Tag Archives: Washington DC

Gaia’s New Mural on Barracks Row

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Gaia mural, Barracks Row, Washington, DC, May 2013

This is one in a series featuring our city neighborhoods and the people who love them. Would you like to participate? Click here for more information about contributing to Neighborhood Nomads.

May 7, 2013, Washington, DC: Talented street artists Gaia and Nanook recently completed this massive mural on the side of a building in my neighborhood on Barracks Row. The newly opened Persian restaurant Tash and Asian restaurant Nooshi now feature this image of a woman with fish and fishing boats flowing into her hair, a piece as vibrant as city life itself on this DC main street. Because not many people experience their surroundings like this — from atop a ladder, creating large-scale art that the neighbors will see everyday, I suspected 24-year old Gaia might have a unique perspective to share with Neighborhood Nomads. When he replied that, “The fish were a delight to massage into the wall,” those suspicions were confirmed.

Read on for more from this artistic neighborhood nomad…

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Cranes, Change and Buried Treasure

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Construction at The Maples, Washington, DC, May 2013

Construction at the Maples/Friendship House on Capitol Hill, May 2013. 

May 3, 2013, Washington, DC: The cranes went up about a week ago, and as far as I can tell the heavy lifting began yesterday morning, 5 a.m. We awoke to powerful construction noise that lasted just 10 minutes or so, and this morning at precisely 7 a.m., it began again. A changing streetscape is something we’ve grown accustomed to seeing, but this time we’ll also hear it. We’ll listen to the transformation of the historic property known as the Maples and later the Friendship House as it morphs into condominiums throughout the seasons ahead.

In the few years we’ve lived nearby, the place has been vacant, a spooky old home that makes kids cross to the other side of the street on Halloween. But the old mansion has a long and incredible history on Capitol Hill, recorded by groups like the Capitol Hill Restoration Society, the city’s Historic Preservation Review Board and the Library of Congress. In the 1790s, its original owner, Captain William Duncanson, was one of the first landowners in the nation’s capital; others who lived there include Francis Scott Key, Senator John Clayton, and my personal favorite, Emily Edson Briggs, the first female newspaper correspondent to cover the White House — Lincoln’s White House, that is. Rumor also has it there’s a hidden wine cellar deep underground there, and the moment I hear anything about it from the construction crews or anyone else, I’ll be sure to let you know. DC tour guide Canden Schwantes told me about it a few weeks back and thus far I’ve just found this newspaper article from 1970 to fuel my fascination with the possibility of nearby buried treasure.

Cranes on the horizon. There’s not much room left for them in dense places like Manhattan, but here in D.C., they still stop traffic on Massachusetts Ave. near Chinatown and dominate the O Street Market project, and serve to mark the spot in places like this one, where land is full of history and treasures, and transformation is underway.

Do cranes often appear on the landscape where you live? And have those of you in Washington heard stories about the hidden wine cellar?

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At Day’s End: A Tour Guide’s True DC

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impromptu block party, northeast dc

Photo Credit: Canden Schwantes 

This is one in a series featuring our city neighborhoods and the people who love them. Would you like to participate? Click here for more information about contributing to Neighborhood Nomads.

April 24, 2013, Washington, DC: Washington tour guide Canden Schwantes is living proof that Capitol Hill is not all senators, congressman and politicos. She may spend her days telling stories of great American history on the National Mall, but at the end of the day, she returns home to a neighborhood on the northeast side of the city where the narrative is very much happening in the present day. It’s a place where grills and guitars are dragged out onto the sidewalk for impromptu block parties, where children publish their poetry and adults make music.

Canden is at home among many creative types who live just off the H Street corridor of Capitol Hill; in addition to being a tour guide, she’s also a writer whose first book, “Wicked Georgetown: Scoundrels, Sinner and Spies” is due out next month. I first heard about her when I learned of Literary Hill BookFest, a neighborhood festival coming up May 5th at Eastern Market, where Canden will be debuting her work. Right away, I thought the local authors featured at the festival might make for good additions to Neighborhood Nomads — not only because they’re my neighbors, but because they’re people who know a thing or two about the role a strong setting can play in telling a good story.

Read on for an interview with Canden Schwantes about the neighborhoods of Washington, both past and present.

