Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr

There are several upcoming LeDroit park events.

Sunday: LeDroit Park historical walking tour

As part of the annual WalkingTown DC event, I will lead two free walking tours of the neighborhood. The tours will be on Sunday, September 30 at 1 pm and again at 3:30 pm. Meet me at the arch at 6th Street and Florida Avenue NW.  The tours are free and open to the public.

Monday: Monthly LeDroit Park happy hour

Come for drinks, free appetizers, and chat with your neighbors Monday, October 1 from 6 to 8 at Nellie’s (9th & U Streets NW).  Nellie’s owner, a LeDroit Park resident, has kindly donated appetizers for the event.

How was LeDroit Park established and who built all those unique homes on U Street? Why did the neighborhood start as exclusively white but become so important to black history? As part of the annual WalkingTown DC event, I will lead two free walking tours of the neighborhood.

The tours will be on Sunday, September 30 at 1 pm and again at 3:30 pm. Meet me at the arch at 6th Street and Florida Avenue NW.  The tours are free and open to the public.

We’ll cover

• The neighborhood’s founding
• Relationship with the Howard Theatre
• Architectural history
• The Park at LeDroit
• Walter Washington
• Ernest Everett Just
• Robert & Mary Church Terrell
• Anna Julia Cooper
• William Birney
• Edward Brooke
• Octavius Williams
• Oscar De Priest
• Griffith Stadium

Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr

It’s that time again! Come for drinks, free appetizers, and chat with your neighbors Monday, September 10 from 6 to 8 at Nellie’s (9th & U Streets NW).  Nellie’s owner, a LeDroit Park resident, has kindly donated appetizers for the event.

We had a very large turnout in August. Aside from the usual suspects, I got to meet a neighbor five doors down and another neighbor around the corner.

Back in 2009 we noted that Google had updated all its streetview photos of LeDroit Park. What we didn’t notice is that Google for some time now has been adding panoramic photos of the interiors of local businesses.

Drag the little streetview man to U Street, for instance, and you’ll notice two types of blue dots. The darker blue dots are user-contributed photos. The lighter dots, however, give you tours inside the buildings.

Google has covered a good deal of U Street and 14th Street.  The closest venue to LeDroit Park is Wazobia at T and Wiltberger Streets. You can even “walk around” these establishment and pan and zoom the images.

Here are a few notable places near LeDroit Park and along U Street:

• Wanda’s Hair Salon – 1851 7th Street (Wanda’s has moved)
• Greg’s Barber Shop – 1909 7th Street – (old-timey cash register to boot!)
• Nellie’s – 900 U Street – (blown-up print of Nellie Storrs Newman behind the bar)
• Dickson Wine Bar – 903 U Street
• Zula Ethiopian Restaurant – 1933 9th Street
• Lounge of Three – 1013 U Street NW – (Sign reads, “Music we play may cause severe neck injury.”)
• 9:30 Club – 815 V Street NW
• Ben’s Chilli Bown – 1213 U Street NW – (Sign famously notes that only the Obamas and Bill Cosby eat for free)

Tulips on the 200 block of Elm Street NW

Nothing says spring like pastel tulips on a sunny Easter morning.  Much to the benefit of passersby, one Elm Street resident caught tulipmania this year!

What do Wale, Wanda Sykes, the Roots, Esperanza Spalding, and Chuck Berry have in common?  They are all performing at the Howard Theatre in April.  Also, each Sunday the theatre will host a gospel brunch and gospel choir.

We have studied the neighborhood’s name before, noting that ‘Le Droit’ evolved to ‘LeDroit’. But wait, there’s more! The neighborhood’s pronunciation is still debated today.

This became clear during the DC Council’s debate on the formal naming of our park when the two pronunciations emerged on the dias and on Twitter. Is it pronounced LEE-droyt and luh-DROYT?

Many residents and Councilmember Graham (D – Ward 1) pronounce it LEE-droyt. Other residents, this writer included, pronounce it luh-DROYT. A friend on Twitter jokingly asked, “Does anybody pronounce it Luh-Dwah, like a Frenchman?”

Ultimately how you pronounce it doesn’t matter, but we suspect Frenching it up as luh-DWAH might take it over the top.

We Love DC alerted us to Afro Blue, an a cappella group at Howard University, that recently competed on NBC’s The Sing Off.

Afro Blue sang Corinne Bailey Ray’s 2006 song “Put Your Records On“:

Photo by M.V. Jantzen on Flickr

Come for drinks, appetizers, and chat with your neighbors tonight from 6 to 8 at Nellie’s (9th & U Streets NW).  The LeDroit Park Civic Association has started organizing monthly happy hours at Nellie’s, whose owner, a LeDroit resident, has kindly donated appetizers and space at the upstairs bar.

The civic association has reached out via Twitter to residents in Bloomingdale and Shaw to join us.

Bloomingdale resident Snorre Wik has produced this video of the shuttered McMillan Sand Filtration Site.

Several months ago the city decided to reset development plans for the site and do part of the preliminary traffic and groundwater studies itself.  We will keep you posted as development plans for the site inch along.