Thousands of tattoo enthusiasts are expected to flock to Crystal City for an annual expo next week.
The D.C. Tattoo Expo is scheduled to be held at the Crystal Gateway Marriott (1700 Jefferson Davis Highway) next Friday, Jan. 13 to Sunday, Jan. 15. This is the show’s seventh consecutive year running.
The event should attract more than 400 professional tattoo artists, including some of the celebrities from Spike’s “Ink Master” and “Tattoo Nightmares,” organizers said. Attendees can sign up to get new tattoos or just talk shop with the tattooers throughout the three-day festival.
“For our seventh year in a row, we have more vendors, more clothing, more tattoos, more craziness and more fun than ever before,” the expo website reads.
The D.C. Tattoo Expo is also set to include body piercing, tattoo competitions and the annual Miss D.C. Pin-up contest. “The Human Knot” and “Mini KISS” are also scheduled to perform.
2400 block of Shirlington Road, image via Google Street View
Arlington has paved the way to finally break ground on a new public gathering place for the Nauck community.
The Arlington County Board approved the purchase of a one-story property at 2400 Shirlington Road for $803,000 earlier this week.
The newly purchased property is the third and final plot of land needed to begin construction on the Nauck Town Square, which will “serve as a gathering place for the community, where events can be held and residents and visitors can learn about Nauck’s rich cultural heritage through planned public art by award-winning landscape architect and artist Walter Hood,” according to a county press release.
Arlington County Board member Libby Garvey said in a statement that the Board worked to purchase the property for several years.
“It was the last piece of the puzzle that needed to be pulled together by County staff and the community to make the dream of a Nauck Town Square a reality,” Garvey said. “We can now move forward with this project, and hope to begin construction this summer.”
The recently purchased property is the site of a plumbing business owned by father and son Leslie J. Engelking Sr. and Leslie J. Engelking Jr. The sale was held up for years after it went to court and was further delayed due to the fact that Engelking Jr., who jointly owned the plumbing business, went missing, the Washington Business Journal reported.
Even stranger, Engelking Sr. was in 2015 charged with perjury related to the disappearance of the Lyons sisters, two girls who vanished from Wheaton Mall in Maryland more than 40 years ago. Engelking Sr. told the Business Journal he had “had nothing to do with it,” however.
Portion of the pedestrian trail near S. Quincy Street (photo via Google Street View)
Map of Alcova Heights and the NFATC (via Google Maps)
More than 130 people who live in and around Alcova Heights have signed a petition to save a walking trail from the proposed expansion of a nearby federal training facility.
The State Department’s National Foreign Affairs Training Center, which trains members of the nation’s foreign service, is seeking to expand its campus in Arlington to include a new training and classroom facility, childcare center and other buildings.
As planned, the expansion would extend the perimeter fence farther south, and, in the process, swallow up a pedestrian path that connects George Mason Drive and S. Quincy Street.
According to an assessment from the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), the agency in charge of managing federal buildings and facilities, the effects on walkability in the neighborhood would not be significant.
“While input from the public scoping process showed a concern to keep the pedestrian trail open to the public, the [expansion’s] impact on neighborhood connectivity would be minor,” the GSA wrote. “This determination is based on the limited number of individuals using the NFATC pedestrian trail, as well as the extensive walking network of sidewalks adjacent to campus that offer an alternative to the pedestrian trail.”
But neighbors and other locals who use the path disagree with the government’s view.
Alcova Heights resident Danielle Arigoni, who yesterday launched a petition urging the government to reconsider eliminating the path, said the assessment is “outrageous.”
“The fact that the existing path is being eliminated is insulting,” Arigoni told ARLnow.com.
Eliminating the path would deprive pedestrians of a safe and easy way to walk from one part of the neighborhood to the other, Arigoni said.
“The NFATC site is so enormous… that it bifurcates Alcova Heights,” she said. Other than the pedestrian path “there are no east-west pathways that are viable alternatives.”
Others, like local resident Beth Smith, called the path a “great asset” for the surrounding neighborhood.
“I walk that way every day to pick my boys up and we walk back from school,” she said. “If they take this away and they don’t offer us an alternative, we’re either going to walk along Route 50, which is really frightening, or have to go down to 8th Street, which is really not convenient.”
