V.w.verweij

Taking a cue (and its name) from one of the desert's iconic travelers, this robotic data-gathering device could provide researchers with important information about the progress of desertification.

Catherine Sarah Young creates clothes for "how we might live when the earth is not very livable."

"He loves our spigot," writes Kristen Finnegan

3D printing the implant allowed doctors to make it specifically suited to the woman's body and enabled her to walk pain free.

Folding thousands of leaves in layers upon layers, this Japanese artist creates incredible textured works of nature-inspired art.

But assuming that lower-income citizens are content to eat cheeseburgers definitely is.

660 Pennsylvania Avenue, SE

Good news for fellow cheese fans – Sona Creamery has now opened near Eastern Market. Upon entering the shop I experienced what I imagine heaven smells like. The place looks cool too (table seating not pictured to the left of photo):

Hours are 11am-10pm and you can take a look at their menus here.

Where the magic happens:

Congratulations to our latest “If Walls Could Talk” poll winner, Nanny O’Briens. We’re going to do a little digging into the history of your building at 3319 Connecticut Ave. NW.

The Greek restaurant investor

On September 11th, 1952, The Washington Post reported on a funeral mass to be held for Louis Kanakos, who died at the age of 51. The mass was held at Helen Church, 6th and C St. SW and he was buried at Glenwood Cemetery in northeast.

Mr. Kanakos died at Gallinger Hospital after having fallen ill in January of that year (it was an unspecified illness). Louis was originally born in Greece and had come to the United States in 1915, first to New York City and then Savannah, Georgia. Ultimately, he ended up in the District at the age of 38.

He was involved in the local restaurant business, being a kitchen manager and part owner in the Flame Restaurant at 1629 Connecticut Ave. (where Gazuza and Chipotle are today). Prior to this, he was a stockholder in the King of the Sea Restaurant at 3319 Connecticut Ave., Nanny O’Briens current location.

His last residence in the city was at 3755 Jocelyn St. NW, just west of Connecticut and south of Military Rd.

King of the Sea Restaurant

Speaking of King of the Sea … we found a funny little snippet in the newspaper, mentioning a gag sign they had posted in their window. There were numerous complaints by restaurants and local businesses at the time, that people would come asking for handouts or credit. King of the Sea was one of those, and they posted a sign that read “Credit extended only to people over 70 years of age who are accompanied by their parents.” The sign stayed up for a really long time, primarily as a joke. That is, until one night when an elderly couple entered, approached the manager, Jimmy Kanakas [sic] (related to Mr. Kanakos above), and then pointed to an even older couple standing in the background, saying “meet mom and dad.” Jimmy stuck to his word, and the troupe of four really old patrons had dinner on the house.

Jimmy, by the way, lived at 434 Harvard St. NW, in a home that doesn’t appear to be there any longer.

Below is an advertisement for the shops on Connecticut Ave. in Cleveland Park. King of the Sea is listed along with a number of other businesses listed in The Washington Post in 1950.

Robbery charges

We found an article printed on December 18th, 1956, mentioning the indictment of John B. Harley of 505 G St. SE, who was accused of stealing $385 in cash and property from the new restaurant at 3319 Connecticut Ave., the Steak Ranch. Sounds like a place that belongs in Texas.

Interestingly, another article in The Washington Post, this time from June 3rd, 1952, identified John B. Harley, then 20 years old, living at 2405 Nichols Ave. SE (now Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave.) as a suspect in a restaurant burglary.  He was walking out of the alley on the 1900 block of R St. NW when he was arrested by two officers. The charge was stealing $43 from the Flame Restaurant at 1629 Connecticut Ave. (i.e., the one also owned by Kanakos, the man mentioned above). He was also in possession of a box of 12 fifths of whiskey.

The cops found the restaurant’s back door in the alley jimmied, the cash register broken into, and a screwdriver was dumped in the trash can. Harley’s excuse was that he needed money to pay for an attorney. There was no mention of why he needed an attorney.

Ed Myles Riviera

At the end of 1950, the restaurant that was located at 3319 Connecticut Ave. was now called Ed Myles Riviera. Unfortunately, there was very little on this restaurant in the newspaper archives. The only thing we could dig up was the advertisement below from Thanksgiving, 1950.

