If it doesn’t exactly make sense, Price, whose dark-blond tresses and single-digit size belie matronhood, said she plans to carry all those special baby items in one small storefront at 325 7th St. S.E. that you’d normally need to trek to a couple of specialty stores and even to the suburbs to get.
But what does make sense from her point of view is the number of babies making their appearance on the Hill with the influx of more and more young couples drawn by new apartments or the city’s $5,000 income-tax incentive for first-time buyers in D.C. She said her store will feature a sitting area with rockers for mothers and fathers dropping by the well-traveled street on baby duty.
Price is not a Hill dweller; she lives in Virginia with husband Michael Southworth, a dot-com executive. Price had hoped to open her architectural business on 14th Street N.W., but delays developed. Then she met the Hill’s famed developer Kitty Kaupp, and the rest is very recent history.
A police board surprise
The real powers on the Hill
The fact that three relatively obscure congressional employees convening as the Capitol Police Board pretty much rule the entire Capitoline campus seems to have come as a shock to both members and the public.
Unelected, answering to no one and in control of massive budgets and manpower, the board has come under fresh and strong criticism for its subjective and unannounced shutdown of the Hill’s streets with irksome checkpoints after a six-day hiatus.
The board’s inner workings are, of course, top secret. No press is allowed at sessions where Senate Sergeant at Arms William H. Pickle, House Sergeant at Arms Wilson Livingood and Architect of the Capitol Alan Hantman meet. No congressional oversight reviews their decisions; members’ requests for advance consultation have been ignored.
But recent events indicate that Capitol Police Chief Terrance Gainer, an unofficial member of the board, is pulling the strings and really running the show. Gainer, the no-nonsense former D.C. police executive, has presided over unprecedented increases in Capitol Police power and funding.
But he’s also presided over the embarrassing security fiasco of June 9, when Capitol Police panicked both members and staffers in a screaming emergency evacuation due to faulty communications with a governor’s private aircraft flying to the Reagan funeral.
Gainer has asked for, and received, huge budget increases. He’s building a multimillion-dollar headquarters for his ever-increasing army of officers. And he now appears willing to challenge his former boss, Mayor Anthony Williams (D), and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), not to mention House Appropriations Chairman Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), over who controls the streets.
So far, Gainer has won.
But Norton, who has steadfastly fought a losing battle against the steady encroachment of security devices — Jersey barriers, steel street traps, “decorative” stanchions or the universally loathed checkpoints — this month demanded monthly meetings with the board to bring order to the imposition of new security measures.
The standoff between Norton — whose demands are seconded by many in Congress, publicly by Kingston and Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio), chairman of the House Administration Committee — and Gainer may be resolved soon. Norton has reminded Gainer that he ignored an August agreement for monthly meetings on security. Kingston has revealed that Gainer has been spending an approximate $100,000 per day on manpower to operate 14 traffic checkpoints, which so far have netted not a single would-be terrorist. Kingston argues that Congress should decide how much security is needed.
old naval hospital
Mayoral decision a contrast in rivals
With a mayoral decision looming over the fate of the Hill’s Old Naval Hospital at 921 Pennsylvania Ave. S.E., the contrast between the two groups battling for control of the structure is clear.
One, the Art of Living Foundation, led by spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, plans to use the building as a center for its activities, with a large apartment segment on the top floor. Public uses will be secondary and the foundation will leave the building’s structure mostly intact.
The other group, the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, with subsidiary Old Naval Hospital Foundation, plans to use the building as a library annex aimed at youth and an all-purpose public function area for community events.
Both groups have the financial strength to meet the city’s requirements for financing a $6 million to $10 million restoration of the historic building. The Art of Living group has a worldwide network of centers in 90 countries, yet is little known in Washington. Its activities are expected to be educational.
The Capitol Hill foundation, on the other hand, is made up of movers and shakers in the community, with board members ranging from City Councilwoman Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6), commercial-property and bookstore entrepreneurs Nicky and Steve Cymrot, former D.C. Police Chief Isaac Fulwood Jr., school board member Tommy Wells, lawyer Mark Gitenstein and the Eastern Market Community Advisory Committee’s new chairwoman, Donna Scheeder.
The local group has hired architect Judith Capen to design alterations to the building, and has an ongoing fundraising plan to meet city requirements that the tenant be able to fund full restoration.
The Office of Property Management (OPM), official manager of the 1867 relic, assembled a selection committee that will forward its choice to OPM Director Carol Mitten, who will leave the final decision to Mayor Anthony Williams (D).
In the meantime, with strong support from City Council members Ambrose, Harold Brazil (D-At large) and Jim Graham (D-Ward 1), an additional $3 million for the restoration has been dedicated to the project. An additional $385,000 for restoration of the deteriorating south (E Street) portico already was in the 2005 D.C. budget.
According to OPM special assistant Aimee Occhetti, the decision is expected as early as next week.
METRO
• New take on — bowling: A California developer is moving into a close-to-Hill location with an utterly new concept, upscale bowling. Forget the smelly shoes and the beer from the bottle; the new 7th and H location across from the MCI center, to be called Lucky Strike Lanes, will feature a sports bar, lounge, restaurant and pool hall. ...
• Museum tally: Fewer than 250 people a day visited the Washington City Museum, which finally closed its doors last Sunday after struggling since its May 15 opening. Critics point out that D.C.’s 20 million annual visitors chose free attractions consistently, rather than the museum’s average $6 price tag for entry. …
• Work over the holidays? Many do; retail is the traditional jobs source, but United Parcel Service has announced it’s adding 1,600 area employees to deal with an expected rush of Christmas parcels as shoppers opt for catalogs and keep their cars at home. ...
• Members’ advantage (with taxicabs at least) may be on the way out. The city’s zone system grossly favors rides that start on the Hill, but Mayor Anthony Williams (D) is moving ahead with a plan to introduce meters. An experimental fleet of 24 meter-equipped cabs will be on the street soon. ...
• Hill baseball activist Ed Lazere of No DC Taxes for Baseball says City Council Chairwoman Linda Cropp (D) and Ward 1 Councilman Jim Graham are teetering on the edge — and their votes will decide whether the current baseball “deal” goes through. Cropp has another option open: She could delay a vote until the new year, when the council’s three lame ducks — along with their votes for the $440 million publicly financed stadium — will be history. ...
• Cultural Tourism D.C. is pushing a new Hill history tour — of newly renovated “Barracks Row,” 8th Street S.E. Slated for Friday, Dec. 10, the tour begins at the street’s newest boîte, Belga Cafe at 514 8th S.E., and will visit John Philip Sousa’s home, the Navy Yard and other attractions of this history-soaked street. ...
• The sudden-sprung forest of pine trees has emerged again at Eastern Market, a sure sign that Thanksgiving has given way to Christmas preparation. Sought after this year as usual: the tiny tree for row-house windows and apartments, with prices in the $30 to $70 range. |
