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Free to DC residents – apply today! Success starts NOW. Prepare your 3 or 4 year old for success in school. Now enrolling for the 2011-2012 school year. AppleTree’s evidence-based program helps children develop skills they need for kindergarten. They develop academic and social skills through: • Caring and engaged TEACHERS who receive extensive training on early childhood learning & development • Stimulating and fun CLASSROOMS where children learn important skills and a positive approach to learning • A CURRICULUM that increases academic and real-life knowledge for students and supports their individual needs Applications for the Oklahoma Ave campus, located at 320 21st St. NE are now being accepted on a rolling basis. Request an application form by calling the Oklahoma Ave campus on 202.525.7807 or apply online at www.appletreeinstitute.org

AppleTree Early Learning PCS Oklahoma Ave 320 21st Street, NE 202.525.7807

Visit one of our additional campuses: AppleTree Early Learning PCS - Riverside 680 I Street, SW • 202.646.0500 AppleTree Early Learning PCS - Amidon 401 I Street, SW • 202.646.0094 AppleTree Early Learning PCS - Columbia Heights 2750 14th Street, NW • 202.667.9490 AppleTree Early Learning PCS - Douglas Knoll 2017 Savannah Terrace SE • 202-630-6805 AppleTree Early Learning PCS - Parklands 2011 Savannah Street, SE • 202-630-6805 AppleTree Early Learning PCS - Lincoln Park 138 12th Street NE • 202-630-6804

NOW ENROLLING for Oklahoma Ave & SE campuses

AppleTree Early Learning Public Charter School prohibits discrimination on the basis of a student’s race, color, religion, national origin, language spoken, intellectual or athletic ability, meaures of achievement or aptitude, or status as a student with special needs.

HEALTHY FOOD, HEALTHY COMMUNITY Fresh produce from local farmers, plants, art, food-preparation workshops, children activities, nutrition, give-always, music and more...

We DOUBLE your EBT,WIC and Seniors Coupon dollars!! (as long as funds last)

Starting Saturday, June 4th! Welcome us at our new home: at THEARC! 1901 Mississippi Avenue, SE - Front parking lot

Saturdays: 9:00 am to 2:00 pm Ward8FM@gmail.com • www.Ward8FarmersMarket.com CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 3

EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2011 | CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS 08 ............Go See Do 10 ............East of the River Calendar 17 ............A KING for Washington and DC • by Derek Musgrove 20 ............MLK Memorial Dedication Events 22 ............Bulletin Board 24 ............Tommy Wells Came out a Winner • by Martin Austermuhle 25 ............Mr. Mayor, Develop Big K! • by Charles Wilson 26 ............“Living” with Wal-Mart Jobs? • by Kwame Boadi and Elisa Silverman

28 ............Learning Garden and Vancant Property Policy • by Virginia Avniel Spatz

30 ............St. Elizabeths East Campus Meeting • by John Muller 31 ............Frederick Douglass National Memorial Site • by John Muller

EAST WASHINGTON LIFE 32 ............5th Annual Celebration of East of the River Arts •

by Michelle Phipps-Evans

35 ............African Am. War Museum Re-Opens • by John Muller 36 ............Reminiscence Theatre and Oral History • by Stephen Lilienthal

KIDS & FAMILY 38 ............Kids and Family Notebook • by Kathleen Donner

HOMES & GARDENS

43 ............Changing Hands • compiled by Don Denton 44 ............The Classifieds 46 ............The Nose • by Anonymous

ON THE COVER: Rendering of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial.

A list of dates and events for the revealing of the monument can be found in this months East of the River Magazine on page 20.

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Capital Community News, Inc. 224 7th Street, SE, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20003 202.543.8300 • www.capitalcommunitynews.com EXECUTIVE EDITOR: Melissa Ashabranner melissaashabranner@hillrag.com EDITORIAL STAFF

KIDS & FAMILY

MANAGING EDITOR: Andrew Lightman andrew@hillrag.com CFO & ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Maria Carolina Lopez carolina@hillrag.com SCHOOL NOTES EDITOR: SUSAN BRAUN JOHNSON SCHOOLS@HILLRAG.COM KIDS & FAMILY NOTEBOOK EDITOR: KATHLEEN DONNER KATHLEEN.DONNER@GMAIL.COM

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ARTS, DINING & ENTERTAINMENT ART: Jim Magner • jjmagner@aol.com DINING: Celeste McCall • celeste@hillrag.com HIT THE CITY: Joylyn Hopkins • joylyn@joylynhopkins.com LITERATURE: Karen Lyon • klyon@folger.edu MOVIES: Mike Canning • mjcanning@verizon.net MUSIC: Jean-Keith Fagon • fagon@hillrag.com RETAIL THERAPY: Scott Fazzini • scott.fazzini@gmail.com THEATER: Barbara Wells • barchardwells@aol.com TRAVEL: Maggie Hall • whitby@aol.com THE WINE GUYS: Jon Genderson • jon@cellar.com

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Animal Clinic of Anacostia Candace A. Ashley, DVM 20 years of serving Capitol Hill (minutes from Capitol Hill & Southwest via 11th Street Bridge)

2210 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave, SE

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Michelle Evans • invisiblecolours@yahoo.com Celeste McCall • celeste@hillrag.com Heather Schoell • hschoell@verizon.net Virginia Avniel Spatz • virginia@hillrag.com Peter Waldron • peter@hillrag.com Kathleen Donner • kathleen.donner@gmail.com Stephanie Deutsch • scd@his.com Melanie Sunukjian • melsunuk@gmail.com Shannon Holloway • holloway.shannon@gmail.com Alice Ollstein • alice.ollstein@gmail.com Amanda Abrahams • manda.abrams@gmail.com Lex Kiefhaber • lexk24@gmail.com Roberta Weiner • rweiner_us@yahoo.com Gwyn Jones • gwynjones@aol.com John H. Muller • jmuller.washingtonsyndicate@gmail.com

Rindy O’Brien - Hill Gardener • rindyob@mac.com Derek Thomas • derek@thomaslandscapes.com Judith Capen • judith.capen@architravepc.com HomeStyle: Mark Johnson • mark@hillrag.com

NEWS & NEIGHBORHOOD REPORTS ANC6A, 6B, 6C, 6D:

Roberta Weiner • rweiner_us@yahoo.com • gwynjones@aol.com BARRACKS ROW: sharon@barracksrow.org H STREET LIFE: Elise Bernard • inked78@hotmail.com THE NOSE: thenose@hillrag.com LOGAN CIRCLE • mark@hillrag.com SHAW • Ralph Brabham: Ralph • ralphbrabham@yahoo.com BLOOMINGDALE: Eleanor Gourley • ecgourley@gmail.com 14TH & U: Catherine Finn • cathefinn@gmail.com ANC6B: GWYN JONES

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We welcome suggestions for stories. Send queries to andrew@hillrag.com. We are also interested in your views on community issues which are published in the Last Word. Please limit your comments to 250 words. Letters may be edited for space. Please include your name, address and phone number. Send Last Word submissions to lastword@hillrag.com. For employment opportunities email jobs@hillrag.com.

capitalcommunitynews.com 6 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

| AUGUST 2011

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 7

GO.SEE.DO. First-Ever Floating Liveaboard Residences Tour In celebration of 6th Annual “Liveaboard Boater Day,” Southwest DC’s colorful liveaboard community will open its doors to visitors on Saturday, Aug. 13, 10:00 AM-2:00 PM. The self-guided tour at Gangplank Marina takes visitors inside 15 of the most fun and unique homes (and offices) in Washington DC. Owners and docents will also be available to answer questions about the boat-homes and the liveaboard and workaboard lifestyles. The homes of Gangplank Marina have never before been open to the public. Gangplank Marina is a 309-slip marina just steps from the National Mall and its many monuments and museums. For over 30 years, the marina has been home to a diverse liveaboard community including professionals, families, artists, retirees, scientists, members of congress and many others. Advance tickets are recommended, $11, as the tour is expected to sell out. Purchase tickets online at dchouseboat.org. Tickets on tour day are $18. Proceeds will benefit Southwest DC’s own Earth Conservation Corps. dchouseboat.org

Gangplank residents are a close community. Here, neighbors gather to celebrate the wedding of two of their own. Photo: Chris Zarconi

Flying Circus Hot Air Balloon Festival On August 20 and 21, there are hot air balloon launches in the early morning, 6:00-7:00 AM, and late afternoon, 5:007:00 PM, and you’re invited to take a ride or just come out to see the magnificant balloons close-up. Festival admission is $10. Rides are $200 for the approximately one-hour ride. You negotiate directly with the balloon pilots. The flying circus is located 14 miles south of Warrenton, Va and 22 miles northwest of Fredericksburg, VA, just off Route 17, at 5114 Ritchie Road (Route 644) in Bealeton (about 60 miles from DC). Just watch for the Flying Circus Sign. 540-439-8661. flyingcircusairshow.com Balloons aloft in the early morning hours Photo: Vern Wells

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Dr. King championed a movement that draws fully from the deep well of America’s potential for freedom, opportunity, and justice. His vision of America is captured in his message of hope and possibility for a future anchored in dignity, sensitivity, and mutual respect; a message that challenges each of us to recognize that America’s true strength lies in its diversity of talents. The MLK Memorial captures the essence of his message, a message in which he so eloquently affirms the commanding tenants of the American Dream--Freedom, Democracy and Opportunity for All; a noble quest that gained him the Nobel Peace Prize and one that continues to influence people and societies throughout the world. The memorial’s dedication is August 28, 2011--the 48th anniversary of King’s “Dream” speech. dedicatethedream.org Courtesy of Western Maryland Scenic Railroad

Western Maryland Scenic Railroad The Western Maryland Scenic Railroad round trip excursion, originating from downtown Cumberland, Maryland, is an exciting mix of mountain scenery and rich transportation history. It’s an entertaining and educational experience for riders of all ages and interests with interpretive history and lively Main Street Districts at both ends of the trip. Experience a part of railroad history while dining in their first class cars or travel standard seating and arrive at the “Old Depot” in Frostburg in time for a picnic lunch. Thursdays through Sundays, 11:30 AM departure. Thanksgiving to Christmas, the train becomes a Santa Express on Saturdays and Sundays and a 6:00 PM (family friendly) North Pole Express on Friday, Saturdays and Sundays. Many people turn up in their pajamas. 301-759-4400. wmsr.com

Maquette of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial’s Stone of Hope. Image: Courtesy of Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc.

“I Love Lucy” Opens at Library of Congress The television show “I Love Lucy” developed from a confluence of talent, on-screen chemistry, behind-the-scenes skill, and--in the words of the show’s producer, Jess Oppenheimer--“unbelievably good luck.” In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the show’s debut, the Library of Congress presents a new exhibition, “I Love Lucy: An American Legend.” This exhibit explores the show’s history through the Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz family scrapbooks as well as photographs, scripts, printed and manuscript music and other documents. Featured items in the exhibition include a manuscript drum part for “Babalu” from the 1940s and early scrapbook photographs of the young Arnaz and Ball in Hollywood. Also on view will be items from the Jess Oppenheimer Collection, including a copy of the original concept and receipt for copyright registration for “I Love Lucy” (1951). The exhibition is on view through Jan. 28, 2012 in the foyer outside the Performing Arts Reading Room on the first floor of the James Madison Building, 101 Independence Ave. SE. loc.gov Scrapbook page with a photograph of Ball and Arnaz, in the late 1940s. Credit: Library of Congress; Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz Collection; Music Division

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 9

CALENDAR doned People/Abandoned Homes by Marcus Bleasdale, one of the world’s leading documentary photographers. This work of intimate portraits focuses on those affected by the 20-year campaign of the Lord’s Resistance Army against civilians across Central Africa. Exhiled by Platon, depicts the resilience and strength of Burmese dissidents exiled to Thailand. Finally, Too Young To Wed by Stephanie Sinclair, is a multimedia presentation exploring the phenomenon of child marriage in India, Yemen, Afghanistan, Nepal and Ethiopia. FotoSpace, 1838 Columbia Road NW. fotodc.org. African American Heritage Trail 100th Marker. On Aug. 23, 10:00 AM, Cultural Tourism DC will unveil the 100th plaque on the African American Heritage Trail, at 931 R St. NW, the site of Fire Engine Company No. 4, the first all African-American fire company. Since the first plaque was unveiled in Feb. 2006 at the Recorder of Deeds Building, Cultural Tourism DC has worked to identify and mark historically significant sites in African American history throughout Washington, DC. The African American Heritage Trail comprises a searchable database of more than 200 historically significant sites throughout the city, a guide book featuring 15 neighborhood walking trails, and now 100 plaques marking sites throughout the city. CulturalTourismDC.org

African drumming sets the rhythm as market-goers buy fresh greens, watermelons, and other produce. Photo: April George

AROUND THE NEIGHBORHOOD

Aya Community Market Aug. 20, (third Saturday of every month through Nov.), 11:00 AM-5:00 PM, Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church, 3000 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. The market will provide resources for healthy and sustainable communities through farm fresh produce; educational health speakers and live musical performances; locally produced handmade crafts and baked goods; art, youth activities and more. They are interested in recruiting qualified local farmers and other vendors. Contact Tarik Lott to become a vendor at ayamarkets@ dreamingoutloud.net or 202-714-5568. dreamingoutloud.net

SPECIAL EVENTS Shakespeare Theatre Free-For-All Presents Julius Caesar. Aug.18-Sept. 4 (daily, except Mondays). As swift and enthralling as a political thriller, Julius Caesar portrays the lifeand-death struggle for power in Rome. Fearing that Caesar’s growing strength and imperial ambitions threaten the Republic, a faction of politicians plots to assassinate him. But when Caesar is killed, chaos engulfs Rome. Alive with stunning rhetoric, Julius Caesar investigates the intoxicating effects of power and the dangers of idealism. In Caesar, Brutus and the young Marc Antony, Shakespeare created three fascinating, dynamic characters. Sidney Harman Hall, 610 F St. NW. Ticket distribution is by online lottery. shakespearetheatre.org FotoSpace Opens at New Location. Open to the public Thursday-Saturday, noon-6:00 PM; Monday-Wednesday by appointment. In collaboration with the Pulitzer Center and Human Rights Watch, FotoDC’s new location opens with a special exhibit, Speaking to Silence, An Exhibition on Communities Displaced, Dissidents Repressed, and Childhood Betrayed from three award-winning photographers. The exhibition will incorporate the following three themes: Aban-

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Fifth Annual East of the River Exhibition. Through Sept. 6. Honfluer Gallery, 1241 Good Hope Rd. SE. 202-536- 8994. honfleurgallery.com Upstairs at Honfleur Gallery. New Installation based works created by ARCH Artist in residence, Mei Mei Chang, during her 61 days in Anacostia, Washington, DC. Honfluer Gallery, 1241 Good Hope Rd. SE. 202536- 8994. honfleurgallery.com

