A regular summary of irregular news and notes from neighborhood blogs and email lists around the District.
But is it Gluten-Free? The Bloomingdale blog gives notice of the existence of a unique enterprise: a vegan yoga musical supper club. The owner writes: “I’m a bloomingdale resident with my own business, LOTUS UPRISING! (lotusuprising.com). We throw a monthly yoga-vegan food-musical mashup party, and our October event is a JAZZ BRUNCH this Sunday at 10:30 AM over at 11th and U Sts, NW. We’ll have a sweaty yoga class taught by Colin Brightfield of Down Dog Yoga, a fabulously vegan meal cooked by me, Erin McCarthy, and gorgeous design and direction by Jamie Gahlon—all with live jazz music!”
We’d Love To Read The Responses: A guest poster on And Now, Anacostia has some problems with the neighborhood: “I think residents personalize things too much in this city, at the expense of looking at things objectively. In Ward 8, the uneducated simply outnumber the educated. Not that education is everything, but politicians play residents. People in a neglected part of town come out against the very transportation initiaitives that are designed to increase access to points west. How smart is that? I don’t think anybody will open businesses, thereby increasing jobs in an area inundated with too many social services, resulting in people out on the street. Like I’m really going to take my wife and kids to a sit-down restaurant in that type of environment?” The post was copied from the Historic Anacostia email list, which is members-only; we haven’t been able to see what the other members think.
Food Trucks East of the River? Congress Heights on the Rise muses over the paucity of food trucks in Ward 8: “Lastly, I had a nice little chat with the DC Empenada truck about why more food trucks don’t come to Anacostia and Ward 8. As I suspected, the perception is that food trucks don’t make as much money in our community as they do west of the river. While downtown Anacostia may not have the same foot traffic (yet) as downtown DC there is business to be had, provided the food trucks become more familiar with key parking locations (like the DHCD building in Anacostia) and marketing (be sure to spread the Twitter word in advance). I am mulling over a ‘Guide To Food Trucking East of the River’ post for our purveyors of the mobile treats.”
When No Growth is Best: A former ANC commissioner isn’t too thrilled by the prospect of new development in Tenleytown—which will, naturally, increase the number of residents to some degree. The Ward 3 DC blog quotes the commissioner as writing on the Tenleytown email list, “How about putting them in OTHER parts of the city that are also near the subway and public transportation and are desperately looking for quality development that new residents would bring, such as east of the Anacostia and the new North of Union Station? Not all development and high density residential has to be in Tenley.” She continues, “Many of us worked very hard to keep Tenleytown from becoming like Cleveland Park and Friendship Heights. Growth, even ‘smart growth’ (whatever THAT is) is not necessarily a good thing. Sometimes status quo is actually best. For those who want a Manhattan/Ballston/Friendship Heights style of living, I say, go there. Leave Tenleytown the small town oasis that it is.” Funny, Friendship Heights seems a whole lot more like Tenleytown than Manhattan ever could.