastern Market for a day of
food, fun, games, bake sales,
crafts, music, shopping and
more! Eastern Market, 7th
St., SE,. 11 AM - 6 PM.
Benefits Friendship House.
• Cycle fashion show.
Fundraiser benefits 4 D.C.
cycling teams: Team DC–The
Filibusters, raises money for
AIDS research; Team Love
participates in the D.C. AIDS
ride; Brother to Brother
Sister to Sister United raises
funds and awareness for
sickle cell anemia, prostate
cancer and Black scholarship
funds. Sharon’s Shifters honors
Councilmember Sharon
Ambrose in the MS 150,
which raises funds for
research on multiple scler osis.
Sponsored by Capitol Hill
Bikes from 1:30-3:30 PM at
Sheridan’s, 713 8th St, S.E.
$5.00 admission enters you
in a drawing for door prizes.
(1st prize is a Cannondale
Road Warrior 500!)
• Enjoy the music of
Michelle Swan at Stompin’
Grounds, 666 Pennsylvania
Ave., SE. 12 -2 PM. 546-
5228.
Monday, May 7
Asian Pacific American
Heritage celebration at the
Library of Congress: cultural
events, lectures and films.
Today, composer/musician
Brian Yamakoshi presents a
program of Japanese koto
music. Library of Congress,
Coolidge Auditorium. Noon.
707-5673.
Tuesday, May 8
ANC6B Meeting. Check
www.voiceofthehill.com for
agenda. 7PM 921
Pennsylvania Ave., SE.
• Film: Inherit the Wind
(United Artists, 1960), features
Spencer Tracy’s Oscar
winning performance. Library
of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 7 PM. See April 24
entry for reservation information.
Wednesday, May 9
Poet Laureate Stanley Kunitz
reads from his works. Librar y
of Congress, Coolidge
Auditorium. 6:45 PM. 707-
5394.
• Treasure Talk: The Library
recently acquired the
archives of the Pinkerton
National Detective Agency,
founded in 1850 by Allan
Pinkerton. Nan Ernst of the
Manuscript Division discusses
the Pinkerton agency in
today’s Treasure-Talk. Library
of Congress, Jefferson
Building. Noon. 707-9203.
Thursday, May 10
National Book Award winner
Nathaniel Philbrick, author of
“In The Heart of the Sea:
The Tragedy of the
Whaleship Essex” will speak
about “the writing life” at
the Library of Congress at
6:30 PM, in the Montpelier
Room, 6th floor, James
Madison Building. 707-5221
• Film: The Chess Players
(Chitra Productions, 1977),
part of the Library’s free film
series. Library of Congress,
Pickford Theater. 7 PM. See
April 24 entry for reservation
information.
• The Root of Chaos: A
production by the Capitol Hill
Arts Workshop’s MADCAP
players. This show is the cul -
mination of a 12-week exper -
imental course. 8 PM. 545
7th St., SE. Tickets: $10.
Call 547-6839 or visit
www.chaw.org for tickets
and information.
Friday, May 11
American composer Irving
Fine is honored this evening
in a program of his works
performed by various musicians.
Library of Congress,
Coolidge Auditorium. 8 PM.
See April 26 entry for ticket
information.
• Starstruck (Palm Beach
Pictures, 1982), part of the
Library’s free film series.
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 7 PM. See April 24
entry for reservation information.
• Marine Band Parades:
Celebrate the Marine
Barracks bicentennial! This
series features precision
marching and music ever y
Friday evening beginning
May 4th and continuing
through August. Admission is
free and open to the public,
but reservations are strongly
suggested. 8th & I St.s, SE.
For recorded parade informa -
tion, call 433-6060 or visit
www.mbw.usmc.mil.
Saturday, May 12
The Capitol Hill House and
Garden Tour: See the most
beautiful homes and gardens
on the Hill! 5-8 PM (and
more tomorrow!). Tickets are
$25 and can be purchased
at the CHRS ticket kiosk in
Eastern Market. 543-0425.
• PEN/Faulkner Awards:
Enjoy an evening of great lit -
erature with presentations,
readings, food and dancing!
Folger Shakespeare Librar y,
201 E. Capitol, SE. 7 PM.
Tickets are $85. 544-7077.
• Second Saturday. Really
big doings for our monthly
art walk/pub crawl as the
event collides with that
other blockbuster: the House
and Garden Tour. Watch for
new shows, new participants,
new shopping and din -
ing specials all around the
Hill. Check in at www.voiceofthehill.
com the week
before to get a rundown on
all the activities.
