Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'Architecture'.
-
Everyone knows that the height of Washington, DC buildings is restricted, and many people mistakenly think the law says that buildings can be no higher than the Capitol Dome, which is a myth. In 1910, the Federal Government passed the Height of Buildings Act of 1910 which amended the Height of Buildings Act of 1899. See? You just learned something - there were two of them! After you read this post, you'll get the greatest benefit if you read the Wikipedia article about 1899 first (which includes a section about the Capitol Dome myth), and then the one about 1910 next. The 1899 law limited height to between 60 and 130 feet, and if you read the fascinating article (and the Act itself), it seems to make reasonable sense. Architecture aside, I can see a legitimate fear about fires breaking out many stories above the ground (don't forget - we had no motor-powered firetrucks, and certainly no high-tech hook-and-ladder vehicles, in 1899). Interestingly, an impetus for the 1899 Act was The Cairo apartment building in North Dupont. Built in 1894, it was the tallest building in the entire city at 14 stories (164 feet), and to this very day, it remains DC's tallest residential building. Most of the material was covered by the 1899 Act (which is why you should read it first), and the 1910 Act served largely to "make minor modifications and tighten it up," and that 1910 Act is still the law today. Here is the current law, as of Mar 11, 2016, in my everyday, "roadside prose," as Vladimir Nabokov would say: * No building can be taller than the width of the street in front of it plus twenty feet. For example, if the street directly in front of a building is 40 feet from-curb-to-curb, the building can only be 60-feet tall. * No building can be taller than 130 feet, with one exception: on the north side of Pennsylvania Avenue between 1st and 15th Streets NW (the parade route), a building can be 160-feet tall. * On a residential street, no building can be taller than 90 feet. * On a corner lot, the wider of the two streets is used as the basis for calculation. * On blocks adjacent to public buildings (e.g., schools), the maximum height is to be determined by a schedule written by the DC Council. * Next to the front of Union Station (the plaza), all buildings must be fireproof and cannot be taller than 80 feet. * Section 5, Paragraph h, is extremely long, but basically says that things like spires, towers, steeples, chimneys, smokestacks, etc. are exempt (this is an extreme simplification). If you're familiar with these seven bullet-points, you know the law better than 99.9% of the DC population. If anyone cares to discuss this further so that we can hit 99.999%, that's okay by me. The Tallest Buildings in Washington, DC 1. The Hughes Memorial Tower (1989, 761 feet) in Brightwood is the tallest structure in the Baltimore-DC metropolitan area (note the last bullet point above - it's exempt). 2. The Washington Monument (1848-1888, 555 feet) was grandfathered in, as were several other buildings and structures. 3. * The Basilica of the Natural Shrine of the Immaculate Conception (1920-1959, 329 feet) is one of the ten largest churches in the world, and the tallest habitable building in DC - it was granted an exemption). 4. * The Old Post Office Building (1892-1899, 315 feet) is being leased to The Trump Organization - there is a great deal of complexity to this lease, so bone up before chiming in, please. 5. The National Cathedral (1907-1990, 301 feet) is the second-largest church in the U.S. after The Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City. 6. * The United States Capitol (1793-1863, 289 feet) is under a major, three-year, external restoration project, and will have scaffolding around the dome until early 2017. 7. One Franklin Square (1989, 210 feet) is the tallest commercial building in DC, and is now home to The Washington Post - I'm curious why (and how) this building got an exemption. * These three buildings have the distinction of being the only buildings to claim that they are (were) "the tallest buildings in Washington, DC." I don't understand how the Basilica is "one of the ten largest churches in the world," but the Cathedral is the "second-largest church in the U.S." Here's a list of the Largest Church Buildings in the World - it looks like the claim about the Basilica could be referring to the exterior, which would make everything consistent. Note also the incredible discrepancy between exterior and interior of The Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Ivory Coast. It's extremely thought-provoking that a "times-have-changed" mentality can easily be envisioned (and justified) while reading about these two Acts; yet, they