To talk to Phyllis Jane Young, get there before coffee.

Even standing in the shadow of 7 a.m., the woman’s a blond whirlwind. The large black poodle is jumping for attention. There’s an electric drill and coil of cable in the hallway, piles of papers on the dining-room table, Christmas decorations on the mantelpiece, and Easter eggs still wobbling on the tree outside her row house near Eastern Market.

She has several meetings and several customers to meet and several properties to show. It’s all part of being one of the top real-estate agents (Coldwell Banker/Pardoe) on the Hill.

Meanwhile in another house on the Hill, Jackie Von Schlegel, head of the award winning Re/Max real-estate team, is preparing herself for a very similar day. She, too, is one of the top real-estate agents on the Hill; she is also a striking blonde with energy to burn.

Both women are on a laser track for Halloween. Besides rivalries in business, both women hold rival Halloween civic events that have become magnets. And they don’t even hate each other.

Because of the converging energy of these two women, Capitol Hill has become the new “place to go” for city dwellers in duller neighborhoods and for busloads of suburbanites who want to be able to walk — not drive — while trick-or-treating.

The twin events have remained child-oriented, not overheated like the carnival party scene that descends on Georgetown.

Von Schlegel hosts “Hilloween at Eastern Market,” a festival along 7th Street S.E. where hayrides, apple bobbing, treat bags, a carousel, a moon bounce and balloons are offered the evening of Oct. 31 from 5:30 to 7:30.

The same day, visitors to the Hill will see the results of Young’s “Haunted House Decorating Contest,” an ever-growing event that offers $1,000 prizes (to be donated to schools of choice) to two homeowners who catch the eye of a panel of judges.

It’s Young’s ambition to have a decorated house on every Capitol Hill street, and she’s expecting 100 houses to participate. One longtime participant, Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner (6B) Francis Campbell, has won so often with his Burke Street S.E. house that he has been barred.

This year, lesser prizes are being offered (four of $500 and four of $250) to runners-up. Judging is to take place Oct. 28 — and registration with www.phyllisjaneyoung.com is a necessity.

The Hill’s grand avenues with wide sidewalks and (relatively) plenty of parking have become in recent years the closest and best place to do the traditional trick-or-treat routine. East Capitol, Massachusetts and Lincoln Park are all popular.

HIP TO BE HUNGRY
Skipping breakfast might be in style

If you were a D.C. public-school student last year, 20 cents got you breakfast. There was a means test, however, and those who could afford it paid 70 cents, and a dollar at high schools.

But in an effort to get the city’s students to school on time and without empty stomachs, free food is now offered to all who arrive in time to eat it — that is 30 minutes before classes are scheduled to start.

But as usual with the District’s long-troubled public-school system, there is a hitch: The kids won’t eat the food.

New schools czar Clifford Janey announced the “universal breakfast” program Oct. 3 because studies show that breakfast helps academic achievement, slows truancy and even improves student behavior. Another factor came into the decision. At 20 cents per breakfast meal, only 13,800 of the system’s 60,000 students were taking advantage of what must be the city’s best food bargain. Experts were surprised that the meals went uneaten, even though it was known that many students do not eat breakfast at home and many more buy sweets on the way to school.

D.C. Public Schools does not publish the breakfast menu, but in other school systems with fully subsidized breakfast it is substantial fare: a choice of cereal, French toast or toast with jelly (any two) and either chilled fruit juice, assorted fresh fruit or low-fat milk.

School cafeterias are bracing for much higher participation under the completely free breakfast system. And authorities are concerned at the response of students to the previous low-cost breakfast. According to Kathryn Sinzinger, reporter for the Common Denominator newspaper, high-school students in D.C. shun the food because “only poor kids eat breakfast.” The perception is that eating the low-cost food labels a student as poor.

Costs for the program are reimbursed through federal nutrition programs.

Meanwhile, a news item notes that a local health club is attempting to raise $1 million for sports equipment to donate to schools in Virginia. That cause is the fight against childhood obesity.

