Author: Aaron Kraut

Local Students To Take On Global Issues At ‘Earth 2100’

By Aaron Kraut

Arlington nonprofit Our Task will host an “intergenerational” conference to discuss environmental and global development issues on Saturday, Aug. 11 at the Arlington Central Library (1015 N. Quincy St.).

Our Task Executive Director Jerry Barney said the conference is aimed at local high school and college students who want to share ideas and discuss what the world will look like in 2100, and what should be done to deal with ongoing deforestation, greenhouse gas emissions, population increases and a host of other issues.

“It comes from a growing unease and a growing sense of fear among thoughtful young people that the planet they’re going to inherit is not at all the planet they hope to inherit,” Barney said.

The all-day conference is open to participants of all ages, but for the past six years has attracted mainly local students. They are organized in focus groups and presented with an issue “from the 10,000-foot level,” said Our Task Chair Angeline Cione. They then develop and present solutions.

This year’s opening speaker will be conservation biologist and George Mason University professor Dr. Thomas Lovejoy. Registration is free and will run until the day before the event.

Photo courtesy Jerry Barney

New ‘Ridesharing’ Program To Debut In Arlington

By Aaron Kraut

Zimride, a company that connects long-distance carpoolers through Facebook, launched its “digital ridesharing” operation in the Washington area today.

Arlington residents looking for rides to New York can pay an average of $50 round-trip for a seat in another person’s car, according to Zimride’s Nick Greenfield, who described the concept as “non-creepy hitchhiking,” and the “long-distance version of slugging.”

Users match up with drivers and potential carpoolers by listing whether they smoke, their musical preferences and other personal details. The program first gained traction on college campuses as a way for students to more easily afford travel.

Now, the company is hoping to attract users in Arlington by opening up the site for Northern Virginia to New York road trips.

At least one Arlington resident has posted a ride for this weekend to New York. For $80 round-trip, “Clinton L.” is offering to drive passengers to Manhattan in his Infiniti FX45.

“[I] drive around 90 mph on the highway [and] listen to electronic dance music,” Clinton L. wrote. “Will take a total of 4 people… to ensure the comfort of all passengers.”

Ballston Building Adds ‘Bob Peck’ Historical Marker

By Aaron Kraut

Developers of a new office building in Ballston have added another historical touch to commemorate the old Bob Peck Chevrolet dealership that for decades served as a neighborhood landmark on the same site.

Alexandria-based Bowman Consulting, the landscape architecture firm on developer JBG’s 10-story office building at 800 N. Glebe Road, recently designed and installed a historical marker to honor the dealership’s iconic Googie architecture style.

In January, builders added a diamond-shaped facade to the front of the building to mimic the style. Bob Peck Chevrolet was demolished in 2008.

From the text of the historical marker:

Bob Peck opened his first Chevrolet dealership in 1939 on Wilson Boulevard in Clarendon. In 1964, he moved the dealership west to Ballston to the very prominent corner of North Glebe Road and Wilson Boulevard, 300 feet south of this marker. Taking advantage of the site’s unique location and visibility, local architect Anthony Musolino designed a transparent circular showroom of glass and chrome, with a butterfly roofline whose frieze of diamond-shaped blue panels spelled out “Chevrolet.” The building was an excellent example of Googie architecture, reflecting the era’s prevailing interest in the future — space travel, nuclear energy, rockets — through the use of upward slanting and cantilevered roofs, geometric patterns, acute angles and large sheets of glass.

Musolino’s design evoked thoughts of flight and movement, with its walls of transparent glass and a roof that appeared to float skyward. The transparent showroom was a living billboard. Motorists could see the chrome-trimmed vehicles from the street. Peck Chevrolet became a community icon and a landmark for motorists traveling to and through Arlington. The showroom’s design is represented in the new diamond-shaped frieze of the office building now located at the former Bob Peck site.

 

Photos courtesy Bowman Consulting

New Ethiopian Restaurant Opens on Columbia Pike

By Aaron Kraut

(Updated at 10:05 a.m.) The Karamara Ethiopian restaurant (3205 Columbia Pike), set for a late-August grand opening, is about 10 years in the making.

Owner Selamawit Belete emigrated from Ethiopia to the U.S. a decade ago. Establishing a restaurant, such as the one her family owned in Ethiopia, was always in the back of her mind.

She’ll have plenty of competition.

The nearby Dama Cafe has earned praise as one of the Washington area’s best Ethiopian eateries. Then there’s Harar Mesob at 542 S. 23rd Street in Crystal City and Meaza just over the Fairfax County line at 5700 Columbia Pike.