• Writers on the Hill offers
monthly literary readings by
professional area writers and
poets. This month, nonfiction
writer and journalist Diana
McLellan and fiction writer
Frederick Reuss read. 4 PM.
545 7th St., NE. Admission:
$5. Call 547-6839 or visit
www.chaw.org/writers.htm
for info.
• National Capital Area
Women’s Paddling
Association (NCAWPA) Yard
Sale, supports competitive,
youth, and disabled adult’s
watersports programs in SE,
DC, Clothing, books, furniture,
kitchen items, sports
equipment and more. 9 AM-
4 PM at Antiques on the Hill,
701 N. Carolina Ave, S.E.
• Enjoy the music of Doug
Alan Wilcox at Stompin’
Grounds, 666 Pennsylvania
Ave., SE. 5 -7 PM. 546-
5228.
• The Root of Chaos: A
production by the Capitol Hill
Arts Workshop’s MADCAP
players. This show is the cul -
mination of a 12-week exper -
imental course. 8 PM. 545
7th St., SE. Tickets: $10.
Call 547-6839 or visit
www.chaw.org for tickets
and information.
Sunday, May 13
The Capitol Hill House and
Garden Tour Continues: See
the most beautiful homes
and gardens on the Hill! 1-5
PM. A tea reception will
take place from 3-6 PM at a
location to be announced.
Tickets are $20 in advance
and $25 on tour days and
can be purchased at the
CHRS ticket kiosk in Eastern
Market. 543-0425.
• Enjoy the music of Lea at
the Hill’s newest coffee
house! Stompin’ Grounds,
666 Pennsylvania Ave., SE.
12 -2 PM. 546-5228.
• The Folger Theatre presents
As You Like It.
Experience Shakespeare’s
play about young, true love
and romantic confusion! May
13-June 10. 201 E. Capitol
St., SE. 2 PM. Tickets: $20-
$30. 544-7077.
Tuesday, May 15
Poetry at Noon offers
“Poems About Animals.” The
last program for this season.
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. Noon. 707-1308.
• Rare book talk.
Professor Lee Piepho will dis -
cuss his discovery of the
only extant book owned by
Edmund Spenser. The talk,
“What Edmund Spenser
Read: Renaissance
Humanism in Early Modern
England,” will be held at the
Library of Congress at Noon
on May 15 in the Wilson
Room, of the Thomas
Jefferson Building.
• Han Ong gives a dramat -
ic reading from his first
novel, “Fixer Chao.” Librar y
of Congress, Madison
Building. Noon. 707-5673.
• Super Tuesdays at the
SE Library: Hill resident and
author Louis Bayard discusses
his hilarious new book
“Endangered Species.”
Sponsored by the Friends of
the SE Librar y. 403 7th St.,
SE (across from Easter n
Market Metro). 7:30 PM.
www.voiceofthehill.com 45
Call us at
2 0 2 - 5 4 3 - 3 6 3 5
www.ramassociates.com
classifieds, etc • classifieds, etc •
Khan El-Khalili
321 7th Street, SE
202-543-5295
1-800-397-9441
Mohamed & Venetta Khattab
Owners
F F Hand Made Egyptian Gifts & Oils
Imported from Cairo
Application Service Providers to Capitol Hill.
In the Business of Supporting Local and National
Organizations for 11Years.
We do:
• Web hosting, development, email
• eCommerce, powered by InterShop
• Web based learning featuring Macromedia Authorware
• Portal development, featuring LivePublish search engine
• CD development featuring LivePublish/FolioViews search engines
• Data translation, database development, web delivery
RAM has development and hosting plans available for small and
large clients, come be the next.
Ra d i a tor Ca b i n et s
Du ra bl e ,Be a u ti ful and Prot e ctive
Don’t paint, adorn!
RADIATOR ENCLOSURES WILL:
Improve Appearance
Decrease Heat Loss Through Walls
Enhance Circulation
Custom Wood Radiator Cabinets
Cane or Metal Grills
Stain or Painted
Also…
A Complete Line of Window
Treatments & Custom Bedding
Interior & Exterior Window Treatments
LL O Y D’S
WINDOW PRODUCTS
301.599.8684
Writers
on the
Hill
M A Y 1 2
Diana McLellan, nonfiction and
Journalism; Frederick Reuss, Fiction
J U N E 9
Megan Rosenfeld, Journalism;
Duncan Spencer, Journalism
www.chaw.org for more info or
call 202.547.6839
Sea Kayak
the Potomac
Experience,Discover,Explore
• Evening, day, and half day trips
• Nature watching
• Instruction
CHARLES AGLE
THE PATHFINDER GROUP
202-546-0269
kayaking@washpathfind.com
698-3372.
