C A P I C O S T I A

[Second Edition] A 'Capicostia' blog?  Again? Kinda trying this on. Feeling it out. Capitol Hill + Anacostia = Capicostia?! I think River East needs a blog that speaks to the frustration and quiet hysteria of what it's like to live here, but, sometimes, feel some small part of you might belong on the other side of the river, ..where political intrigue and urbanity slink down the sidewalks, stopping for the occasional latte or imported beer. Mmmm...I'll cop to the angst. Even if you won't. There's something about living here, ..in Penn Branch, Fairfax Village, Pope Branch, Dupont Park, Twining, Hillcrest, the Randall Highlands and probably Fairlawn, too, ..that's different than living in other parts of River East, and the culture-angst is something only we can understand. When you think about it the only thing separating us from Capitol Hill and everything the Hill represents--sophistication, culture, history, relevance, style--is a stupid b...

This Ilyushin Il-96 (above) isn't the alleged jumbo jet, but looked very much like this one. At about 4:13 pm EST, I saw a white jumbo jetliner, with red markings, pull in low enough over Penn Branch to clip the treetops and dive toward Alabama Avenue in Fairfax Village! It looked like it was going to land at the strip mall, down the hill, on Pennsylvania Avenue! I can also say, with some measure of certainty, that its design identified it as a Boeing 747 . Military helicopters--Navy-commissioned, if I'm not mistaken--were seen in the air, shortly afterwards. Though I only saw one, it was admittedly hard to tell how many because of the trees, and it sounded like more than one. This might have been perfectly inconsequential, considering some kind of helicopter are seen speeding over Penn Branch, almost every half an hour and especially during rush hour. I heard police and emergency sirens following all of that, and there is a difference. Trust me--River East hears enough pol...

*He-Man knows how to handle a few barbarians at the gate, and so does Penn Branch. I hope. The delay in development at our delightfully decrepit Penn Branch Center, at the corner of Pennsylvania and Branch Avenues, is very frustrating to me. Though, in mere days, it will have been an entire year since construction was to begin on our shopping center, nothing resembling upgrades and infusions of new, dynamic retail has been initiated. Check the websites of the Penn Branch Civic Association website (on your left) and of ICG Properties , and you will not find news of any significant developments for PBC. We have THREE gateway areas developing in the River East area, each fully-loaded with upscale condos and retail, and I worry Penn Branch, virtually unchanged since the 80s, will soon fall behind in how efficiently the city delivers vital services. With the explosion of commercial and residential development on Martin Luther King Avenue, Howard Road and coming soon to Barry Farm,...

My movie review blog at StudioJoeMovies.blogspot.com , after a year of virtual neglect except for spot-on reviews of the movies, A-Team [Loved it!] and Prince Of Persia, has taken a final bow into the twilight. I want to thank Joe's single follower, my blogger Obi-Wan, Carlos Quinoz of CarlosInDC , for his defiantly optimistic support. If you aren't reading his blog, you're missing a refreshingly unpretensious source of politics, world news and local cultural event reporting unparalled by a single journalist. So, get over there, already! What do you need--an invitation? Why I oughta'... I had big plans for Studio Joe and Joe-inspired merchandise and working with an old writer bud of mine from college. Never quite found the time or will to give this project the attention it deserved. Believe me; Joe will miss you, but not nearly as much as I will miss him. Get ready for a new blog soon to be launched from this account, called I Want You To Know, written by m...

My Brangler spirit may be running a little low, right now. Exactly a year ago, in October of 2009, several reliable sources told Penn Branch and surrounding residents that construction was to begin on our weary old tomb of a shopping strip, Penn Branch Center , which is basically a big piece of crap that's been falling apart for the last twenty or so years. We've got sleepy, hum-drum retail that forces Penn Branglers to go spend our money in other communities, making them more economically viable, while our own neighborhood fades deeper into civic irrelevance with City Hall, and I was really looking forward to the end of that. But, the ending never arrived. In the meantime, Minnesota-Benning (Bennesota) and even Fairfax Village (where I have a condo) are witnessing the beginnings of exciting changes in their respective business districts, while Penn Branch, still the host of lots of dependable, law-abiding middle class tax payers, stays drearily and abysmally the same. Not po...

Just finished browsing DCLofts.com and found one--ONE--converted loft property in Southeast, on Capitol Hill (of course) called the Bryan School Lofts , ..which are all sold out . The Bryan School was done by award-winning Abdo Builders , and probably cost a vital organ AND a limb to own. Frankly, they are a little too polished for my tastes--scrubbed of all the rugged, Industrial Era charm that ought to be evident in converting an old school, garage, trolley car barn or factory into functional living space. These Abdo lofts look like the Sex In The City ladies hang out there. They're sissy lofts, and I hate'm. Lofts used to be the large, unattractive, slate gray ruins of an obsolete industrial era that no style-conscious yuppy would be caught dead in. In the 1950s, lofts were places, where a large , lower income, working class or struggling immigrant family could stake a claim in the steamy, jazz-scored urban experience...the Big City. They were open frontiers for the ...

With a garden store on the way, could Caribou Coffee be far behind? I have just reopened the featured polls and want very much to hear your opinions about the changes in Penn Branch and the surrounding areas. So far, the Deanwood-Burroughs Avenue area and the MLK Avenue-Uniontown area of Anacostia are the River East neighborhoods that people are saying need the most commercial development. In another poll, people are saying the Fairfax Village-Fort Davis and Uniontown neighborhoods have the most potential. And I agree . Being a large condominium community , Fairfax Village is more transient than the rest of Fort Davis. Should the cost of renting and owning a condo in the Village dramatically increase, the population of the area could change in kind. It is not at all impossible to imagine that garden stores and coffeehouses wouldn't be far behind. As when Fairfax Village went from being a fashionably upscale roost for junior congressmen and Capitol Hill staffers in the 197...