One possible solution, said neighbor Rodrigo Abela, is limit the perimeter expansion to 10-15 feet instead of the planned 20 feet.
“Connectivity does not require more than 10-15 feet to allow people that move along the fence line, and looking at the site plan, it is easily achievable without compromising the safety of the compound,” he said.
Arigoni’s petition urges the GSA to, among other requests, “build a perimeter trail connecting 3rd St. S to the existing trail at Quincy at 6th St. S,” a suggestion that would require a permanent public access easement. In theory, Arigoni writes, Arlington County could then build a perimeter trail connecting 3rd St. S to the existing trail at Quincy at 6th St. S.
Regardless of the solution, she said she simply wants to the GSA to take stock of the community’s needs.
“I think the point is that we want to be good neighbors with GSA and with the feds,” she said. “I understand the need for these kind of facilities, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of safe bike and pedestrian access in our neighborhood.”
Alcova Heights residents interested in submitting public comments can do so on the GSA website through Jan. 15.
There’s a new spot for Irish and Belgian fare, along with beer and whiskey, in Rosslyn.
“Quinn’s on the Corner” opened on the ground floor of the 1776 Wilson Blvd (at the corner of Wilson and N. Quinn Street) office building earlier today, according to owner Reese Gardner, the restaurateur behind other local business like Copperwood Tavern, Dudley’s Sport and Ale and Irish Whiskey in the District.
The eatery, which Gardner describes as a “casual neighborhood pub with a food-first focus,” serves a menu of Belgian and Irish grub that includes mussel pots, fish and chips and several types of savory waffles topped with ingredients like fried lobster and creamed corned beef.
Behind a wraparound oak bar, staffers pour 27 kinds of Irish whiskeys, a selection that is one of the largest in the area, said Gardner.
“Our goal is to get up to where Irish Whiskey is,” Gardner added. “About 50 to 55 whiskeys.”
The bar also serves beer, wine and a small list of cocktails.
Though it originally was pitched as a hangout for Virginia Tech fans, Gardner said that idea was scrapped in favor of a more general sports theme. However, each weekend, the bar’s televisions will show Penn State and Virginia Tech games with sound.
“Rosslyn was a little underserved for a place to come watch the game,” Gardner said. “We’re excited about it.”
Burrito Bros, the former Pedro and Vinny’s at 2599 Columbia Pike
Richard Arnez (right) still slings the same burritos
Arnez took down the Pedro and Vinny’s sign last week
A beloved burrito stand on Columbia Pike has split off from its parent company and adopted a new name.
The business formerly known as Pedro and Vinny’s (2599 Columbia Pike) is now a standalone eatery called “Burrito Bros.” The change happened about a week ago, according to Richard Arnez, who co-owns Burrito Bros with Roger Coronel.
“We were kind of like a franchise,” Arnez explained. “But we just wanted to be independent.”
Since the name change, most customers haven’t noticed anything different, Arnez said. After all, they’re there for the burritos, not the branding. There are some slight changes, though. For instance, Arnez said he had to give up the recipes behind the sauces when he left the Pedro and Vinny’s family.
A visit to the restaurant yesterday revealed the burritos are indeed more or less the same as before. The sauces — though still piquant — do taste slightly different now.
Still, some longtime fans might wonder whether in-house animosity could have led to the break-up. Is a burrito battle looming on the horizon?
Probably not, said Pedro and Vinny’s owner John Rider, who still staffs the original burrito cart in downtown D.C. each day. The split was merely a business decision, he explained.
“There’s no animosity with the situation,” Rider said. “I wish him the best of luck.”
Still, Rider said he feels a twinge of pain every time he drives past his former Columbia Pike restaurant and sees it without its familiar sign.
“I was hoping that Richard would open more Pedro and Vinny’s,” Rider said. “It’s too bad it happened, but it wasn’t my choice.”
There’s no guarantee Rider, who has vowed to open another brick and mortar location, won’t return to his old stomping grounds. In fact, he said he’s eyeing a Columbia Pike storefront just down the block from Burrito Bros.
“I love Arlington. Those customers are awesome,” Rider said. “We’re looking around that area, but I don’t know where we’re going to end up.”
A new tapas restaurant hopes to attract a stampede of customers when it opens next week.