Best spaghetti in town

You would think that the Steak Ranch is where you go to get steak, right? Well, according to The Washington Post in 1959, Elizabeth Jones’ Steak Ranch was a great place to get some of the best spaghetti in D.C. Not only that, but you would be entertained by wonderful organ music played by Penny Martin if you were there for dinner. She featured Wednesday night through Saturday from 9pm to 1am.

Organ music and spaghetti? Sign me up! Starting in June of 1960, Elizabeth decided to keep her restaurant open seven days a week, but only had Penny Thursday through Saturday by then. It seems like Ms. Martin was fairly popular because she’s featured in multiple ads for entertainment at downtown D.C. restaurants.

Not only that, she was a music teacher who happened to have among her students, the grandchildren of President Eisenhower.

We love Irish pubs

There was surprisingly no mention of the address in the newspapers for the entire decade of the 1960s. Maybe the owners saw no need to advertise?

Anyway, it reappears in the 1970s as Gallagher’s, an Irish pub that I’m sure at least some GoDCers remember. At least those that like to throw back a pint of Guinness. Gallagher’s also had a second location back then at 637 Pennsylvania Ave. SE. That location today holds Remingtons.

Gallagher’s in Cleveland Park was also a good place to go for some live music, especially on Sundays if you were a musician yourself. You could show up yourself by 8pm and play at open mic night.

Source: Flickr user Mike Steele

Gallagher’s and Mary Chapin Carpenter

Seriously? This place is connected to Grammy award winning Mary Chapin Carpenter. Trivia like this is why we love digging through old newspapers and learning about this city.

Open mic night at Gallagher’s was hosted for many years by Carpenter, until she went on to become a very famous and successful musician. It was a mainstay in the amateur music community here in D.C. for more than two decades. The open mic night ended in 1995, a couple years after the place was sold.

Gallagher’s faded into a dank, dingy place when it was purchased to become Nanny O’Briens. Today, it has the great feel of a neighborhood Irish pub and hopefully will stick around for many, many years.

Finally, take a look at the map below. This is from 1909, well before the time when Nanny O’Briens building was built. The west side of Connecticut was fairly developed with nice, large homes. The east side was still barren land, owned by the Chevy Chase Land Company. Although, it looks like the land on which Nanny’s was built was part of John Sherman’s trust (at least that’s what I assume John Sherman Tr. stands for).

Also, if you look closely enough, you’ll see the neighborhood to the west, where Newark St. runs, was called Connecticut Avenue Highlands.

Source: Library of Congress

uglyskank-withfriends:

karkatstuck:

tangarang:

fullmetalbukkake:

lafix:

A very bizarre bird was photographed in Venezuela recently. Meet the Potoo, which is rarely seen in daylight. - Imgur

NOPE

what the fuck is that

that looks like a god damn nightmare

and this is sound it makes 

THAT SOUND

buckythefrenchy:

For Tbm, his bag is heaven

Portable chinrest

What a fun old print from The Washington Times printed on June 18th, 1912.

Photo Credit: Karen Abbott, Smithsonian’s National Zoo

From the National Zoo:

“A few days ago, African lion mother Naba spent some time away from her cubs and enjoyed a special oxtail treat with her sister, Shera. Keepers took the opportunity to get their first in-person look at the cubs. Their report: they are adorable! In order to distinguish the two, keepers shaved a small mark on each cub. The smaller, who weighs 7.6 lbs, has a shave mark on his/her left shoulder. The larger cub, who weighs 8.26 lbs, has a small shave mark at the base of his/her tail. Animal care staff have not yet verified the cubs’ sex. (Just shy of 2 weeks old, the cubs’ genetalia have not fully developed.)

When Naba returned to the cubbing den, she groomed and nursed the cubs. She didn’t show any signs of stress. Keepers gave her the option to move the cubs to a different set of cubbing dens, but Naba choose to keep them where they were. Watch our little lion family grow on the Cub Cam.”

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please shoot me an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit.

“This is Sherman the cat and Georgia the dog, adopted together from the Wetzel shelter in West Virginia with the help of Homeward Trails. They are napping together at home in Columbia Heights.”

“This is my cat Sue who lives in Columbia Heights. He’s a boy named Sue, don’t forget it!”

“This is Boomer wearing his backpack in the fall. We live in Takoma, DC”

Photo by PoPville flickr user J Sonder

When becoming a member of the PoPville flickr pool please make sure your settings allow me to download your photos. Join the PoPville flickr pool here and follow PoPville on twitter here on facebook here and you can now sign up for daily email summaries here.