(Un)Lock It: the Percussive People in the Go-Go Pocket by Thomas Sayers Ellis. Through Oct. 7. The photographs are a documentation of the recent history of Go-Go, its vanishing folk culture, the onstage and off struggles to prevent itself from being evicted from the city in which it was born more than 30 years ago, the effects of gentrification on the community, and its contribution toward Home Rule.. Taken at band practices, band reunions, small local venues, block parties, private parties, weddings, funerals, political rallies and on the streets of D.C., these photographs (while celebrating Go-Go) also ask, Can Go-Go and Statehood for D.C. coexist? The Gallery at Vivid Solutions, 2208 MLK Ave. SE. 202-365-8392. vividsolutionsdc.com Basic Drawing Techniques. Saturday, Aug. 13, 10:30 AM2:30 PM. With graphite pencils, learn basic shapes, the principles of perspective, and composition. Materials are provided by the museum. Award-winning artist Roderick Turner leads the workshop. For reservations, call 202-6334844. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202633-4820. anacostia.si.edu Reputations Fade Away. Saturday, Aug. 13, 4:30 PM. Reputations Fade Away is a play based on the story of former D.C. drug dealer, Dawayne Williams, who once read on the third

grade level but turned his life around by accepting his purpose from God. Now, he is a successful director/writer/producer who is reaching out to kids in the community and telling them there is more to life than crime. $22. THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-889-5901. thearcdc.org Comic Book Art. Sunday, Aug. 14, 1:004:00 PM. Use your imagination to create a graphic novel, action, or romance story. Basic instruction includes storyboard design and drawing techniques. William Howard, artist/illustrator, leads the workshop. For reservations, call 202-633-4844. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-633-4820. anacostia.si.edu The Winton Triangle Community History Series. Thursday, Aug. 18, 10:30 AM. The Winton Triangle is a 260-year-old community of landowning people of color of mixed heritage in the rural northeastern North Carolina towns of Winton, Cofield, and Ahoskie. Their widespread participation in the Civil War set the stage for a century of growth. This development resulted in the creation of schools, churches, businesses and other institutions. Marvin T. Jones of the Chowan Discovery Group will tell the story of the remarkable community through the presentation of photographs and documents. Signed copies of the book Carolina Genesis: Beyond the Color Line, which features Jones’s summary of the Winton Triangle’s history, will be available for sale. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202633-4820. anacostia.si.edu SOS: Steps of Success to Wellness. Aug. 18, Sept. 15, Oct. 20, Nov. 17, and Dec, 15, 5:00-7:00 PM. The SOS: Steps of Success to Wellness is a free six session training series, taught by exceptional and experienced medical practitioners including several pediatricians and a dentist. Participants who attend all six sessions receive a $100 gift card. Those who attend 5 sessions receive a $50 gift card, and $25 if you attend 4. Participants must be at least 18 to be eligible for the gift card. All attendees also receive a certificate. For more information or to register, contact Ellen Wiggins at 202-436-3076. THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202889-5901. thearcdc.org Getting Unstuck: Homeless to Hollywood. Saturday, Aug. 20, 6:00 PM. Getting Unstuck: Homeless to Hollywood is a triumphant story of love, forgiveness, recovery from domestic and sexual violence, HIV, celebrities, and success. This one-woman hit stage play is based on the novel Getting Unstuck (Girl to Girl, You Can Be, Infected Indeed) by Conscious. $20. THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-889-5901. thearcdc.org Paper Mosaic. Saturday, Aug. 20, 10:30 AM-2:30 PM. Create a unique picture with small bits of colored and patterned paper to replicate a mosaic image. For reservations, call 202-633-4844. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202633-4820. anacostia.si.edu

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 11

CALENDAR Jacob Lawrence: The Glory of Expression (video and discussion). Wednesday, Aug. 31, 10:30 AM. This film is a documentary about the life and work of Jacob Lawrence, one of America’s greatest painters. He was the first African American to be represented by a New York gallery. His work mirrors the growing recognition and appreciation of the role of African Americans in the history of the United States. In his epic series paintings, he depicts the struggles of his people in the stories of Frederick Douglass, Harriett Tubman, and the Great Migration. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-633-4820. anacostia.si.edu What’s Blooming in August at the Arboretum? Water lilies, hibiscus, crapemyrtles, boxwood, herbs, annuals, sweet pepperbush, pepper collection, meadow wildflowers, cardinal flower, plum leaf azaleas, hostas, hydrangeas, and container gardens. Free. There are two entrances: one at 3501 New York Ave. NE, and 24th and R sts. NE, off of Bladensburg Rd. 202-245-4521. usna.usda.gov Ward 8 Farmer’s Market. Saturdays, 9:00 AM2:00 PM. Ward 8 farmers and vendors will be selling their fresh produce in THEARC’s parking lot every Saturday. There will also be free food samples and expert advice from a UDC Nutritionist. WIC Coupons, Senior Coupons, and Food Stamps accepted. 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. Ward8FarmersMarket.com Walking Tour of Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens. Saturdays amd Sundays in Aug. 9:00 AM and 11:00 AM. Come take a easy walk to experience lotus, water lilies and the wetlands that support them. Find the past, present, and future in a compact area. Free. 1550 Anacostia Ave. NE. 202-365-8392. nps.gov/keaq Big Chair Chess Club. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 4:00-10:00 PM; Saturdays, noon9:00 PM. “To teach the un-teachable, reach the un-reachable, and always think before you move” is the core mission of the Big Chair Chess Club, Inc. at the Deanwood Branch located in the nation’s capital. The organization teaches chess to inner-city children and adults, not only as a board game, but also as an application to life skills, such as improving one’s concentration and self-discipline. $30 a year for adults, $10 for kids. 4322 Sheriff Rd. NE. 202-396-1780. bigchairchessclub.org Frederick Douglass National Historical Site. Open daily, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. Tours at 9:00 AM, 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 2:00 PM, 3:00 PM and 4:00 PM From 1877 to 1895, this was the home of Frederick Douglass, the nation’s leading 19th century African American spokesman. Visitors to the site will learn more about his efforts to abolish slavery and his struggle for human rights, equal rights and civil rights for all oppressed people. Free. 1411 W St. SE. 202-426-5960. www.nps.gov/frdo

SUMMER MUSIC Fort Dupont Summer Concerts. Saturday, Aug. 13 featuring Mandril, (rain or shine, except in the event of lightening), 8:00-10:00 PM. Feel free to bring a picnic, a blanket, folding chairs. Dogs must be leashed. Fort Dupont Park is on

12 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

376 rolling wooded acres that make it one of Washington’s largest parks. This summer the venue will be closed to the public at 3:00 PM to allow US Park Police to do a security sweep prior to the concerts. Entry to the concert venue will open at 5:00 PM. and will be through three entrance areas that will serve as security checkpoints where all bags and coolers will be inspected. Free. Minnesota Ave. and Randle Circle, SE. 202-426-7723. nps.gov/fodu 1812 Overture on the Washington Monument Grounds. On Tuesday, August 16 at 8:00 PM, U.S. Army Band “Pershing’s Own,” and the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard) Presidential Salute Battery perform Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture at the Sylvan Theater on the grounds of the Washington Monument.. “The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Opus 49” popularly known as the 1812 Overture is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate Russia’s defense of Moscow against Napoleon’s advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino in 1812. The overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire and ringing chimes. usarmyband.com Folklife Concert at the Library of Congress. Aug. 17 and 24, noon. Coolidge Auditorium in Jefferson Building (First St. between E. Capitol St. and Independence Ave. SE). 202-7075510. loc.gov Live! on Woodrow Wilson Plaza. Weekdays through Sept. 23 (weather permitting), noon1:30 PM. Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center. LIVE!’s lunch-time performances feature world-renowned entertainers in a variety of flavors, such as African dance, legendary R&B, Motown sounds, hip hop, Latin swing and pop rock. Free.1300 Penn. Ave. NW. 202-312-1300. itcdc.com Yards Park Friday Evening Concert Series. Through Aug. 19, 6:00-8:00 PM. Spend your Friday evenings on the river, relaxing on the terraced lawn steps with family and friends and listening to live music from the Yards Park’s boardwalk stage. Friday evening concerts will feature a wide range of live musical performances including jazz, salsa, reggae, and more. Food options will be provided by Devine Foods and Smokin Somethin BBQ, and a beer/sangria garden will be run by Mie N Yu. N and Third sts., SE. capitolriverfront.org Jazz in the Sculpture Garden. Fridays through Sept. 9 (rain or shine), 5:00-8:00 PM. National Gallery of Art Sculpture Garden. Live jazz performed by an eclectic mix of top artists from the Washington area entertains visitors outdoors in front of the fountain or in the Pavilion Cafe (if it’s raining). The Pavilion Cafe features a seasonal tapas-style menu and bar service during the concerts. Everyone can enjoy these concerts. You do not have to order food or drinks. Free. 202- 289-3360. nga.gov Summer Rhythms and Food Truck Roundup at The Wharf. Fridays, 6:00-8:00 PM. Thursday, Friday and Saturday activities at The Wharf also include Bean Baggo, table tennis and Bocce. The Wharf is a free neighborhood WiFi hotspot. Seventh and Water sts. SW (7th Street Landing). swdcwaterfront.com

| AUGUST 2011

Bengie Porecki

East River Jazz Sunday at 4:00 PM, Aug. 21, Bengie Porecki Ensemble. If you’re in the mood for “straight ahead” classical jazz, the Anacostia Art Gallery presents Sunday afternoon concerts this summer performed by jazz artists some of whom have performed together for nearly 60 years. $25-$30, includes lite fare. Anacostia Art Gallery, 2806 Bruce Pl. SE. 202-610-4188. bzbinternational.com

Military Band Concerts at the US Capitol. Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays in summer (weather permitting). 8:00 PM. Mondays, US Navy Band; Tuesdays, US Air Force Band; Wednesdays, US Marine Band; Fridays, US Army Band. Free. West Terrace US Capitol Building.

Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. All are welcome to come and hear music from the majestic pipe organ of the Great Upper Church. Free. 400 Michigan Ave. NE. 202-526-8300. nationalshirne.com

Navy Band “Concerts on the Avenue.” Tuesdays, 8:00 PM. US Navy Memorial. The United States Navy Band and its specialty groups will perform. Free. Seventh and Penn. Ave. NW. 202-737-2300. navymemorial.org

SUMMER MOVIES

US Marine Band Concerts at the Sylvan Theater. Thursdays in summer (weather permitting), 8:00 PM. You are welcome to bring folding chairs, blankets and refreshments to the concert. Free. 15th St. and Independence Ave. SW (on Washington Monument grounds). 202-433-5717. mbw.usmc.mil Summer Organ Concerts at the National Shrine. Sunday evenings, 6:00 PM (5:30 PM performance of the Knight’s Tower Carillon).

Screen on the Green. Monday, Aug. 15, Cool Hand Luke. National Mall between Eighth and 14th sts. Screen on the Green Hotline, 1-877-262-5866 U Street Movie Series. Aug. 23 (rain date, Aug. 25). Short: City of Cranes. Feature: National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. Showtime at sundown. Gates will open at 7:00 PM. Movie shown at the Harrison Recreation Center field, V St. between 13th and 14th sts. NW. Free admission. Attendees are encouraged to come early to picnic in the park and listen to music spun by local DJs. Free popcorn will be provided to the first 100

attendees. In collaboration with the AFI Silverdocs Festival, prior to the feature film will be a screening of a short documentary featured at a previous AFI Silverdocs Festival. movies.ustreet-dc.org Summer Film Series @ the Atlas. Gay 101 (Thursdays, 8:00 PM)-Aug. 11, Hedwig and the Angry Inch; Aug. 18, Beautiful Thing; Aug. 25; Outrage; Sept. 1; Brokeback Mountain. Musicals (Fridays, 8:00 PM)- Aug. 12, Hairspray; Aug. 19, Michael Jackson’s This is It; Aug. 26, The Wizard of Oz; Sept. 2, Grease. Family Series (Saturdays, 5:00 PM)-Aug. 13, Shrek; Aug. 20, The Tale of Despereaux; Aug. 27, Labyrinth; Sept. 3, The Goonies. Spike Lee Presents (Sundays, 4:00 PM)-Aug. 7, Jungle Fever; Aug. 14, Mo’ Better Blues; Aug. 21, School Daze; Aug. 28, Do the Right Thing; Sept. 4, She’s Gotta Have It. Movies are free. 1333 H St. NE. 202-399-7993. atlas.org

SPORTS, DANCE AND PHYSICAL FITNESS Workout for Free at WSC. Washington Sports Clubs is encouraging Washingtonians to take their workouts indoors to escape the heat. Clubs citywide will open their doors to the public for free workouts every time the thermometer hits 90 degrees through August. This offer allows access all hours except 4:30-7:30 PM Monday-Thursday and can be redeemed by referencing the “heat wave promotion” at the front desk of any WSC club. Participants must be at least 18 years of age and will need to show photo id. To find a club, visit mysportsclubs.com. Rock Creek Park Trail Rides. On Saturdays and Sundays through Oct. and Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays through Aug., take a one-hour guided horseback ride through Rock Creek Park. Weekend rides are at 9:30 AM, 11:00 AM and 12:30 PM on Saturdays and 11:00 AM and 12:30 PM on Sundays. Weekday rides are at 6:00 PM. No prior experience is necessary but riders must be under 200 lbs. except for one horse that can carry up to 225 lbs. Reserve you ride well in advance at rockcreekhorsecenter.com or call 202-3620117. $40. Rock Creek Horse Center, 5100 Glover Road, 1/2 block south of Military Road, NW. Watch for signs. US National Arboretum Full Moon Hikes. September, October, and November hikes will be posted for registration on Monday, Aug. 1. They always fill up so register early. 202-245-4521. usna.usda.gov Fort Dupont Ice Arena. Public skating in Aug., Saturdays 1:00-2:20 PM. 3779 Ely Place, SE. 202-584-5007. fdia.org Washington Nationals Baseball Home Games. Aug. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 and 25, 7:05 PM (weekend games at 1:35 PM). $5, up. South Capitol and N sts. SE. washington.nationals.mlb.com Ladies Night at Nationals Park. Thursday, Aug. 18 vs. Reds. Ticket package will include special group seating, access to

REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS for District of Columbia Housing Authority Research and Strategic Planning Solicitation No: 0258-2011R THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HOUSING AUTHORITY (DCHA) is seeking Contractor(s) to provide the necessary resources, materials and expertise to develop, execute, and implement (1) research and (2) strategic communications planning in support of DCHA to increase awareness of and favorable perception of DCHA and its programs and services. To this end, DCHA is issuing two distinct task orders, one for research and the other for communications strategic planning services. To allow DCHA to expeditiously develop and implement an organizational rebranding, both task orders are being issued simultaneously. Bidders may submit bids on both or one of the task orders. PRE-PROPOSAL CONFERENCE will be held on Thursday, August 18, 2011 @ 10:00 a.m. at the District of Columbia Housing Authority, 1133 North Capitol Street, NE, Administrative Services Conference Room, Suite 300, Washington, D.C. 20002-7599. SOLICITATION DOCUMENTS will be available at District of Columbia Housing Authority, 1133 North Capitol Street, NE, Suite 300, Administrative Services/Contract, Washington, D.C. 20002-7599 (Issuing Office); between the hours of 9:00 am and 4:00 pm, Monday through Friday, beginning Monday, August 8, 2011. PROPOSAL DOCUMENTS are due to the Issuing Office by 11:00 am on 11:00 am on Wednesday, August 31, 2011. Contact the Issuing Office on (202) 535-1212 for additional information or via email at admsrv@dchousing.org or ldean@dchousing.org.

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 13

the pre-game party featuring: Tickets at nationals.com/ladiesnight. DC United Soccer Home Matches. Aug. 6, 13 and 27, 7:30PM. On Aug. 6, free DC United cinch bag courtesy of TD Bank to the first 10,000 fans. $23-$52. RFK Stadium. 202-587-5000. dcunited.com Washington Mystics Basketball Home Games. Aug. 6, 9, 12, 18, 20 and 23, 7:00 PM. Aug. 28, 4:00 PM. $10-$80. Verizon Center, 601 F St. NW. wnba.com Roller Skating at Anacostia Park. Skate any time. This is a covered, outdoor skating pavilion. Free. From Penn. Ave., just before the bridge, south on Fairlawn Ave. and right onto Nicholson and then into the park. 202-472-3873. Southeast Tennis and Learning Center. Open daily; Monday through Saturday, 9:00 AM-9:00 PM; Sunday, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM. Four indoor courts. Six outdoor courts. Summer hourly fees at $6 to $10 for adults. Kids 17 and under play for free. 701 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-6456242. dpr.dc.gov African Dance Class. Every Monday, 7:15-8:30 PM. For adults. No prior experience necessary. Walk-ins welcome. THEARC. $10. 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-889-5901. thearcdc.org Yoga Class. Every Saturday, 10:00-11:15 AM. For adults. No prior experience necessary. Walk-ins welcome. THEARC. $10. 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-889-5901. thearcdc.org

Don’t Become a Victim of Fraud!! REPORT QUESTIONABLE MEDICARE AND MEDICAID CHARGES AND PRACTICES Has this happened to you or someone you know? • • •

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Billed for products or services not received? Double billed for services or products received? Offered free services, equipment, or supplies in exchange for your Medicare or Medicaid number? Offered money in exchange for your Medicare or Medicaid number? Used your personal information – Identity Theft?

