Hellbender Brewing Company (5788 2nd Street NE) currently has a regular lineup featuring Grassfed Griddle on Thursdays, Timber Pizza on Fridays and Saturdays, and We Rise Bread Company on Sundays. You can stay warm at one of the outdoor tables with firepits and newly installed patio heaters nearby. Or stop by and order your food to go.
In Lamond, 3 Stars Brewing Company (6400 Chillum Place NW) has teamed up with Rose’s Luxury for pickup options. In addition, you can find a rotating cast of popup options.
And as always, our neighborhood coffee shop Culture Coffee Too (300 Riggs Road NE) is open Tuesday through Saturday for coffee, tea, and sandwiches.
Did you know that the District of Columbia government has been working on dramatically increasing access to free W-Fi since January 2017? This work is being done through the DC Smart Street Lighting program to replace approximately 75,000 streetlights bulbs with energy-efficient light emitting diodes (LEDs). This project also includes “installing wireless access points across the District, improving the DC-NET Wi-Fi program.” More detailed information on the Smart Street Program can be found here.
On January 24, 2017, the District of Columbia government hosted an industry forum to discuss the concept of the Smart Street Lighting program. The information flyer is available here. Today, the program is still ongoing. However, the capacity of DC-Net has been increased with the installation of new wireless access hubs throughout the city. DC-Net now offers an online map of its free Wi-Fi network. By just entering your address, you can see the Wi-Fi access hubs nearest you.
While the digital divide still exists, DC-Net has made free Wi-Fi more accessible through the DC Smart Street Lighting program.
I don’t even know what to say. When throngs descended on Washington, DC, at the invitation of Donald J. Trump, to take over the Capitol to disrupt the electoral process.
Last night, several of the DC Main Streets came together to celebrate DC Holiday Lights, a citywide intiative to encourage residents and visitors to shop small this holiday season. Participating small and local businesses adorned their storefronts with holiday displays, earning a chance for recognition in several award categories. I was a judge for businesses in The Parks Main Street (TPMS) corridors in Riggs Park and Manor Park, along with four other judges: Joseph Gibbs, Lamond-Riggs resident and chair of the TPMS design committee; Ray Crawford, Manor Park resident and member of the TPMS design committee; Cam, Ray’s son and a student at Shepherd Elementary School; and Zara, Riggs Park resident and student at LaSalle-Backus Education Campus.
The virtual awards ceremony was a fun, festive affair. Local musician Carley Harvey provided entertainment prior to the start of the official ceremony. Kristi Whitfield, Director of the DC Department of Small and Local Business Development, and Ward 5 Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie, Chair of the Committee on Business and Economic Development, gave short remarks. Then each participating Main Street took turns announcing their award winners. The Parks Main Street Executive Director Edwin Washington introduced our two youth judges, Zara and Cam, who did a great job enthusiastically presenting the TPMS winners. Zara and Cam received lots of kudos from the other Main Street directors and attendees.
The Parks Main Street Holiday Lights winners are listed below.
Hellbender located at 5788 2nd Street NE. Photo credit: Edwin Washington
Best of Show – Judges’ Choice & Also People’s Choice:The Davis Center
Judges Ray Crawford and his son Cam in front of The Davis Center located at 6218 3rd Street NW. Photo credit: Ray Crawford
Culture Coffee Too also had one of my favorite displays. All of the windows are beautifully and elegantly lit and adorned with holiday bows, and a coffee-drinking Santa Claus door display greets visitors.
Culture Coffee Too located at 300 Riggs Road NE
There is still time to safely check out the holiday lights in each of the participating Main Streets and to participate in the citywide scavenger hunt for a chance to win prizes. There are a couple of clues right here in the neighborhood. The scavenger hunt ends on December 31.
Thanks to all of the participating businesses for brightening the final weeks of 2020.
This Thursday, the DC Department of Insurance, Securities, and Banking (DISB) is holding a virtual meeting on flood and water damage that some may find useful.
Please join the Department of Insurance, Securities and Banking for a virtual Flood and Water Damage Forum. Learn how to protect your property from water damage due to flooding, as well as resources and complaint processes available if damage occurs.
Join by Phone: 1-650-479-3208 Access Code: 172-803-5464
3 Starts Brewing in Lamond is hosting a nonperishable food drive this Saturday, November 21, 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm. Drop off nonperishable foods and get one dollar off beer. Special request for low-sodium and whole grain products. Local vendors will also be selling unique holiday gifts from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The brewery is located at 6400 Chillum Place NW.
On Sunday, November 1, 2020, the Tischa Cockrell for ANC 4B-09 Campaign will gather (socially distanced, outside) at Hellbender Brewing Company from 12:00 pm to 2:00 pm. The brewery will open an hour early at 12:00 pm for Tischa’s campaign, and a food truck will also be available.
