Ballpark Blues. To make way for a new stadium and redevelopment, DC has been clearing out the underground bar and club scene in the
Navy Yard area of southeast Washington. The first victim was
Tracks, one of DC's first gay clubs and the epicenter of the nascent Goth scene in DC--closed in 1999 to make way for an office building. Now the
rest of the neighborhood's gay clubs are being demolished to make way for the new stadium. And finally,
Nation, home of
Cubik(formerly Buzz),
Velvet and
Alchemy is closing to make way for another new office complex. DC nightlife will never be the same again.
posted by empath
on Apr 5, 2006 -
19 comments
Poppin' Fresh from the newly launched
QueerMeta community weblog:
We'Wha: The Zuni Man-Woman.
How could a six-foot tall Indian man be mistaken for a "maiden" and a "princess"?
This was no Pocahontas! Even more intriguing is the relationship
between Stevenson and We'wha. According to one gossip, "she" regularly
entered the ladies rooms and boudoirs of Washington. How could
Stevenson not know that her intelligent Zuni informant was really, in
the words of one gossip, a "bold, bad man"? More about the 'berdaches' of the Zuni [
1,
2,
3].
Google cache of last (Geocities) link here.
posted by taz
on Mar 10, 2004 -
8 comments
Long Wait for a Taste of Home: Guatemalan Fried Chicken Draws a Crowd. Pollo Campero's first US store in Los Angeles reached the unprecedented sales mark of $1 million in an astounding seven weeks, a daily average of $20.4 thousand. After a full weekend of operation in the Washington DC market,
Pollo Campero broke this record by selling $65 thousand in two days, a daily average of $32.5 thousand. At the franchise in Herndon (Virginia), I have personally seen the line exit the store, cross the front of the building and circle around to the back (at 3pm). Is this fried chicken really that good?
posted by probablysteve
on Oct 31, 2003 -
42 comments
A friend reports that she's in lockdown in her office at
The Canon House Office Building in Washington, D.C. due to a man wielding a .38 pistol. The Canon House Office Building houses 1/3 of the members of the United States Congress. Offices are now being searched for the gunman. He is supposedly a shorter man with dark hair and white shirt. News first emerged of the gunman around an hour ago.
posted by ericrolph
on Oct 30, 2003 -
32 comments
I'm glad I live in D.C. Why? Because we'll never run out of News of the Wierd: "FBI Specialist runs over the foot of a "person of interest" then gets police to issue him a ticket for
'walking to create a hazard'."
posted by omidius
on May 23, 2003 -
4 comments
Politics storms the museum Earlier this month, the National Museum of Natural History opened "Seasons of Life and Land," an exhibit of wildlife photographs by artist-naturalist Subhankar Banerjee. If you go to Washington, you'll find the show hung in the museum's Baird Ambulatory Gallery, essentially a basement hallway installed with lights. Just two months ago, however, it was prepared to run in a more complete form in a premiere gallery on the museum's main floor, alongside a major exhibit of botanical paintings. What happened?
posted by bas67
on May 18, 2003 -
15 comments
They are the weak, the maligned, the oppressed. They are...the
Capitol Hill staffers. (One of the many entertaining features of
Hill Zoo, a site that brings a little humanity back to Washington.)
posted by oissubke
on May 6, 2003 -
4 comments
Streets strewn with glass and gold. In the nation's capitol, freelance 'runners' dash from police station to police station, grabbing auto accident reports the moment they appear and phoning the victims, trying to convince them to file suit. If they succeed, "personal injury cases can be sold to a lawyer for $300 to $600, sometimes more if the victim broke some bones or died. Not bad money." Whatever you may think of the social policy wisdom of D.C. allowing this, this tiny subculture of high-energy hustlers living on the ragged fringe of law and mainstream ethics is colorful as hell, and would make a great context for a novel or film.
WaPo link. [via Overlawyered.com]
posted by Slithy_Tove
on May 6, 2003 -
6 comments
Man drives tractor into a ditch on the Mall. And the tractor stand off continues...
I find it amusing how most DCers are concerned more about the ensuing traffic havoc rather than the startling fact that there's a man with (possibly) explosives camped out on the Mall.
posted by gwong
on Mar 18, 2003 -
41 comments
At D.C. protests, a few hundred thousand go missing - "Like most young Americans, I've been trained to think of protests and demonstrations as something shameful and vaguely embarrassing-something one outgrows, like Journey albums, or those hour-long showers you took when you were eleven and twelve."
