“Dear PoPville,
What is this? Traffic camera? Saw this on North Capitol Ave just south of Pierce pointed at the northbound lane. It seems temporary. Is it a sound monitor?”
What the Helen of Troy is This
1800 M Street, NW
“Dear PoPville,
Just wanted to let you know there was some crazy shit going down at 18th and M, NW last night. People within the 1800M building received the following message.
Then the DC Fire Department told everyone to enter the building emergency shelters. Fire trucks were blocking off M St. We thought we’d be in for a long night.
Luckily, 10 minutes later we were given the all clear.
Lo and behold. This morning we find out the following from our courageous news team at Fox 5:
“All clear, sounds like someone may have pooped in the elevator.” (more…)
15th and Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Ken writes yesterday: “they CUT DOWN ALL THE TREES at Pershing Park to “build” the National World War I memorial. It was once one of the prettiest monuments/parks in the city. Now it’s torn up to be “renovated” by WW1 Centennial.”
A photo of the park from 2014: (more…)
“Dear PoPville,
I wonder if you know what these chrome-color steel machines are (photo attached taken at L’Enfant station platform). These machines make a whirring mechanical noise and have been spotted at stations throughout the system. Any ideas?”
“Dear PoPville,
The last several nights- there are two mysterious trucks with what looks like giant vacuums on them next to the train tracks above 2nd and K St NE. They seem to start late evening and run non-stop until about midnight and are so loud! I’m a block away and Indoors, a decibel app messures 45dB and if I open the window of my apartment it reads ~80dB. Loud enough to be super annoying at night. Wondering if anyone in the community has insight as to what this machinery is and/or what the project is?”
“Dear PoPville,
It’s not massively exciting, but it’s puzzling me:
Can anyone explain the random old school loud speaker on the front of this Capitol Hill row house? Doesn’t look like part of an official emergency alert system and I’ve not seen similar elsewhere. Is it just an odd home burglary thing, or a way to yell at the neighbor kids?”
Ed. Note: Isn’t this part of the old school fire alarms?
I got tons of messages yesterday starting around 5:30pm like this one:
“I just saw 10+ uniformed police at Columbia Heights metro, complete with a table set up for bag searches and a scanning device of some sort. A few uniforms said anti-terrorism, others TSA. I heard them telling people they stopped that checks were random. Do you have any context on this?”
Metro Transit Police have been doing random searches since at least 2008. We also spoke about random inspections in 2010.
Explanation from 2010: (more…)
Thanks to Becca for sending: “Found this while perusing baby section on Craigslist!”
I feel like we talked about this once before so there must be some takers.
Photo by The DC Pope
Last night around 6pm I started getting messages like this from the rural juror:
“Stuck at ATL. They just said that we might have to wait for 45 min or they might divert us from Reagan DCA to Dulles IAD”
DCA Flight Delays reported: “Due to OTHER/EQUIPMENT traffic mgmt prgrm causing ground stop for some arriving flights.”
Then The DC Pope sent us the crazy photo above and this even crazier video of his plane landing in the dark: (more…)
Photo by PoPville flickr user ny273
From MPD:
“I am happy to announce an arrest has been made in the spate of egging incidents around Capitol Hill over the past couple weeks. Today at approximately 4:15, two residents separately called 911 to report seeing the egging suspect around Tennessee Avenue NE. Responding patrol officers quickly located a suspect and he was arrested for several counts of Defacing Property. (more…)