• Bob Le Flambeur
(O.G.C./Studios Jenner,
1956), in French with
English subtitles), part of
the Library’s free film series.
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 7 PM. See April 24
entry for information.
• The Folger Theatre pres -
ents As You Like It. May 13-
June 10. 201 E. Capitol St.,
SE. 7:30 PM. Tickets: $20-
$30. 544-7077.
Wednesday, May 16
Capitol Hill Community
Achievement Awards Dinner.
This year the honor goes to
Will Hill, Lois Kaufmen, and
Phyllis Jane Young for their
outstanding service to the
community. Supports the
work of the CHAMPS
Foundation. Black tie dinner
in the Folger’s Great Hall..
547-3228.
• Treasure Talk: Mary
Bucknum, Motion Picture,
Broadcasting and Recorded
Sound Division, talks about
the John Peter collection and
his interviews with architects.
Library of Congress,
Jefferson Building. Noon.
707-9203.
• The Library’s celebration
of Asian Pacific Heritage
Month continues today with
“The Evolution of Asian
America,” a lecture by
Franklin Odo. Pickford
Theater. Noon. 707-5673.
• Books & Beyond:
Andrew Carroll discusses his
book, War Letters: Extraor -
dinary Cor respondence from
American Wars. Library of
Congress, Madison Building.
7 PM. 707-5221.
• The Folger Theatre presents
As You Like It. May 13-
June 10. 201 E. Capitol St.,
SE. 7:30 PM. Tickets: $20-
$30. 544-7077.
Thursday, May 17
Film: Cesar et Rosalie
(Fildebroc, 1972), part of
the Library’s free film series.
Library of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 7 PM. See April 24
entry for information.
• The Folger Theatre pres -
ents As You Like It. May 13-
June 10. 201 E. Capitol St.,
SE. 7:30 PM. Tickets: $20-
$30. 544-7077.
Friday, May 18
Capitol Hill Chorale Concert:
“Remembrance”. Join the 80-
voice choral ensemble in its
premiere of composer Tristan
Foison’s Requiem Masse.
7:30 PM. Capitol Hill
Presbyterian Church, 4th St.
and Independence Ave., SE.
Tickets: $10 general, $15
reserved seating. For tickets
and info call 547-6839 or
visit www.chaw.org/
chorale.htm.
• Film: Happy Together
(Jet Tone, 1997) and Irma
Vep (Zeitgeist, 1996), par t
of the Library’s free film
series. Library of Congress,
Pickford Theater. 7 PM. See
April 24 for information.
• Marine Band Parades:
Celebrate the Marine
Barracks bicentennial! Ever y
Friday evening beginning
May 4th and continuing
through August. Admission is
free and open to the public,
but reservations are strongly
suggested. 8th & I St.s, SE.
For recorded parade information,
call 433-6060 or visit
www.mbw.usmc.mil.
• The Folger Theatre pres -
ents As You Like It. May 13-
June 10. 201 E. Capitol St.,
SE. 8 PM. Tickets: $20-$30.
544-7077.
CHI
BODY AND MIND EXERCISE
How to discover your body’s natural ability
to heal itself.Works for all ages.
Under 6 year-old classes forming
HOMEDO Founder • Master Dong 202.544.9537
620 G St., SE E Eastern Market Metro
(202) 547-9300 E www.washingtonparish.org
Our spring schedule leaves
time for your other re l i g i o n .
At Christ Episcopal Church on Capitol Hill you
can worship Sunday mornings before tee time.
Your casual clothes are welcome.
8:15 and 11:00 am worship services
46 www.voiceofthehill.com
• classifieds • classifieds • classifieds •
Positions
Nanny to Share
Loving nanny available fulltime
beginning mid-late June
2001. Has cared for new -
borns to 3-year-olds, prepar -
ing and feeding formula and
meals, dressing children,
walks, outdoor activities at
local parks, playgrounds and
library, participation in play
groups, reading to children,
developmental game playing,
light housekeeping. Good
with pets. Call Terri 202-889-
9114. (0401)
Nanny Available
Looking for a new home for
our nanny! We are relocat -
ing out of DC area and want
to place our nanny in a new
home. Over 21 years experi -
ence on the Hill with impec -
cable references, Eva is lov -
ing and experienced. Looking
for full-time position with
start date June 1, but would
consider immediate placement
if situation is right.
