Express' Kris Coronado went to Safeway to pick up some snacks. She wound up chasing a clerk and a thief down a darkened street.
IT WAS 8:45 P.M. and I was at a Safeway on Wilson Boulevard in Arlington picking up a few odds and ends. "The Office" was coming on in 15 minutes. Time was of the essence.
As I walked toward the store from the parking lot, I watched a young man suspiciously pushing one of the store's carts away from the store and towards the street. "Hey!" A woman in a Safeway uniform yelled at him. "You! Stop right there!"
He paused, looked at her and then pushed the cart around the corner onto Wilson Boulevard. Without hesitating, she gave chase. I stood there dumbfounded: Did that just really happen? She just ran after a guy by herself into a badly lit street — not the best idea.
So I hustled into the store to find a manager but was greeted by long lines and zombies posing as employees at cash registers. It seemed she was the manager, so there was no one to tell. I faced a decision: Start shopping and pretend nothing had happened ... or ... well, you know where this is going.
Continue Reading "D.C. Diary: A Not-So-Safeway in Arlington" »
ENZO ALGARME and Anastasiya Laufenberg weren't kidding when they said they know pizza.
The name of Ballston's new Pupatella Food Cart — "pupatella" is slang for doll in Naples — is a reference to Algarme's grandmother who inspired his love of cooking. Although they've only been open a week and are making do with a standard oven as opposed to the wood-burning one that's becoming the standard in the area's top pizza joints, Algarme and Laufenberg turning out an impressive thin-crust margherita pie. It's well-cooked, but not too brittle, and topped with basil, mozzarella and a glaze of sauce with a hint of sweetness.
The duo's range of offerings in addition to pizza is ambitious, as passers-by acknowledged in our recent visit when they read the specials board, which included fried calzones, stuffed rice balls, potato croquettes, ravioli and tiramisu and cannolis for dessert. Although the cart is only open from 8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., Algarme and Laufenberg are hoping to extend hours to 8 p.m. by Oct. 15.
You can find the cart at N. Stuart Street and 9th Street N., near Ballston's Orange Line station.
TUNA TARTARE IS SO LAST YEAR: Inspired by Anthony Bourdain's Overrated Food menu, the writer behind the Apples & Bananas blog today asked The Post's Tom Sietsema in his weekly dining chat about which dishes he thinks are overrated. Sietsema's answer? Tuna tartare and molten chocolate cake.
Continue Reading "Eating Around: Ballston Gets New Pizza Cart" »
ALTHOUGH AEROBIC DANCE may not boast its former cachet, a lot of ladies (and even some gentlemen) still prefer to get their sweat on by chasse-ing. Last year was the most profitable yet for the exercise program since dance teacher Judi Sheppard Missett tweaked her moves into a workout in 1969. There are now 6,800 instructors around the world teaching 30,000 classes per week.
That includes the gang at the Arlington Jazzercise Center (200 N. Glebe Road; 703-671-2055; Arlingtonjazz.com), which opened in November 2004 after years of operating out of church social halls. The main appeal to students like 31-year-old Lori Crandall, who came to her first class five months ago, is what made Jazzercise a hit in the first place: "I didn't want to join a gym. I wanted something like dance that has a little bit of gym in it, too."
In each hour-long session, an instructor leads the class in a slew of quickie dance routines. As each song starts, they learn a few simple steps, then repeat them to the beat to get heart rates racing.
Instructor Renee McDonald likens the flow of the class to a hill. "We'll stretch out the muscles for the warm-up, and by the third or fourth song, we're kicking," she says. If a student doesn't like a particular routine, it's over soon enough.
THE NEW VAPIANO restaurants in both Arlington and the District suggest that the anti-carb movement is a thing of the past. This German-based "fresh casual" eatery is part fast food, part lounge. For any of the assortment of pastas, salads and pizzas, customers walk up to the kitchen-as-stage, tell how they'd like it — well-done pizza crust, for example, or an extra spicy arrabbiata — and watch as pasta is made fresh and ingredients sauteed. Servings are huge, so bring an appetite.
The feel of the space, from the communal seating to the card system that tracks customer orders, is the 2007 model of German efficiency. Add to that, the staff — each and every member of the crew — is taken abroad for training. Also very European is the wine list, which offers a selection beyond the usuals and suggest instead some lovely Italian choices such as a Falanghina (Vesevo, Campania) and a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano (Dei, Tuscany).