Report fraud, waste, and abuse Call the Senior Medicare Patrol District of Columbia Hotline 202-434-2099 (Se Habla Español) Legal Counsel for the Elderly

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| AUGUST 2011

Free public tennis courts in Wards 7 and 8. Fort Davis Community Center, 1400 41st St. SE; Hillcrest Recreation Center, 3100 Denver St. SE; Kenilworth-Parkside Recreation Center, 4300 Anacostia Ave. NE; Randle Highlands Tennis Courts, 31st St. and Pennsylvania Ave. SE; Anacostia Park, 1900 Anacostia Dr. SE; Bald Eagle Recreation Center, Martin Luther King, Jr Ave. and Joliet St. SW; Congress Heights Recreation Center, Alabama Ave. and Randle Pl.SE; Fort Stanton Community Center, 1812 Erie St. SE. All courts are open daily, dawn to dusk. Some are lighted for extended evening play. Courts are available on a first-come, first-served basis for one-hour intervals; extended use of tennis courts requires a permit. Proper shoes and attire is required. 202-671-0314. dpr.dc.gov Deanwood (indoor) Pool. Mon-Fri 6:30 AM8:00 PM; Sat-Sun, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. Free for DC residents. 1350 49th St. NE. 202-6713078. dpr.dc.gov Ferebee Hope (indoor) Pool. Open weekdays, 10:00-6:00 PM. Closed weekends. Free for DC residents. 3999 Eighth St. SE. 202645-3916. dpr.dc.gov Anacostia (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Mondays; weekdays, 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. 1800 Anacostia Dr. SE. 202724-1441. dpr.dc.gov Barry Farms (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Tuesdays; weekdays, 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. 1230 Sumner Rd. SE 202645-5040. dpr.dc.gov

Benning Park (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Thursdays; weekdays, 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. Southern Ave. and Fable St.SE. 202-645-5044. dpr.dc.gov Douglass (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Wednesdays; 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. Frederick Douglass Ct. and Stanton Ter. SE. 202-645-5045. dpr.dc.gov Fort Dupont (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Tuesdays; 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. Ridge Rd. and Burns St. SE. 202-6455046. dpr.dc.gov Fort Stanton (outdoor) Pool. Closed for season. Kelly Miller (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Mondays; 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. 4900 Brooks St. NE. 202-7245056. dpr.dc.gov Oxon Run (outdoor) Pool. Open daily except Mondays; 1:00-8:00 PM; Saturdays and Sundays, noon-6:00 PM. Free for DC residents. Fourth St. and Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-645-5042. dpr.dc.gov East Potomac Driving Range. Open daily except Christmas, 5:30 AM to 9:30 PM. Tuesdays open 10:00 AM to 9:30 PM. The East Potomac Driving Range features 50 covered and 50 uncovered stalls for year-round golf practice. $6 for 51 balls. East Potomac Golf Course, 972 Ohio Dr. SW. 202-554-7660. golfdc.com Langston Driving Range. Open every day except Christmas, sun-up to sun-down. In addition to the driving range, Langston has an 18 hole course, snack bar, pro shop and offers golf lessons. 45 balls, $4.75. 180 balls, $14.25. $2, golf club rental. 26th and Benning Rd. NE. 202-397-8638. golfdc.com Stories from the Negro League: Part II. Tuesday, Aug. 16, 10:30 AM. Join Levi Chappie Drew of the Negro National League’s Indianapolis Clowns, as he discusses with Dwayne Sims, founder and CEO of the Negro League Legends Hall of Fame, his memorable years as a professional baseball player. A few lucky attendees will receive door prizes. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-633-4820. anacostia.si.edu

CIVIC LIFE Big Chair Breakfast Bunch. Saturday, Aug. 13, 10:00 AM-noon. Big Chair Coffee n’ Grill (upstairs). All are welcome to attend and discuss what’s happening East of the River. 2122 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave. SE. 202-525-4287. Commission on the Arts and Humanities Grants Workshops. Aug. 15 and 17, 2:30 PM. 1371 Harvard St. NW. 202-724-5613. dcarts.dc.gov Congresswoman Norton’s SE District Office. Open weekdays, 9:00 AM-6:00 PM. 2041 MLK Ave. SE, #238. 202-678-8900. norton.house.gov

Councilmember Alexander’s Constituent Services Office. Open weekdays, 10:00 AM6:00 PM. 2524 Penn. Ave. SE. 202-581-1560. Councilmember Barry’s Constituent Services Office. Open weekdays, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM. 2100 MLK Ave, SE, #307. 202-698-2185. Ward 7 Democrats Monthly Meeting. Fourth Saturday, noon-2:00 PM. Ward Memorial AME Church, 241 42nd St. NE. 202-584-8477 or info@ward7democrats. ward7democrats.org Anacostia Coordinating Council Meeting. Last Tuesday, noon-2:00 PM. Anacostia Museum, 1901 Fort St. SE. For further details, contact Philip Pannell, 202-889-4900. Capitol View Civic Association Monthly Meeting. Third Monday, 6:30 PM. Hughes Memorial United Methodist, 25 53rd St. NE. capitolviewcivicassoc.org Historical Anacostia Block Association. Second Thursday, 7:00-9:00 PM. UPO-Anacostia Service Center, 1649 Good Hope Rd. SE. For further details, contact Charles Wilson, 202-834-0600. Anacostia High School School Improvement Team Meeting. Fourth Tuesday. 6:00 PM. Anacostia High School, 16th and R sts. SE. Deanwood Citizens Association General Body Meeting. Fourth Monday, except Aug. and Dec., 6:30 PM. First Baptist Church of Deanwood, 1008 45th St. NE Eastland Gardens Civic Association Meeting. Third Tuesday. 6:30-8:30 PM. Kenilworth Elementary School (auditorium), 1300 44th St. NE. Greg Rhett jrhett3009@aol.com or 202-388-1532. Fairlawn Citizens Association. Third Tuesday, 7:00 PM. Ora L. Glover Community Room at the Anacostia Public Library, 1800 Good Hope Rd. SE. 6th District Citizens Advisory Council. Second Monday, except July and Aug. 7:00 PM. 6th District HQ, 100 42nd St. NE. ANC Meeting for 7-A. Third Tuesday, 7:30 PM. Benning-Stoddard Rec. Center, 100 Stoddard Pl. SE. 202-727-1000. 7A@anc. dc.gov. anc7a.org ANC Meeting for 7-B. Third Thursday, 7:00 PM. Ryland Epworth United Methodist Church, 3200 S St. SE (Branch Ave and S St. SE). 202584-3400. anc7b@pressroom.com. anc7b.us ANC Meeting for 7-C. Second Thursday, 7:00 PM. Sargent Memorial Presbyterian Church, 5109 Nannie Helen Burroughs Ave. NE. 202-398-5100. anc7c@verizon.net ANC Meeting for 7-D. Second Tuesday, 6:30 PM. Sixth District Police Station, 100 42nd St. NE. 202-398-5258. 7D06@anc.dc.gov ANC Meeting for 7-E. Second Tuesday, 7:008:30 PM. Jones Memorial Church, 4625 G St. SE. 202-582-6360. 7E@anc.dc.gov ANC Meeting for 8-A. First Tuesday, 7:00 PM. Anacostia UPO Service Center, 1649 Good Hope Rd. SE. 202-889-6600. anc8adc.org ANC Meeting for 8-B. Third Tuesday, 7:00 PM. Seventh District Police Station Community Center, Alabama and McGee Sts. SE.

202-610-1818. anc8b.org ANC Meeting for 8-C. First Wednesday (June meeting is on the nineth because of the holiday), 6:30 PM. 2907 MLK Jr Ave. SE. 202-388-2244. ANC Meeting for 8-D. Fourth Thursday, 7:00 PM. Specialty Hospital of Washington, 4601 MLK Jr. Ave. SW. 202 561-0774

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ANC Meeting for 8-E. Third Tuesday, 7:00 PM. SE Tennis and Learning Center, 701 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-561-6616. 8e02@anc.dc.gov Please confirm in advance all regular monthly meetings as some do not meet in August.

OUT OF TOWN Concerts at the Netherlands Carillon. Saturdays in summer, 6:00-8:00 PM. Carillon concerts are presented by outstanding carillonneurs. During concerts, visitors are welcome to climb the tower’s 135 steps to watch the carillonneur perform and view the city of Washington and the surrounding area. Free. (Virginia shore of Potomac River, opposite Washington, DC and bordering the northern end of Arlington National Cemetery). 703289-2500. nps.gov/gwmp/carillon Air Force Band Concerts. Wednesdays and Fridays in Aug. 8:00 PM. Air Force Memorial at One Air Force Memorial Drive in Arlington, Virginia. (14th St. Bridge into Virginia, merge onto Washington Blvd. and then Columbia Pike in the direction of the Navy Annex. Then follow signs.) Expect a pleasing mix of contemporary and patriotic tunes and spectacular views of the nighttime Washington, DC skyline. Free. airforcememorial.org Arlington County Fair. Aug. 10-14, weekdays, 5:00-10:00 PM; weekend, 11:00 AM10:00 PM. Thomas Jefferson Community Center, 3501 So. 2nd St., Arlington, VA. arlingtoncountyfair.org

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Montgomery County Agricultural Fair. Friday, Aug. 12, 3:00-11:00 PM; Aug. 13-20, 10:00 AM-11:00 PM. Grandstand entertainment, carnival rides (40 brand new rides), livestock displays, commercial exhibits. $3$8. Montgomery County Fairgrounds. From Washington take 495 to 270 North, take exit 11 (Montgomery Village/Fairgrounds). 301963-3247. mcagfair.com Prince William County Fair. Aug. 12-20. Today the Prince William County Fair is still the largest event in the area. Second and third generation families still bring their animals and crops for display and competition. The dream of the founders was to create an event for the families of Prince William County and that dream continues today. $5-$7. Prince William County Fairgrounds, 10624 Dumfries Rd., (off) Route 234, Manassas, VA. 703368-0173. pwcfair.com Maryland State Fair. Aug. 26-Sept. 5. Racing pigs, jousting, bull riding and barrel racing, concerts featuring All Time Low, Blake Shelton with Chris Young and Selena & Gomez--The Scene. $6-$8. Timonium Racetrack, Timonium, MD. 410-252-0200. marylandstatefair.com ●

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visit us at www.NCRC.org CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★

16 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

| AUGUST 2011

{ MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. MEMORIAL SPECIAL }

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with Walter Fauntroy at a Home Rule Demonstration in 1967. Reprinted with permission of the DC Public Library, Star Collection, © Washington Post

A KING for Washington and DC by Derek Musgrove

n August 28, 2011, the National Park Service will open the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial to the public. The memorial consists of a massive statue of King, arms folded in steely determination, flanked by two huge stones. Standing in a semi-circular plaza that opens onto the Tidal Basin, King gazes toward the Jefferson Memorial, seemingly challenging the man who drafted the Constitution to resolve the racial contradictions at the core of American democracy. Situated amidst the cherry trees that have come to define this section of the Mall, it is a beautiful place to contemplate the man and his ideas. Though DC residents tend to shrug at the opening of monuments and other national goings-on of official Washington, the unveiling of the King Memorial, I suggest, is a good time for us to head down to the Mall and contemplate the late

reverend’s message for this city and the nation. A consistent theme in the city’s history is the separation between “Washington” and “DC” -- between the gleaming white marble monumental city, populated by out-of-town lawmakers and tourists, and the neighborhoods; between the disproportionately rich, white, and powerful, and the black, poor, and powerless. King was a regular visitor to both Washington and DC. While most Americans know of the many speeches he delivered to the nation from Washington, few are aware of his eﬀorts to speak to the interests of DC residents and the impact of his assassination on the city.

A National Stage Like most great twentieth century U.S. protest leaders, King used Washington as a stage from which to address policymakers and the American people on the great issues of his day. His most famous speeches in this city were milestones in his CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 17

life and the civil rights movement. On May 17, 1957, King traveled to the capital for the “Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom” at the Lincoln Memorial. Before a gathering of 20,000, King delivered what many regard as his first national address, “Give Us the Ballot.” The march was designed to stimulate public support for the Civil Rights Act of 1957, and it had its intended effect. Alas, the law was a toothless tiger, gutted of nearly all of its important provisions by southern Senators, among them Lyndon Johnson of Texas. Six years later, at the height of the civil rights movement, King returned to the Lincoln Memorial for the August 28, 1963, “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” The crowd of 250,000 - one in ten of whom was a DC resident - stood rapt as King delivered what has since become the most recognizable address in modern U.S. oratory. This speech, unlike the last, was followed by meaningful legislative reform, and the following summer, King returned to the city to witness President Lyndon Johnson sign the Civil Rights Act of 1964. On the fortieth anniversary of the march, King’s “I Have a Dream” speech was memorialized with a brief inscription on the steps where he stood. Though celebrated today, the speech alarmed Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, a lifetime resident of Seward Square, just off of Pennsylvania Ave. SE, who, in the years and months following the march, used his agency to viciously attack King and the movement for which he spoke. And on March 31, 1968, King returned to the capital city to deliver what turned out to be his last Sunday sermon, titled “Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution,” at the National Cathedral. At the start of his remarks, the overflow crowd of more than 3,000 listened uncomfortably as King made the case for his Poor People’s Campaign, scheduled for later that spring. The prospect of tens of thousands of the nation’s poor dramatizing their destitution by living in a tent city on the National Mall gave even strong supporters of civil rights pause in the era of “long, hot summers.”

Located on the Tidal Basin, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial creates a visual line of leadership between the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials in Washington, D.C. The Memorial is the first on the National Mall to honor a man of hope, a man of peace, and a man of color. It will be an engaging landscape experience utilizing the natural elements of water, stone, and trees to convey four fundamental and recurring themes throughout Dr. King’s universal message – democracy, justice, hope, and love. A 450-foot inscription wall will feature more than a dozen Dr. King quotes engraved into granite to serve as a lasting testament and reminder of his humanitarian vision. The Memorial will include the “Mountain of Despair” and the “Stone of Hope,” which will feature a 30-foot sculpture of Dr. King. Image courtesy of the Washington, DC Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial Project Foundation, Inc. (c) 2010 - 2011. All Rights Reserved.

Though King used Washington as a stage for his civil rights crusade, he did not ignore its domestic politics. By the 1950s, the issues of home rule and civil rights had become inextricably entwined, and for good reason.

At the height of the civil rights movement, DC was a de-facto segregated majority-black city ruled by southern segregationists in Congress. In August 1965, King lent his voice to the local struggle. Following more than a half dozen meetings with community groups at which he expressed his support for home rule, King sat down with the members of the House and Senate Committees on the District of Columbia, who were then blocking President Johnson’s Home Rule bill, to make local residents’ feelings known. The following day, King led a crowd of 5,000 to Lafayette Park before a banner that read “We’re glad you’re with us Mr. Johnson. We do need home rule now.” Revealing that his closed-door meeting with members of the DC Committees did not go well, King told the crowd that members of Congress had been “derelict in their duties and sacred responsibility to make justice and freedom a reality for all citizens of the

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Home Rule / Urban Renewal

District of Columbia.” If DC was not granted home rule “in the next few weeks,” King vowed, he would return to lead a march of 200,000. Though conservatives in Congress remained defiant, King’s demand for home rule was partially fulfilled by President Johnson’s 1967 “reorganization” of DC government and his subsequent appointment of Walter Washington as “Mayor/Commissioner.” Home rule was not the only problem facing DC residents in the mid1960s. Many of the same Congressmen who opposed home rule favored “urban renewal” plans that threatened to bisect dozens of DC neighborhoods with six-lane highways. These plans would relieve the city’s wretched traffic congestion, but at the cost of destroying countless communities and transforming thousands of city residents into refugees. On March 12, 1967, local opposition to the highway plan brought King back to the city for a pa-

rade through Shaw with his dynamic local understudy Walter Fauntroy, Director of the Washington Bureau of the SCLC. Noting that similar projects threatened urban neighborhoods throughout the nation, King told the protesters that “…you on these 675 acres called Shaw can point the way for the nation out of her most serious domestic dilemma – the decay of the city.” Remarkably, the protesters won, saving signiﬁcant portions of the old city from destruction.