Please contact Kim at 202-
547-7475. (0401)
Help Wanted
Bed and Breakfast on Capitol
Hill seeks weekend
host/ess, 4-5 hours ever y
Sat. and Sun. morning.
Enjoyable job: set out break -
fast, check out guests, and
make reservations by phone
and email. Ideal candidate
loves the city, is outgoing,
punctual and organized.
Resumes or responses may
be faxed to 202-547-2764,
emailed to reserve@
BullMoose-B-and-B.com, or
mailed to Bull Moose B-and-
B, 722 N. Carolina Ave, SE,
Washington, DC 20003
(4/01)
Nanny Share
Capitol Hill parents with
infant daughter and experienced
nanny looking for a
family interested in a nanny
sharing arrangement. Call
202/547-0311 or 202/622-
8232. (4/01)
Services
Summer Tutoring
on the Hill
Certified reading specialist/
special education
teacher available June -
August for academic tutoring.
If your child needs a
boost this summer in reading
comprehension, phonics, or
writing — call today. 202-
546-7597. Flexible hours
and locations. Spaces limited.
(04/01)
Writing
Ace rewrite man, manuscript
doctor. More than commas,
substantive editing.
Speeches, books, proposals,
grants. Often published;
recommendations. See
edxcel@aol.com (4/01)
Help Wanted
Great Opportunity in the
Neighborhood. Stanton Park
political and public policy
commmunicatins firm seeking
part-time and full-time
telephone representatives to
call on behalf of national
association and political
clients. Excellent base pay,
incentives and full health
benefits for politically astute,
well spoken individuals with
fundraising or sales skills. No
cold calling. Please call
Janice at 202/546-6874 or
fax resume to 202/546-
3871. info@captel.net. EOE
(3/01)
Buy, Sell, Rent
Beach Vacation/Golf
Reserve for next season or a
fall golf outing. Cher ry Grove
Section, No. Myrtle Beach,
South Carolina. 3BR 2BA
home, 1 block from beach
with dock and channel at
back door. Over 100 golf
courses nearby, and more
Classified Ad Placement Form
First Name __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Last Name___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Address _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
City/State/ZIP _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Phone Number________________________________________________________________________Email_________________________________
Category
h Apartments/Rooms h Autoh Booksh Children’s Items h Electronics
h Furnitureh Office h Marketplace h Other _________________________________________________________________________________
h Personals h Positions h Services h Tools
h Website h Newspaper h Both
Classified ads are $25.00 and appear both on the Web and in print unless otherwise specified. Visa and MasterCard are accepted.
Please describe the item and please be concise, there is a 200 website character limitation (there is no limit to print ads)_______________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Please enclose payment with ord e r. Mail to Voice of the Hill, 120 11 th St re et, SE, Wa s h i n g ton, DC 20003. Or fax info rmation
(credit card payment only) to 202-547-5133. Telephone 202-544-0703.
Credit Card Number (Visa and MC only)_________________________________________________Exp. Date _____________________________
Name on Card _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Signature____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
mini-golf than you can play.
Rent the Robeys’ beach cottage.…
call 202/546-7410
for rates or www.voiceofthehill/
cricket
Garage for Rent
One block from Lincon Park.
Only cars, boats, recreation
devices—no storage. Lock
provided. $200 per month.
410-991-0038. (4/01)
House Needed
Professional couple looking
for house to rent in Capitol
Hill. Mechanical Engineer
and a landscaper relocating
to the area mid-May. Have
two medium sized, extremely
well-trained dogs. In search
of a duplex, townhome, etc.,
for rent May, 2001. Great
tenants who treat rental as if
their own.
Miscellaneous
Cultural Exchange
Seek host family(ies) with
teenager(s) who want to wel -
come, accommodate and
entertain German young lady
for one week in July/August.
A fun, easily adaptable, flexible
and travel experienced
15-year old, who likes
nature, photography, literature,
music, and rollerblading.
Empties a dishwasher
without being grumpy.
Interested? Call Katrin 544-
8453. (3/01)
Let’s play!
Guitarist, 40-something, ISO
amateur musicians for jazz,
standards, blues and swing.
Call Jeff, 547-9256. (3/01)
Books
Want to purchase
Quality used books. Single
volumes or entire library!
Call Steve at Riverby Books
202/544-1925
Books Bought and Sold.
We want what you can give,
we pay what we can afford.
