Australian bully gets body slammed
There’s been a lot of talk about bullying recently from the White House to hallways across our country. It seems to be a topic du jour. Well, I think this video might just keep the conversation going….
German history walking tour, Tues. March 22, 6:30pm @ Goethe Institut
From the event’s site,
The trove of German-American heritage in Downtown Washington is the focus of this special evening, which will offer visitors a chance to explore an updated web-based virtual tour along with a short walking tour of the neighborhood.
This evening of the virtual and the real begins with a glass of wine (real) and a tour (virtual) of some sites on the online virtual tour. Later, host Bill Gilcher will conduct a live tour through this historic neighborhood, concluding at the German-American Heritage Museum, where director Rüdiger Lentz will show us around the Museum’s permanent exhibition.
No charge. RSVP to (202) 289-1200 ext. 166 or 
rsvp@washington.goethe.org
Tuesday, 22 March 2011, 6:30 pm
Goethe-Institut — 812 7th Street NW / Gallery Place / Mt. Vernon Square Metro / 70 bus
“Washington’s U Street: A Biography” reception Thursday, March 24th @ National Trust For Historic Preservation
Blair Ruble, author of Washington’s U Street: A Biography, will be at the National Trust For Historic Preservation (1785 Massachusetts. Avenue, NW – Dupont Circle Metro) on Thursday, March 24th for a 5:00 p.m. reception and book Signing and 6:00 p.m. reading.
R.S.V.P. here or at 410.516.7943.
“U Street Biography Examines History of City’s Famous ‘Contact Zone’”
On May 1, 1991 the U Street metro station opened. In the ensuing two decades the corridor extending eastward from 16th Street to Florida Avenue has physically healed from the deep scars of the 1968 riots, but a longstanding and discernible anxiety is still palpable as U Street’s transformation continues.
Blair A. Ruble’s Washington’s U Street: A Biography (Johns Hopkins University Press / Woodrow Wilson Center Press) arrives at an apt time when U Street and the greater city’s historical and cultural integrity is being closely examined in the context of development and neighborhood change, known as the omnipresent encroachment of gentrification. Ruble’s book, with exhaustive detail, goes where some seem afraid to go at times — U Street’s vibrant past.
Previously known for writing about Russia’s urban history, Ruble says, “This book was different, because on the one hand, interest in Washington is greater than in Russia these days yet, oddly enough, the cannon of letters around the city is more scattered and less developed. I found myself having to develop an image of the field of DC history in order to relate my work to it rather than adding a new work to a well developed field.”
Complete with personal profiles of past and present DC luminaries, known locally and nationally, in more than 300 pages of text and historical and contemporary photographs, Ruble takes the reader on a journey of U Street’s history from its initial development following the arrival of runaway slaves to the city during the Civil War to President Obama’s visit to the landmark Ben’s Chili Bowl.
Sifting through public collections at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Library, Historical Society of Washington, Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Library, and the Library of Congress to gather material for his book, Ruble discovered an untapped wealth of DC based scholarship by graduate students and faculty of local universities. It would appear no stone is left unturned as Ruble cites sources as various as city life blog DCist to the New Deal era Federal Writers’ Project to the fiction of Edward P. Jones in his written opus to U Street’s past and present.
The Dupont Circle resident and long time city jazz patron’s genuine affection for U Street comes alive through the pages. The area’s creativity, which earned it the colloquialism “Black Broadway” in the early decades of the twentieth century, is thoroughly explored. Without jazz, the unique creation of African Americans, the book might not have been put together.
“The idea of U Street came to me after talking with the folks at Twins Jazz one night about how the neighborhood was changing,” admits Ruble. “The book took several years to write and seemed to become more important for me as U Street caught more and more attention. The street has become a symbol of profound changes in DC, which is one reason why I think this is the right moment for the book.”
Throughout the years U Street has remained a distinctive “contact zone” where people of all different walks of life, ethnicity, and class converge and interact to create a cultural experience not found anywhere else in the city, contends Ruble. His book is proof positive that the ongoing renaissance of U Street as a cultural “contact zone” and epicenter will be, in fact, soulless if the past is haphazardly forgotten and not celebrated. This important work, the first full history of the U Street neighborhood, shows that the area’s re-birth has just begun, again.
Washington’s U Street: A Biography is available at DC area chain and independent bookstores and online.
Graffiti at Brookland Metro Keeps Memory of Sean Taylor Alive
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Taylor, 24, was in his fourth year with the Redskins. In the twelfth week of the 2007 season he had 5 interceptions — third in the league, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. His reputation as one of the hardest hitting players in the league and his all-out style of play had endeared him to fans.
News of his death during a home invasion on November 27, 2007 quickly spread across the region, leaving his teammates and fans in a state of disbelief and grief. While the Redskins organization honored Taylor’s memory on the field, an established DC graffiti artist took to the red line in a public display of deference.
“The Red Line has been a hot spot since the mid-80’s, but became the spot in the early 90’s,” according to Roger Gastman, a Bethesda native and author of Free Agents: A History of DC Graffiti and the forthcoming The History of American Graffiti. “If you wanted to be someone in the DC graffiti scene, you had to hit the Red Line.”
“The Brookland station, you can walk right up to it. It is a very good location, if you can pull it off,” says Gastman.