were both passed over 100 years *after* the 2nd Amendment became law. No, this post was not some grand, manipulative build-up to ram a private political agenda down your throats; this one, largely unrelated item is merely an interesting point to ponder in its own right. I am also going on-record, right here, right now, and predicting that the Height of Buildings Act of 1910 will be overturned within the next fifty years, and that height restrictions will be greatly lifted, if not essentially removed altogether. Washington, DC, circa 2300 - if it's not a pile of rubble - is going to look a lot like Manhattan. And I think it's *so cool* that someone is going to look back and examine this statement in 284 years. "What the hell does 'so cool' mean?" they'll ask. -
With its nice long bar and large sunny windows, The Vanderbilt is the kind of place you want to go to for an afternoon drink. We enjoyed a glass of the Forstreiter Gruner Veltliner 2013 ($9) and the Aizipurua Getariako Txakolina 2015 ($12). They were serving a limited prix fixe menu because of Mother's Day but we did enjoy our plate of cottage fries ($6). The vibe of The Vanderbilt is more upscale neighborhood restaurant with prices to match. But not a bad place to spend an hour or so on a late Sunday afternoon after wandering around the Brooklyn Museum. -
Because of a career transition, I have found myself at the Cosmos Club many times in 2017 and yet, am not a member. I don't know if that makes my review more or less biased because I actually cannot pick up the bill at Cosmos. I am a fan. First off, the service is absolutely perfect. Second, the building is amazing, beautiful, old, and historic. Third, the walls are full of history. Forth, I feel incredibly young and extraordinarily beautiful when I dine at Cosmos. If you exclude grandchildren, I am usually the youngest in the room by about 20 years. It's amazing. But really, I'm here to tell you about the food. When I first went to dine, I assumed that I would get a big baked potato with sour cream, cheddar cheese and bacon bits. I had, however, a very lovely lobster salad that was lightly, and yet perfectly dressed. ALso, I'm a huge soup and crab fan. Even though their crab soup has square carrots in it, I love it. It's very good and the crab is, I think, added at the end so it keeps its crabby, sweetness. My theory is that the average age of the members is quite advanced and their chef is personally invested in keeping them all alive as long as possible so created a wonderful, light, tasty, healthy menu. He should be commended.- 13 replies
-
- 4
-
-
- Dupont Circle
- North Dupont
- (and 3 more)
-
_svg.thumb.png.c50387abb33133634363845f12199fa0.png)
Location and Rates for Tonight - Website Hotel Royal is a pretty central location in French Quarter. It is a boutique hotel, multiple floors, with no elevator, but there's a small courtyard with a fountain. My bathroom only had a shower, there was no minibar, and no coffee/tea maker. The room is clean, but definitely on the small side. There was one chair but no writing desk. The area is usually quiet, unless drunks are walking by and screaming at the top of their lungs. The hotel has no bar. I had 2 small bottles of water in my room, but that was not replenished (even though I tipped the cleaning staff). It was 10 days before Fat Tuesday, also the NBA All-Star game was in town, and I booked late, thus ending up here. I think it was around $300/nt. The hotel is rated 3 stars by Trivago, the site I used to book this hotel.-
- 1
-
-
- Louisiana
- New Orleans
- (and 4 more)
-
Hunter's Head is a fun little spot... -
Looks like Jeff Shively's no longer there. Anyone know what's up with changes to the menu and Executive Chef at Sea Catch? The crab cakes are different (still good but different) and the pumpkin/pecan tart is gone. -
My wife wanted us to take her out for brunch in the country for her birthday so I made reservations at the Comus Inn for Sunday brunch. The Inn is at Sugarloaf Mountain in Montgomery County MD. (Dickerson, MD, about 10 miles south of Frederick MD) Brunch was excellent. The Inn, the original part which was built in 1860, has undergone a major renovation recently. The views are nice, overlooking the rolling hills of the western part of the county. The buffet brunch on Sunday features a pancake station and an egg station. They will make any type of eggs you want and bring them to your table so you don't have to wait as they make them. I had some excellent Eggs Benedict, the eggs poached to my specifications. My wife and son had the Eggs Comus, poached eggs on home cured bacon over a slice of brioche with hollendaise. The pancakes were so light they almost floated off the plate and they would make them with whatever you wanted (the