November 06, 2013 - 11:19 am

Shaw Giant reopens Nov. 22

City Market at O

In 16 days the Giant at 7th & O Streets in Shaw will reopen after closing for redevelopment in 2011. The new store occupies 78,000 square feet, making it the largest grocery store in the District, and the closest grocery store to LeDroit Park.

Unlike the previous Giant, which was situated with its back to 9th Street, the new Giant will occupy the former historic market building along 7th Street.  LeDroit residents can easily access the Giant by foot, bike, or the G2 bus, which runs along the north side of the store along P Street on its way between Georgetown and LeDroit Park.

The store is part of a larger development, City Market at O, which includes 182 hotel rooms, 407 market-rate apartments, and 90 affordable apartments for seniors.

Giant isn’t the only store opening soon.  The new Trader Joe’s at 14th & U Streets is set to open early next year.

Store Location Distance (mi)
Giant (opens Nov. 22, 2013) 7th & O Streets NW 0.6
Trader Joe’s (opens early 2014) 14th & U Streets NW 0.9
Safeway 5th & L Streets NW 0.9
Harris Teeter 1st & M Streets NE 1.0
Whole Foods 1400 blk. P Street NW 1.1
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September 06, 2013 - 9:44 am

Three new restaurants and one beer garden open in Shaw

The opening of new restaurants on 14th Street has been prolific enough to merit attention from the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.  These papers might want to turn their attention to Shaw, which is seeing three new restaurants and one beer garden open within a two-week period.  All of these new places are within a mile of LeDroit Park.

Dacha

In time for Oktoberfest, Dacha beer garden opened Wednesday at 1600 7th Street to serve a variety of American, German, and Belgian beers.  Dacha, like the Garden District beer garden (née Standard) on 14th Street, will close for the winter.  After Dacha closes for the season, the owners will start construction on a permanent building to house the kitchen and bar.

Dacha is open weekdays from 4 pm to 10:30 pm and on weekends from noon to midnight.

Tomorrow from 2 pm to 3 pm, Mayor Gray is cutting the ribbon for three other restaurants, Mandalay, Thally, and Baby Wale.

Mandalay

After you finish your beer at Dacha, walk two blocks to Mandalay at 1501 9th Street, a site that has been in the works for several years.  Though the building has been finished for some time, the restaurant, which sits on the ground floor, will open Sunday night for dinner.

Mandalay serves Burmese food, including many vegetarian options.  The restaurant will serve eight family-style dishes at seatings at 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm Tuesdays through Sundays.  Bring your wallet, though, as the prix-fixe menu is $40 on weekdays and $50 on weekends.

Thally

If you’re not in the mood for Burmese food, walk two blocks south on 9th Street to Thally (1316 9th Street), which opened last week.  The restaurant, pronounced like ‘tally’, serves “modern American” food.  First course items range from $8 to $10 and include peach and prosciutto soup, fancy BLTs, and crab roulette.  Main course items range from $17 to $28 and include roasted duck, delmonico steak, and rockfish.

Thally is open from 5 pm to 11:30 pm Tuesdays through Sundays.

Baby Wale (I hope that’s not a menu item!)

If you’re more in the mood for wine and snacks, continue walking two blocks south to Baby Wale (1124 9th Street), a project of the Tom Power, who started Corduroy next door.  Baby Wale, which opened last week, is far more casual than its upscale neighbor and serves soups, salads, sandwiches and “upscale bar food”.  As for alcohol, the place serves specialty cocktails, 80 different bottles of wine, and six draft beers.

Baby Wale opens at 5 pm Mondays through Saturdays.

It’s amazing how quickly new restaurants are opening on Shaw’s primary main streets.  Even more food options are on the way as Progression Place’s storefronts continue to fill and as the new Giant opens in November at 7th and O Streets.

3restaurants1beergarden

 

Name Address Distance Cuisine
Dacha 1600 7th St 0.6 mi beer garden
Mandalay 1501 9th St 0.7 mi Burmese
Thally 1316 9th St 0.8 mi Modern American
Baby Wale 1124 9th St 1.0 mi wine and bar food

 

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July 28, 2013 - 11:05 pm

UNCF and restaurants open at the Shaw Metro

UNCF
The much-anticipated Progression Place, the development at the Shaw Metro is nearing completion.  The United Negro College Fund (UNCF) moved into the office building back in October, purchasing half of the 100,000 square feet of office space.  There is no word yet on who the other office tenants will be.

