Thanks to David for sending how things are looking on Piney Branch Parkway this week.
ICYMI: “DC Water’s upcoming closure of Piney Branch Parkway is going to cause major headaches for folks unaware of the closure” (more…)
photo by Tim Brown
From the Library of Congress:
“Taylor Swift’s transformative pop album “1989,” Beyoncé’s standout “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” The Go-Go’s debut album “Beauty and the Beat,” Vince Gill’s signature “Go Rest High On That Mountain,” Weezer’s self-titled debut “Weezer (The Blue Album),” Chaka Khan’s crossover hit “I Feel for You,” and Broadway’s original cast album of “Chicago” have been selected as some of the defining sounds of history and culture that will join the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress in 2026.
Acting Librarian of Congress Robert R. Newlen today named 25 recordings as audio treasures worthy of preservation for all time based on their cultural, historical or aesthetic importance in the nation’s recorded sound heritage.
The 2026 class of inductees span 70 years of music and recorded sound, including: (more…)
Latest stats from DC City Administrator Kevin Donahue:
“🚨 Update on scofflaw vehicle enforcement:
📌FY26 YTD: @DCDPW has impounded 4,450 cars with total of $23M in unpaid citations
📌 Of those, 1,987 were “high value scofflaws” (cars w/$3k+ in unpaid citations) that owed $20M in unpaid tickets”
Updates as new numbers are released.
The reality
You’ve probably never read your building’s property management contract all the way through. Most board members haven’t either. If you did, you’d find a carefully defined scope of work — vendors coordinated, maintenance dispatched, assessments collected, reports generated.
What you wouldn’t find: anything about fiduciary duties. Reserve funding strategy. Compliance tracking. Case documentation. Institutional memory. The legal obligations that make your board personally accountable to unit owners.
That’s not an oversight in the contract. It’s the contract. Property management was never designed to cover governance. And yet most boards — paying $10,000 to $18,000 a year for the service — assume it does.
Operations and governance are different jobs. One has a contract. The other has a fiduciary duty.
What your building is paying — and what it’s getting.
What the contract covers. What it doesn’t.
The markup problem most boards don’t know about.
Beyond the management fee, most property management companies mark up vendor invoices — the plumber, the landscaper, the elevator contractor — by 10 to 15 percent before passing the bill to the association. It’s legal. It’s common. And boards have almost no visibility into it. (more…)
Thanks to Mica and Peter for sending from Dupont Circle around 20th and Mass Ave, NW, Friday morning: (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
This is a huge issue throughout all of DC! The problem lies in the pickleball players continuously moving their nets onto established tennis courts which violates the rules set in place DPR stating that (more…)
The DC Concert Orchestra presents Portraits in Time, the last concert in our season themed A World Mosaic. The concert runs approximately 90 minutes with one 15 minute intermission. DCCO commissioned a new work by DC composer Blair Goins. There will be interactive discussions with the composer Blair Goins at performance time and after the concert. Please join us afterwards to learn more about this exciting new work and the composer.
On the program:
Wisconsin and Western Ave, NW
I’m hearing from a very good source that a Barnes and Noble bookstore is looking to come to the building where Total Wine is located. Waiting on confirmation but I think they would do very well there!
Barnes and Noble is slowing reemerging on the DC scene with relatively recent (re) openings in Georgetown (2024) and Penn Quarter (January 2026.)
STAY TUNED.
“Hidden gem Persian brunch in Columbia Heights! Perfectly cooked yolks, prepared three ways! 🍳🍴”
Thanks to Jeremy for sending: “Now there’s brunch at Persian restaurant KooKoo – menu looks good. the menu looks really good with a Persian shakshuka 🤤”
Check out that menu: (more…)
1337 H Street, NE previously home to Hill Prince
“Dear PoPville,
Can you find out what happened to Hush Harbor? Has been closed for awhile now. No sign on the door or anything but they have been consistently closed for weeks.”
Wild. Washington Business Journal reports: “Smartphone-free bar Hush Harbor pivots to pop-ups after less than a year on H Street”
All that hullabaloo…
Hill Prince first opened here in 2017 before being sold to Rock Harper in 2023.
Hush Harbor’s IG has been wiped.
For posterity: (more…)
2021 14th Street, NW photo by alex barbieri
Thanks to Alex for sending: “Operation Epic Furious: Strait to Hell made it to Busboys and Poets on 14th!”
And at DCA: (more…)
16th Street between Euclid and W Street, NW
Ed. Note: We got our first sneak peek of the fountains flowing during testing on May 7th. Hopefully they stay on for the whole season now. Fences first went up in late December 2025.
Thanks to all who sent us photos yesterday and this morning: “Miracle of Miracles! Flowing and open to the public tonight at Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park, Thursday evening. It was fenced off and not flowing this past weekend when I stopped by. This is lovely.”
MANY MORE Photos of the fountains filled and flowing: (more…)