Photos taken by Johnny Casana.

I bumped into some folks (Dan, John, Christen, Johnny and Natty) installing gardening boxes at the newly renovated Cesar Chavez Charter School. I love bumping into projects like this.

One of the participants, John, sent me the following by email:

“This weekend, we installed five large raised beds and filled them with compost; we will be building roughly ten more once we secure funding, and we’ll be painting them all so they look nice. The garden will be an educational garden for the school, which is one of the Cezar Chavez Public Charter Schools for Public Policy.

There will be a community open house that will take place at the school on October 30th, and we hope to have a sign up by then and educate DC council members, other VIPs, teachers and parents about the concept. We (that is, the folks you saw, five of us who are volunteering our time as the Columbia Heights Garden Club) plan to work with school administrators and faculty over the winter to engage the students in the planning and planting for these spaces next spring. Eventually, we hope to assist with incorporating the garden into the curriculum, teaching young people about growing food, native plants, storm water runoff, and more. And we hope to engage the community along the way.”


I’ve been admiring the renovations going on at this house located at 1333 T Street, NW. (It’s not far from St. Ex.) I saw a sign out front last week but it was only for rent, so sadly we don’t get to see any photos of the interior. But if anyone is curious how much it costs to rent the main house (minus the basement unit) it is $5500 a month. This is for a 4 bed/3.5 bath including parking. Sound reasonable?


This one was in the PoPville flickr pool from Sanjay Suchak. The photo was simply titled, “???”. I would’ve titled it – Freaking Awesome.


While the double door is pretty sweet, this one is all about the grand stained glass transom.


Another contrast from Capitol Hill – Do you prefer the doorway set back or the doorway sticking out?


Always something exciting going on over on the H Street, NE corridor. I noticed this sign on the 1200 block when I hit one of their other great new great spots, Little Miss Whiskey’s Golden Dollar (1104 H St, NE).

I’m super intrigued about SOUK. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a market or restaurant or both but I love Mediterranean Cuisine so stay tuned for an update on this spot when they open.


“Dear PoP,

One of our favorite food spots in town is Thai X-ing at Florida Ave and 5th NW – best Thai food in the city. But over the last month, nobody seems able to get hold of Taw (owner/chef) – nobody answers the kitchen phone or calls back when a message is left, and Taw’s cell is out of service. We’ve not had a chance to go by the restaurant itself, but we’re wondering if anybody knows what’s going on – we would hate to lose this wonderful little gem of a restaurant!

Anybody know what’s up?”

Uh-oh. We judged this restaurant almost exactly a year ago and there were tons of fans. Any regulars know what’s going on?


I thought the windows on this house in Capitol Hill were pretty wild. I’ll be honest, I’m not really digging them but I’m wondering if anyone likes this style?


Over the summer I asked if folks liked the restaurant Chez Mama-san and I quickly learned that they were no longer open. Metrocurean has the scoop announcing that J. Chocolatier has opened up in the spot at 1039 33rd St. NW. For chocolate fans there is great news this Friday:

“Oct. 16 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. for a free tasting featuring samples of the warm clove truffles, fresh pumpkin truffles, fleur de sel caramel and drinking chocolate.”


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