Assassination Perhaps the most powerful, longterm impact that King had on the city came with his assassination in 1968. Beginning in the early-1960s, King warned that increasing segregation in America’s cities, deteriorating conditions in the ghettos, unemployment, and police brutality had created a combustible mix that could explode

at any time. All that was needed was a spark and the nation’s cities could be engulfed in flame. Though long touted as riot-proof because of its large black middle class, Washington proved to be little different from other cities across the country. Black unemployment was between two and three times that of whites, the rat infestation in black neighborhoods was so bad that Congress of Racial Equality President Julius Hobson organized a protest around it, and relations between the majority-white Metropolitan Police Department and African Americans, always tense, were deteriorating rapidly. In 1967 alone, MPD officers shot and killed more than a dozen African Americans and, Washington Post reporter Ben Gilbert tells us, “street disorders requiring police action became regular, almost weekly, occurrences.” These conditions help explain what happened on the evening of April 4, 1968,when news broke that King had been shot in Memphis, Tennessee. A hastily arranged and ill conceived effort by former Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee Chairman Stokely Carmichael to get U St. stores to close in honor of King soon spiraled out of control, and within hours the area was engulfed in rioting. Looting and arson continued for the next four days, destroying the U St., 7th St., 14th St., and H St. corridors, claiming twelve lives, and sending many of the city’s small businesses fleeing to the suburbs. Some of these areas did not see substantial new investment until the 1990s. The riots demonstrated the human limits of the love and nonviolence that King had preached. In late April 1968, King’s Poor People’s Campaign rolled into town. A motley assortment of the nation’s poor, joined by civil rights activists, set up a makeshift “Resurrection City”in West Potomac Park, a stone’s throw from the Lincoln Memorial. Arriving so soon after the riot, the protesters set the city on edge. After six rain soaked weeks, relieved only by a “Solidarity Day” rally of 50,000 at the Lincoln Memorial, the protesters’ permit expired and they were forced to abandon the site. Many DC residents breathed a sigh of relief as the MPD cleared the area and the National Park Service bulldozed the shacks. The poor,

it seemed, were once again out of sight and out of mind. Residents’ relief was momentarily interrupted by reports of scattered rioting along 14th St. in Shaw, but liberal amounts of MPD-launched tear gas dispersed the crowds before the disturbances spread. Three months after King’s death, the city began to return to “normal.” Just as the riots showed the limits of King’s message of nonviolence in the midst of escalating racial animosity, the failure of the Poor People’s Campaign illustrated the limits of Americans’ willingness to embrace his vision of a more egalitarian society.

Memorial As the King Memorial opens on the National Mall “Washington” and “DC” residents should remember that the good reverend had a message for this city and its inhabitants, black and white, rich and poor, powerful and powerless. A version of that message, delivered at the National Cathedral just four days before his assassination, was the inspiration for the memorial itself: “I say to you that our goal is freedom, and I believe we are going to get there because however much she strays away from it, the goal of America is freedom. Abused and scorned though we may be as a people, our destiny is tied up in the destiny of America… With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair the stone of hope.” This beautiful metaphor, now formed in granite on the banks of the Tidal Basin, should stimulate us anew to join the battle against what King referred to as the “triple evils” of racism, economic exploitation, and war. King’s history in this city should also motivate us to join the ongoing battle to end taxation without representation in the nation’s capitol. So head down to the Mall, fellow residents of Washington and DC, and be inspired. G. Derek Musgrove, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of history at the University of the District of Columbia. He is the author of Rumor, Repression, and Racial Politics: How the Harassment of Black Elected Off icials Shaped Post-Civil Rights America (Athens, University of Georgia Press, 2012) ●

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★

{ MLK SPECIAL SECTION }

MLK MEMORIAL DEDICATION EVENTS National Archives Document Display. On Display through Aug. 31, the program from “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963. At the March on Washington, which ended at the Lincoln Memorial and was broadcast nationwide, King gave his famous speech, “I Have a Dream,” to hundreds of thousands of people. Courtesy of John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum. East Rotunda Gallery, National Archives, Constitution Ave. and Seventh St. NW. 202-357-5333. archives.gov MLK Memorial open to the public. Monday, Aug. 22-Thursday, Aug. 25. The intersection of West Basin Dr. SW and Independence Ave. SW. dedicatethedream.org The Message in the Music Civil Rights Concert. Thursday, Aug. 25, 8:0010:00 PM. Various entertainment artists will join us in celebration by performing the legendary sounds of the Civil Rights Movement, music that inspired hope, strength and change. $100. Walter E. Washington Convention Center. dedicatethedream.org Honoring Past, Present, Future Pioneers Civil Rights Pioneers Luncheon. Thursday, Aug. 25, noon-2:00 PM. While Dr. King was arguably one of the most influential figures to emerge from the Civil Rights Movement, he was not alone. This luncheon honors those who dared to stand with Dr. King, those who dare to stand for the dream today, and those who dare future generations to continue to stand for social justice and equality. $85. Walter E. Washington Convention Center. dedicatethedream.org Partners in the Dream Public Expo. Thursday, Aug. 25, 3:00-8:00 PM; Friday, Aug. 26, 9:00 AM-7:00 PM; Saturday, Aug. 27, 9:00 AM-5:00 PM; Sunday, Aug. 28, 2:30 PM-6:00 PM. Join supporters of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial for a public expo including information booths, performances and a tribute to the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Free and open to the public. Walter E. Washington Convention Center. dedicatethedream.org We Shall Overcome: The Song That Moved a Nation. Friday, Aug. 26, 10:00 AM. We Shall Overcome film traces the origins of the civil rights movement through a single song, performed by the SNCC Freedom Singers; Peter, Paul, and Mary; and Joan Baez. Andrew Young, Julian Bond, and other veterans of the 1960s reminisce about the meaning of the song. Free. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-633-4844. anacostia.si.edu Women Who Dare to Dream Luncheon. Friday, Aug. 26, noon-2:00 PM. Equally as important as their male counterparts, the women of the Civil Rights Movement have earned our respect and esteem. At this luncheon, we honor the women whose legacy of strength and dignity continues to inspire hope. $85. Walter E. Washington Convention Center. dedicatethedream.org The March. Saturday, Aug. 27 and Sunday, Aug. 28, at noon. To celebrate the opening of the Martin Luther King, Jr., National Memorial, the National Archives presents two screenings of the 1964 film documenting the August 28, 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Directed by James Blue for the United States Information Agency. (30 minutes). Free. National Archives, William G. McGowan Theater, Constitution Ave. and Seventh St. NW. Film screening attendees should enter through the Special Events entrance. 202-357-5333. archives.gov Monumental Martin. Saturday, Aug. 27, 1:00-3:00 PM. Celebrate the dedication of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial and the life of the noted civil rights leader. Join Culture Kingdom Kids for educational and fun activities that include interactive music, storytelling, dance, and take-home crafts. Families with children ages 4 to 12 are

| August 20★★HillRag EAST OF THE 20 2011 RIVER MAGAZINE | AUGUST 2011

encouraged to attend. Free. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-633-4844. anacostia.si.edu Interfaith Prayer Service. Saturday, Aug. 27, 10:00 AM-11:30 AM. The official interfaith prayer service for the opening of the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial. By invitation. There may be a stand-by line. Washington National Cathedral. dedicatethedream.org Dream Gala. Saturday, Aug. 27; Reception, 6:00-7:00 PM; Dinner, 7:0010:00 PM. The Dream Gala is the premier VIP formal event of Dedication, where all Leadership Donors, dignitaries and honored supporters come together for a momentous evening celebrating the completion of the dream, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. $125-$250. Walter E. Washington Convention Center. dedicatethedream.org Pre-Dedication Musical Tribute. Sunday, Aug. 28, 10:00-11:00 AM. Preceding the official Dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial, this concert will pay tribute to the Life, the Dream and the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Free and open to the public. West Potomac Park. dedicatethedream.org Official Dedication Ceremony. Sunday, Aug. 28, 11:00 AM. The official Dedication ceremony of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial. Free and open to the public. West Potomac Park. dedicatethedream.org Concert on the Mall. Sunday, August 28, 2:00-4:00 PM. Post-Dedication concert featuring noted artists. Free and open to the public. West Potomac Park. dedicatethedream.org King at Newseum. “The Press and the Civil Rights Movement” film runs continuously in the Newseum History Gallery. Excerpts from the “I Have a Dream” speech available for viewing in the Internet, TV and Radio Gallery. 1969 photo of King by Moreta Sleet, Jr., first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize, on view in the Pulitzer Gallery. See real-time news coverage of the “I have a Dream” speech in old newspapers. $21.95 (kids free through Labor Day). Newseum, 555 Pennsylvania Ave., NW. 888-639-7386. newseum.org Historic Theater: Join the Student Sit-Ins at the Greensboro Lunch Counter. Thursday-Monday in August, 11:30 AM, 1:30 PM, 3:00 PM and 4:30 PM. Meet a Civil Rights activist in 1960, just after the Greensboro student sit-in began. Take part in a training session based on an actual 1960s manual and prepare for your first sit-in. Would you have the courage to fight for justice during the Civil Rights movement? These 15-20 minute performances reveal the people behind the objects on view and the emotion in their stories. Appropriate for all ages. Free, walk-in. American History Museum. americanhistory.si.edu Race: Are We So Different? Exhibition on view through Jan. 2, 2012. Race is a short word with a long history in America. What is race and how are we affected by it every day? Race: Are We So Different? explores the concept of race from scientific, historical, and cultural perspectives. The exhibition offers a powerful look at race and racism, and challenges visitors to ask questions, think critically, and talk about the issue and their own experiences. Smithsonian Museum of Natural History (second floor), 10th St. and Constitution Ave. NW. 202-357-1729. mnh.si.edu ●

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BULLETIN BOARD

Mayor Vincent Gray and volunteers attend the PLANTERS and The Corps Network ‘Plant’ New Urban Park in DC on July 12. Photo: Riccardo Savi/Getty Images for Planters

Volunteer Planting at DC Planters Grove Park On July 12, DC Mayor Vincent Gray, Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton and other local dignitaries joined Mr. Peanut and community members to open the Planters Grove urban park in the historic Lincoln Heights neighborhood. The community came together to celebrate the new park with a day of volunteer planting. The DC Planters Grove Park is the second park to open as part of Planters “Naturally Remarkable” Tour, which, through a partnership with DC-based non-proﬁt The Corps Network, is transforming underdeveloped and underutilized urban land into vibrant, green spaces. The Planters Grove park in DC features unique elements that promote sustainability and reﬂect the Lincoln Heights neighborhood’s unique culture and heritage.

tives of early Muslim life in this country. Open TuesdaySaturday, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM; Sundays, 11:00 AM5:00 PM. $3-$7. muslimsinamerica.org

change, traﬃc ﬂaggers will also be on site to guide motorists through the work zone. Construction activities will be executed between 7:00 AM-3:30 PM, Monday-Saturday. goDCgo.com

Learn About Wills, Trusts, and Estate Planning

Anacostia River Business Summit 2011

Free seminar and luncheon especially created for adults who want to be sure they have their aﬀairs in order. Ethel Mitchell, Esq, an expert in the ﬁeld, will explain why planning ahead is so important and will discuss details about wills, trusts, living wills, advance medical directives and durable powers of attorney. The seminar is Aug. 17, 10:00 AM. RSVP by Aug. 7 at 202-581-1500. Pennsylvania Avenue Baptist Church, 3000 Pennsylvania Ave. SE.

Save the date! Sept. 20, 8:00 AM12:30 PM, 100 M St. SE. There will be a meeting to discuss Anacostia River clean-up, its destination qualities and its impact on economic development initiatives in the city. Sponsors and exhibitors are being sought. Contact david@capitolriverfront.org or 202465-7093 for more information.

Free Anacostia Shuttle to National Mall On weekends through Sept. 5, take a free roundtrip bus between the Anacostia Community Museum and the National Mall. Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. Call 202-6334820 for the schedule, or visit the museum online at anacostia.si.edu.

Traffic Pattern Shift for Benning Rd. NE Between 39th and 42nd Streets

America’s ﬁrst Islamic Heritage Museum, 2315 MLK Ave. SE, opened after years of research and the development of a traveling exhibit about the history of Muslims in America. The opening exhibit is “Views from the Windows of American Islamic History,” which traces the history of Muslims in America and opens the door to many of the historical narra-

DDOT has completed Phase I of the roadway construction that is currently under way on Benning Rd. NE between 39th and 42nd Streets. In preparation for Phase 2, which will continue through Nov. 2011, traffic along this stretch will be shifted to the north side of Benning Rd. Benning Road will be kept open to two-way traffic. Temporary signs and traffic control measures will be in place to alert and guide the traveling public through this area. During the first three weeks of this

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America’s Islamic Heritage Museum & Cultrual Center Opens

TANF “Sweat Equity” Program Launched in Ward 8 The Sweat Equity pilot program is part of a Department of Human Services (DHS) effort to redesign its TANF program to enhance the ability of its customers to build their capacity, increase their earnings and successfully transition from welfare assistance to self-sufficiency. The primary focus of the redesign is building a system that considers the personal responsibility and individual needs of the customers and provides tailored services to match their unique goals and personal and family circumstances. The goal of the Sweat Equity program is to build a network of TANF recipients (including homeless and formerly homeless TANF clients), and provide training in construction trades that builds their skills and work experience. Homeless TANF families will be trained to obtain higher wages, sustainable employment and enhanced skills for higher degrees of self-sufficiency and independence from public assistance. Using its authority to renovate vacant DC buildings for homeless clients, using Housing Trust Fund funding, DHS hopes to replicate this program for all its renovation projects.

Exercise Your Mynd BK Adams IAMART Opens Aug. 22 BK Adams’s IAMART motto and works of art have appeared in public

places and in galleries in Washington, DC, and have attracted a broad and devoted following. Using exuberant color, toys, and objects scavenged from everyday life, Adams’s work poses a call to the viewer to get involved with art. This exhibition is his latest eﬀort to share with the viewer the landscape of his imagination. There are some familiar motifs and links from Adams’s life—bicycles, airplanes, and the nuclear family— that steadfastly travel through these imaginary landscapes. Aug. 22-Nov. 27, Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. Open daily, 10:00 AM-5:00 PM, except Christmas. 202-633-4820. anacostia.si.edu

Volunteers Needed at Fort Dupont Ice Arena The following volunteer positions are needed at Fort Dupont Ice Arena for the upcoming season: • General office volunteers available during weekday hours to assist with answering phones and light office work.(These jobs could include some writing, internet research or database projects depending on skill level and availability.) • General volunteers to assist in concession stand and/or skate shop on Sundays, 1:30-4:30 PM. They will be working with certified staff, so do not need food service certification or skating skills. • MS Certified IT Professionals to assist network, server, workstation updating and problem solving. • Skilled video editors to assist with editing skating program videos into short blurbs appropriate for posting on web. • Graphic Designers to assist with design of brochures and lobby display materials. • Skating Instructors – must be able to skate at medium or advanced level and willing to learn how to teach skating to children. Volunteers needed for Sundays, 1:30 – 2:30 PM and/or 3:30 – 4:30 PM. All of the Ft. Dupont’s Kids on Ice classes are taught by volunteer instructors. Each of the four programs -- Learn to Skate, Advanced Figure Skating, Ice Hockey, and Speed Skat-

ing -- are managed by a qualiﬁed instructor who instructs volunteers how to teach each speciﬁc class. They always need volunteers to help with classes. If you already have skating skills and are willing to help a few hours each week, please contact Julie Brunton at 202584-5007 ext. 16 or jbrunton@fdia. org. 202-584-5007. fdia.org

WACIF Awarded Technical Assistance Grant by CDFI Fund The Washington Area Community Investment Fund, Inc. (WACIF) has been awarded a Technical Assistance grant through the US Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund). In all, 155 organizations were recognized among 393 applicants throughout the country. WACIF is one of three awardees based in the District of Columbia and one of eight in the Metropolitan Area. WACIF is a $4.6 million community development loan fund that has actively served the metropolitan area for over twenty-three years. In the last year alone, WACIF served over 400 clients, holding 30 capacity-building seminars for small businesses and ten small business “loan days,” and packaging loans for small businesses valued at $2.4 million. 202-529-5505. wacif.org

The Levine School of Music at THEARC The Levine School of Music is a nonprofit community music school offering outstanding musical instruction for students of all ages, abilities and economic backgrounds while also encouraging a love of music, fostering creative expression and promoting personal enrichment. Its southeast campus, one of four is located at Town Hall Education Arts & Recreation (THEARC) Campus in southeast. Its faculty of 150 world-class artists offers instruction in more than 20 instruments and voice as well as classes in music theory and history, composition, chamber music and jazz ensembles and music technology. The School offers a performance calendar of extraordinary variety featuring more than 200 performances by faculty, students and guest artists throughout the year at its

four campuses and at other prominent performance venues. Founded in 1976 in memory of dedicated amateur musician and prominent Washington attorney Selma M. Levine, the school has built its programs and reputation on two principles central to its mission: excellence and accessibility. To maintain the School’s commitment to accessibility, Levine oﬀers an extensive scholarship program including outreach programs in some of Washington’s most neglected neighborhoods. This year, the School will provide free or subsidized music instruction to more than 850 students at a cost to Levine of more than $800,000. For more information, call 202-610-4123 or visit levineschool.org/southeast.