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Potomac Days

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Georgetown from the Potomac River, Washington, DC, April 2013 Columbia Island Marina, Potomac, April 2013

April 21, 2013, Washington, DC: Late April in Washington this year marks the beginning of our Potomac days. We’re off to a later start than normal, it seems, but we don’t let the chill in the air stop us. We check on our yellow kayak and introduce ourselves to Nicholas, the new manager at the Key Bridge Boathouse formerly known as Jack’s. Soon we’ll be there often, grilling by the water’s edge and pushing off from the dock for short trips past Georgetown’s already crowded waterfront steps towards Watergate and the Kennedy Center. When the weekend comes, we bundle in fall layers and bike down to the marina, hitching a ride on a friend’s boat out of Washington Channel and around Hains Point into the Potomac where the river gets wide. We are making preparations for summer Saturdays. We are getting reacquainted with the water.

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Welcome Home Nationals

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Nationals Park, April 3, 2012, Washington, DC

April 4, 2013, Washington, DC: Shortly after landing in Washington from spring training, Nationals phenom Bryce Harper announced his arrival to the nearly 200,000 people who follow him on Twitter. “DC, I’m home!!” the 20-year old reported with apparent glee, judging from the multiple exclamation marks and hashtags #NatsFamily and #DCLove that followed his declaration. Within the week, he’d also asked his fans for restaurant suggestions, a barbershop recommendation, and the whereabouts of late night donuts. Oh, and he hit two homeruns out of the park on Opening Day.

Harper’s new teammate Denard Span is likewise embracing Washington, the city of his birth. In his first week in town, the only player with Washington, DC listed on the roster caught the NCAA tournament at the Verizon Center and made a stop into the Library of Congress. Ryan Mattheus took in a Wizards game with his family. Pitcher Gio Gonazalez dined at Dupont’s Lauriol Plaza and Georgetown’s Filomena before hitting a solo homer Wednesday night.

Yes, this week the city’s best season officially arrived. Not in the form of cherry blossoms or tourists crowding the Metro or Easter eggs on the White House lawn, but in the form of a freezing cold night game like Wednesday’s, rooting on the ballplayers who love Washington from a seat in right field. The city’s best season has arrived because the Nationals are back in town and they seem as happy to see the city as the city is to see them. Because they are first and foremost here with a job to do, and because this year they might do it better than any other team in baseball. But also because they’re not just “here for work” like countless professionals who come and go within the Beltway. The Washington Nationals are here to settle in and become a true part of this city as the weather grows warm.

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Nationals Park, April 3, 2012, Washington, DC

Snap Happy Easter

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easter barracks row, dc 2013March 31, 2013, Washington, DC: A sunny Saturday Easter egg hunt along Barracks Row preceded this cloudy holiday and the kids of Capitol Hill got out to enjoy the day. Check out all these tiny neighborhood nomads searching up and down the city sidewalks for eggs! What can I say? This place is photogenic. It doesn’t have a bad side and it is full of beautiful families.

Neighborhood Nomads wishes yours a snap happy Easter, wherever you might be.

See the rest of my Easter photos on Barracks Row Main Street’s Picasa page.

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The Real Reason I Love It Here

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culinary crawl 2013, barracks row, washington, dc

February 19, 2013, Washington, DC: It seems somewhat disingenuous to have come this far on Neighborhood Nomads without mentioning one of the main reasons I love living where I do. In truth, it’s the pizza. As someone who could eat pizza seven days a week, living mere blocks from both Matchbox and Seventh Hill, the city’s best pizza joints in my expert opinion, is a definite draw. If ever we move away from here, it’ll be pizza I crave most.

That said, I loved taking these photos at Sunday morning’s pizza class at Matchbox. The class was part of the weekend’s Culinary Crawl, during which the neighborhood was transformed into a cooking school with local chefs convening classes in their restaurants on Barracks Row and in the fabulous teaching kitchen in the nearby Hill Center. I was happy to again document the courses for Barracks Row Main Street (see the rest of my photos on their Picasa page), but mostly I felt lucky to be at Matchbox before 10 a.m. as the group talked pizza, rolled their dough, and flung it high into the air. A camera sprinkled with flour is a sign the day is off to a good start.

matchbox pizza, washington, DC

Is there any food in your neighborhood that you simply can’t live without? Divulge your favorites in the Comments section below.

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