boy had blueberry and chocolate chips) They also had a carving station with roast beef and roast pork. The bacon and sausages were also very good, not overcooked and very flavorful. Very nice cheese blinzes, a wonderful rockfish in a lobster/champagne sauce, tiny muffins (chocolate and blueberry) that were so light they melted in your mouth. The usual biscuts with sausage gravy, roasted potatos, nicely done and crisp veggies, a house smoked ivory salmon that was to die for, and a dessert table that was out of this world. Service was superb. Plates were wisked away as soon as they were done with, and when you left to get another plate of food, you returned to a newly folded napkin and fresh silverware. Coffee cups were always kept full, water glasses never empty. As I said before, if you ordered eggs or pancakes at the buffet, they were brought to your table as soon as they were done. The damage was $28 per person, with drinks extra (coffee and tea came with the brunch) We all left so stuffed it almost hurt, but thought it was an excellent brunch. The Comus Inn has an excellent wine list which they were glad to let me look at. Running to 24 pages or so, with almost 600 selections, they have a cellar of about 4800 bottles. Of course this is Montgomery County so the prices were high (after all the county is the wholesaler and marks everything up 35%) Well balanced, there were some bottles there that I hadn't seen on other wine lists in the county, such as a 94 Ridge MonteBello, several years of Harlans, a 97 Grange, several years of Latour, Haut Brion, etc. All in all an impressive list, especially for this county. At dinner they offer four and five course dinners. The menu looked very interesting and reasonably priced for a fancy dinner. (I think it was $89 for the five course dinner.) I might have to try it soon. -
Not sure if there is a separate thread for Vintage, so here's a small review: We had a nice meal here a few weeks ago. The hotel dining interior is decorated in architectural antique-store distressed shutters and wall coverings - not cluttered but...you'd better like distressed things The colors are 50 shades of white. Our waiter was excellent, on point. Appetizers: the pretzel bites were kind of bland, the deviled eggs were fine...the standouts were the hush puppies and the buffalo blue chips - housemade chips with mild buffalo sauce and blue cheese crumbles, very nice and light. Main: I had catfish which was nicely breaded and cooked nicely though mildly spiced. It was served on a bed of really delicious corn, almost in chowder form (kind of creamed corn I suppose) and topped with "southern chow-chow" made of beans and its REALLY sweet. I suppose the mild catfish was nice relative to the tangy sweetness of the chow-chow. The main portions were all quite large - the chicken and waffles included a mountain of chicken piled on! Chef Stephanie Wilson was recently nominated for the MD restaurant association's 'chef of the year award.' I had not been to the Mealy's incarnations (despite my posts about Mealy's) but I'd go back to Vintage. They seem to be pretty popular. -
If you've driven north-south on 16th Street you've seen them, and if you've driven east-west on Columbia Road you've seen them (at mid-day on Sundays, perhaps for longer than you'd care to). These are the three formidable churches in the Mount Pleasant - Columbia Heights - Adams Morgan neighborhoods - at least the ones prominently visible from 16th Street - and along with numerous other items of architectural interest in the immediate area (e.g., The Temple of the Scottish Rite (also known as "The House of the Temple") on 16th and S Street, the Ecuadorian Embassy on 15th and Euclid Street, the Headquarters of the Inter-American Defense Board (also known as "The Pink Palace") on 16th and Euclid Street, the Lutheran Church Center (also called the Warder-Totten House, which has had more lives than a cat, and could have been tagged in the thread title, but it's not a place of worship), the Meridian House on 16th Street and Crescent Place, and of course, Meridian Hill Park which is 12 acres in size, stretching from Florida Avenue to Euclid Street along the east side of 16th Street, and I'm sure I've omitted several other buildings of merit and interest), anyway, along with this rather amazing concentration of historic architecture (we're talking about architects such as John Russell Pope (arguably the most important architect in Post-1800 Washington, DC, having designed the National Archives Building, the Jefferson Memorial, and the National Gallery of Art (West Building) - those three buildings alone are enough make you say, "Huh?") and George Oakley Totten, Jr. (who designed numerous mansions along 16th Street and in the Kalorama Circle