October 6, 2010 | 2:01 PM | By Anna
I just learned that the “Mosquito”, an anti-loitering device which emits a high-pitched beeping that only young people can hear (supposedly) has been turned off at Gallery Place. I write “supposedly” because I’m a wizened old 35 and I could hear it, easily. It was meant to annoy (and thus discourage) the hordes of teens who congregate nearby– some residents think the youth are a nuisance, some business owners worry that they scare off customers. Now, after a month of meeping and beeping, the Mosquito is quiet because “a youth rights activist complained of age discrimination”. More:
The decision to install it at Gallery Place came after a meeting in July, at the office of D.C. Council member Jack Evans (D-Ward 2), between District officials and business owners who were concerned about the impact of loitering and lawlessness.
In a letter to The Washington Post and the city human rights office, Transwestern, the company that manages the Gallery Place retail, office and residential complex, said the District’s lack of an anti-loitering ordinance limits the ability of police to control crowds. According to the letter, Transwestern told the July meeting that drugs and stolen merchandise were being sold at the Metro entrance at Seventh and H streets; the company recommended the Mosquito as a deterrent to loitering.
Hey Transwestern– you may want to pay closer attention to what’s actually happening in the area. An employee who would only speak to me anonymously told me that the drug vending had nothing to do with teens. He said that while the young people could be disrespectful, loud or annoying, it was adults who were selling drugs. It’s easier to just blame pesky kids though, I get it.
October 6, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! I promise that this morning roundup will not contain a single reference to “Glee“– oh, wait…sorry. Allow me to distract you from my failure with these links!
I didn’t even know Library kiosks existed, did you? “Back in 2008, the D.C. Public Library decided to close five neighborhood kiosks, the tiny one-room libraries set up during the 1970s in some of the city’s poorer neighborhoods to increase access to books where full-service libraries didn’t yet exist. Many of those neighborhoods were getting new libraries, the Board reasoned, and the kiosks weren’t very well-used anyway…” (Washington City Paper)
How Mark Zuckerberg Hacked The Harvard Crimson “Mark used his site, TheFacebook.com, to look up members of the site who identified themselves as members of the Crimson. Then he examined a log of failed logins to see if any of the Crimson members had ever entered an incorrect password into TheFacebook.com. If the cases in which they had entered failed logins, Mark tried to use them to access the Crimson members’ Harvard email accounts. He successfully accessed two of them. In other words, Mark appears to have used private login data from TheFacebook to hack into the separate email accounts of some TheFacebook users.” (The Business Insider)
Cathy Lanier Won’t Exactly Go Broke if She’s Fired “”Lanier’s retirement pension shall be fully vested and fully payable and vested at the maximum level allowable by law, notwithstanding Lanier’s age or term of service,” her contract reads. That means if presumptive Mayor to-be Vince Gray decides to let her go, Lanier will be able to retire at the ripe-old-age of 43…Adding a little cherry on top, if she’s fired, she also gets the typical three months of severance pay.” (Washington City Paper)
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October 5, 2010 | 2:17 PM | By Anna
Kevin H.
has a powerful
post up at Greater Greater Washington regarding
Jamal Coates, gun violence and how such tragedy seems to replay itself on an endless loop.
Public officials will tell you that the crews have moved on to other parts of the city… so don’t believe your lying eyes. We have been here before, a high profile killing that grabs the up and coming part of the city. But then like collective amnesia we move on and forget.
The point being made in article after article is that last week’s murder happened in the rapidly gentrifying part of the city. But we can’t coffee-shop and bike-lane our way out of this tragedy. There are still numerous people in DC who have degenerated to the point of expressing dissent through murder and haven’t learned to disagree without becoming violently disagreeable, no matter where they live. But my hope is that the people who use those coffee shops and bike lanes can and will be the change — if they care enough to do so….
More:
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October 5, 2010 | 10:01 AM | By Anna
A quick non-update regarding yesterday’s post about the Lobster Truck doing unfair things this weekend at Eastern Market. I reached out to Red Hook Lobster yesterday and promptly received this tweet:
…as well as two emails to coordinate a time to talk. Nice! The last email said the line had ended early, and they’d call me around 1:30. When they called me at 2pm, they were somewhere very loud AND they were suddenly busy with customers again so I offered to speak to them later in the evening– they said around 6pm. I waited (as did my puppy, whose trip to the dog park was being delayed in the interests of investigative non-journalism)…and waited. No word. At 7:30, I gave up and grabbed a leash. I’ll try again today. I’d really like to hear their side of things; I know some of you would, too.
October 5, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! While you were watching Monday Night Football, we were all over the interweb, searching for interesting links!
Navy Yard residents scoff at neighborhood’s ‘dangerous’ reputation “Ward 6 Councilman Tommy Wells does not buy’s the report’s numbers. “An area, a neighborhood, that’s not had a murder since 2005 — to be listed as one of the 9th-most dangerous means that America, in the past five years, must have become incredibly safe,” Wells said.” (tbd.com)
Vincent Gray plans town halls, aims to ease anxiety among white D.C. residents “”They really hate him,” one local political strategist, who asked not to be identified in order to speak freely, said about voters in upper Northwest. “They think he represents a turning back of the clock.” (The Washington Post)
MoCo wants to fine dog owners $500 for tying up their pups before running in a store “The District has tethering laws on the books, though how often such laws are actually enforced is debatable. Put it this way: I’ve never seen a cop stationed outside the Whole Foods on P Street to write tickets to those who tie up their dogs to run into the grocery. (Obviously, whether that’s an appropriate use of police resources is another debate entirely.)” (DCist)
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October 4, 2010 | 1:16 PM | By Anna
L St SE: one of America's "Most Dangerous" nabes.