The new eatery, Pamplona, is slated to start slinging small bites and drinks at 3100 Clarendon Blvd on Tuesday, Jan. 10, according to co-owner Mike Bramson. Pamplona replaced SoBe Bar & Bistro, which closed about a year ago.
When it opens, the tapas joint will bring with it some of the food and fun you might find at the annual Running of the Bulls event in Pamplona, Spain.
“We went to Pamplona and fell in love with the city,” Bramson said. “Every bar was just so vibrant and exciting that we had to bring this back to Clarendon.”
The eatery’s menu includes black squid ink seafood paella, tapas dishes and bite-sized servings of food called pinxtos. Those tiny dishes — which Bramson described as “literally just one bite” — range from $1-5.
At the bar, patrons can order eight types of sangria alongside beer, wine and cocktails.
“We’re really excited to bring our cocktail program,” said Bramson, who co-founded Social Restaurant Group, the company behind Provision No. 14 and The Prospect in the District. “We’re known for our cocktails and our food. We want to bring that vibrant atmosphere to the neighborhood.”
The restaurant, designed by David Anthony Chenault, also features Spanish tiled floors, photo murals of Pamplona’s famous event and a plethora of wall-mounted bull head busts.
(Updated at 9:30 a.m.) Two members of the local Democratic party will lead the Arlington County Board this year, breaking a longtime tradition.
Jay Fisette was unanimously elected County Board Chair during the Board’s annual organizational meeting last night. This is Fisette’s fifth time serving as chair since he was first elected to the Board nearly 20 years ago.
It is a long-standing tradition that Board chairmanship rotate among members by seniority, with the vice chair assuming the chairmanship the next year. Often it corresponds with election cycles, with the member who is up for reelection the following year being elected vice chair. But the Board broke with tradition by electing one of its newest members, Democrat Katie Cristol, over independent John Vihstadt.
The snub was, however, in keeping with another long-standing practice: as the Sun Gazette’s Scott McCaffrey pointed out, the party in power on the Board has “always installed its own people in the leadership… going as far back as I can tell.”
In his remarks, Vihstadt suggested that “partisan politics alone” led to the contested race for vice chair.
“People with the word Democrat, Republican, Green, Libertarian or Socialist stamped on their foreheads, are sorted and stereotyped forever as a result,” Vihstadt said. “I’ve been there myself. It’s why I ran as an independent and have governed that way every day.”
Cristol responded: “In Arlington, being a Democrat is not just partisan, it’s shorthand for values and what we prioritize: meaningful investments and affordable housing, for deep commitments to schools.”
Fisette, who acknowledged the contested vote was an “unusual situation,” backed Cristol, while Libby Garvey, the outgoing Chair, backed Vihstadt.
Ultimately, the board followed the new Chair’s lead, with Garvey and Vihstadt on one side of the vote, and Fisette, Cristol and Christian Dorsey on the other.
After the polite political quarrel, Fisette outlined his priorities for the year. As chair, Fisette said he will focus on:
The need for facilities, including schools, within the constraints of limited land; strengthening the County’s economic competitiveness;
Housing affordability;
Environmental sustainability; and
Helping the region find a “sustainable path forward” for Metro and “staying true to our vision and values.”
Additionally, Vice Chair Cristol said she hopes to “work to ensure that Arlington will still be a home for all economic classes,” adding that she looks forward “launching a series of coffees focused on ‘big picture’ issues targeting young Arlingtonians in particular, as well as exploring other models to tap the brainpower of Arlingtonians across different walks of life.”
Arlington County can “no longer can we rely on the federal government to guide and support us with allegiance to shared purposes and our common humanity,” added Fisette, alluding to the recent affirmation of the Republican majority in Congress and the election of Donald Trump.
“This year is likely to bring dramatic, unsettling changes in our national government and on the international scene,” Fisette said. “Arlington will feel some effects. But we’ll respond as we have before in times of turbulence and periods of more gradual change: with sensible actions inspired by a shared community vision and shaped through thoughtful dialogue and open debate.”
The 48th annual tribute event and concert is scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 15, from 5-6:30 p.m. in the Wakefield High School Auditorium at 1325 S. Dinwiddie Street.
As is the tradition, the tribute concert is free and features live music, dance and spoken word performances.