area), we have three churches large enough to stand out and make drivers turn their heads. Sitting up by itself on 16th Street and Columbia Road is the National Baptist Memorial Church: I don't know much about the architecture behind this church (when it was completed, or who designed it), and would love to have someone knowledgeable in architecture comment on the style and the architect. However, I did find an interesting web page devoted to its groundbreaking in 1921, with President Warren G. Harding actually breaking the ground: Apr 23, 2014 - "Historic Photos of the 1921 Groundbreaking for the Columbia Heights National Baptist Memorial Church" on parkviewdc.com And also the 1922 Cornerstone Ceremony attended by Secretary of State Charles E. Hughes. I've read that the building was constructed over a couple of decades (which might make it the youngest of the three churches, despite being designed first - I'm not sure when construction was completed on any of the three): Sep 11, 2014 - "Historic 1922 Photo of National Baptist Memorial Church's Corner Stone Ceremony" on parkviewdc.com As impressive as this church is, it takes a back seat (in visual prominence) to other the two Meridian Hill churches sitting face-to-face on the south side of 16th and Harvard Streets. As you're driving south down 16th Street, you can see all three churches at once, with the one just described in the foreground: Notice also that as you're approaching the southernmost two, there's a Capital Bikeshare rack on the right: In the Architecture Thread in the Art Forum, the book, "The AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC" is mentioned, and that book refers to both of these next two churches, possibly taking a not-so-subtle swipe at the first, the All Souls Unitarian Church, which was "inspired" (rather blatantly, I will add) by London's Saint-Martin-in-the-Fields, on the southwest corner of the intersection: . The similarities between this and London's famous church are unmistakable. From the book: "1924, Coolidge & Shattuck - St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, by James Gibbs, provided the architectural inspiration for this building as it did for so many other churches throughout America, Britain, and Canada." Across 16th Street rests, mano-a-mano with the All Souls Unitarian Church, the impressive and beautiful Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, now unfortunately masked by scaffolding: Up above, I said the book "possibly" takes a not-so-subtle swipe at All Souls, but the way they worded it, they could just as easily be talking about the row of rat-infested (I've seen them with my own eyes) storefronts on Mount Pleasant Street, so decide for yourselves (bold emphasis is my own): "1933, Young & Hansen - Designed to suggest the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City and capped by the Angel Moroni, the building, with its delicate, linear detailing, stratified stone skin, and consistent verticality, creates one of the most elegant small churches in town. Or perhaps the sense of success is relative and results from comparing it to its distinctly unsubtle neighbors across the street." Who they're slamming all depends on which "street" they're referring to - it's ambiguous, and could go either way. Regardless, this is a beautiful area for a stroll or a bike ride, and all of the buildings mentioned here are worth seeing.
-
I know this is fairly last minute, but I am headed to Old Angler's Inn and was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? Is that HUGE "house" next to it Dan Snyder's new abode? -
In what might be the biggest restaurant news ever to hit Carroll County, Mealey's Table will be opening next month in New Market (although the restaurant itself is in Frederick County). The chef is none other than Nate Waugaman, the brilliant, underrated talent who has been Chef de Cuisine at Addie's for the past several years. Rather than rewriting Nate's description, I'm going to copy it word-for-word here. Congratulations, Nate - you have been one of the best chef's in the DC area for a long time, and it's high time you get the credit you deserve. Cheers, Rocks
-