It’s number nine on a list of the “25 most dangerous neighborhoods 2010“!
For the second year in a row, using exclusive data developed by Dr. Andrew Schiller’s team at NeighborhoodScout.com, and based on FBI data from all 17,000 local law enforcement agencies, WalletPop reveals the top 25 most dangerous neighborhoods with the highest predicted rates of violent crime in America…
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October 4, 2010 | 11:30 AM | By Anna
Just saw the following tweet from Ward 6 Council Member, Tommy Wells. If true, this is unfortunate (and I’m usually on the side of Food Trucks):
Via Tommy Wells Twitter account
Considering the heated, ongoing food truck war, this is the last thing trucks should do. The strongest argument that brick and mortar restaurants make against mobile purveyors of noms is that the status quo is unfair, mostly because of the different taxes food trucks pay vs. traditional restaurants. If a truck is avoiding paying a vendor fee, that’s unfair, as well.
Also– allowing customers to cannibalize another establishment’s amenities in order to chow down on $15 lobster rolls? That’s…tacky. One would expect more from both the purveyors and patrons of such a WASP-y concept. My word, I’m clutching my pearls, as I type. I’ve reached out to Lobster Truck DC for comment, will update you all if I receive one.
UPDATE: I spoke to Lobster Truck for a few minutes this afternoon, but they couldn’t hear me/seemed unavailable, so I asked them to call me later this evening. I’ll keep you posted.
October 4, 2010 | 7:45 AM | By Anna
Good morning, DCentric readers! Let’s start this week off properly– with some nifty links!
MPD Makes Marijuana Bust in Burlieth A comment: “We keep voting in demagogues who won’t even think about ending our insane Prohibition-style approach to treating drug abuse, and then we blame the cops for enforcing the law. As far as I’m concerned, the cops should bust more people in upscale areas: if members of the moneyed and influential classes start becoming collateral damage in this stupid “war” on drugs, then maybe we’ll start seeing change that will benefit everyone.” (DCist)
How Heartbreaking for Families: Foreclosures Slow as Document Flaws Emerge ““We’re seeing a fundamental breakdown in the system, because no one cared that much about getting things right,” said Representative Alan Grayson, a Democrat of Florida, who unsuccessfully asked the Florida Supreme Court to halt all foreclosures in that state…Defense lawyers say the disclosures are symptomatic of the carelessness, if not outright fraud, that lenders have been exhibiting for years in their rush to file cases. Many necessary documents have disappeared, with defense lawyers saying the lenders often do not even have standing to foreclose.” (The New York Times)
After buying historic home, Md. officials find it wasn’t really Uncle Tom’s Cabin The house was once home to the Riley family, who held Henson as chattel, and the years Henson spent on the 3,700-acre Riley plantation, from 1795 to 1830, did form the basis of his memoirs, which Stowe, in turn, relied heavily on. But historians have determined that Henson never lived in either the house or the cabin, which was then a kitchen. He lived in slave quarters that are long gone. (The Washington Post)
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October 1, 2010 | 4:20 PM | By Anna
AHHfred
Aztec Pole Dancing. It is unrelated but everything else was NSFW!
I was reading The Hill when I came across an article in the “Capital Living” section titled, “Pole-sters: Capitol Hill women burn stress, stay in shape with ‘exoterobics’”. See what they did there? So punny, right? Anyway, I dove in while thinking, “it’s about pole-dancing or some flirty aerobics class”. Then I got to this paragraph:
The exercise program is nothing to be ashamed of, Carroll, owner Michaela Brown and other clients insist. Its strip, pole, chairwork and floorwork classes are “really just…fitness class[es] with different equipment and in higher heels”…
Brown’s new studio opens Friday at 518 10th St. NE, the latest success in her quest to help women find “fun, creative ways to work out.” Though her exercise of choice may seem racy, “I approach pole-dancing strictly from a physical-fitness point of view,” Brown says, and she has already attracted women who work in Congress, the White House, executive agencies and other high-profile places..
And that’s when the weirdness of it all snuck up on me. “Nothing to be ashamed of”.
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October 1, 2010 | 2:37 PM | By Anna
Return or renew on time, less hassle.
When I first read this on TBD, I worried about people who don’t have credit cards, since they might really need to use the library:
Starting November 1, the D.C. Public Library will no longer accept cash as payment for fines at its branch locations. Customers will be asked to log on to the library’s website either from home or at branch locations in order process their payments via Visa or Mastercard.
The issue is one of cost. If public libraries accept cash for late fees, then armored cars have to pick up that cash– and that’s expensive when the amounts in question are small.
There are provisions for those with no plastic:
Customers without credit cards may also pay fines by check or money order at branch libraries, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library will continue to accept cash, regardless of which library branch the fees originated from.
Of course the easiest way to prevent the hassle of getting a money order or trekking out to what may be an out-of-the-way library is to return or renew books on time.