This is a great chance to meet the candidate and learn more about the race to represent 4B-09 as ANC Commissioner.
Hellbender Brewing Company 5788 2nd Street NE, Washington D.C. 20011 Just up 2nd Street behind Walmart
Check your registration: Confirm your registration to make sure your ballot goes to the right address. You can check your registration online. The Board of Elections also recently mailed postcards to registered voters. If the information on yours was correct, you’re all set. If you need to change anything on that postcard, fill it out, fold it, tape it and mail it back.
Register to vote: If you are not registered to vote, visit the DC Board of Elections website to find out how to register. You can also register or update your registration if you go to vote in-person, which is called “same-day registration.”
Vote by mail or ballot drop box: When you receive your ballot in the mail, you can fill it out and return it by mail. Read all the instructions carefully to make sure you fill out everything required and send it back by the deadline. If you prefer, instead of mailing it back, you can drop it in a secure ballot drop box. In Lamond-Riggs, there will be drop boxes at UDC-CC Backus (5171 South Dakota Avenue NE) and the Lamond Recreation Center (20 Tuckerman Street NE). Any voter can use any drop box location.
Voting in person and early voting: If you prefer to vote in person, you can visit a vote center on Election Day, November 3. The vote centers in Lamond-Riggs will be at UDC-CC Backus (5171 South Dakota Avenue NE), the Lamond Recreation Center (20 Tuckerman Street NE), and LaSalle-Backus Education Campus (501 Riggs Road NE).
You can also vote early starting October 27. The closest early voting sites to Lamond-Riggs will be at Ida B. Wells Middle School (405 Sheridan Street NW), Emery Heights Community Center (5801 Georgia Avenue NW), and Turkey Thicket Recreation Center (1100 Michigan Avenue NE).
For more information: Check with the DC Board of Elections for updates or if you have questions. Their website is https://www.dcboe.org and their phone number is (202) 727-2525. Remember that in-person lines and telephone wait times can be long on Election Day, so make your voting plan in advance if possible.
Workers needed: Looking to make some extra money and serve your community? The Board of Elections is hiring election day workers. If you’re 16 or older and a DC resident, you can be an election day worker! Apply online or find more information here.
Catching up on some older news. Earlier this month, Riggs Park had a cameo on an episode of House Hunters on HGTV. An engaged couple looking for more space looked at three homes during the episode. Residents might notice the second home is near the Riggs-LaSalle Recreation Center. The caption on the home says it is in Queens Chapel area (probably because that is what Google maps calls part of the neighborhood), but the house hunter calls the neighborhood Riggs Park. Check it out.
On June 29, 2020, the DC Public Charter School Board (DCPCSB) voted to fully approve a 15-year charter for the Social Justice School, effective July 1, 2020. School officials have attended several ANC 5A meetings over the past year to inform residents about plans. The school will be located at 5450 3rd Street NE. The school has a three year lease agreement with Rocketship Public Charter School to co-locate at the site, with a one-year option to extend. Construction to renovate the old warehouses at this location to house school facilities is ongoing.
According to documents on file, Social Justice School will operate a middle school serving grades 5 through 8. For its first year of operation in school year 2020-2021, the school has a target enrollment of 65 students–maximum 75 students–in grades 5 and 6. Its goal is to grow the student population to a total of 300 students in grades 5 through 8 by school year 2023-2024. On June 16, 2020, the day after the school enrollment deadline, the school had 41 enrolled students. Because enrollment lags target, the DCPCSB required the school to develop a contingency budget. See the contingency budget here and the contingency budget narrative here. The DCPCSB determined that the school will be financially viable with an enrollment of 41 students and that the school will have sufficient resources to deliver its programs:
Based on the review of the contingency budget, DC PCSB staff concludes that, at an enrollment of 41 students: ● The school will be financially viable. The budget shows a positive net income of $59,558 and 112 days of cash on hand. To help offset decreased revenue, Social Justice PCS has secured a $500,000 credit enhancement from the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) and a $250,000 loan from CityBridge for facilities-related costs if required. Also, NewSchools Venture Fund has promised an additional $160,000-grant pending its full charter approval (see Attachment B). ● The school will have sufficient resources to deliver its program. The budget maintains appropriate levels of staffing, including one English language arts teacher, one math teacher, one science/wellness teacher, and one liberatory design thinking teacher. Some key personnel positions have been reimagined. For example, the executive director will assume the responsibilities of the principal, while the previously identified principal will serve as the founding math teacher. Also, the director of student supports with [sic] oversee both case management and service delivery for the projected four English learners and nine students with disabilities.