BOOKING ALONG 
Better schools: Hill libraries plan

A meeting three weeks ago saw Hill parents Todd Cymrot and Suzanne Wells at a familiar juncture — pitching a schools idea to a foundation.

The two are among the thousands of Hill residents who wish fervently that local schools were better than they are. But they also were armed with a highly sellable idea — make the school libraries better and the schools will benefit.

Luckily for them, the foundation, the Capitol Hill Community Foundation, was an easy sell. It agreed to help raise money.

Fortunate also was the fact that $6 million in federal funding was available for improvements to D.C. Public Schools in the 2005 appropriations bill, and DCPS has also pledged a matching $6 million from its own budget. An early backer of the idea was Tommy Wells (unrelated to Suzanne Wells), a member of the D.C. school board who is running for the City Council’s Ward 6 seat, up for grabs with the retirement of Sharon Ambrose (D-Ward 6.)

Cymrot said last week that the idea of making a concrete improvement to the schools via their libraries came from New York’s Robin Hood Foundation, which got architectural teams to compete with rehab ideas for Manhattan elementary schools, generating energy, excitement and news coverage.

Cymrot and Wells decided to start with eight Capitol Hill schools, elementaries Brent, Payne, Tyler, Ludlow-Taylor, Watkins, Maury and Peabody and middle school Stuart Hobson. Those are the schools that are the logical targets for the thousands of “new” Capitol Hill families that have been settling here in the past five years. The two assembled a group of architectural firms under the guidance of Steve Lawlor, a Catholic University architect. Eight firms are now preparing plans to improve school libraries.

“The uses of school libraries have changed,” Cymrot explained, “There are story telling areas, Internet access areas, classroom areas, and reading rooms. Most of the school buildings have good space.”

It’s expected that an average of $50,000 per school will be available from government sources but that more is needed. The Capitol Hill Community Foundation is planning to help raise more: a fundraiser for the project is planned for next month.

 METRO

• Barry Watch: Marion Barry (D), the councilman from Ward 8, has been notably silent about the latest road bump — an investigation of his failure to pay income tax for the past several years — but legal experts say it is a relatively minor matter (remember Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton’s (D) husband also did not file, causing a minor flap a decade ago). But the tax thing may dim Barry’s hope to become council chairman. ...

• New on 8th: In place of Plaid (715), look for a new upscale home-furnishings store soon to open, according to in-the-know Stephanie Cavanaugh. It could be a response to the hundreds, if not thousands, of new apartments and condos now under construction on or near the Hill. ...

• And returning to Mass. Ave.’s Restaurant Row: the welcome Oktoberfest held each year by Cafe Berlin at 322. Forget about the cholesterol and the rest of the dire warnings with a plate of grilled pigs knuckle and a huge foaming stein of Spatenbrau. Leaves turning, breeze lifting the exhaust fumes: it’s heaven. ...

• The Capitol Hill Cluster School — combined management, faculties and facilities that link Peabody, Watkins and Stuart-Hobson schools and make them a target for new Hill families — is holding its open house Oct. 26 at Watkins, 420 12th St. S.E. …

• The city’s top planning chief, Andrew Altman, now head of the Anacostia Waterfront Initiative, is leaving for a New York job. Insiders say it was a case of an offer Altman could not refuse, not fallout from Mayor Tony Williams’s decision not to run for a third term. The next question: Who can fill his wingtips?

• Last chance to gasp with envy (until next spring’s Hill House Tour) is coming this weekend with the fifth annual Renovators Tour. Top item of awe is 800 E. Capitol St. N.E., the Robert and Karen Reed mansion, a complete million-plus redo of an 1876 stand-alone city brick house, Oct. 15, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets $25 — the money goes to the Cluster School. …

• D.C.’s Department of Transportation has $100 million to spend on city streetscapes, thanks to a favorable advertising contract for Metro bus shelters and some of the money is slated for Pennsylvania Avenue S.E., H Street N.E. and South Capitol Street. This means new sidewalks, curbs, streetlights, trees.