Internships and Fellowships at Anacostia Community Museum Internship opportunities are available at the Anacostia Community Museum in a wide-range of areas including graphic arts/design, research, education, archives, and collections. Internships through the Anacostia Museum are unpaid. For information on internship opportunities, contact Anthony Gualtieri at 202-633-4826.. Funding is, however, available on a competitive basis from the Smithsonian Institution Oﬃce of Fellowships. More information is available at si.edu/ofg/start.htm.

People with DC Warrants Have Opportunity to Surrender Three Saturdays in August On Aug. 13, 20 and 27, 9:30 AM4:30 PM, people who are wanted for non-violent felonies or misdemeanors in DC can surrender voluntarily at the Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Ave. NW. DC Safe Surrender recognizes that many people are looking for a way to resolve their outstanding warrants; the program assures individuals who surrender that they will be treated fairly and with dignity. Upon arrival at the event, participants will be identiﬁed by volunteer staﬀ. If participants do not have an active warrant then they are free to go. If they do have an active warrant, then an attorney will be appointed to represent them, a hear-

ing will be held and the warrant will be quashed. DC Safe Surrender’s goal is to reduce the number of outstanding bench warrants by allowing surrender in a safe and secure environment. The program provides people with a way to turn themselves in without the risk of being arrested at home, in front of their families and children, or during a routine traﬃc stop. Over 98% of the 530 people who surrendered at the previous Safe Surrender event returned home that same day. A list of all those with outstanding warrants is posted on the webpage. For more information, please visit dcsafesurrender.org.

Nation’s Football Classic Looking for Volunteers The inaugural Nation’s Football Classic, featuring longstanding rivals Howard University and Morehouse College, is looking for volunteers who not only want to attend the game, but gain real-life experience working behind the scenes. The Classic, organized by Events DC and taking place at RFK Stadium on Saturday, September 10, at 3:30 PM, is more than a game—it is a celebration of the rich culture, tradition and unity of historically black colleges and universities throughout the nation. All volunteers must register online, be 18 or older, sign a release waiver and attend a mandatory orientation meeting. For more information and to register for volunteer opportunities, visit NationsFootballClassic.com.

Adopt Street Trees and Receive Free Watering Tubs With intense summer heat once again impacting the survival of young trees, the District Department of Transportation’s Urban Forestry Administration seeks to continue its successful Canopy Keepers tree adoption program by engaging more residents and businesses in watering the District’s young trees. It takes less than ten minutes a week to ﬁll the 10-gallon watering tub that the city provides free of charge to anyone who adopts street trees through DDOT’s Canopy Keepers program. Given that urban tree canopy maintenance is a critical

aspect of the District’s Forest Action Plan, nearly 2,000 trees have already been adopted by residents, property managers, organizations and businesses in all eight wards. Contact the DDOT at 202-671-5133 or submit online at ddot.dc.gov/trees to become a Canopy Keeper, receive a free watering device and help street trees survive the summer.

32 New Capital Bikeshare Stations in DC The District Department of Transportation has announced the locations for 32 new Capital Bikeshare stations to be installed in the fall of 2011. It will be the ﬁrst major expansion of the system since Capital Bikeshare launched last September. Following weeks of planning and extensive community input, DDOT will install the new stations and expand the size of selected existing stations to better meet demand, while also adding 265 additional bicycles to the system. Additionally, DDOT will install the already planned Capital Bikeshare stations at Sixth and H sts., NE and Foggy Bottom Metro. Several locations are East of the River A list of the new station locations, as well as those existing stations where capacity will be increased, can be found at ddot.dc.gov.

DC Wildlife Needs Your Help! Last year, the DC City Council unanimously passed the Wildlife Protection Act which was designed to provide much needed protection against cruel and archaic practices. It was also designed to provide a level of consumer protection when dealing with businesses hired to resolve wildlife conﬂicts. This important piece of legislation is now in danger of being repealed by Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf of the 10th District (Northern Virginia). He may be considering adding an amendment to a piece of federal legislation in order to repeal this DC city law. Please contact him today and urge him to withdraw any attempts he may have in place to overturn this important piece of animal protection law. Be a voice for animals today by contacting Congressman Frank Wolf at 202-225-5136. support.washhumane.org ●

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 23

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS District Beat

How Tommy Wells Came Out a Winner by Martin Austermuhle

hen in mid-July D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown took the unprecedented step of re-shuffling committee assignments, Ward 6 Councilmember Tommy Wells was seen as not only the target of his efforts, but also the biggest loser. Gone was his perch atop the Committee on Transportation and Public Works, from which Wells had jumped with gusto into implementing the “livable and walkable” principles that are so close to the hearts of the city’s urbanist sect. So too went his spot on Metro’s Board of Directors, where Wells had shown a level of commitment unbeknownst to many of his predecessors and colleagues. But despite the immediate loss of the committee he so loved, Wells spun the re-shuffling masterfully turning it into a case of political payback for the hearings and report he produced on city-leased SUVs and, yes, Brown’s own fully-loaded luxury SUV. And though his was the only dissenting vote when the re-shuffling hit the council floor, a number of his colleagues quietly apologized to Wells for not standing up for him. All told, Wells stands to come out a winner, probably not what Brown initially intended. Here’s how. Here Comes 2014: If Tommy Wells didn’t have citywide name recognition before the committee re-shuffling, he surely does now. Not only did it look like Brown was exacting revenge on Wells, but Wells beat Brown to the storyline – Wells leaked the news to a friendly blog the night it happened, while Brown waited 12 hours after the media pounced on the story to release

a statement on it. (On Twitter, the entire charade was referred to as the “Midnight Massacre” and “Kwame’s Revenge.”) Looking down the road, the campaign ad for a citywide run in 2014 just seems to write itself: “Tommy Stood Up to Kwame Brown, and He’ll Stand Up For You.”

If Someone Gives You Lemons: There’s little doubt that moving from Transportation and Public Works to Libraries, Parks and Recreation was a demotion for Wells. In sheer ﬁscal terms, he went from overseeing a bureaucracy with a $566 million budget to one with only $72 million. But his

Photo: Andrew Lightman

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new committee assignment will only be as good or bad as he wants to make it. Wells now chairs a committee that oversees something that touches upon the lives of virtually every resident in the District – libraries, parks, recreation centers, dog parks, and pools. No, it won’t have the policy cache of working on transportation, but in immediate terms, there’s more of a practical impact on residents. Shuttered libraries and abandoned parks make for irate voters, after all. Wells could launch a listening tour that takes him to every park, pool, library, and recreation center in the District – he did something similar with Metro buses – only elevating his citywide proﬁle. New Friends: Many watchers of local politics made noise of the fact that when it came time to vote on the council re-shuﬄing, Wells was the only person left voting against the plan. The assumption was that Wells hadn’t done enough cultivating of his own colleagues to cobble together an alliance that would support him, or that some of his own colleagues wanted to tamp down on any future citywide ambitions the Ward 6 legislator might have. Maybe. But Brown’s power play likely pushed some of Wells’ colleagues closer towards him, albeit quietly. In fact, in the days afterwards, a number of councilmembers – Wells declined to say who exactly – apologized to him, and Councilmember Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) openly admitted that he regretted the vote. Moreover, some of the councilmembers that voted for the plan had something to gain – Ward 4’s Muriel Bowser moved up to the Committee on Government

Ethics Overhaul in the Offing? With at least six councilmembers, the council chair and Mayor Vince Gray clouded by ethical and legal inquiries, there’s not a whole lot of love amongst District residents for their elected leaders these days. In fact, many residents and political commentators have noted that a serious, if not complete overhaul of the city’s rules on ethics, campaign finance and elections may be needed in the near future. In recent months, a number of proposals have been floated. Councilmember Mary Cheh (D-Ward 3) and Brown proposed legislation that would create a new institution to better police elected officials, but D.C. Attorney General Irv Nathan threw cold water on the idea by arguing that more bureaucracy wasn’t the answer. (He’d rather see the Board of Elections and Ethics and the Office of Campaign Finance made stronger.) Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5) presented a competing proposal that would create an ethics committee on the council, much like the one Congress has. Wells has put forward legislation that would prohibit individuals and companies from setting up countless LLCs for the purposes of bundling contributions and create reporting requirements for transition and inaugural committees. At the same time, good government advocates in the District have pushed for more far-reaching changes, including making it

Martin Austermuhle is a Senior Editor at DCist.com and a freelance writer in Washington, D.C. He lives in Mt. Pleasant. ●

ac ostia

harder for candidates to make it on the ballot, giving them $25,000 in campaign seed money when they do and extended their terms to five years to allow them to settle in and govern before hitting the campaign trail again. Others want to see councilmembers limited to a single job – currently, legislators can have a second job, and four of them do – and be forced to publicly release their tax returns. In a op-ed in The Washington Post, one local fundraiser even proposed that campaign contribution limits be scaled back from $1,000 to $25. There’s a lot out there, but whether it goes anywhere is the next question. No one councilmember has stepped up and made ethics their signature issue, and despite all the outrage, there isn’t a coalition of good government groups in the city pushing for any one proposal. Brown’s council re-shuffling did put Bowser in charge of the committee that would handle any such legislation, though, which is a good thing – she was responsible for authoring the city’s newly strengthened Open Meetings Law and has shown an independent streak in the past. On the other hand, some have argued that maybe what the District needs isn’t more rules and regulations, but more people to enforce the ones currently on the books. Togo West, who chairs the Board of Elections and Ethics, recently pointed out that the Office of Campaign Finance only has four auditors on staff, severely limiting the breadth and depth of the work it could do. “You want to improve ethics policing in the District of Columbia, get me some more auditors,” he said. Of course, there is one much more direct solution to ethical and legal transgressions – elections. Next year, four councilmembers implicated in some sort of ethical scandal face the voters. Moreover, those who don’t might be forced to – there are whispers of possible recall attempts against Gray, Brown and Ward 5’s Harry Thomas, Jr.

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Operations, while At-Large Vincent Orange ﬁnally got himself the Committee on Small Business. It’s unlikely that they were voting for Brown, more than simply for themselves. It’s not lost on anyone that Brown remains under federal investigation for questionable spending in his 2008 campaign, while Wells is one of a minority of councilmembers that faces no ethical or legal inquiries. Additionally, if Wells was ﬁrst, someone else could be next, and no one really knows what might provoke Brown’s ire. Running a council based on fear isn’t likely to win Brown any more friends in the long-run, but it can certainly allow Wells to pick up a few.

an From An

ciation of historic preservation. Fixing up these properties would not only add to the beauty of our community, it would get residents to appreciate the historic character of our neighborhood. More importantly, it would get developers to appreciate the history of the neighborhood, and plan new development that would complement the historic character of our neighborhood. Lastly, restoring these properties may also be the driver in getting the rest of the blighted properties ﬁxed up in our neighborhood. Based on the current condition of the Big K Site, property owners follow suit with the District Government and are not encouraged to rehab dilapidated properties. It is my hope that restoring these properties may also encourage the absentee property owners in our neighborhood to do the same. So instead of me living next to an abandoned house, I can live next to a neighbor who cares as much as I do about my neighborhood. I have been a consistent voice to DHCD about stabilizing these properties. I am frustrated by the lack of urgency in this eﬀort. I think you and I would agree that it would be severe embarrassment to the Gray Administration of these homes were allowed to deteriorate and fall down due to the lack of attention. Therefore, Mr. Mayor, count me in as one of those in your corner that want to see you succeed. I really do believe the City wants you to as well. Focusing on restoring the Big K Site is low hanging fruit that can continue the process of revitalizing Anacostia. Charles Wilson was a former candidate for the Ward 8 City Council and is a neighborhood activist in Historic Anacostia. He is serving as Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner in Single Member District 8A04. He can be reached at charleswilsonhu@gmail.com. ●

Mr. Mayor, Develop Big K! by Charles Wilson

ello Mr. Mayor. Let me begin by first saying that I was extremely pleased with the organization of the Ward 8 Summit a couple of weeks ago. It was a great opportunity to meet other Ward 8 residents and give perspective to the District Government on how to improve the quality of life in our Ward. A consistent theme during the summit, was the priority to fix up abandoned and blighted properties in our Ward. My picks, just to get you started: The Big K Site needs to be redeveloped in Historic Anacostia. These historic properties, owned by District Government, are the heart of our community because of their prominent location. The appearance of this site not only affects resident who live in the neighborhood, but it also creates a negative impression to all those who drive up and down MLK Ave., SE. I see the tremendous possibility in these properties, and I can tell you that if this were made a priority it would provide an immediate boost to Ward 8. Just imagine, instead of boarded up buildings, we could have a hardware store, restaurant, a small office building and maybe even some condominiums. These homes are also important because their historic prominence in our community. They were built in the late 1800s. Economic revitalization in Anacostia begins with the appre-

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS The Numbers

Retail Politics Will DC Residents “live better” with jobs from Wal-Mart? by Kwame Boadi and Elissa Silverman Is any kind of job creation for DC good job creation?

low-skill jobs that can offer entry into the workforce. The employment rate for DC adults with a high school degree, for example, has been falling for decades and is now at the lowest point in 30 years. Given that, it is important for DC’s leaders to try to increase employment opportunities for residents, especially those without a college degree. At the same time, however, the quality of these jobs also is important. Whether the jobs will be fulltime or part-time, whether they come with health and other benefits, and whether they provide wages that can support an individual or family given the high cost of living in DC are all factors to consider. One way the District can make Wal-Mart’s entry into our city beneficial to both parties is for the District to sign a “Community Benefits Agreement” with the world’s most profitable corporation. The agreement, which is a legally enforceable contract, can hold Wal-Mart to certain wage and hiring standards.

It’s an important question to consider as DC leaders and residents wrestle with the prospect of WalMart crossing over the District line into our city. The world’s No. 1 retailer—which has an aggressive urban growth strategy—promises to deliver up to 1,200 permanent positions in addition to hundreds of temporary construction jobs of four planned stores: New Jersey Avenue and H Street NW, Georgia and Missouri Avenues NW, New York Avenue and Bladensburg Road NE, and East Capitol and 58th Streets NE. Many of the District’s elected ofﬁcials have welcomed the Bentonville, Arkansas-based mega-corporation with outstretched arms, saying they are especially excited about employment opportunities for residents. But it’s worth considering just what kind of opportunities Wal-Mart will bring to DC. Many of Wal-Mart’s positions pay wages that would keep a single mom with two kids below the federal poverty level. And unlike working at a grocery store covered under a union contract, like Giant or Safeway, the path to higher pay and better positions is less clear at Wal-Mart. Also, if Wal-Mart’s famously low prices bring about job losses in better-paying grocery stores or neighboring small businesses as research supports, the net gain in jobs from Wal-Mart may not be as great as their promotional materials suggest. Currently one out of ten DC residents is searching for work. The District is the economic hub of our region, but there is a great need for

Wal-Mart’s low prices are helpful to save money, but Wal-Mart’s low wages keep its hard-working employees in poverty, especially in high-cost urban areas like Washington. Across the country, according to studies, an entry level Wal-Mart employee typically earns between the federal minimum wage of $7.25 and $9 per hour. That beginning wage would be slightly higher in DC, because the District’s minimum wage is $8.25 per hour. Just having a job and a steady

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| AUGUST 2011

Low Prices, Low Wages

paycheck does not automatically lift a family out of poverty. In fact, the majority of DC’s low-income residents live in working families. The problem is they simply earn too little or cannot get full-time work, or both. The typical wage for DC’s working poor is about $9 an hour – just around what Wal-Mart’s entry –level jobs will pay. It doesn’t take a math genius to see that $9 an hour is not enough to support a family in DC. At $9 an hour and 32 hours a week, a prospective Wal-Mart employee would make roughly $1,150 a month before taxes. This is 75 percent the federal poverty level for a family of three, which in 2011 is $18,530. Once taxes are taken out and you factor in the cost of housing, transportation, and possibly child care, “rational decision makers” who economists refer to might wonder whether it is really worth it to work at all. Indeed, this is the decision faced by many parents who receive public assistance through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program. One of the main problems facing adults on TANF is that the only jobs available are ones with low wages and either temporary or erratic hours. So instead of creating a job ladder for those who want to climb out of welfare and poverty, it keeps people cycling in and out of bad jobs. This means Wal-Mart is unlikely to do much to support DC’s welfare-to-work eﬀorts. On the other hand, a job that pays $12 an hour at 32 hours a week would bring home a little over $1,500 a month before taxes. That wage would be enough to lift nearly two-

thirds of low-income working families above 150 percent of the federal poverty line. It seems reasonable that the world’s No. 1 retailer could agree to pay DC’s “living wage” of $12 an hour. A 2001 study on Wal-Mart by researchers at University of California Berkeley concluded that applying the living wage to Wal-Mart “would provide signiﬁcant, concentrated beneﬁt to workers, almost half of them in poor or near-poor families.”