“The best writers interact with their environment,” asserts Gastman, citing graffiti as the fastest growing art movement of the past forty years.
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CERT
Beginning his graffiti career with the tag of “CERT” in 1992 at the age of 14, the well-known writer of the Sean Taylor mural declined an interview request for this article.
“The Red Line was CERT’s backyard. He basically lived there and owned it. CERT could disappear, but, to this day he holds enough respect that his spots will remain untouched for years to come,” reads CERT’s profile in Free Agents that describes his graffiti as “hardcore and illegal” and “always in highly visible spots.”
“Graffiti to me is my childhood, my teen years. That’s what I was about 100 percent. But I’m still representing. Don’t count me out. Don’t forget me. I can come back at any moment and in a month I’ll take king of the Red Line again,” contends CERT in the 2001 book.
“Whatever his reasons for slowing down, CERT is a true D.C. king. It’s time for him to sit back and let the mark he left on the city soak in. And like he said, don’t count him out. With a closet full of paint and heart that’s true to the game, CERT will be back,” Gastman foretold in the conclusion of CERT’s profile.
The mural has remained untouched since its appearance more than 3 years ago. Gastman says there is a code among writers that is being followed.
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“Brookland station can be considered a museum for DC graffiti, because of the pieces that have endured over the years,” says Saaret Yoseph, a graduate student at Georgetown University. “Brookland is unique in that the art is eye level. The graffiti is looking right at you as you wait for your train.”
Yoseph is directing, “The Red Line D.C Project,” a documentary exploring the “communal experience” of graffiti on the Red Line as a public art space. It will be released later this year.
Rider Reactions
“What struck me about that one was here was a memorial to someone we actually knew–or knew of. So much graffiti is inscrutable. Who are the people named there? What’s the purpose of it? But this was one we could grasp immediately,” said John Kelly, a writer for The Washington Post and Red Line rider since 1983. “And then a few years later, just across the platform was another one that fell into that category: some memorial paint for Michael Jackson.”
On a recent morning at the Brookland Station, riders’ reactions to the graffiti suggested a sense of pride in the station’s distinction as the home of the Sean Taylor mural.
“If they cleaned it up we would be really hurt behind that one,” said Milford Obendorf, a Brookland resident waiting with his wife on the northbound train to Silver Spring.
“It’s been here since he passed away. People come here to look at it,” said Marquette Obendorf.
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“It’s real creative,” said LaWanda Swain, a custodian with Metro for 6 years. “He played here so they have respect for him.”
“It spices things up. If they cleaned it up then you’d be staring at a wall for 15 minutes,” said Mike Young, 20, a cell phone sales rep downtown. “People remember Sean Taylor because he shouldn’t have died. He hit the hardest like when he cracked yungin’ in the Pro Bowl.”
Numerous videos on YouTube have compiled Taylor’s highlights as a Redskin, including a tackle of punter Brian Moorman in the Pro Bowl that lifted Moorman off his feet to a point where he was parallel to the field.
However, some riders expressed frustration with the station’s illegal art.
“It grows and grows until they clean it up,” said Joe, an older man in a white dress shirt, a Brookland resident for more than two decades. “The kids that do it are talented, but they can put their talents to better use.”
As a regular rider of the red line for more than a decade, I can remember the walls at Brookland being cleaned, “buffed” in the language of graffiti, about five years ago.
“The graffiti is on CSX property, not Metro property. Typically, when we become aware of graffiti, our goal is to remove it within 24 hours,” said Angela Gates, a Media Relations officer with Metro.
CSX did not respond to email and phone call requests for comment.
“There have been no graffiti-related arrests or citations in the last year at Brookland-CUA,” said Gates who emphasized that the property is outside of Metro’s jurisdiction.
With no apparent plans to clean the walls and a lack of enforcement around graffiti, the Sean Taylor mural will continue to be a distinctive cultural landmark for the Brookland Metro station.
Morehouse Glee club set to rock MLK Library, Fri., March 18 at noon
Wash Syndicate
Morehouse College Glee Club Performs at the DC Public Library
WHO: Morehouse College Glee Club and Quartet
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Bum sleeping on the Metro, taking up both seats
Syndicate
On the Green Line the other morning at Ft. Totten.
Book sale at Southeast Library Sat., March 12 from 10am – 3pm
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Friends of Southeast Library are having the March book sale this Saturday, March 12th from 10 AM to 3 PM.
Hundreds of new books have been donated the February sale where I grabbed up a DC classic for a cool $1. The Southeast Library is located at t 7th and D Streets, SE (403 7th Street SE), right across the street from the Eastern Market metro station.
Sign up for St. Es Walking Tour – Saturday, March 19 10am – 11am
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Walking Tour of St. Elizabeths West Campus
Saturday, March 19th
10:00am – 12:00pm
Join the DC Preservation League in partnership with the General Services
Administration for a walking tour of the historic west campus of St.
Elizabeths Hospital, a National Historic Landmark. Tours of the St.
Elizabeths campus are being offered on a limited basis depending on the
course of construction activity. Tours will include an historical
overview of the site, access to the point, and exterior views of the
Center Building and Burroughs Cottage.
Space is limited and reservations are required. Because of security
issues walk-ons will not be permitted on the tour.
This tour fills up fast.
Reserve your spot now.
Walk-ins are NOT permitted on this tour!
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