Mockingbird Hill

Not your father’s sherry

The retail spaces are opening up, with sherry bar Mockingbird Hill (1843 7th St NW) taking the lead on June 7th.  Mockingbird Hill is the brainchild of mixologist Derek Brown, his mixologist wife Chantal Tseng, and business partner Angie Salame.  Mr. Brown also owns The Passenger and The Columbia Room on 7th Street opposite the Convention Center.  Ms. Tseng comes to Mockingbird Hill from the Tabard Inn, where she ran the bar.

Mr. Brown and Ms. Tseng are the powerhouse couple in the DC cocktail scene. The husband and wife duo is determined to introduce a sherry craze in the District.  The bar features over 50 types of sherry and offers several types of carved ham.  Mockingbird Hill is inspired by the ham and sherry bars of Spain, but the interior exposes brick and hangs vintage filament bulbs like many of the hip bars around town.

Can Mr. Brown and Ms. Tseng sell enough sherry to people other than British retirees to stay in business?  Only time will tell, but the husband and wife team is also planning two adjacent ventures, including an oyster bar delightfully named Eat the Rich, slated to open at 1839 7th Street next month.  Chesapeake Bay oysters were once abundant and cheap, making 19th century Washington a hotbed of oyster restaurants.

Another business is brewing

Right Proper Brewing Co.

Around the corner at 624 T Street, Nathan Zeender,  John Snedden, and Thor Cheston are fitting out the former Cafe Manowaj space to open the Right Proper brewpub.  The microbrewery will serve Belgian-style ales and sour beers and allow customers to carry out their beers in growlers.

We will update you as we hear about more retail tenants opening in the building.  Until then, admire Right Proper’s storefront copperwork.

Copper

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July 08, 2012 - 11:56 am

Time lapse video of CityMarket at O

You already know about Trader Joe’s plans for 14th & U Streets next year.  In Shaw the CityMarket at O project will bring a 60,000-square foot Giant that will be LeDroit Park’s closest full-service grocery store.

The project covers two city blocks bounded by 7th, O, 9th and P Streets. Construction is well underway and the construction company has installed a cellphone camera across the street to track the construction progress.  Here’s a time lapse video of the project so far:

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May 27, 2012 - 4:26 pm

Street closures for Chuck Brown’s viewing

Chuck Brown, the Godfather of Go-go, died on May 16. That night a crowd of fans celebrated his life and mourned his death in front of the Howard Theatre.

Brown’s viewing will be held at the Howard Theatre on Tuesday, May 29, from 11 am to 10 pm.  To accomodate the expected crown of mourners, DDOT will close several streets to private automobiles on Tuesday. T Street from 7th Street to Florida Avenue will close from 3 am to midnight. The following streets will close from 9:30 am to midnight:

  • T Street between 9th Street and Florida Avenue
  • 7th Street between Florida Avenue and S Street
  • 8th Street between Florida Avenue and S Street
  • Wiltberger Street between T Street and S Street

You may still walk or bike along these streets, but if you’re driving, it will be best to avoid the area.

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April 19, 2012 - 8:52 am

7th & Florida in ’68, ’88, and today

What happened to all the historic buildings at 7th Street, Florida Avenue, and Georgia Avenue?  We all recognize the CVS and its adjacent parking lot.  As we reported before, the adjacent grassy field is slated for a residential development by JBG, one of the region’s largest development companies.

But how did the CVS, the parking lot, and the grassy field get there in the first place?  They are the consequence of the 1968 riots and of the construction of the Green Line tunnels.

The riots of April 1968 destroyed many of the buildings along 7th Street.  A few months ago we came across this photo in a Congressional report published in the wake of the riots.  The west side of 7th Street from T Street to Florida Avenue was obliterated:

Decades later, the intersection sat at an elbow in the proposed Green Line tunnel.  The subway line curves from 7th Street to Florida Avenue and then to U Street.  Much of the line was constructed using the cut-and-cover method, which requires razing buildings, digging a trench, building a concrete box in the trench, and covering it back over.

Subway tunnels typically run under existing streets, but sharp changes in direction require cutting corners and thus the creation of tunnels where buildings often stand.

A 1988 photograph shows the construction of the Green Line tunnels, which pass under the CVS and adjacent lots.

What the riots didn’t destroy, the Green Line took care of.

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April 06, 2012 - 8:40 am

44 year ago today, Washington burned

A neighbor pointed us to this poignant video footage of the riots that occurred 44 years ago here in Washington after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King.

Contrary to popular belief, suburban flight and urban disinvestment were already well-underway by 1968. The destruction that occurred in American cities that year was not the cause of urban decay; it merely accelerated a pre-existing, post-war urban decline. Most middle-class Americans, regardless of race, do not want to live or shop in a war zone, after all. Thus DC’s commercial districts quickly declined.