Capitol Hill Books. Capitol
Hill’s only used bookstore
across the street from
Eastern Market. 657 C
Street, SE 202/544-1621
Two Treasures - One Gate, On Capitol Hill
at Eastern Market Metro
Vegetable Dyed, Hand-Spun Wool
Tribal and Village Rugs
Tribal & Village Art
Open Tue-Sun 10-6
311-315 7th St., SE • Washington, DC
www.wovenhistory.com
202.543.1705
Appraising • Repairing • Cleaning •
Acquiring
Bi-monthly shipments from our own looms
®
Submit your
classifieds online at
www.voiceofthehill.com
La Strega
Italian Classes
Native Professor offers Private and
Semi-Private Courses
Special Travel Course over two weekends
Call 202 547-9536
email: lastrega@hotmail.com
1May Day
Foreign Film Festival at the
Library of Congress: L’Inferno
(1909) and Journey to the
Beginning of Time (1960).
6:30 PM.
Joan Williams talks about her
book Unbending Gender: Why
Family and Work Conflict and
What to Do About It.
Southeast Library, 403 7th St.,
SE. 7:30 PM. 698-3372.
4Natl Cathedral Flower Mar t
and Craft show . Through Sat.
10AM to 5PM. 202-537-6200.
Pulitzer Prize winning poet,
Galway Kinnell reads. Folger
Shakespeare Library. 201 E.
Capitol. 544-7077.
Marine Parade Season
Begins! 8th St. Barracks.
Fridays through August 31.
At dusk. 433-6060.
2Ben & Jer ry’s Free Scoop
Day! Noon to 8PM. Supports
the work of Kaboom. 327 7th
Street, SE
Preservation Café. “Making
the Point in Repointing,”
restoring the façades of his -
toric buildings. Trattoria
Alberto, 502 8th St. SE. 6:30
PM.
3CHAMPS Prospective
Member Breakfast. It’s our
local chamber of commerce.
8-9:30AM at Appalachian
Spring in Union Station.
ANC 6A meeting. details at
www.voiceofthehill.com
Art League talk with curator,
Kathleen Moran. C.H. Arts
Workshop. 545 7th St., SE.
7:30 PM. 547-6839.
5Cinco de Mayo . Margarita
season begins.
Virginia Gold Cup in the
Plains, VA 540-347-1215
GLBT Arts Festival. “ A Day of
Artistic Collaboration” at the
Capitol Hill Presbyterian
Church, 4th and Ind. Ave, SE.
Noon to 4PM. $10.
8V E Day 1945
ANC6B Meeting . 921
Pennsylvania Ave., SE. 7PM.
Spencer Tracy took home an
Oscar for Inherit the Wind in
1960. See why at the Librar y
of Congress, Pickford
Theater. 7 PM.
9Poet Laureate Stanley
Kunitz reads. Library of
Congress, Coolidge Auditorium.
6:45 PM. 707-5394.
The James Gang, the Wild
Bunch, the Missouri Kid.
How the Pinkerton Agency got
‘em all. Noon. Library of
Congress, Jefferson Bldg.
707-9203.
10 11 National Zoo Guppie Gala.
Climbing wall, puppet
shows, other activities. A
kid extravaganza! 673-4717
The Library of Congress
honors American composer
Irving Fine at 8PM. Coolidge
Auditorium.
Marine Parade at Dusk
12 The Capitol Hill House and
Garden Tour: Gorgeous homes
and gardens! 5-8 PM (and
more tomorrow!). 543-0425.
PEN/Faulkner Awards: Food,
dancing and Phillip Roth.
Folger Shakespeare Library,
201 E. Capitol. 7 PM. $85. 544-
7077.
Second Saturday . The Hill’s
monthly art walk/pub crawl
13 Mother’s Day
The Capitol Hill House and
Garden Tour Continues. 1-5
PM. Tea reception from 3 to 6
PM. CHRS ticket kiosk in
Eastern Market. 543-0425.
As You Like It celebrates true
love and romantic confusion
at the Folger Shakespear e
Theatre. 201 E. Capitol St.,
SE. 2 PM. Tickets: $20-$30.
544-7077.
14 15 1760’s home goes on display
at Natl Museum of
American History
Hill resident and author
Louis Bayar d on his hilarious
new book “Endangered
Species.” Southeast Library,
403 7th St., SE. 7:30 PM.
698-3372.