» Vapiano, 1800 M St. NW; 4400 Wilson Blvd., Arlington; 703-528-3113.
Photo courtesy Dirk Michael Deckbar
THE HEART of the Orange Line in Arlington has healing personal energies, serves as a refuge for people in transition and "is becoming the place to move in Northern Virginia after a life-changing event, like divorce, the loss of a spouse, a cross-country move, kids moving out or parents dying," The Post's Daniela Deane reports.
So what is the secret to the lure of Wilson Boulevard-Clarendon Boulevard corridor? Does it lie inside the Alladin-esque chocolate-vanilla swirl domes of Clarendon's Cheesecake Factory? Is there some sort of soothing peace found in The Prime at Arlington Courthouse aka The Meridian? (The development's promotions campaign at the Court House station certainly shows many, many smiling people living life on their own terms, if Free Ride is paraphrasing correctly.)
Actually, Deane writes, it's the simple formula of easy access to the District, good transit and all the "new restaurants, upscale shops, dance studios, coffee bars, bike trails, dog parks, gyms and live entertainment."
Continue Reading "Midlife Crisis? Go to the Ballston-Rosslyn Corridor" »
WHILE WASHINGTON was never surrounded by one big thick defensive wall during the Civil War, a ring of forts acted as gates, protecting the wartime capital from Confederate forces. Today, China's government temporarily controls a modern-day "Gateway" to the American capital. And just last week, Arlington County approved its second "Gateway," this one to be built on a former toxic rail yard. (More on that, later ...)
The word "Gateway," a natural real estate marketing buzzword, is popping up all over town. How many such portals can D.C. accommodate? Let's survey the area's streetscapes ...
When you drive in or out of D.C. on New York Avenue, you're heading through the city's most highly-trafficked gateway. Standing guard — besides The Washington Times complex, of course — is a shabby-looking Days Inn with a lot of fencing surrounding it. The motel is actually closed. The Chinese government currently controls the place, using it as housing for construction workers it shipped in for the construction of its new embassy complex off Van Ness Street in Upper Northwest. Besides fast food and gas stations, there's not much around the Days Inn Washington DC/Gateway ... but don't tell that to developer Jim Abdo.
You might remember another time when the Chinese government secured strategic positioning at a key gateway to the city. In a series of articles in 2000, The Washington Times hounded Beijing's official Xinhua news agency, which had just purchased a building on Arlington Ridge Road with a clear view of the Pentagon, which it said had violated the Foreign Missions Act by not getting prior approval from the State Department. The news agency decried The Times' accusations that Chinese intelligence would use the site to spy on the Defense Department headquarters. A Xinhua spokesman said at the time: "We are filled with great indignation, and we strongly refute the reports."
Continue Reading "The Chinese Are at the Gates! Which One?" »
TWO DUDES LIFTING each other up by their spandex-clad crotches isn't the unbelievable part of "Blades of Glory," the skating flick that's topped the box-office charts the past two weeks. But Will Ferrell and his doughy gut starring as Chazz Michael Michaels, a pudgy ice-skating champion? Talk about absurd.
While many folks view rinks as an excuse to get goofy, fall down a few times, then sip hot cocoa, real skaters know a tough ice session can rival the calorie burning and muscle toning of a Pilates class, squat sets and a road race combined.
To give amateurs a taste of how exhausting an hour on blades can be, Kettler Capitals IcePlex — the Ballston rink that serves as the Washington Capitals' home base — is launching a program called "Fitness Skate for Recreational Skaters."
IN DEVELOPMENT AND PROPERTY RIGHTS CIRCLES, the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in Kelo v. New London, was a watershed legal moment. In it, the court upheld the way eminent domain can be used, allowing governments to seize private property for private economic development. And among property rights activists, the case was a call to action to push eminent domain reform on the state level.
In a crowded metropolitan region where construction cranes can seem to outnumber trees in some areas, the battle over private property and greater economic development is of particular interest. 