History seemed to be the best sub-category for this. Moderators feel free to move it as you see fit. Cemeteries are of interest to my wife and I. Full of history, art, landscaping, peace and solitude and more. We often visit cemeteries in our travels, to see what they look like, to see how the dead are honored, to find the oldest grave, looking for art, and getting away from where people are for some solitude and a connection to the space we are in - close to home or on our travels. Some cemeteries are hallow, like all of the military cemeteries filled with the dead of war and struggle. They are uniform (and honestly boring, visually) and give you pause to absorb the magnitude of loss due to war. Some are beautiful, like many in Germany - gardened and impeccably maintained. Some are above ground, like in New Orleans. Some are decrepit, like New Orleans. Some have amazing natural landscapes, like those in Savannah, GA. Others have rolling hills or small ponds. I love them all. We just got back from visiting Greenmount Cemetery and New Cathedral Cemetery in Baltimore, MD. Green mount seems older, and more hodgepodge, the way I like it. All of the tombstones are above ground (again my preference). Many of the graves date back to the early 1800s when it opened. It is almost full, too. It is a rolling set of hills, and surrounded by a high wall, keeping the hum of the city at bay. John Wilkes Booth is buried there, as is Enoch Pratt, among many other notables (famous or infamous). We saw 3 raptors until the grounds as well as a fox checking us out from a distance. Lots of funeral art and sculpture too. Very well maintained and place of solitude and peace. New Cathedral seems younger, at least where most are buried. And I think it is run by the arch diocese of Baltimore. The older areas are mostly near the top of the rolling hills. It is a bit of a tragedy that it is not better maintained. It is not poorly maintained, but there are headstones that need to be set more vertically and some leftover underbrush that needs dealing with. But there are SO MANY angels atop markers, some seem like copies from the statues of the bridges near the castle by the Vatican I swear. Part of my interest in cemeteries is rooted in a desire to follow our genealogy - easier to do in the USA for my wife, as most of my ancestors are in Europe. So we've explored for graves of her ancestors in Pennsylvania. But we stumbled upon Find-A-Grave. It is a website, now with an app, that lets you make requests for graves to be found for you, and where you, as a graveyard nerd, help others out by trying to find graves for others. It's fascinating. Anyone else a cemetery nerd?- 7 replies
-
- 1
-
-
- Sociology
- Architecture
- (and 3 more)
-
And this thread could just as easily go in the Art forum, or the History forum - I'm actually thinking about moving it to the latter. I've decided to pick up my copy of the AIA Guide to the Architecture of Washington, DC (my copy is the 3rd Edition), and study it a bit. The link is to the 5th Edition, which came out in 2012 - if it's substantially different, and people want to attend this party, I'll spring for it, since a lot has changed in the past 21 years. After the introduction, Tour A starts off in Capitol Hill, with an 8-page description of the Capitol (and more detail later about certain aspects of the Capitol). Anyone interested in doing a pseudo-walking tour with me? I want to actually see these things, rather than simply reading about them - I had no idea, for example, that the Capitol had corn-cob and tobacco-leaf capitals (a capital is the top part of a column). Also, I always thought Robert Mills was responsible for the Capitol Dome; here, he doesn't even get a mention (although I'm sure he'll be mentioned in the Washington Monument (*) section) - Thomas Walter is credited with making the dome as high as it is today (it looked really "squat" in bygone eras), and I cannot imagine it like that after having seen the current version my entire life. Did you know they extended the east face by 32 1/2 feet in 1959-1960, and in the process, added *102 rooms*?! If anyone wants to do an on-your-own group tour of DC's architecture and discuss it here, I'm game. (*) Who knew that before the Washington Monument, the world's tallest building was the Cologne Cathedral? Boy, I certainly didn't.
-
Another bombshell in that piece is that Gabriel Kreuther is leaving The Modern around the end of the year - he was the opening chef, and has been there since 2004.
-
Has anyone eaten at this restaurant lately or,has anyone cooked in the kitchen. I'm seeking opinions on the food or working conditions. -
I'd love to give you all a review of the art at the Guggenheim, but in the FAQ fine print they note that luggage is not checkable. So...if you have a few hours to kill in New York City after you arrive or before you leave, and you decide that a museum visit is in order, check their luggage policy (apparently most NYC museums are not luggage friendly). We found out the crappy way. For the record, we had no problems checking luggage at the Art Institute of Chicago last year and spent a lovely couple of hours there in between our hotel check out and our flight back to DC. It appears the National Gallery of Art allows limited luggage checking. Not that I often wander the streets of DC with luggage going to museums.