Karamara had a soft-opening last Wednesday and will be open with an abbreviated menu until Belete can get her liquor permit approved. She expects that process to take a few more weeks.

Police Start Enforcing Hour-Limit On Food Trucks

By Aaron Kraut

Seoul Food truck co-owner J.P. Goree got a citation and a court date from Arlington County Police on Wednesday.

His crime: Keeping his Korean cuisine food truck in one Clarendon Courthouse parking spot for longer than the county’s 60-minute limit for mobile food vendors.

“We feel like we’re being treated as a second-class business,” Goree said Friday. “We’re a micro-business, aspiring to be a bigger small business and it seems like that’s something that would be fostered by the community.”

Goree said police told food truck owners a few weeks ago that they would soon start enforcing the regulation. In May, Jill Griffin, a commercial development specialist for Arlington Economic Development, said she had heard enforcing the time limit “has been challenging.”

Griffin also said officials hoped to talk with stakeholders this summer to form recommendations for updating Arlington’s vending ordinance this fall.

“If you open at 11 [a.m.] or 11:30 [a.m.] that hour is only going to get you to when you have the longest line right in the very middle of your lunch rush,” Goree said.

Goree said he thinks ongoing tension between food truck owners and brick-and-mortar restaurant owners is behind Wednesday’s enforcement. Also in May, ARLnow.com obtained an internal document from the Rosslyn Business Improvement District (BID) that said “the number, location and type of operation” of food trucks and carts is “inadequately regulated by Arlington County.”

The Rosslyn BID is funded by the property owners who rent space to the neighborhood’s restaurants, delis and cafes.

The Bada Bing truck also reported receiving a ticket Wednesday on its Twitter page. Ice cream food truck Sinplicity tweeted out a similar message. Goree’s court date is Aug. 21. There was no fine listed on the citation.

“If a truck or a car parks at a metered spot, it can stay there for as long as the meter allows,” said Rob Frommer, an attorney with the Institute For Justice, a Ballston-based libertarian public interest law firm. “It doesn’t make any sense to arbitrarily limit how long one particular type of vehicle can remain in one spot.”

Two years ago, the Institute for Justice began a National Street Vending Initiative to help legalize food trucks and vendors. Frommer said Arlington’s own experience with the growing food truck industry helped inform the organization’s goals.

“It seemed like Arlington was doing a good job of embracing the vendors and letting these businesses start up,” Frommer said. “This change in enforcement is an unfortunate and surprising development.”

UrbanArias To Perform ‘Craigslist Opera’ Next Weekend

By Aaron Kraut

Local “contemporary opera” company UrbanArias will put words from Craigslist ads to opera music during a 90-minute program on Aug. 5 at IOTA Club and Cafe in Clarendon (2832 Wilson Blvd).

The performance also includes three “mini-operas” about blind dates and Opera Improv, in which the four UrbanArias singers take audience suggestions to create scenes on the fly.

From the press release:

Craigslistlieder, with music by Gabriel Kahane and text from, well, Craigslist, catapulted the young composer to national prominence several years ago. This is an eight-song set, each of which is an actual, unadulterated ad from Craigslist. Subjects range from the “neurotic and lonely” man looking for a woman who “must have a video game system,” and the crazy woman with an ice cube fetish looking for a roommate, to an advertisement selling “assless chaps.” Kahane’s Mahlerian music is the perfect foil for the hilarious ads.

The show starts at 7 p.m. Tickets are $12 and will be sold at the door.

Pupatella Pizzeria Expanding into Adjacent Storefront

By Aaron Kraut

Pupatella Neopolitan Pizzeria (5104 Wilson Boulevard) is expanding its dining area, hours and menu.

Two years after opening the 1,400-square-foot storefront, owner/couple Enzo Algarme and Anastasiya Laufenberg are taking over the next-door space left by Union Halal Butcher & Grocery. The move will almost double the store’s footprint and allow for a total of about 75 seats with a second dining room.

It’s a long way from the made-to-order food cart the two began operating near the Ballston Metro in 2007.

“It’s been really nice to get to know people from the neighborhood and feel their love and their support,” Laufenberg said. “I’m really looking forward to having a more comfortable space for them to come and eat.”

More space will also mean more hours. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday the pizzeria is open for dinner only.

Laufenberg said once the couple finishes hiring new staff, they’ll be open for breakfast (coffee, donuts and other Italian morning treats) and lunch (sandwiches and pasta dishes).

“It won’t be as crammed and we’re excited because we think it’ll be more relaxed,” Laufenberg said.

Lubber Run To Host Trio Of Shows This Weekend

By Aaron Kraut

The Lubber Run Amphitheater will host a trio of events this weekend, including a Shakespeare play and a Hawaiian music and hula concert.