Big redevelopment projects in the District — like the Washington Nationals' new stadium and entertainment district in Near Southeast and plans to transform the shabby but busy Skyland shopping center in Ward 8, at right — have been cited as examples of government overstepping its bounds to seize land to benefit commercial development. But as then-D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams told The Post's Dana Hedgpeth in 2005: "If we want smart growth, we need this tool."
And the Supreme Court granted local governments that tool, stirring up much ire among libertarians and others who are against broader uses of such seizures.
Today in Richmond, state lawmakers are scheduled to consider three pieces of legislation that would tighten the definition of eminent domain, stripping local governments of the right to take private land for commercial development purposes.
Continue Reading "Eminent Domain Battles Stew in D.C., Va." »
TO THOSE WHO MIGHT be tiring of our reports about crowding on the Orange Line and the inevitable need to split it from the Blue Line, please bear with us for one more installment of transportation futurism. This time, let's focus on Interstate 66, specifically the portion between Rosslyn and the Dulles Toll Road.
If you ask transportation planners, the Orange Line and the crowded highway — sporting only two lanes in either direction through Arlington County — are essentially part of the same transportation corridor. Crowding on one affects congestion on the other. And both are packed, as anyone who travels them knows all too well.
Next week, the Virginia Department of Transportation will host a public meeting to go over an all-you-can-eat buffet of possibilities for I-66, and one option has to do something with that pie-in-the-sky idea we discussed yesterday: Digging a crosstown M Street subway line through the District to relieve congestion in Virginia.
Of course, officials are a long way from breaking ground on any new construction, and considering that Virginia — and the rest of the region for that matter — doesn't have billions upon billions of dollars just sitting around to solve various transportation crises, they're also not at a point to start figuring out how expanded transportation links across Arlington County could be funded.
But let's take a look at the possibilities — which could include everything from a long-awaited subway station in Georgetown to express buses on I-66 to upping the carpool restrictions from a two-person minimum to a three-person minimum to adding a new outbound lane to the highway. And it's that last possibility that could stir the passions of entrenched Arlingtonians.
Continue Reading "Unclogging I-66: Va. Has Possibilities Aplenty" »
Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images
PEOPLE WHO drive Route 110 every day whiz by Arlington National Cemetery, its thousands of gravesites a reminder of foreign wars, past and present. But the cemetery sits back behind a wall, and to most it's out of sight, out of mind. Inside the confines of Arlington's hallowed ground, however, October has been a very sad month, with more funerals for those who have fallen in Iraq during a particularly bloody month. By Saturday, there had been nearly 100 deaths by U.S. forces, the most since January 2005, according to The New York Times. Friday was an overcast and very sad day at the cemetery, The Post's Arianne Aryanpur writes, with an Army corporal and captain buried, the 268th and 269th people from the Iraq war interred at the cemetery.
» "A Most Violent Month, and Many Final Farewells" [NYT]
» "Officer, Soldier Shared Passions" [WaPo]
» PALISADES: On Sunday, this writer took a hike through the back trails of Upper Northwest up to beautiful Battery Kemble Park (seen here being enjoyed by a park-goer reading a newspaper) and Chain Bridge Road — a winding country lane that dates back to the Civil War when an earthwork protected the route between Tenleytown (then known as Tennallytown) and Chain Bridge. Today, it's a quiet street lined with some of Washington's toniest addresses. And a coalition of boldfaced names — including NBC News' Andrea Mitchell and husband Alan Greenspan — and other neighbors are fighting the well-connected developer Morton Bender who is determine to built 13 mansions on 3.5 acres of land across from Battery Kemble, The Post's Lyndsey Layton reports. And any fight with Bender is usually an epic battle. Stay tuned. [WaPo]
» BALLSTON, SILVER SPRING: The Washington Capitals' practice facility atop the massive parking garage at the Ballston Common Mall is just about finished and will open to the public in December with its two NHL-size ice rinks. The Post's preview of the facility by Annie Gowen has blogger Silver Spring Singular green with envy. "Maybe this wouldn't have been practical for reasons I am not aware, but it strikes me as something that would have been perfect in downtown Silver Spring." [WaPo; Silver Spring Singular]
» COLLEGE PARK: Although the University of Maryland has the third-highest number of violent crimes reported on a U.S. college campus (according to the FBI), gay students say they aren't scared. [Washington Blade]
Addison Road