-
I've actually received a few PM's about Eventide and was going to wait until our chef's name is public knowledge before I started this thread, but I guess it's never too early to give out details to this group. We're still in a lengthy construction period but truly hope to open by May/June. (My fingers are cramping as I type because they've been crossed for so long.) We're on Wilson Blvd. at the beginning of the same block that the Clarendon Ballroom and Liberty Tavern are on. The scoop...nice bar/lounge on the first floor run by an exceptionally professional and hilarious Bar Manager that will be concentrating on inspired, well-crafted cocktails and a bit of a more elegant atmosphere than a bunch of Clarendon restaurants play host to (read: no Jager bombs served here...ever). Second floor will be about 90 seats of unpretentious, "date night" dining with 3 semi-private areas where we can host 3 seperate groups of 10 or combine the areas to hold up to 30 for receptions, business dinners, etc... The rooftop will feature table seating and will be a food-first floor. We certainly want cocktail-only guests to sit at the tables, but will not be playing host to an "SRO" rooftop scene...that's what the Clarendon Ballroom's roof is for. (The Ballroom owners are partners at Eventide as well. I might as well be straightforward and divulge that info now.) There will be a small bar on the roof for late night cocktails after dinner, but the roof will be managed so that it stays as comfortable as possible for all and remains a mostly-seated area. I have also hired an extremely gregarious and knowledgable wine director but, you guessed it, I can't divulge his name either. Please don't think I'm being cloak-and-dagger about naming my management team, but they are all still working at their jobs and cannot put in their notice until I can afford for them to come on salary. My Assistant GM (and also an Eventide partner) is Nick Freshman. Nick's a great guy that I've known for over 10 years and has worked with me at Olives and Poste and will be running the upstairs dining room. We're all extremely excited about this project and really can't wait to get our doors open. In the meantime, if any of you happen to walk by the site and the front doors are open, please feel free to stick your head and ask for Nick Freshman or myself and we'll give you a quick tour while it's still under construction. Just bring beers!! (Feel free to post or PM me if you have any questions/comments/suggestions about the place. I welcome them and look forward to answering you.) -
I've imbibed at the W Hotel several times now, so I'll lay out the layout. . . I'll post later on the menu/off-menu experiences I've had. But this place is a complicated venue to navigate. Lobby Bar The lobby is a perfectly fine place to relax. The bar itself has about 10 stools, and always has a spectacular floral arrangement reaching 14 feet upwards. Table service is comfortable and leisurely. Choose from an assortment of games (chess, checkers, etc.) to pass the time as you sip cocktails and/or munch on snacks. Pick a table near the windows, and away from the hallway, to avoid the long lines to the elevator that can hover over you. I.E. If you're headed to the rooftop, there will be AT LEAST one line to the elevator here in the lobby. Only 7 may fit into the elevator (and even then the hopper has asked folks to step off if the weight limit has been reached), so inevitably you'll wait to get upstairs. Rooftop Bars Once on the rooftop, you instantly understand why all of those lines downstairs are necessary. Few views (if any) in DC surpass those from the W's rooftop, and the upstairs would be a complete zoo if there wasn't some sort of crowd control. As it is, I have yet to feel claustrophobic upstairs. The tables are spaced nicely (remember the horrific seating of the Hotel Washington?). The sun sets just over the White House, and I don't tire of watching Washington's skyline at night. This rooftop is the W's timeless competitive advantage over any other club or restaurant in the city. There are two rooftop bars: a small one (no seating) at the corner of the building, and a shotgun one that seats about 10 at the other end. As you stand in the rooftop corner, the Washington Monument dares you to reach out and touch it. The shotgun bar runs parallel to the Treasury Building, and may be the most crowded area in the W Hotel. POV Lounge Now we're cooking with gas. This indoor lounge on the rooftop is just gaudy sick. Floor to ceiling windows allow for a panoramic view of the south, hard to believe that the Hotel Washington had it bricked up for years before. Most of the tables are reservation only. On the weekends a live jazz band adds to the ambiance. The room's centerpiece is the "sushi bar", styled after those of high-end Japanese restaurants. Here the bartenders shake, stir and muddle behind the elevated bar in the dim light. Seating consists of 12 10 zebra-striped armchairs, at a bar that doubles as a lamp (a very bright one) by nightfall. It's a bit awkward to have the bartenders tower over you, albeit from several feet back, but they reward your curious interest with exploratory suggestions. When sitting so low, it is downright impossible to see all the bottles behind this bar, and the menu tells precious little of this shop's range of inventory. Still, there are PLENTY of cool toys here, including a copper ice sphere mold (one of 7 kinds of ice). If the W Hotel is a sea of people-watching, power-mingling, vodka-drinking, weekend-clubbing folly, the sushi bar is an island of cocktail-crafting giddiness. Lines and Access Making a reservation is definitely the safest way to