Stinging dead-on reportage about the media's coverage of the anti-war movement, from
Matt Taibbi.
posted by GriffX
on Jan 29, 2003 -
66 comments
DC Suburbs slowly getting denser I've been a participant for the past 5 years in what is easily the 2nd-3rd most insane housing market in the US: Washington DC. Apartment occupancy is 99% in the desirable areas, and "affordable starter homes" (in finger quotes) are priced at $250-$350k. People with good jobs can barely afford this. So what happens to folks who are just getting their feet on the ground in the country? More the merrier. How do you strike a balance between providing affordable housing that is accessible to living-wage jobs without running out the existing neighbors?
posted by cpfeifer
on Dec 27, 2002 -
50 comments
Caution: Violent metaphors can blow up in your face. This one (see paragraph two)—which I discovered a day or so before the D.C. snipers were apprehended—struck me at the time as a particularly unfortunate demonstration as to why, especially considering this ad agency is based just outside Washington. George Lakoff, an undisputed Heavyweight Metaphorician of the World, turns the tables and
uses human metaphors rather neatly to think about 9/11. And apparently,
there are workshops that teach how to make nonviolent metaphors more vivid and, the logic goes, make violence less attractive. So, the explosive question: does hostile language encourage conflict or reflect it? Peace out.
posted by micropublishery
on Nov 30, 2002 -
10 comments
Surviving a Sniper A great article about saving one of the D.C. sniper victims:
The doors to the Bowie Health Center had just been unlocked, and Tom Lyons was catching up on paperwork before the usual parade of cut fingers, sore throats and headaches began. [...] He was savoring one last cup of coffee when he heard someone shout for him in the hallway. We've got a gunshot wound!
posted by tommyspoon
on Oct 17, 2002 -
27 comments
Military may take part in DC Sniper Hunt The Pentagon is making some noise about possibly using military personnel and equipment in the hunt for the DC area sniper. I am normally not a paranoid conspiracy type but...
Would it be unthinkable that the government could be behind the whole thing. First they put out trained snipers to kill random victims and scare the hell out of the public. Then the military come in and save the day. At the same time they set a precedent for using the military to "fight crime" in the country. While I don't think this is the case, would you put it past the current administration?
posted by Blubble
on Oct 15, 2002 -
76 comments
TRAPPED, CUFFED & BUSSED Two Diamondback (Univ. of Maryland student newspaper)reporters covering the IMF-World Bank protests were arrested Friday morning and manacled for 23 hours. Surrounded by hundreds of protesters in Pershing Park, Washington Metropolitan Police circled and arrested the entire group. Jason Flanagan and Debra Kahn were there as impartial observers, and despite the newspaper's efforts to release them, they were stripped of all their possessions - even their shoelaces. What follows is a first-person account of their arrest and detention.
posted by Ty Webb
on Oct 2, 2002 -
71 comments
The street where my office is will most likely be fenced off and guarded by police when I roll in tomorrow morning. Conventional wisdom in D.C. for tomorrow is: a) Don't try to drive b) Don't try to take the Metro, either. Great.
posted by GriffX
on Sep 26, 2002 -
76 comments
Boston is having a real brouhaha over grass-roots efforts to return to
rent control. Here in D.C., some folks
aren't happy about a massive vending machine in Adam's Morgan. Meanwhile, D.C. braces for
protests surrounding the upcoming meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.
Is there, in this day and age, a debate raging about the equity, and even the efficacy, of
capitalism? Is
Marxism still a viable vein of thought in the modern age? Are free markets as self-policing as
some folks argue? Or does industry require a
more arduous watchdog?
posted by NedKoppel
on Sep 13, 2002 -
33 comments
Don & Mike v. Opie & Anthony. O&A are hot in New York, but D&M are doing poorly there. The opposite is true here in DC. At the risk of perpetuating a lie by posting this story here, I can't help but think that the on-air fight between these two radio programs from Infinity Broadcasting seems a little contrived. Anyone on metafilter, or any other online forum, knows that a flamewar and controversy breeds interest.
posted by crunchland
on May 28, 2002 -
25 comments
ANTHRAX AGAIN! The World Bank in Washington DC said today that some of its mail had tested positive for possible anthrax contamination. 1200 employees there will be staying home tomorrow. It's the third report of a positive test in DC this week. Hysteria, residue from before, or is it happening all over again?
posted by crunchland
on May 21, 2002 -
11 comments
Ben's Chili Bowl, a Washington, DC institution if ever there was one, has put up a site. This eatery was opened in the 50's, when U St. NW in DC was the 'Black Broadway', survived the riots (and the ensuing economic disintegration) and is going strong today, still run by the family that opened it.
Next time you're in DC, go in and order a few half-smokes just like Bill Cosby does - he and his wife had their first date there - and say hello to Mrs. Ali. If you already live in DC, rejoice in the new online ordering interface and have your chili cheeseburger waiting for you when you breeze through the door.
posted by GriffX
on May 11, 2002 -
12 comments
Cowardice in Washington? Joan Ryan, of the SF Chronicle, takes congress to task for abandoning the capitol at the first sign of danger. Is hiding in a bunker 'letting the terrorists win?'
posted by housepox
on Oct 23, 2001 -
14 comments