16 Capitol Hill Community
Achievement Awards Gala
Dinner in the Folger’s Great
Hall. This year the honor
goes to Will Hill, Lois
Kauffman, and Phyllis Jane
Young. Proceeds support the
work of the CHAMPS
Foundation. 547-3228.
17 National Zoo’s Annual
Zoofari. Tastings from more
than 100 area restaurants,
silent auction, animal demonstrations.
673-4717.
Makest hasteth. The
Shakespeare Theatre’s hit,
Two Gentlemen of Verona
(with the fabulous Floyd
King), closes this weekend.
Lansburgh Theater, 7th St.,
NW. 547-1122.
19 Armed Forces Day
The Preakness Stakes at
Baltimore’s Pimlico Track.
410-542-9400.
HUGE Library book sale
today at the Southeast
Library! Barely used to wellthumbed.
Hardbacks, paperbacks
magazines. Most
$1.25 or less. 10 AM to
4 PM. 403 7th St., SE
20 Wax Your Nikes. The 22nd
Annual Capitol Hill Classic
10K, 3K and Children’s Fun
Runs take off from Peabody
School beginning at 8:30.
Benefits the Capitol Hill
Cluster Schools. 301-871-
0400.
21 Victoria Day
Kemper Open Begins . The
world’s top
golfers compete
through
the 27th at
Avenel in
Potomac. 202-
432-7328.
22 23 When Dinosaurs Wer e
Gone. Interactive exhibit
opens at the National
Geographic Society. 1145
17th St., NE. 202-857-7588.
24 25
Take Off! Head for the
Beach! Don’t forget the
sunblock!
26 Hunt Country Stable Tour .
Horsy open house. Tromp
through 10+ stables. Loudon
County. $20. Tomorrow Too!
540-592-3711.
Delaplane Strawber ry Festival.
Berry good eats, crafts, music,
kid’s stuff. Sky Meadows
State Park, VA. $15 per car.
Tomorrow Too! 540-592-3556.
27 Rolling Thunder Ride for
Freedom. Thousands of
motorcyclists hit town!
202-619-7222.
NSO’s Memorial Day
Concert. Pack a picnic and
head for the Capitol’s west
lawn. 8PM. Insider note:
rehearsals are Fri. and Sat. at
7:30PM. Just as wonderf u l ,
but no crowds! Rain date 4/28
28 Memorial Day
Ceremonies held at
Arlington Cemeter y (703-
607-8052) and at the
Vietnam Veterans
Memorial. (393-0090.)
29 Pack a picnic and head for
the National Arboretum .
The peonies should be at
their peak today! For the full
summer bloom schedule,
check www.ars-grin.gov/na/
The Arboretum’s at 3501
New York Ave., NE.
30 31 Another fine night for a pic -
nic. The sultry Latin rhythms
of world music royalty, the
Gipsy Kings, will make May’s
last night sizzle at Wolf Trap.
8PM. Tickets: 703-218-6500
18 Mt. Vernon Wine Festival.
Glass blowers, artisans, and
wines! Through the 20th at
Mt. Vernon. 703-799-8604.
Capitol Hill Chorale Concert:
“Remembrance.” Premiere of
Tristan Foison’s Requiem
Masse. 7:30 PM. CH
Presbyterian Church, 4th St.
and Ind., SE. $10. 547-6839.
Marine Parade at Dusk
6National Wildflower Week
Begins
Chesapeake Bay Bridge Walk,
9AM –4PM 877-229-7726
Market Day at Easter n
Market. Food, fun, games,
bake sales, crafts, music,
shopping and more!
11 AM - 6 PM. Benefits
Friendship House.
EQUAL HO
OPPORT
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
7Full Moon
PHYLLIS JANE YOUNG
PARDOE Real Estate ERA
Office 202.262.7253 • Home 202.544.4236
email: phyllisjaneyoung@realtor.com
Licensed broker in DC, MD and VA.
218 Maryland Ave., NE
$1,195,000
920 Penn. Ave. SE
$495,000
326 10th St., SE
$349,000
409 D St., NE
$344,500
116 4th St., NE
COMING SOON
605 Pe n n s y l vania Avenue, SE / 202-547-3525 / www. p a rd o e . c o m EQUAL HOUSING
OPPORTUNITY
We’re first on
the Hill and
we still try
h a rd e r
Pardoe Capitol Hill has led sales on
Capitol Hill in 2000 and…
1999, 1998, 1997, 1996, 1995, 1994,
1993, 1992, 1991, 1990, 1989, 1988,
1987, 1986, 1985, 1984, 1983, 1982…