go. I swung by last Sunday at 3:30pm only to be told that rooftop access was closed to walk-ins. During the weekdays, I get upstairs solo no problem. On Friday and Saturday nights, lines form outside for those without reservations ("TWRs"). Once inside the lobby, there is another line for TWRs to get to the rooftop. Finally, there is a line for the one rooftop elevator that most everyone must suffer. An annoying production, but IMO necessary, as observed above. Atmosphere Although there is decent food, a restaurant it is not. Definitely a bar. More than that, it's one of those "THE place to be" bars. The clientele is an odd mix of: tourists, politicians, celebrities, professionals, and business meetings. Didn't see too many interns or cocktail enthusiasts. It's generally an older crowd that is less interested in innovation, and more apt to opt for wine or beer (only available bottled). It's generally a crowd who has never heard of Sasha Petraske. On the surface, a place that purports to cater to the sophisticated, but mainly attracts the pretentious (Yours Truly included in his weaker moments). But, the staff is friendly enough to chat with me if I can't get a conversation going with a random customer. Closing Thoughts I'm not a big fan of the speakeasy model, nor any model that requires a complicated access protocol. I don't do reservations, Open Table, or anything past calling to make sure a restaurant is open that day, or that late. That said, there is a payoff at POV if you can bear jumping thru its hoops. I'll save my thoughts of the menu for a later time (bottom line: I like the enthusiasm and often the execution), but thought I'd kick off this thread. -
** Please note, out of respect for their neighbors, Boneyard Studios does not reveal their address unless you sign up for one of their showcase tours, therefore I won't reveal their address either, but the Google Machine can locate it for you** Why have I put this in the Art section? Boneyards Studios is a "showcase of three tiny houses on an alley lot in Washington, DC. It's an experiment in simplicity, and sustainability, and creative urban infill." Current zoning regulations prohibits the owners from living in their tiny homes, so in its current state the project is more of a modern art installation than a residence. Roughly once a month the owners provide a showcase tour of their homes (one is complete, the other two in various states of construction) along with their community garden. The lot was formerly an abandoned alley lot filled with broken concrete, trash, and a stolen car. The land was purchased, cleaned up, and landscaped. Each tiny home is approximately 150 - 200 sq feet built on a trailer system, with solar panels, rain water gathering systems, and cistern. Although one of the homes is attached to the city power grid, they are not hooked into the sewer or water system. The project is an interesting demonstration about low-impact living as well as city management, housing and zoning regulations.
-
- 1
-
-
- Architecture
- Urban Planning
- (and 1 more)
-
There's no "Architecture" forum in "Don's Cavalcade of Culture," but here is a great article by Philip Kennicott of the Post about the new Silver line.
-
We had an amusing experience at lunch today. We both ordered the Chicken Salad. The menu indicates that it comes with curried chicken, a salad, and tea bread (all on the same plate). My wife is allergic to nuts, and we should have asked if the tea bread had any. Our chicken salads arrived, and, yes, the tea bread was loaded with nuts. My wife told our very charming server of her allergy, and her salad was whisked away, presumably for some nutless bread or some additional salad as a substitute. After waiting several minutes our server brought the "new" salad to our table. There was no bread, but the dimensions of the plate were smaller. The kitchen had scooped the chicken salad and the green salad onto a smaller plate. Why didn't it simply remove the tea bread and return the original plate? Would not have taken more than 15 seconds. I'm sure there were legitimate reasons, but no explanation was offered. We chuckled about this through our lunch. Middleburg in January is quiet and peaceful. No bikers roaring up and down Washington. No leaves to obscure the panorama. -
The Water Works Restaurant is right there. I've never been, and you know what they say about restaurants with views, but it might be worth researching reviews since the area isn't exactly chock-a-block full of walkable places to eat. -
So I'm browsing maps for roadfood (as is my wont) and casually notice that Google tabulates this country restaurant's customer review scores as 29/30. Even normalizing for the Frederick County countryside reviewer, this suggests some solid "modern Southern" cooking might be going on. The menu isn't groundbreaking, and I'm not expecting an Ashby Inn sort of experience, but everything seems to be either well-sourced or made in-house. At the least, it seems like an interesting alternative to Monocacy Crossing. Has anybody been? http://www.alexander....com/restaurant http://www.frederick...?StoryID=139406 -
I tried looking for a topic on this place but wasn't able to search with a number in the query and scrolled back a bunch of pages and didn't see it. If this is a duplicate, please combine the posts. http://www.station9dc.com/ Has anyone been to the new U St place? Tom Sietsema has apparently been 4 times and liked it but someone from his chat wrote in a pretty negative review yesterday. I am planning to go with a few friends later this month and just hadn't heard much about the restaurant yet.
_svg.thumb.png.c50387abb33133634363845f12199fa0.png)