Low Prices, High Impact on District Wages and Small Businesses Wal-Mart has told District leaders they expect to employ up to 1,200 workers, but is that really 1,200 new jobs for our city? If Wal-Mart proves successful in offering lower prices than their competitors and maximizing their profits by minimizing costs, they could very well force competitors out of business. Those who are currently employed with small business might end up losing their jobs and then be looking for a job at Wal-Mart. Were Wal-Mart to locate in the District, not only would it be in competition with many local businesses, but it would also compete with major chains like Target, Safeway, and Giant. In the case of Safeway and Giant, both of these companies employ union labor and as such, pay and benefits at these stores for employees that have established tenure are considerably more generous that what Wal-Marts around the DC region currently offer their employees. WalMart’s presence could put downward pressure on the wages offered by its competitors. And if any union grocery stores go out of business as a result of Wal-Mart, the city will simply have replaced decent-paying jobs with low-wage, low-benefit jobs.

INVITATION FOR BID for

Low Wages Can Be Raised Through a Community Benefits Agreement Wal-Mart and its supporters say that DC will benefit from the retailer’s presence through more jobs and low prices, but right now District residents just have to take WalMart’s word. Because Wal-Mart is not asking for special tax or zoning treatment, DC’s leaders cannot make many demands. But that doesn’t mean that the DC community – the residents who will be filling Wal-Mart’s aisles — cannot ask the retailer to be a better partner. Instead, residents could have Wal-Mart guarantee a number of benefits by entering into a “Community Benefits Agreement” with the corporation. Community Benefits Agreements are legally enforceable contracts, agreed to and signed by community groups and a business, that detail a set of community benefits committed to by the developer as part of the project. A coalition of clergy, labor, civic activists and small businesses, known as the Living Wages, Healthy Communities Coalition, has been pushing for Wal-Mart to sign such an agreement. Included in the proposed document is an agreement that Wal-Mart pay the District living wage, which is $12.50 per hour. Big economic development projects like the opening of WalMart should have benefits for both the company and for the District. Making living wage and first source hiring requirements as part of a community benefits agreement will ensure that happens.

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Boadi and Silverman are policy analysts at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute (www.dcfpi.org), which conducts research on tax and budget issues that affect low- and moderate-income DC residents. ●

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 27

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS tax base. Police and fire calls rise in blocks with vacant property. Trash removal and other maintenance costs drain resources. At Census 2000, the District had over 3000 vacant properties. Wards 7 and 8 topped the list with 637 and 553, respectively, many concentrated in Deanwood. In contrast, Ward 3 had 66. Census vacancies include ordinary turnover as well as properties suffering abandonment and neglect. But a short tour of Deanwood confirms a preponderance of empty lots and crumbling buildings. Moreover, vacant property is a key concern in the “Deanwood Strategic Development Plan,” adopted by the City Council in 2008. A long empty lot at 48th & Sheriff Road, NE – now under construction as the Deanwood Learning Garden – illuminates District policy, or lack thereof, on re-activating vacant property for community benefit.

Citizen Eﬀorts: DC and Beyond Among many empty lots east of the river, 48th Street and Sheriff Road, NE, was mowed regularly by the District for the last 9 years, a direct cost to DC.

DC’s Planning Vacancy Deanwood Learning Garden and Vacant Property Policy by Virginia Avniel Spatz

“V

acancy,” advertised in bright neon, can be a welcome sight from a dark highway. In urban planning, however, “vacancy” is a sign of trouble. Quick turnover of residential and commercial property contributes to a city’s vibrancy. Extended vacancies – such as long-abandoned “construction sites,” dilapidated buildings and overgrown, trash-filled lots – threaten neighborhood stability. These trouble signs fill the District, particularly east of the river. But citizens find that DC’s policy on vacant property has its own “vacancies.” Nationwide, studies find that vacant properties lower surrounding property values, impede sales of nearby homes and slow commercial development. They erode the local

Deanwood Learning Garden, exemplifying one strategy for reclaiming long-neglected property, broke ground on June 18. The lots had been empty for most of the last 50 years.

28 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

| AUGUST 2011

Many citizens have labored over the years to ameliorate problems with untended lots. Long-time Deanwood activist Yvonne Johnson is one. Back in 2001, she tackled the abandoned property at 48th & Sheriﬀ, for example. She photographed near-jungle conditions and kept records of calls to various agencies. Finally and for nearly ten years, the City provided regular grass cutting and weeding. Sylvia C. Brown, ANC 7C04 Commissioner and former president of the Deanwood Citizens Association, regularly heard such frustrations: “having to call year after year, day after day for grass cutting, illegal dumping, and suspicious activity at these locations.” She began campaigning for “a consistent, zero tolerance” plan to address the issue, she reports, but met with “slow movement on that front.” Brown then investigated and shared with neighbors “what citizens across the country are doing--taking control of vacant lots to use them for beautiﬁcation and community building.” DC has focused almost exclusively on a tax approach. Other cities are using varied strategies: rapid rehabilitation of abandoned buildings, “environmental courts” to assess ne-

Pain & Rehab Center glect damages, a variety of “clean and green” approaches and urban agriculture. “Urban farming” – similar to “Victory Gardens” in past decades – is one approach particularly suited to an economic downturn. Detroit, for example, has temporarily transformed unproductive city land into 800 gardens and farms of various sizes. Moreover, a 25-year study in Philadelphia found that sprucing up vacant sites led to an average increase of 30% in home sales on affected blocks. Groundwork USA is a national nonproﬁt dedicated to “reclaiming vacant and derelict lands,” cleaning up and caring for neglected areas, and conducting environmental education. Locally, Groundwork Anacostia River DC brings technical and ﬁnancial resources to the area in support of this mission. Recent projects include “One Yard of Garden” and a park, with 30 newly planted trees, just west of the Minnesota Avenue Metro station.

“Slow Movement” Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander supports Groundwork’s efforts to promote local growing and healthy food options, she says. She reports no overall approach to vacant property, however, for gardening or other purposes. She suggests a neighborhood-wide assessment and a walk-through with appropriate District agencies. The Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) describes no policy on vacant property, noting instead: “Overall, requests for community gardens are addressed as they are presented to the agency. We are currently examining how best to handle the requests and develop a process and guidelines.” In the case of Deanwood Learning Garden: As far back as 2007, Brown and neighbors were working with various agencies to find District-owned properties that might be transformed to better support Deanwood. “After pushing and prodding,” Brown reports, DHCD chose the four adjacent lots at 48th & Sheriff and granted Groundwork a temporary lease to manage the project. DHCD is responsible for maintaining vacant lots, acting director John E. Hall explains in a recent letter, and “has determined that this land would better serve the residents of the neighborhood as a temporary garden for a period of two to five years while the District and the community plan together for a permanent use for the site.” Brown informed ANC 7C04 as early as November 2010 that the Sheriff Road site was being considered for a possible garden.

However, it has not been clear how community consultation – on site selection, the content of the garden or the future of the land – is to be organized or who is responsible.

Community Building Johnson sees hard-won stability threatened by the Deanwood Learning Garden: Field mice, apparently disturbed by digging, entered nearby homes; since the District stopped mowing, weeds are reappearing on the adjacent sidewalk and tree boxes. She and some 60 neighbors signed a petition opposing the project. They cite fencing, lighting and future traffic concerns. Ward 7 Councilmember Yvette Alexander has heard opposition to the project, she says, but believes most community members will support it if their concerns are addressed. “They just want to be included.” To that end, Alexander plans to work with Groundwork toward a September community meeting. DHCD reports that Groundwork, partnering with Empowerhouse/Solar Decathlon to design the garden, is bringing resources into the area, creating a “good public private partnership and opportunity to utilize a vacant lot in a productive manner.” But Johnson is unconvinced. She doesn’t see anyone coordinating projects in the area and feels community members have too little control over what funding brings. “They have gone garden crazy around here,” she argues. “And nobody’s keeping most of them up.” “Community building is hard,” Brown offers. “Just like a diamond is formed from hard pressure, good and great things will be produced. I know my neighbors don’t want vacant lots surrounding them. I know they want places where they can gather, see children play, have a quiet place to read a book or sit. With the Deanwood Learning Garden we will have these and much more; we will have forged a stronger community bond.” With no official process, community members must craft a vision themselves for the area’s vacant properties. What role green space, urban farming and other strategies play in Deanwood and beyond is yet to be determined. Details on garden planning and progress coming in a future edition. For meeting update, contact Alexander’s Chief of Staff, J.R. Meyers: jrmeyers@dccouncil.us, 202-724-8068. Groundwork (GWARDC): www.GroundworkDC.org, 3938 Benning Road NE, Washington, DC 20019. 202-506-3867. Empowerhouse/Solar Decathlon: parsit.parsons.edu, 212-229-5667. ●

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CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 29

NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS Changes to 2008 St. Elizabeths East Campus Framework Plan

Concerns Shared at St. Elizabeths East Campus Meeting by John Muller

“I

have never been in a more participatory city than DC,” said Victor Hoskins, Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development to a crowd of more than one hundred. “This isn’t our process. This is your process.” At last month’s Saint Elizabeths East Campus public meeting concerns of residents ranged from the need to preserve the East Campus chapel, to new jobs with “proximity preference,” to entertainment and cultural options, to collecting oral histories of the campus.

Community Concerns “I’m speaking for the seniors,” said Cynthia Ashtonahmed, a condo owner in Congress Heights. “We need a nice place we can go to sit down and eat and have fun together. Maybe enjoy a movie.” Ashtonahmed added that safety and a “big discount” were important. With no shortage of seniors present, the most incisive question was posed by an elementary school student. “What are you going to do about property taxes?” asked Francesca Thornton, 9, a persistent presence at community meetings east of 30 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

the river alongside her mother, Alice who spoke of her co-workers experience in cross-town neighborhoods with rising tax assessments. “We need a workforce development center,” a young woman said, self-identifying herself as a community organizer. “We have 28.7% unemployment here. That’s the highest in the country.” Others expressed concerns that job training “does not necessary relate to a job in the real world” and that “everybody doesn’t need an education plan.” Many asked for a greater emphasis on developing ownership of small businesses that can, for example, ﬁll emerging procurement needs such as landscaping and shuttle service. “I know there’s a lot of skepticism here,” said Ward 8 Council member Marion Barry. Cutting through persistent discussion of the city’s First Source Program, Barry mentioned that federal projects are not bound by the program. What frequently happens, as with the west campus, is a general contractor hires out sub-contractors (i.e. electric, drywall, carpentry, and masonry) who come to the work site with their own crew, leaving few opportunities for new hires, Barry said.

| AUGUST 2011

“The 2008 Framework Plan lays out a broad mix of uses on the approximately 180 acre site, including office, residential, retail, institutional, and open space,” says Geraldine Gardner, with the Office of Planning. “The community has been consistent in supporting this mix, but there has always been a strong desire for additional retail and services where residents can do their regular shopping.” With a primary focus on transportation and land use issues, two alternatives to the 2008 redevelopment framework plan were presented; both preserve the majority of the historic campus, maintain low density at transition points to the surrounding neighborhood, and create neighborhood centers near the metro and MLK Jr. Ave. Both plans provide a pedestrian, bicyclist and transit friendly system of roadways that connect the campus to the Congress Heights neighborhood and MLK Jr. Ave corridor. The first plan connects the campus to the Congress Heights neighborhood with a north-south extension of 8th Street SE and connects MLK Jr. Ave. to the Congress Heights Metrorail Station via an oval shaped road around CT Village. The second plan develops a boulevard extending from the Congress Heights Metrorail Station into the east campus development while providing an additional connection between MLK Jr. Ave and the Maple quadrangle. According to officials with DC Department of Transportation, “each plan received general acceptance from the community.” “One of the key concerns from the community in the St. Elizabeths campus area has been that the campus is closed to the community and the neighborhoods have no access to the site,” said Faisal Hamad, with DDOT. “In order to make the St. Elizabeths East Campus a healthy vibrant campus, it is important to make it accessible to the surrounding neighborhoods and to make it part of the community.” Hamad noted that with the planned arrival of retail and recreational amenities improving the connectivity and access of the campus becomes critical to its success. “New office and housing development will bring sales, property, and income tax revenues to the District and are a core component to the development program,” said Gardner. While bringing in development “a core principle of the planning process” is “to celebrate and preserve the rich heritage and historic assets of the site”. Goals of the current Phase 1 development plan, to be completed in September, are zoning for the entire campus, historic preservation review and road layout. Phase one development is planned to be built in 2014. For the latest information on the East Campus development visit www.stelizabethseast.com. ●

ing next to “where a famous person lived” was empowering to her and her two children. The previous week, being new to the neighborhood, the Wilson family took a tour of the prominent house. “Wow, still seeing stuﬀ from 1877 like his desk and where he wrote down all his thoughts and ideas. Very powerful,” said Wilson, an employee with DCPS.

Friends Group Emerges

Group Forms to Support Frederick Douglass National Historic Site article and photos by John Muller

n a recent weekend, live music echoed throughout the neighborhood surrounding the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site at 1411 W Street SE in Historic Anacostia. With residents emerging from their homes to look into the source of the jam session, a small crowd slowly began to assemble to hear the sounds of “The Cold Rice” specializing in “down home jazz-funk-rock-and everything in between.” The band’s leader, George Tillman, was a former maintenance worker at the site from 1971 to 1996. “All of the community is here,” said Tillman, who lives down the street from the historic home. “This is a great place.” “I want to live here,” said Jayia Wilson, 10. “Mr. Douglass published The North Star when black people weren’t supposed to be reading.” Jayia’s mother, Kiya, said liv-

Frederick Douglass National Historic Site celebrates their Annual Family Day Festival.

In September 2010 FDNHS released a “Long-Range Interpretive Plan” for the site that identified “individuals who have expressed an interest in creating an organization to assist the site.” “Several of us had been volunteering,” said Danea Tuley, President of the Friends of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. “We agreed it was time to begin the formal process of creating a Friends group.” “It’s great to have the Park Service as a neighbor,” says Tuley, a grant manager who has lived at 14th & W Street SE for the past four years. “At night, when the home is lit up, it is beautiful.” “It was the community that saved the house,” said Julie Kutruff, the Eastern District Manager of National Capital Parks East, who has worked out of FDNHS for the past three years. “The Friends group can help us connect back to the community and start to cultivate a sense of ownership. We want the site to feel like the area’s local park.” Kutruff also cited the ability of the Friends group to raise money that can help support educational programs and plan large-scale capital projects that include the expansion of the visitor’s center With a core group of a half dozen members, the Friends group, working to secure their non-profit status, is in the “formational stages” while “undergoing an active membership drive.” To learn more about the Friends of the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site, contact Danea Tuley at DTULEY@FOFDNHS.ORG or call (571) 239-2095 ●

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 31

th Annual

of East of the River Arts

MICHELLE PHIPPS-EVANS

When photographer Deborah Terry heard she was one of six artists chosen for the ﬁfth annual Honfleur Gallery’s juried East of the River exhibition, she was “ecstatic, but kind of shocked.” ▲▼ Honfleur Gallery attracts many visitors since its January 2007 opening.

