Wake to Washington

One. Week. Left.

T-minus 1 week until you officially miss out on fall team sports with DC Fray. Keep your FOMO in check. Get in before Tuesday, September 10th!

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Pay to play

For the past decade, Jelleff Field in Georgetown, which borders many local public schools and community centers, has been reserved for students at DC private school, Maret School. In exchange for nearly a million dollars in renovations, the DC Parks Dept. offered Maret exclusive rights to the field during coveted weekday afternoon time slots — an arrangement that many say disadvantages public school kids and deprives them of community “third places” to hang. 

• The deal has been extended until 2029, but not without pushback from public school parents.

• Also, not the first time the city has pushed folks out of a public field.

Pretty trivial compared to Sasquatch activity in Rock Creek

ICYMI: It wouldn’t be a neighborhood list-serv if there wasn’t at least one person losing their mind about some banal feature of city life. Per @maustermuhle: an Admo resident wrote up a lengthy post with liberal use of air quotes on the horrors of a Salvadoran man walking around singing, only to be roundly mocked in the responses. 

How foodstagram influencers shape the scene

When you’re flipping through food porn, you probably know what you’re seeing is manufactured. What started organically is now basically paid advertising, with rate cards ranging from $45 to $500 for a static post and top accounts like @dcfoodporn pulling in six figures. Some want even more: a food publicist said “[influencers] think they can have whatever they want, whenever they want, however they want it.”

U St’s changes, as seen by black businesses

The owners of businesses like Lee’s Flower and Card Shop, the go-go Metro PCS and Ben’s Chili Bowl participated in an oral history of the neighborhood’s gentrification, talking about how their clientele have changed, how they cope with higher taxes and rents, and how they’ve survived. 

The green jobs program in your backyard (or your rooftop)

City-supported nonprofit Solar Works will have created 200 jobs and installed solar panels on 300 DC roofs by next year. Solar costs have gone down 34% over the last 5 years here, and aggressive incentives remain in place.

A historian’s response re: placenames

After we published your crowdsourced thoughts on neighborhood names around Georgia Avenue and Harvard St NW, a historian responded to our story with some fun facts—for example, Sherman Ave feels like a natural boundary because it used to be a creek. 

• For more, visit the historian’s HistoryQuestDC arcGIS interactive map. 

Also || Charming Google doc of “infrastructure films”, did you know there’s a DC Beer blog?, DCRA promises investigation following Kennedy St fire, Panera turns over its entire fast-food staff every year, DCPL holds leaderboard

The tricky part is the heel

Settle back in after your long weekend, and get a head start on fall, by taking a four week-long sock knitting class! (6-7pm)

Sweet, sweet justice

If you have a break in the afternoon, stop by civil rights org Advancement Project’s ice cream social to celebrate their work, pick up some graffiti art skills, and find out what you can do to make racial justice a reality. (4 pm)

Tunes: Simony Joyner & Amanda Glaser, Tee Vee

• Rhizome hosts two eclectic singer-songwriters in Takoma. (8 pm)

• “Electronic pop from Houston, TX” at Dwell. (7:30 pm)

Answer the big questions

• Will American democracy survive 2020 (with Robert Kuttner, founder of The American Prospect)? (7 pm) 

• Are we heading for extinction, and what can we do about it? (APL, 7:30 pm)

• And the real doozy: Should priests be celibate? (7:30 pm)

Also || Harry Potter trivia | Horror Drag Show | Intro to block printing ($) | ½ price pisco sours | novel talk: A Particular Kind of Black Man