It is still too early to know what school will look like for DC students in the fall. If in-person classes are scheduled, with Rocketship, AppleTree, and Social Justice School at the campus at 3rd Street and Kennedy Street NE, we will have quite a few new students in this corner of the neighborhood.
Dr. Anthony Ramdass, owner of neighborhood pharmacy Ramdass Pharmacy, discusses his work assisting vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 pandemic in this column by Courtland Milloy in the Washington Post. Dr. Ramdass visits homes of seniors to deliver prescriptions and vaccinations. This is one column by Mr. Milloy that I am happy to promote. Learn a bit about our neighborhood pharmacist and why health equity is so important.
A neighbor asked to share information about her missing cat. Please contact Karen at the phone number or email address below if you spot Ma’Cat.
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My Siamese mix cat, Ma’Cat, has been missing since Tuesday, May 26. He’s tan/brown with a black face and paws, and striking blue eyes. (He has seal point colors…) He’s an indoor/outdoor cat (though more indoor than outdoor). He was a rescue from the streets of Delaware, so he’s generally not afraid to be outside. He is a medium size cat. He’s neutered. He has a microchip but no collar (it always falls off).
We live on 8th Street, NE, between South Dakota and Gallatin. After I posted on FaceBook and some local listservs (NextDoor and Brookland list), two folks said they may have seen Ma’Cat on Chillum between 11th and Jefferson. I’ve put up a bunch of fliers in the area but no luck so far. Looking for a lost cat is kind of like looking for a needle in a haystack, but he might be hiding out in Riggs Park. If anyone may have seen Ma’Cat, please give me a call at 202-640-8679 or email me at karen.orenstein@gmail.com.
Anything folks can do that could help us find Ma’Cat would be deeply appreciated. His 6 year old human brother misses him!
It is a tough time in DC and around the country right now. In the midst of a pandemic, we are seeing nationwide protests catalyzed by police brutality, racialized violence, systemic inequalities, and the deaths and mistreatment of Black people. People are grieving and people are also mobilizing.
I think most readers of the blog know I am a Black woman. What many do not know is that my father was killed by police when I was a junior in college. This was over 15 years ago when facebook was just becoming a thing. And now of course we have a ton of social media and so many ways of having conversations and expressing ourselves, so people are having difficult conversations around policing, race, equity, and democracy. We were already having many of these conversations in DC before the protests because of concerns around gentrification and change in this city, but protests have a way of focusing dialogue.
So I did want to take a moment to acknowledge this moment. There are a lot of resources out there for people who want to participate and also just learn. The National Museum of African American History and Culture just released a new portal called “Talking About Race.” Anyways, I encourage neighbors to find ways to embrace this moment as we continue to take care of ourselves and one another.
Recently blog contributor David Kosub got in touch with Stephanie Mills Trice to share information about her Voices of the DC Fort Totten Storytellers Project. The project was supported by a DC Oral History Collaborative grant in 2018, providing an oral history of the Fort Totten neighborhood, which sits west of the Fort Totten metro station between Fort Totten Park, the Old Soldiers’ Home, and Rock Creek Church Cemetary.
Ms. Mills Trice states,
As a product of Fort Totten, Jules Johnson and I wanted to tell the truths of our childhood fun and the history of African Americans in the 1950s beginning to enjoy the equal opportunity of purchasing homes in the community developed by Morris Cafritz. ➢ 2011 – We met at the PG County Library on September 19th and the idea was born ➢ 2017 ~ I received an email from Marion Woodfork Simmons written on my birth date March 10 to AAHGS members about oral history training and funding opportunities for individuals with family in DC to partner with DCOHC to conduct interviews. • 1st interviewee – Arnetta Missy Barnes, DC native, 2nd cousin, 94 years young shares OH • Missy’s father, Frank worked at Hotel Harrington when he passed in 1925 and in her possession was the original 1925 bereavement donation list on the hotel letterhead with the address 11th & E St NW which still is within of walking distance to the Foggy Bottom area. ➢ 2018 ~ After a 7 year hiatus and on a whim, I put in for a DCOHC grant detailing what was envisioned back in 2011 and the powers to be or serendipity itself I was awarded the grant.
Through the journey, we were able to create a network of friends and neighbors who wanted to share their untold life experiences of living in Fort Totten and to-date the collection totals 20 oral histories and still growing. Even more exciting was to end the project with a community celebration at The Modern at Art Place thanks to the Cafritz Foundation the owners and descendants of the developer, Morris Cafritz.
The Cafritz Foundation has filed a Modification of Consequence for Block B of Art Place at Fort Totten seeking approval for modifications to the residential, family entertainment zone, and landscaping components of the plan approved by the Zoning Commission. ANC Commissioner Gordon Fletcher (5A08) will be having a single member district meeting at some point to discuss the proposed changes.
