Serving Dupont Circle, Kalorama & Logan Circle
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
The Dupont Current
P St. lounge asks board for decision
Post office to relocate to city’s Reeves Center
happy new year
■ Facilities: Condo project
slated for current T Street site
By BRADY HOLT Current Staff Writer
A few months after winning a battle with neighbors who wanted Marrakesh Palace and Pasha Lounge to lose its liquor license, the Dupont Circle establishment may have lost the lease on its 2147 P St. space. Marrakesh Palace is scheduled to appear before the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board today to request that its liquor license be placed in safekeeping. This means the owners will keep the license and the terms placed on it, which they could either sell or transfer to a different location. The alcohol board’s agenda item states that Marrakesh owner Bouzid Inc. “no longer has a valid lease.” The item also notes that Bouzid was hoping to transfer the license to another company, MAD LLC, but that the deal fell through. What exactly is happening, or when, still isn’t clear. Marrakesh Palace was open yesterday, and its website doesn’t say there are plans to close. The restauSee License/Page 18
By KATIE PEARCE Current Staff Writer
The T Street post office, set to close at the end of February, has found a new home a block north at the Reeves Center. Officials said the D.C. government is finalizing lease negotiations with the U.S. Postal Service for space within the municipal building at 14th and U streets. According to D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, the post office should start service
■ Education: BASIS DC
Bill Petros/The Current
will follow Arizona program
Thousands of spectators lined the streets of Chinatown in downtown D.C. on Sunday to watch the annual Chinese New Year’s parade, which featured a traditional dragon dance, kung fu demonstrations and musical entertainment.
By ELIZABETH WIENER Current Staff Writer
NEWS ■ Historic firehouse issue goes to mayor’s agent. Page 2. ■ Gray works to fill preservation board slots. Page 3.
there in March. The word has been out for months that the station at 1914 14th St. (commonly known as the “T Street office” due to its cross street) was scheduled to close when its lease expires on Feb. 29. Level 2 Development is moving forward with plans for a new condo building on that block. But neighbors and local officials, fearing the loss of mail service from the heavily trafficked station, pushed for an alternate location nearby, with the Reeves Center coming out as a prime candidate. “I think the encouraging news is See Post Office/Page 31
Celebrated charter model readies for D.C. opening By BETH COPE Current Staff Writer
D.C. water station heads for historic status One of Washington’s more exuberantly ornamented — but littleknown — buildings is a sewage pumping station, according to a presentation to the D.C. Historic Preservation Review Board last week. After a hearing on the beauxarts buff-brick pumping station at 125 O St. SE, the board voted unanimously to nominate it to the National Register of Historic Places. Completed in 1907 and now wedged between Nationals Park and the upscale condos and lofts going up around the Washington Navy Yard, the Main Pumping Station is “a high-style public works project”
Vol. X, No. 34
Bill Petros/The Current
The 1907 facility took its design from plans for a museum.
and “important manifestation of the City Beautiful Movement,” according to a landmark nomination from the D.C. Preservation League. According to a D.C. Water and Sewer Authority spokesperson, it will be the first landmarked building in the agency’s inventory of water
and sewer facilities. “It’s one of those really cool buildings,” said board member Robert Sonderman, who admitted to having sneaked inside the gates to get a better look on his way to a Nationals game. Sonderman, an archaeologist for the National Park Service, noted that the board has several technical criteria for designating landmarks, “but occasionally there’s a criteria which is ‘just fabulous.’” The sewage pumping station is a big building, two-and-a-half stories high and 310 feet long. But surrounded by barbed-wire fences and parking lots, it’s easy to miss except from the Anacostia River waterfront. See Landmark/Page 16
EVENTS ■ Woolly Mammoth presents ‘Civilization’ satire. Page 23. ■ Philips Collection exhibit looks at Kodak’s impact. Page 23.
Mary Riner Siddall describes herself as “the parent that teachers hate” — the sort who “goes into classrooms and sees what’s going on.” About a year ago, she went into a classroom in Arizona, having flown cross-country to visit a group of charter schools drawing national attention. What she saw there, she says, was “mind-blowing.” “I remember sitting in a seventhgrade English class, and they were studying ‘The Coming of the Ship,’ [a chapter from Khalil Gibran’s ‘The Prophet’], and looking forward to Siddhartha’s ‘Path of Enlightenment,’ and he was throwing in Plato’s cave metaphor, passages from Kurt Vonnegut … .” “I’m looking around, and the kids are eating it up,” she continued. “My jaw just dropped. This is not the sort of pabulum stuff that you see in normal schools.” But it is the sort of stuff, she
PASSAGES GWU students win new award for film on ex-offenders. Page 13. ■ Ris Lacoste puts on her walking shoes. Page 13. ■
Bill Petros/The Current
The school has purchased the old Stables Building downtown. promises, that you’ll see this fall at BASIS DC, which is scheduled to open its downtown doors in August. Siddall is the executive head of the developing charter school, which is currently seeking rising fifththrough eighth-graders and will add a grade each year. “We’ve entered an agreement to purchase a building in the Chinatown area, and we are actively recruiting,” said BASIS trustee Dave Hedgepeth. “I can tell you that we’ve gotten a very enthusiastic response.” That response could mean the new school has to hold a lottery to dole out spots: As of yesterday, Siddall had received 245 applications toward the 400-student cap, See Charter/Page 31
INDEX Business/7 Calendar/20 Classifieds/30 District Digest/4 Dupont Circle Citizen/11 Exhibits/23 In Your Neighborhood/10
Opinion/8 Passages/13 Police Report/6 Real Estate/17 School Dispatches/14 Service Directory/26 Theater/23