Photo by PoPville flickr user nevermindtheend

Here’s an interesting drawing that we dug up. It shows the suffrage march line from March 4th, 1913.

Source: Library of Congress

Including a dress, wig and "diva fan" printed with her catchphrase "How you doin'?" [ more › ]

The cubs' sex has yet to be determined as their genitalia isn't fully formed yet, according to the Zoo. [ more › ]

It's called MAYOR FOR LIFE. [ more › ]

Located off off 9th Street in Shaw near Shiloh Baptist Church.

wonderous-world:

Gandalf the Great Grey Owl gets scared of going outside and flying out in the open so his owners at Knowsley Safari Park have built his aviary inside a brick shed.  He now spends his days watching the world go by out of his window. Photos by Mark Bridger [Article]

Many women at the outbreak of the Civil War did not know how to support their favored side. The roles of woman at the time were limited and none of them were direct involvement in the war. Though the true number is likely much higher, we know of at least 400 women who disguised themselves as men to join the troops. Some were following brothers or husbands, others in search of adventure, or out of patriotism. We know them because of their memoirs, or being found out when wounded or killed in battle. For some of them, we have both the true name and their masculine alias, and others just the one their fellow soldiers knew them by before they died on the field.

More than a century past, we are still finding out about some. In the 1990s, a stash of letters was remembered in an old attic in New York. They were letters home from a soldier fighting with the 153^rd New York Volunteer Infantry. The Wakeman family lore told of a grandmother, still living after the war, mentioning a sibling who fought under the name Lyons Wakeman, but not much more was mentioned. The letters were from a Sarah Rosetta Wakeman. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the connection was made. To the Wakeman family, the secret was known that Rosetta had joined the Union under the name Lyons in the disguise of a man. To the rest of the world, Lyons Wakeman was simply a soldier who died during the war and is buried under the military headstone 4066 in Chalmette National Cemetery in New Orleans.

Rosetta was the eldest daughter of a large farming family in New York. As she grew older, the family grew more in debt. Thinking it the best way to serve the family, she left home and struck out in the guise of man to earn a living. Jobs that were open to women, such as laundress, did not pay the wages she needed to help support the family. She began work as a boatman on a canal when she met recruiters for the 153^rd NY Volunteers. They told her she could earn a $152 bounty, think of it as a signing bonus, and $13 a month pay. She enlisted on August 30, 1862 as a private and sent some of the bounty home, telling the family to buy clothes and food.

To protect her identity, she had her family mail the letters address only to R.L. Wakeman. However, she signed them Rosetta, even saying that her family need not worry what they say in the letters as they are read by no one but herself.

She does not talk much about her reasons for leaving other than helping her father pay his debts. Nor does she talk much about the war as a whole, though she often asks her family their thoughts. She does at one point mention that she thinks the war will continue because the officers are making a pretty penny with their salaries. If they were to receive her pay of $13 a month it would be over already.

The first post for the 153^rd was Alexandria, Virginia as guards for the defense of Washington. They were here just under a year when the New York Draft Riots happened. President Lincoln needed more men and so Congress passed a draft. The middle and lower class workers of New York rebelled against this act – think Gangs of New York. Fearful the same thing would happen during Draft Week in Washington, Rosetta’s troops were brought into the city and stationed on Capitol Hill.

Here Rosetta described the job that her company performed. On a rotating schedule, they guarded Carroll Prison, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Depot, City Hall where the draftees were registered, the city and the camp. From August to October 1863 she was at Carroll Prison every other day. Carroll Prison was used as the Capitol Building decades earlier and has been subsequently called the Old Capitol Prison. She comments in a letter home about three women held there. One was a Confederate Major who had ridden once into battle with her men, the other two held as spies were likely famous Southern spy Belle Boyd and a Rebel mail carrier that Belle named as Ida P.

During their time in Washington, the 153^rd practiced drills just as any regular regiment. Rosetta claimed she had “got so I can drill just as well as any man there is in my regiment.”

In February 1864, her regiment was given marching orders South to Louisiana. After fighting at the Red River campaign and a 70-mile forced march after, Rosetta was admitted to the hospital with chronic diarrhea where she died in May 1864. What seems such an unjust fate for soldier, it was the deadliest disease during the Civil War. The 153^rd would a few months later return to Washington to defend against Confederate General Jubal Early’s attempted invasion and the review of the troops by President Andrew Johnson after the war.