32 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

| AUGUST 2011

“I

knew this show would be very competitive and I wasn’t sure how the judges would view my fine arts’ images,” said Terry, a southeast born and raised photographer, who has been shooting eclectic images for almost 25 years. For Terry, displaying this side of her work—the landscape of the urban environment—as a fine arts photographer, has made her somewhat “curious to see how people will respond.” This is the second year she has been chosen. For the exhibit. “Honestly, I haven’t really had a chance to display this side of me; (or) this many of my fine arts’ images in one showing for this length of time,” she said, adding that seven pieces will be on display from Aug. 5 until Sept. 9, 2011. Joining Terry are Lark Catoe-Emerson, a 28-year-old photographer whose explorations in abstract photography focus on the intimacy of human skin; Jonathan Edwards, another 28-year-old who uses cartoon-style illustrations to explore themes of contemporary urban African-American experiences; Jon Malis, whose large scale prints are based on his research in the medical archives of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital; Marlon Norman, a 24-year-old, who first learned photography at Ward 8’s ARCH Training Center and who engages the natural world on a macro level; and 26-yearold poet and photographer Danielle Scruggs who explores self-image in text and image. Artists were selected by a panel of judges—Stephen Phillips, director of Fine Arts Programs at the Federal Reserve; Renee Stout, an acclaimed Washington, D.C., artist; and Susana Raab, a photographer at Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum. The exhibit opened August 5 with a reception When Scruggs heard she was chosen, she almost fell out of her seat, “especially because it came on the heels of a rejection from another exhibit I applied for,” she said. ”It’s also an honor to know that such an esteemed jury responded to my work and decided to include me in a show with other talented artists.” For Catoe-Emerson, who was born in Taiwan and raised in the District since she was a toddler, this is her “first time being in a gallery,” and “it has been a defining moment for me to be accepted as a fine artist.” “My art has been a visual journal of my life thus far,” said Catoe-Emerson who lives Greenway Gardens in southeast. “It has been my best source of expression. Once I became a mother I noticed things happening to my body, from the time it grew a living being to breast feeding. Photography has always been a visual record of history and I love how photography can capture the fleeting moments of our lives, making them everlasting.” Out of 20 competing artists, the six were chosen, in addition to the overall artistic merit and quality of their artwork; and their ability to produce a cohesive small exhibition, for their connection to East of the River—whether through residency, teaching, social work, filming, or research, according to Honfleur Gallery’s Events Manager and ARCH vice president, Amy Cavanaugh Royce .

▲ Lark Catoe-Emerson is an artist in the 5th Annual East of the River Arts. Photo courtesy the artist. ▼ Danielle Scruggs is one of the artists featured in the 5th Annual Celebration of East of the River Arts.

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 33

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“Each selected artist was given a $300 stipend for their project,” she said. “Annually the show draws Honfleur’s largest crowds, and supports artists and artworks focused toward East of the River.” The length of time these artists have been involved in their work ranges from three to almost 25 years. The exhibit ranges from photography and illustration, created by full-time artists, Terry, Malis and Catoe-Emerson; and part-timers, Scruggs, Edwards and Norman. All the part-timers expressed their desire to become full-time. The most eyebrow-raising exhibit is by Malis, who features a collection of photographs of prepared-section glass slides of human brain tissue from St. Elizabeth’s. In the early 20th century, St. E’s was a research institution, he explained, and “the stateside pioneer of the lobotomy.” The larger-thanlife cross sections of brains are a chilling yet alluring reminder of the hospital’s history and impact in southeast Washington. “The photographs I made are of glassplate slides of thinly sliced tissue, which were presumably used to study ‘abnormal’ brains,” he said. “They’re a form of study rarely used anymore, and I find them to be downright fascinating.” On the other hand, Norman prefers photography of still life, abstract, and on occasions, landscape imagery. “I gain my inspiration from the natural beauty of everyday objects,” he said. “I tend to vision an image in my head and try to create it through my lens.” Edwards explained he doesn’t consider himself a “pure artist,” but rather someone who communicates through drawings. “I’ve always preferred a no-frills approach with relatively simple concrete imagery, because it’s most important to me that people understand the point I’m trying to make in each drawing,” he said. East of the River is evolving as an enclave for the creative community. Galleries, such as Honfleur and The Gallery at Vivid Solutions, art receptions, museum offerings, poetry and open-air performances are becoming an indelible part of the fabric of the “suburban” Wards 7

and 8, which these artists invariably use as their muses. Honfleur Gallery, which opened January 2007, and The Gallery at Vivid Solutions are projects of ARCH, a community-based nonprofit in Anacostia, which believes that arts and culture play a role in community revitalization and development. Briony Evans Hynson, cofounder of Honfleur and until recently, its creative director; and Beth Ferraro, creative director at The Gallery at Vivid Solutions, are curators for the juried exhibit. “The creative direction was really up to the artists that submitted to the call,” Ferraro explained. “They were allowed to submit work in progress or final pieces.” Using the judges’ advice, they met the artists to work out the exhibit, figuring out how many pieces; and taking into consideration space, as well as how to tie it with color, size and subject. “This show has always (featured) a wide range of artists at different levels of their careers—a few needed extra help with the details, and some didn’t need much direction at all,” she added. “We want each artist’s work to stand out and be showcased as much as possible.” Besides this exhibit, two other exhibits will open Aug. 5 at the galleries. Upstairs at Honfleur, is 61, an installation-based exhibition on mapping of time and place by resident artist Mei Mei Chang. It will run until Sept. 9, and is based on her 61-day-residency in the Anacostia. (Un)Lock It: the Percussive People in the Go-Go Pocket is a collection of photographs taken in the District by poet and photographer Thomas Sayers Ellis. It will be at The Gallery at Vivid Solutions until Oct. 7. These exhibits, funded in part by the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, are free to the public. Honfleur Gallery is at 1241 Good Hope Rd. SE, and The Gallery at Vivid Solutions is at 2208 Martin Luther King Jr. Ave., SE. The closest metro is Anacostia (green line). For more information, visit the websites for details: www.honfleurgallery.com and www.vividsolutionsdc.com ●

African American Civil War Museum Re-Opens in New Location article and photos by John Muller ing out inaccuracies in Hollywood’s portrayal and misperceptions in popular culture’s treatment of black military service. Jones does not pull punches. “Certainly, informed and knowledgeable people should not celebrate the suppression of their own history,” Jones said in a video available on the Internet directing his thoughtful ire at the National Juneteenth Observance Foundation. ”Juneteenth day is a de facto celebration of such suppression. Americans, especially Americans of African descent, should not celebrate when the enslaved were freed by someone else, because that’s not the accurate story.” One of the most compelling documents presented at the museum is a bill passed by the Confederate Congress on March 13, 1865, less than a month before General Robert E. Lee’s ultimate surrender to Ulysses Grant. The legislation calls for the enlistment and arming of “negroes” in the Confederate Army in a last-ditch effort to defeat the Union. Union colored troops’ courage under fire and resounding victory in battles across the states of the Confederacy had convinced even the rebel political leadership that blacks would and could fight as long and hard as anyone.

History of the Museum & Book of Names

Last month a new African American Civil War Museum opened on Vermont Avenue NW across the street from the African American Civil War Memorial at 10th & U Street NW.

“W

ithout the military help of the black freedmen, the war against the South could not have been won,” declared President Abraham Lincoln shortly after Confederate General Lee’s surrender to Union General Grant at Appomattox ended the United States Civil War. According to the Bureau of the United States Colored Troops, blacks filled the Union ranks of 142 infantry regiments, 13 artillery regiments, 1 independent battery, and 7 cavalry regiments, worked as engineers, and served at sea. In total, more than 200,000 blacks wore the uniform of their country, with additional soldiers serving in fully integrated units, according to the African American Civil War Museum’s curator Hari Jones. Last month, concurrent with the sesquicentennial (150th) anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War, the African American Civil War Museum reopened in its new space at 1925 Vermont Avenue NW, tucked back from the street in the annex of the former Grimke public school. Bursting with an artful presentation of historically-significant photographs, maps, newspaper clippings, field artifacts, first edition antiquarian books, government records, personal cor-

respondence, individual profiles, and much more, the inviting exhibit has been arranged to allow visitors to travel a timeline from our Colonial days to the present-day with ease. With a public research room, a stage for presentations, and an active schedule of cultural and historical programming to complement the extensive primary sources presented in the museum’s exhibits, the new museum is a testament to the continuous and important contributions of blacks to the history of the United States. “We tell the story of a disenfranchised, enslaved population, that helped save the Union and freed themselves while maintaining the supremacy of the Constitution,” says Jones, a retired Captain in the United States Marine Corps. “Here we have a ‘servile insurrection,’ let us call it as Jeff Davis labeled the Emancipation Proclamation that is done legally under the Constitution of the United States. That is a huge American story.” Jones is recognized nationally as one of the premier historians of the Civil War and blacks’ contributions to the war effort. A conversation with him is memorable as his shared knowledge and enthusiasm for history is contagious. He does not shy from point-

The African American Civil War Memorial Foundation was incorporated in 1992; the physical nine-foot bronze memorial seen upon ascending the 10th & U Street exit of the Metro was erected in 1998. The museum was opened in January 1999 and subsequently moved again. Its former location had 700 square feet of space: the new building, across the street from the memorial, is nearly seven times larger with 5,000 square feet. Vital to the museum’s growth has been former Ward 1 Councilmember Frank Smith who has helped raise the necessary capital and awareness to promote the museum and its foundation. In 2007 the foundation and museum published the Book of Names, a three volume set that lists the 209,145 names drawn from oﬃcial records of the Bureau of US Colored Troops at the National Archives. Twenty-three soldiers received the Medal of Honor, the highest award for valor in action against an enemy force. More than 36,000 made the ultimate sacriﬁce to their country. On a recent visit to the museum, the Jimmerson family discovered their family name was prominent in an infantry unit that fought in Georgia. “After visiting the museum, I understand how personal and real the connection is to me,” said Eric, 14, an out-of-town visitor from California. The museum is open Tuesday-Friday, 10am6:30pm, Saturday, 10am-4pm, and Sunday 12noon-4pm. More information can be found at www.afroamcivilwar.org. For information on tours or other inquiries call (202) 667-2667. ●

CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 35

EAST WASHINGTON LIFE

Double Nickels For Your Thoughts Reminiscence Theatre And Oral History Bring Proud Contributions Of America’s by Stephen Lilienthal Too many African-Americans, she says, complain that the larger media and academic institutions do not adequately cover the contributions made by African-Americans. “Write about yourself ” rather than wait for someone else is Ford’s quick response. Double Nickels’ motto is “until the lions have historians, tales of the hunt will always favor the hunter.” But the experiences of African American veterans in a segregated military resonate quite strongly with her since her father and grandfather were part of the Red Ball Express, and she only became aware of that in adulthood. As she tells it, her father, Sargent James F. Taylor, who served in the U.S. Army for 34 years, was growing older. He moved to the AFRH. One day she took him on a DC city tour in one of the amphibious trucks converted to buses. He said, “What are you taking me on this for? I used to drive them in the military. They used to call them `ducks.’” Antoinette Ford, center, flanked by veterans Richard Whittle, left, and Esker McConnell, right, at the Armed Forces Retirement Home just before a performance featuring original music by the Washington National Opera that tells the true stories of AFRH residents that were collected by the Double Nickels Theatre Company.

Veterans To Life Antoinette Ford, sitting in her home in the Hillcrest neighborhood of Southeast DC , picks up a report issued by the National Security Agency. It’s not classiﬁed material but available online: “The Invisible Cryptologists: African-Americans, WWII to 1956.” “How many Americans knew African-Americans were working as cryptologists?” she asks, proceeding to brieﬂy tell their story. Ford is keenly aware of the importance of stories handed down from generation to generation, something she thinks is missing in contemporary American culture. Growing up in a close-knit African American family in Philadelphia, she recalls the stories told by the el-

36 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

ders in her family and their positive impact in helping to shape her life. Now retired after a successful life in business and government, she formed the Double Nickels Theatre Company, which stages “reminiscence theatre” in which older Americans tell their own oral histories. (Occasionally, a younger person will play the part of the older person while young.)

Celebrating the Unsung Ford believes many average people have stories well worth telling. Double Nickels has performed a production on wedding receptions at the Kennedy Center, but she ﬁnds the stories of veterans important to recount, particularly in an era when, she believes, family ties are weaker.

| AUGUST 2011

Ford’s Double Nickels Theater Company (www.doublenickels.org) has staged “Songs for the Unsung,” a tribute to American veterans, at the Armed Forces Retirement Home (AFRH). The event combined the oral reminiscences of veterans living at the AFRH with original music created and performed by the Washington National Opera. “I want to celebrate the contributions of seniors, particularly African-Americans,” explains Ford. Double Nickels has issued a book, Who We Were: Stories from Veterans at the Armed Forces Retirement Home, in which residents of the Armed Forces Retirement Home recount their stories of life in the military. Some white veterans credit their military service with raising their awareness of segregation and its cost.

Breaking Barriers The Red Ball Express was an operation that moved vital supplies for the American Army qs it raced across France, and was largely run by African American soldiers. If Americans, including many World War II veterans, know about the Red Ball Express, Ford asserts it is because a movie was made about it starring white actors Jeff Chandler and Alex Nicol. (A young Sidney Poitier is in the film but had only started achieving prominence for his acting.) Yet, the Chicago Defender printed an article on June 9, 1951 headlined: “Officer Who Headed Crack Outfit Riled.” Brigadier General Frank Ross “appeared disturbed” at a conference on the film in which it appeared the film would slight the significant contributions made by African Americans in the operation. [Ross] is reported to have said that

“without some of the Negro troops the success of the assignment to take food and other essentials to the fighting men at the front may well have been a tougher proposition.” At that time, African-Americans in the military were relegated to back of the line support activities. The order to desegregate the armed forces would not be issued until 1948 and then it proceeded slowly. But the lines were beginning to crack. More than a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, Washington native Benjamin O. Davis, Sr. had become the first African American general in the history of the United States’ armed forces. The Tuskegee Airmen have received their due, but other experiments were also underway. The Triple Nickels Parachute Infantry Battalion, a “colored test platoon,” did not see combat out of fear about how racist soldiers would react. But they did fight forest fires in the Pacific Northwest at a time there was fear that the the Japanese would try igniting widespread forest fires by balloons carrying incendiary devices. Captain Hugh Mulzac, West Indian by birth, became an American citizen and was the first black American to command an integrated Merchant Marine ship. Years earlier, Mulzac had been denied command of a ship, then was later offered command of a segregated crew. He refused. Mulzac later commanded the Booker T. Washington and its integrated crew during World War II, helping to take thousands of troops to the European and Pacific theaters. Ford has concentrated her work at the AFRH but also includes reminiscences of other veterans and some of the early African American officers. The Double Nickels webpage includes comments by retired Army officer Clifford Young describing how black officers, more numerous at the Pentagon postVietnam, formed “the No-Name Club” to help spur career advancement. (The organization still exists but is now called “The ROCKS.”.)