Lubber Run’s summer series of free outdoor shows will offer a change of pace with Traveling Players Ensemble’s performance of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” at 8 p.m. on Friday, July 27.

The series, which typically features local music acts, will welcome Baltimore-based band The Project, on Saturday.

From a Lubber Run Amphitheater Foundation press release:

 Selected as a “Summer School in the Arts” by the NEA, Traveling Players Ensemble is a professional theater company dedicated to bringing great theater into the great outdoors through a thriving summer camp and year-round acting classes and workshops

The Project will play at 8 p.m. on Saturday, July 28. Also from the release:

Baltimore musicians Bob Goldberg (lead vocals and guitar), Eric McCleaf (guitar), and Jason Wilson (bass guitar and backing vocals) rock the house with everything from classic rock to current pop, with some 80s rock, 90s modern rock, and lots of other stuff in between.

Finally, a group from Arlington-based “native Hawaiian school” Halau O ‘Aulani will take the stage at 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 29:

Native music and dance presented by Halau O ‘Aulani, founded in 1996 for the sole purpose of creating a learning environment for students interested in the preservation of the multi-faceted cultures of Hawai’i with primary emphasis on the Hawaiian culture.

New Frozen Yogurt Shop Coming to Pentagon City

By Aaron Kraut

Is there enough room in Pentagon City for two self-serve frozen yogurt stores?

Tutti Frutti franchise owner Geoff Trout is betting on it. He hopes to open shop on South Fern Street, next to the Post Office in the Millennium at Metropolitan Park apartments, in late August or early September.

The self-serve frozen yogurt trend hit Pentagon Row earlier this year when Yogiberry replaced Maggie Moo’s ice cream. The Tutti Frutti concept is similar — a rotating menu of flavors combined with 35 to 40 fruit and candy toppings.

“I feel very confident in the product,” Trout said. “I don’t think Pentagon Row is close enough. This is a company that has really taken off.”

The Los Angeles-based company claims it’s the largest self-serve frozen yogurt chain in the world, with 584 franchises.

Police Identify Couple In Murder-Suicide

By Aaron Kraut

Police on Thursday identified the man and woman killed in Tuesday’s murder-suicide at the Park Shirlington Apartments on the 4500 block of 31st Street South, near the Fairlington neighborhood.

Xiomara Aracely Benitez, 30, of Arlington was pronounced dead at the scene along with Juan Carlos Mox Mox, 30, of Arlington, according to a press release from the Arlington County Police Department. Police identified Benitez as the victim and Mox Mox as the subject. They were married with two children.

Police spokesman Dustin Sternbeck said a family member took in the two children after the incident, which police have officially ruled a murder-suicide. The cause of death has not yet been determined, according to police.

A family member discovered the victim and subject in a back bedroom of their apartment and police received a 911 call at 2:43 p.m. on Tuesday.

This last homicide in Arlington County happened on March 14, 2010, when a man was stabbed to death in the Lyon Park neighborhood.

Arlington Gets Praise In First Year Of ‘100 Homes’ Campaign

By Aaron Kraut

Earlier this month, the 2012 National Conference on Ending Homelessness recognized Arlington County as one of 15 communities nationwide that are “on track” to end homelessness among the medically vulnerable within four years.

The claim is based on a benchmark set by the National Alliance to End Homelessness — cities or counties that moved 2.5 percent of their chronically ill homeless population into permanent housing each month made the list.

Arlington’s “100 Homes” campaign, a partnership with the nonprofit A-SPAN, put about 30 homeless people with life-threatening medical issues into permanent, federally-funded supported housing since starting up last October.

“It does actually cost the community a lot more to leave them homeless,” said A-SPAN Director of Development Jan-Michael Sacharko. “If you can keep people out of the emergency room, out of shelters, out of jails, you save a lot more money.”

The initiative, an outgrowth of the national “100,000 Homes” campaign, was cost-free, Department of Human Services spokesman Kurt Larrick said.

And it rallied significant volunteer support. About 180 volunteers went out at 4 a.m. for three days last fall to survey the homeless and check for those with hypothermia, chronic kidney disease, AIDS, HIV or other diseases.

“We’ve always had data on people who were homeless in Arlington,” Larrick said. “This was the most specific.”

Larrick said the survey found 113 “extremely vulnerable” homeless people. The 30 who moved into permanent housing did so with existing county and federal housing programs. Many are clients of A-SPAN, which provides individual case managers to track progress.

As of Arlington’s last count, which came in January, there are 451 homeless people on the streets and in homeless shelters, Larrick said.

Flickr pool photo by Chris Rief