If her letters home had not been preserved, historians would never know that Lyons Wakeman was truly a woman in disguise. How many other female soldiers are buried under their enlisted names or unmarked graves we will never know. What we do know is that there are many other women just like Rosetta Wakeman.

You can read the edited compilation of Rosetta’s letters in An Uncommon Soldier: The Civil War Letters of Sarah Rosetta Wakeman, Alias Private Lyons Wakeman, 153rd Regiment, New York State Volunteers, edited by Laura Cook

–This is an excerpt from Canden’s newest book to be released in March 2014: Wild Women of Washington, DC: A History of Disorderly Conduct from the Ladies of the District 

Rosslyn workers got a “hump day” surprise Wednesday when a camel showed up in front of the WJLA building at the corner of N. Lynn Street and Wilson Blvd.

According to the camel’s handler, the large ungulate was brought to Rosslyn by the TV station in honor of “hump day.” The camel is from a ranch in Berryville, Va.

A crowd quickly formed at the plaza in front of the building as onlookers snapped photos with cell phones and quoted the popular GEICO commercial featuring a camel in an office on a Wednesday. One even quipped to the handler that he should be walking through aisles of cubicles, not outside in the plaza.

Hat tip to WJLA’s Alex Liggitt

benevieve:

excuse me i have a lot of wombatting to do today

If you have any animal/pet photos you’d like to share please shoot me an email to princeofpetworth(at)gmail(dot)com with ‘Animal Fix’ in the title and say the name of your pet and your neighborhood. Your photos will go into the queue (usually 3-4 weeks wait) and will be posted in the order I receive them. If you’ve already entered your pet and would like to do so again – that’s no problem – just space the entries out a bit.

“Margot from Columbia Heights, enjoying nature at Rock Creek Park.”

“Cody in Columbia Heights.”

“Bella of Dupont Circle is not quite sure how to react to the many guests at her 4th birthday party.”

829 Upshur Street, NW

Details about The Reading Room at Petworth Citizen from an email:

“Now accepting donations to the Free Book Library, which will be open during regular Petworth Citizen hours. We’ve built out our shelves to accommodate over 3,000 volumes.

Grand Opening Open House – Next Monday (Feb. 3) from 7pm – 9pm. Public is welcome to come by and take a look.

We’ve already hosted a number of readings and other events. And we continue to add programming including Knowledge Commons classes, more readings organized by Barrelhouse, private book club meetings, PlayBackTheTape screening, meetings of local organizations, etc.”

More photos after the jump.

The Bar/Restaurant:

Before the Super Bowl last night, Animal Planet aired its annual Puppy Bowl, which featured one puppy from Arlington and another from Falls Church.

Ginger, a 6-month-old Old English Sheepdog Mix, was adopted by an Arlington family from the Fayette (Ohio) Humane Society in September. Ginger’s new home is with Miguel Monteverde and his family, according to the Record-Herald in Fayette County.

Monteverde told the paper that his family was looking to replace its former pet, another Old English Sheepdog, that died in 2012. He suggested that Ginger could be a formidable Puppy Bowl contender.

“Sometimes she can be a handful,” Monteverde said. “Her favorite activities are to play with her neighbors, Morgan and Oscar, our neighbor’s dogs. She’s full of energy and affection.”

Ginger wasn’t the only pup from the area to participate in the Puppy Bowl, which featured 38 dogs on a miniature football field playing with toys. Bach, a Bernese mountain dog/poodle mix, is from Falls Church.

The Puppy Bowl drew an average of 12.4 million viewers last year.

Photo via Animal Planet

The Snowy Owl's prognosis is still guarded, but it's "acting more and more like a healthy owl every day." [ more › ]

Brunch is now being served for dinner at 1905 because life just doesn't make sense anymore. [ more › ]

It’s been quite rewarding to work with Hillmann & Carr and Brightline Interactive to make the museum a reality.  This has been a long project.  I love seeing the early creative treatments that I wrote under the direction of our creative director Jennifer Gruber evolve and become real videos and interactives.  I look forward to seeing the interactive experiences my colleagues and I have designed come to life.  See you at the grand opening!

http://www.tricities.com/workittricities/business_news/article_96edf06c-8bc1-11e3-833e-001a4bcf6878.html

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1712189