Germans and African-Americans

tually she hopes to do just that. Double Nickels’ effort is ramping up. Invited to a talk at the German Historical Institute (GHI) in Northwest Washington, she met Dr. Martin Klimke, an expert on the experiences between AfricanAmerican soldiers and Germans in the post-World War II era. Now, they have forged a partnership. She hopes to provide GHI with more access to American veterans Klimke and a colleague, Maria Hoehn, a professor at Vassar, are prolific oral historians themselves, having collaborated on a book and a website, A Breath of Freedom: The Civil Rights Struggle, African American GIs, and Germany (www. aacvr-germany.org), which relates the combined liberation and discrimination many African Americans experienced in post-war Germany, and how the presence of black Americans influenced Germans themselves on matters of race and culture. Klimke and Hoehn say many African Americans did feel discrimination in Germany but at the same time the country was more open than even many northern cities. They were able to go to restaurants and theatres where fellow white soldiers and Germans frequented, even to date interracially. African American author William Gardner Smith, author of a 1948 novel about relations between white and black troops in occupied Germany, told The New York Post: “We will never go back to the old way again.” Right now, Double Nickels is receiving help from Sarah Barksdale, a UNC doctoral student writing a dissertation on the experiences of African-American soldiers in World War II. In September, Barksdale will join GHI. Ford and Double Nickels intend to continue gathering stories and create performances from the stories. Double Nickels is publishing its second book of stories and creating DVDs. And AFRH residents have formed their own speakers bureau. Ford insists, “Oral histories and reminiscence theatre can communicate across generations and cultural differences. We can celebrate our seniors and give history to our young,”

Ford says there are stories of veterans who now live East of the River waiting to be told, and even-

Stephen Lilienthal is a freelance writer. ●

SUPER BARGAIN YARD SALE at HOUSE OF PRAISE APOSTLE STEPHEN E. YOUNG, SR., GENERAL OVERSEER

5110 NANNIE H. BURROUGHS AVE., N.E. WASHINGTON, DC 20019 Saturday, August 27, 2011, from 7 am to 4 pm Cost is $25.00 per space (bring your own tables/chairs) Pay onsite or to register and pay in advance contact:

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CAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 37

KIDS & FAMILY

Washington Ballet level 2 students. Photo: Steven Stauffer

Washington Ballet Youth Program @ THEARC The Washington Ballet @ THEARC offers various dance classes for youth ages 4-18. Children ages 4-5 do not need to audition for placement into the program. Instead, parents just need to fill out the registration packet and submit a $40 registration fee. All youth ages 6+ will need to take part in a placement audition, where a $40 audition/registration fee will be due. Parents are encouraged to begin filling out the registration packet before the audition takes place. Children need to come dressed in ballet attire and girls should have their hair in a bun prior to the audition. Audition dates are Aug. 20 and Sept. 17; ages 6-8, 9:30-10:30 AM; ages 9-11, 10:30-11:30 AM; ages 12 and up, 11:30 AM-1:00 PM. 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-889-8150. thearcdc.org

Notebook by Kathleen Donner

DC Free Summer Meals Program for Kids

Common Sense Parent Training

The Anacostia Neighborhood Library, 1800 Good Hope Rd. SE, is participating in the DC Free Summer Meals Program. Children age 18 and under can come to the lower level from 1:00-2:30 PM, Monday-Friday, to enjoy a free, nutritious lunch. The program runs through Aug. 19. 202-715-7707. anacostialibrary@dc.gov

Children’s Health Project of DC offers free parenting classes throughout the year. Participants learn how to communicate effectively and avoid power struggles with their children, give positive attention, stay calm in frustrating situations, balance discipline with affection and praise their children’s good behavior. Wednesday, Aug. 17, 10:00 AM-noon. Free. For more infor-

38 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

| AUGUST 2011

mation or to register, contact Ellen Wiggins at 202-436-3076. THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. thearcdc.org

Kids Duffle Bag Day at Nationals Park On Aug. 21, 1:35 PM, Nats vs. Phillies, free diﬄe bags for the ﬁrst 10,000 fans in attendance, age 12 and under. Tickets $5, up. washington.

nationals.mlb.com

Monumental Martin Saturday, Aug. 27, 1:003:00 PM. Celebrate the dedication of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial and the life of the noted civil rights leader. Join Culture Kingdom Kids for educational and fun activities that include interactive music, storytelling, dance, and takehome crafts. Families with children ages 4 to 12 are encouraged to attend. Free. Anacostia Community Museum, 1901 Fort Pl. SE. 202-6334844. anacostia.si.edu

Movie Tuesdays at THEARC Bring your children to THEARC Tuesdays this summer to see free hit movies. There will also be fun activities and concessions sold for $1. All movies are rated G or PG. Aug. 16, Kung Fu Panda. If interested in attending, please RSVP to Kimberly Douglas at kdouglas@thearcdc.org. 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. 202-8895901. thearcdc.org

Basketball Summer Jam at Deanwood Gymnasium On Aug. 19, 6:00-9:00 PM. there will be a Basketball Summer Jam for ages 13 and up. 1350 49th Street, NE. Free. For further information, contact: Mr. Orvin Wright at 202-299-3329.

GreatSchools DC Asks for Donations GreatSchools DC is hosting their first annual “Back to School and Ready to Learn” event on Saturday, Aug. 13. Their goal is to provide 500 families with the materials they need for their children to head off to the first day of school as well-equipped as they can be. They have determined it will take $7,500 and they need your help to make it happen! Checks should be made payable to “GreatCAPITALCOMMUNITYNEWS.COM ★ 39

KIDS & FAMILY Schools DC” and mailed to 2027 MLK Ave. SE; Suite 101; Washington, DC 20020. This event takes place Saturday, Aug. 13. at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington FBR Branch at THEARC, 1901 Mississippi Ave. SE. greatschools.org

Poetry 180 A Poem a Day for American High Schools A 180-degree turn implies a turning back--in this case, to poetry. The idea behind Poetry 180 is simple: to have a poem read each day to the students of American high schools across the country. How the program is applied is completely up to each high school. Hearing a poem every day, especially wellwritten, contemporary poems that students do not have to analyze, might convince students that poetry can be an understandable, painless and even eye-opening part of their everyday experience. This idea was developed by Billy Collins, Former Poet Laureate of the United States. Read more at loc.gov/poetry/180.

Changes in School Transit Subsidy Program DDOT is making changes to the School Transit Subsidy Program--a program that provides reduced fares for DC students who use Metrobus or Metrorail to travel to and from school. The changes will apply to K through 12 schools and will be implemented in phases to schools starting this fall. Eligible students will now purchase passes on their DC One Card in order to receive the discounted fare, and will only have to visit the Metro Sales Oﬃce once every school year, provided they don’t let their pass expire. The DC One Card is a single identiﬁcation card that gives students access to DC government programs and facilities, recreation centers, libraries, and the Metro. DCPS students in grades 6 through 12 will automatically receive a DC 40 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

Courtesy of Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena

Washington Ballet Youth Program @ THEARC The Friends of Fort Dupont Ice Arena, Inc. is home to Kids On Ice®, a community ice skating program for children ages 5-18, offering free lessons with all equipment provided. Now in its thirteenth year, KOI serves over 7,000 children annually. Instructors include qualified volunteers under the direction of professional figure skating, ice hockey and speed skating directors. The Kids On Ice Program has six components: Learn to Skate, Speed Skating, Figure Skating, Ice Hockey, Schools Skate for Fitness, Freestyle Practice Sessions. Parents and/or kids can stop by or call for more information. Fort Dupont Ice Arena, 3779 Ely Pl. SE. 202-584-5007. fdia.org One Card at school. Other students can obtain their card from one of the DC One Card Customer Service Centers. For more information about the School Transit Subsidy Program, call 202-673-1740 or visit ddot.dc.gov/schooltransitsubsidy.

Free Family Events at Arena Stage From 12:30-1:30 PM, prior to the 2:00 PM matinee on Saturday

| AUGUST 2011

afternoons during the run of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma! (ends Oct. 2), free family-friendly events will be held in and around the Mead Centefor American Theatre. Come enjoy pony rides and a petting zoo on the Sixth St. sidewalk with Pony To Go, learn some of the award-winning dance moves from the show, or share a box social lunch with your friends and family.6th Street and Maine Av-

enue SW. arenastage.org

National Zoo Kids’ Farm Saved With help from Lucy the Goat, the National Zoo today unveiled a sign announcing that the Kids’ Farm and Pizza Park will stay open for at least ﬁve more years thanks to a generous donation from State Farm Insurance. This success is due in large part to the eﬀorts of

"OOVBM ."'" $PNNVOJUZ %BZ Saturday, August 20: 9am - 4pm At the MAFA Academy Join us for a day of free seminars including: Womenâ€™s Self Defense Menâ€™s Only Mixed Martial Arts Thai Boxing Nutrition & Dieting Saftey Tips Presentation by Local Police Dept. Community Clean-up 7 Techinques to Bully Proof Your Child For The Upcoming School Year â€˘ â€˘ â€˘

Face Painting, Moon Bounce & Tattoos! Open to the entire community Come and help prepare your family for the upcoming school year

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Community Child Development Center “A Child’s World for Learning”

the fans of the Kids’ Farm, big and small, who showed their support for keeping the exhibits open. Although things initially looked bleak, after the outpouring of community support for the Kids’ Farm, Friends of the National Zoo (FONZ) committed to ﬁnding a sponsor. Now, thanks to all of you who wrote, called, petin, and attended the parent-organized fundraiser, our children have several more years of visits with Rose, Tulip, Lucy, Ziggy, & friends ahead of them.

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The White House Internship Program provides a unique opportunity to gain valuable professional experience and build leadership skills. This hands-on program is designed to mentor and cultivate today’s young leaders, strengthen their understanding of the Executive Oﬃce and prepare them for future public service opportunities. The application period for the Spring 2012 White House Internship Program is now open. Applicants have until September 11, 2011 to apply for a Spring 2012 White House Internship. Visit whitehouse.gov for details.

School Beautification Day On Saturday, Aug. 20, 8:00 AM-1:00 PM, please come out on Beautiﬁcation Day 2011 to “spruce up” the learning places for our kids for the upcoming school year. Come prepared to roll up your sleeves to transform our schools and contribute to our youth. To register or donate, visit dcps.dc.gov or email DCPS. beautiﬁcationday@dc.gov or call 202-442-5447.

Welcome to WebRangers! WebRangers is the National Park Service’s online Junior Ranger program for kids of all ages. If you love your National Parks, Monuments and Historic Sites, this site is for you. Play more than 50 games and learn about the National Parks. nps.gov/webrangers

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42 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

National Air and Space Museum staﬀ read stories about famous aviators, hot-air balloon ﬂights, trips to Mars, characters visible in the night sky, or creatures that have their own wings. Each session includes one story and a hands-on activity. August stories are presented at 11:00 AM on Aug. 6, 11, 12, 13, 18, 19, 20, 25 and 25. Stories at 1:30 PM are on Aug. 6, 13, 20 and 27. Free. nasm.si.edu

| AUGUST 2011

Through Labor Day, Sept. 5, the Newseum will waive its admission price for all youth visitors, 18 and under, regularly $12.95. The Newseum’s “Summer Fun Deal” promotion is designed to encourage families, particularly in the Washington, DC, metropolitan area, to experience the Newseum. Up to 10 kids will be admitted free with each paid adult admission. 888639-7386. newseum.org ●

HOMES & GARDENS Changing hands is a list of most residential sales in the District of Columbia from the previous month. A feature of every issue, this list, based on the MRIS, is provided courtesy of Don Denton, manager of the Coldwell Banker office on Capitol Hill. The list includes address, sales price and number of bedrooms.

Neighborhood

Close Price

FEE SIMPLE $330,000 $89,900 $54,100

3 3 4

$189,500

$439,500 $310,000 $145,000

3 3 2

$224,900 $200,000 $189,000 $182,000 $179,900 $160,000 $120,000 $80,000 $62,919

3 3 3 3 3 2 3 4 3

$279,000 $265,000 $237,050 $236,500 $199,787 $195,000 $189,900 $169,900 $164,900 $159,900 $155,000 $135,000 $124,900 $109,000 $90,000 $89,000

4 5 3 4 3 4 3 3 3 2 2 3 2 3 3 3

BARRY FARMS 3241 STANTON RD SE

CHILLUM 119 QUACKENBOS ST NW 5709 1ST ST NW 6516 BLAIR RD NW

CONGRESS HEIGHTS 473 VALLEY AVE SE 4009 COLE BLVD SE 729 CONGRESS ST SE 814 XENIA ST SE 1319 BARNABY TER SE 19 DANBURY ST SW 429 VALLEY AVE SE 3304 MARTIN LUTHER KING JR AVE SE 534 LEBAUM ST SE

DEANWOOD 5006 EAST CAPITOL ST NE 4929 BLAINE ST NE 4417 GRANT ST NE 4918 AMES ST NE 507 58TH ST NE 1000 47TH ST NE 244 56TH ST NE 6 35TH ST NE 539 45TH ST NE 269 56TH ST NE 555 45TH ST NE 114 54TH ST SE 1011 47TH PL NE 226 DIVISION AVE NE 4835 MEADE ST NE 5626 CLAY PL NE

$63,555 $44,500 $40,000

2 2 2

$240,000 $205,000 $163,000 $160,000 $155,000 $117,000 $108,000 $98,500

4 3 2 2 3 3 3 3

$325,000 $299,000 $205,000 $190,000 $124,000 $549,900

4 3 3 3 4 5

$169,000 $60,500 $58,000

2 4 2

$249,900 $225,000 $180,000 $180,000 $163,000 $105,000 $72,000 $28,900

4 3 3 3 3 3 3 1

$16,900

$42,500

FORT DUPONT PARK

ANACOSTIA 1982 RETTA GILLIAM CT SE 1632 U ST SE 2268 MOUNT VIEW PL SE

5084 JUST ST NE 311 59TH ST NE 216 56TH ST NE 1116 44TH PL SE 640 RIDGE SE 4353 DUBOIS PL SE 4330 GORMAN TER SE 4112 STANLEY ST SE 4413 G ST SE 4216 MASSACHUSETTS AVE SE 4445 TEXAS AVE SE

HILL CREST 3121 ALABAMA AVE SE 3644 BANGOR ST SE 3600 HIGHWOOD DR SE 3819 POPE ST SE 3615 BANGOR ST SE 2813 BRANCH AVE SE

MARSHALL HEIGHTS 5551 CENTRAL AVE SE 734 51ST ST SE 5555 BASS PL SE

RANDLE HEIGHTS 3210 BUENA VISTA TER SE 2413 17TH PL SE 3501 21ST ST SE 1957 S ST SE 2425 18TH ST SE 1924 GOOD HOPE RD SE 2004 SAVANNAH PL SE 2472 ALABAMA AVE SE #B-301

CONDO ANACOSTIA 1920 NAYLOR RD SE #107

CONGRESS HEIGHTS 22 GALVESTON PL SW #B ●

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CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS CLASSIFIEDS To place a classified in East of the River, please call Carolina at Capital Community News, Inc. 202.543.8300 x12 or email Carolina@hillrag.com

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THE NOSE

The DC Council, a Shakespeare Tragedy by Anonymous

n the wee hours of the morning, a light burns in the Wilson Building in the Ward 6 council office. A half-empty glass of single malt resting on the desk in front of him, a lonely Tommy “The Cyclist” Wells ponders the impending loss of his beloved Transportation Committee. Fingering his iPhone and facing his doom, Wells launches into a soliloquy: To tweet or not to tweet--that is the question: Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous assignments Or to take arms against a unanimous host of colleagues And, by informing the public, shame them. To tweet, to blog— No more—and by a blog to say we pontificate about The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks That politics is heir to. ‘Tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished. To blog, to tweet— To blog—perchance to rant: ay, there’s the rub. For after that communication, what travails may come Allowing others the looting of our own legislative spoils Must give us pause. There’s the respect That makes calamity of long incumbency. For who would bear the whips and scorns of election, Th’ chairman’s wrong, proud colleagues’ contempt, The pangs of despised conscience, the betrayal of allies, The insolence of reporters, and the spurns That patient courting of th’ donor takes, When he himself might his exit make In the pursuit of an ethics investigation? Who would fardels bear, To grunt and sweat under a miserable committee assignment, But that the dread of loss of office, The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No politicians other than Orange and Barry have returned, puzzles the will, And makes us rather bear those offices we have Than fly to others that we know not of? Thus, sweet taste of power does make cowards of us all. And, thus, the native hue of resolution Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought. And enterprise of great pitch and moment With this regard their currents turn awry And lose the name of action. -- Soft you now, proud Kwame -- Mayor in thy orisons, All assignments remembered, Beware the Ides of April 2014. The only thing more irritating to his fellows than a politician with scruples is an honest pol with too much time on his hands. Soon, The Nose predicts, some on the council will be heard muttering behind The Cyclist’s back, “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” ★

46 ★ EAST OF THE RIVER MAGAZINE

| AUGUST 2011

East of the River Magazine August 2011