The riots that year were a mixed result: they meaningfully displayed frustration at systematized racism in American society, but they also destroyed the essential businesses in DC’s majority-black neighborhoods.

The sociology of the matter is controversial, but it’s important we review accounts of the history just to know what happened.

Look carefully at video and you’ll recognize 7th Street in Shaw, U Street, and 14th Street. Washington was never the same after April 1968.

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March 24, 2012 - 9:49 am

Howard Theatre encourages private parking

To reduce the liklihood that patrons will park on residential streets around the Howard Theatre, the theatre will sell prepaid private parking through Ticketmaster.  The passes are for private lots owned by Howard University and other private owners.

In fact, we were looking on Ticketmaster at prices and availability for April’s Wanda Sykes show and spotted this prominent parking add-on at the bottom:

The lots described above are as follows:

  • Valet shuttle Lot B – Howard University’s large parking lot at Georgia Avenue and W Street.
  • Self-parking Lot A – Howard University’s HURB-I parking lot at 7th & T Streets.
  • Premier Valet – private triangle lot at T Street and Florida Avenue, across from the theater.

When Progression Place, the office and apartment project at the Shaw Metro, finally opens, the theatre will lay claim to a significant number of the project’s underground parking spaces during nighttime hours, thus adding a another option.

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March 16, 2012 - 1:57 pm

Vocal opponents try to quash a new area restaurant

Few things rile up neighbors like liquor licenses. Just outside LeDroit Park at 8th and T Streets, a proposal for a new restaurant, All Souls, has elicited the ire of several neighbors. The objectors, though small in number, are trying to stop a local restaurateur from turning a vacant storefront, pictured above, into a community asset. Much of this opposition is unwise and unwarranted and will hold back neighborhood improvement.  We have heard the objections to All Souls for several months and would like to see this restaurant finally come to fruition.

While some objections, particularly regarding outdoor noise late into the night, are certainly reasonable, a few objectors have damaged their own credibility with an array of spurious objections.

The first of such complaints is that a restaurant serving alcohol across the street from an elementary school is unsavory. This is a red herring. Restaurants cannot serve alcohol to 10-year-olds and the main business of restaurants is at night, several hours after school has ended.  The restaurateur has agreed to not serve alcohol before 5 pm.

The most ludicrous objection we heard is that patrons on the patio on 8th Street (along the blank wall in the photo above) will leer into a neighboring house.  This is another red herring as drawing one’s window blinds or curtains can easily solve this problem.

Another objection is that a restaurant is inappropriate for what one objector alleged is a “residential street”. This is not entirely true.  Most of the 1900 block of 8th Street is actually in a commercial zone C-2-B, which is intended for commercial uses, but also allows residential uses.

The restaurant site is surrounded by a residential zone (R-4) on three sides.  Nonetheless, all zones have boundaries in which differing uses abut each other.  It is the responsibility of residents to research and understand the zoning implications of where they live.  It is also important for residents to understand their limitations in dictating how other people lawfully use their own property.

The restaurant building, as marked in the map below, is zoned for commercial uses (C-2-A), which permits restaurants as a matter of right.  The law is very clear in this case that a restaurant is permitted in this location.  The issuance of the alcohol license, which is necessary for any reastaurant to survive financially, is not by right, but must be requested.  Thus, it is only in the alcohol license that the objectors have a viable case to block the business.

All Souls will improve the quality of life in several ways. It will provide a sit-down restaurant, something we consider a desirable neighborhood amenity. It will provide more eyes on the street to deter crime. Drug dealers and criminals at 7th & T Streets will feel less confident in their criminality when they see that there are numerous witnesses at sidewalk tables 100 feet away.

Most importantly, the conversion of a vacant property (pictured to the right) into a vibrant, occupied use improves the impression of the neighborhood. People rightly look upon vacant and abandoned space negatively. They look at active, lively restaurants positively. All Souls will improve the image of the neighborhood by improving the quality of life.

Let’s hope the unreasonable objections of a few don’t derail a potential community asset that we suspect the silent majority supports.

 

 

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October 05, 2011 - 4:52 pm

Neighboring heritage trail opening soon

Lift Every VoiceCultural Tourism DC is finishing the installation of the signs for the Georgia Ave./Pleasant Plains Heritage Trail. Here is one we spotted outside the Dunbar Theater (now Wells Fargo bank) at 7th and T Streets NW.

The trail opening event will be on Saturday, October 15 at 11 am at the plaza in front of Howard University Hospital.

Work on the heritage trail for LeDroit Park and Bloomingdale has progressed greatly and we are on our way to having our own trail to honor LeDroit Park’s rich history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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