Proposed residential component changes:
Modifications to the façade and fenestration treatment of the residential structure along the former 4th Street and Ingraham Street;
Raising the proposed pedestrian bridge across the closed 4th Street one level – to the third floor;
Creation of a central lobby for the residential building;
Grouping of the 30 artist affordable units in the northern tower to create more of an actual artist community rather than having the units dispersed throughout two towers; and
Creation of separate loading areas for each portion of the residential building rather than having one large loading area.
Proposed Family Entertainment Zone (FEZ) component changes:
Increase in height of the drum and fins by eighteen inches to better screen the roof structure;
Reduction in the massing of the structure above the Aldi grocery store along South Dakota Avenue; and
Internal modifications that result in slightly modified square footage for the various uses.
Proposed landscape component changes:
Redesign of the Kennedy Street Plaza – removing the previously approved circular drive and vehicular drop-off area;
Relocation of the dog park to property adjacent to Block B on the west side of former 4th Street; and
Enlarged 4th Street central plaza for additional restaurant seating
The plan previously included one remaining Riggs Plaza apartment building on the west side of 4th and Kennedy Street NE to accommodate remaining Riggs Plaza tenants. The filing states, “The building that was previously shown in this location is now vacant and is no longer necessary for tenant relocation purposes, as the remaining Riggs Plaza Apartments tenant has been provided relocation opportunities.” So it looks like that space can now accommodate the dog park. Eventually Kennedy Street will be realigned during a future phase.
Heads up, Galloway Street between South Dakota Avenue and 7th Street NE will be closed on Tuesdays and Thursdays when COVID-19 testing is being conducted at UDC-CC Bertie Backus. The alley just behind the campus will also be closed to traffic. The testing hours are 10:00 am to 2:00 pm, but the security and police officers I spoke to stated they start closing off the street between 8:30 am and 9:00 am. This is the first day of testing so they are hoping to establish a consistent schedule for when they set up and take down street barriers.
Today at her daily press conference, Mayor Muriel Bowser announced that UDC-CC’s Bertie Backus campus will serve as a COVID-19 testing site open on Tuesdays and Thursdays beginning on April 23, 2020. The campus is located at 5171 South Dakota Avenue NE. Appointment is required. Call the testing hotline at (855) 363-0333.
Greater Greater Washington has questionnaire responses from Robert White, the incumbent Democratic At-Large councilmember and the sole Democratic candidate for an At-Large seat on the DC Council for the primary election scheduled for June 2, 2020. The questionnaire covers issues such as building more housing, bus lanes and bike lanes, how to improve the process for planned unit developments, transit subsidies, and how to improve public housing. Check it out here.
Posting has been light since the COVID-19 pandemic public health emergency began and it will continue to be light. We are all being deluged with emails and ever-changing information every single day and I do not want to add to the pile.
Hopefully by now everyone is plugged into the best information sources. DC’s COVID-19 website is coronavirus.dc.gov. That comprehensive site has information on topics such as free meal/grocery locations, COVID-19 testing, and unemployment insurance. In addition, DC councilmembers are all sending daily updates so reach out to your councilmember if you are interested in being added to their list. Residents are instructed to wear masks to grocery stores, pharmacies, and large retail centers, so do not be surprised if you are turned away if you are not wearing one. ETA: Metro also instructs riders (both metrorail and metrobus) to wear masks. The mayor’s order has been extended to May 15.
Please consider supporting organizations that are supporting individuals and families in need, such as Capital Area Food Bank, Food & Friends, and Martha’s Table. Mutual aid networks have been established across the city. Ward 4’s is here and Ward 5’s is here. Empower DC has a handy community resource guide with links to many different places that are providing resources and that are also accepting donations.
Many residents are supporting local businesses by ordering delivery and takeout. In Riggs Park, Culture Coffee Too has decided to close operations until the public health emergency is over. The Parks Main Street notes Hunan Shrimp Boat, Ramdass Pharmacy, Riggs Dry Cleaners, and Riggs Liquor are all open. In addition, Hellbender is open for curbside pickup with Timber Pizza available on the weekends and lately has been making pre-ordered oysters available for pickup on Thursdays as well. Washington City Paper has a handy article about how to be a good restaurant patron at this time.
Remember to fill out the Census 2020 questionnaire that you should have received in the mail and be sure to request a mail-in (absentee) ballot for the DC primary election that will be held in June. There will be a very small number of precincts open so officials are strongly encouraging all residents to vote by mail.
There will be a few posts coming up this week. If anyone is interested in publishing a post, please reach out. I hope everyone is taking care and staying healthy.
Next Stop...Riggs Park 