This year’s lineup of artists and musicians includes gospel singer Helen Slade, the Duke Ellington School for the Performing Arts Show Choir, Alexandria’s Kingdom Fellow Church’s Worship Without Words Mime Ministry, poet Kim B. Miller and several other local performers.
The program will also “acknowledge the current social and political climate while motivating and uplifting attendees with words of inspiration and praise,” organizers said.
Those interested in attending must reserve free tickets in advance of the performance.
Photo via Arlington Department of Parks and Recreation
A fan of Cherrydale’s House of Steep is buying the business to keep it from closing.
Lyndsey DePalma, who founded the tea house and “foot sanctuary”at 3800 Lee Highway, announced last month she planned to close the business and “lovingly serve our last cup of tea” by Dec. 30.
Though the business did close its doors last weekend, it’s only temporary thanks to longtime House of Steep customer and Arlington business owner Patrick Vaughan.
Vaughan, a regular runner of ultramarathons, said he was in the middle of a reflexology and foot massage session when he heard that the store was slated to shutter.
“I was really saddened when I heard it was going to close,” he recalled.
Then, he had an idea: Why not see if he could buy the business to keep it afloat? So, Vaughan called up DePalma, and within just 12 hours, they shook hands on a deal.
“I’ve wanted to get into a health and bodywork kind of business for a long time,” Vaughan said. “It just clicked for me. It just really made sense.”
For DePalma, the sale represents a kind of “fairytale ending.”
“I think he’s willing to take his ideas the distance,” she said. “He seems very passionate to begin with and willing to follow through.”
Although Vaughan said he doesn’t want to change the company’s atmosphere or culture, he does plan to add some new offerings and services to the menu.
“I’d like to be able to get beyond foot massage into full-body massage,” said Vaughan, who also owns a local information technology business. “I’m definitely looking to expand the techniques of massage offerings.”
Frozen yogurt fans who frequent the Menchie’s at Penrose Square will now have to go cold turkey.
The company closed its store at 2405 Columbia Pike on New Year’s Eve, according to a Menchie’s representative. The froyo shop opened roughly four years ago.
“We closed the location because it simply wasn’t making any money,” said company representative Camey Turpin. Menchie’s has no plans to open another location in the area anytime soon. The closest Menchie’s store is along U Street in Northwest D.C.
It wasn’t immediately clear what might replace the business. Arlington County has not recently issued any building permits for that address.
When Arlington residents head to the ballot box on Nov. 8, they won’t just choose candidates for office. They’ll also be able to vote on four local bond issues and two state constitutional amendments.
Taxpayers will be asked to approve nearly $315.8 million in general bond obligations. Additionally, they’ll be able to vote for or against adding “right-to-work” and property tax exemption amendments to the Virginia constitution.
Members of the voting public can only vote “yes” or “no” to each of the four bond questions on the ballot. Each question rolls multiple projects into larger categories.
In the $138,830,000 Arlington Public Schools bond:
$26.03 million to build an addition at the Stratford building to add 339 middle school seats;
$78.4 million for construction of the new facility for H-B Woodlawn at the Wilson site, adding an estimated 775 seats;
$12 million to renovate the Career Center/Arlington Tech to add 300 seats;
$10 million for planning and design to build an additional 1,300 secondary seats at to-be-determined locations;
$12.4 million for HVAC, roofing, and other infrastructure improvement projects at existing APS buildings.
In the $98,850,000 Community Infrastructure bond:
$46.46 million to replace the Lubber Run Community Center with a new building that would have underground parking, a new gym and ADA-compliant courts and playground areas;
$12 million for a new parking deck at Thomas Jefferson Elementary School;
$12 million for neighborhood conservation and street improvements, residential traffic management, park enhancement, street lighting, beautification and landscaping projects;
$9.6 million for facilities maintenance on items like roofs, mechanical and electrical systems, and replacement and renewal of interior and exterior finishes. The money would also be used to keep those facilities up to code and within good working order;
$6.25 million to invest in county-owned buildings at Courthouse Plaza and fund new security and accessibility standards in those buildings;
$5.35 million for a new 31,000 square foot urban plaza in Nauck that would feature public art, the history of the neighborhood and other ornamental elements;
$3.24 million to convert and expand the existing Barcroft gym into a gymnastics program to meet increased demand;
$1.5 million for a new county childcare facility;
$1.33 million to centralize monitoring and maintenance of building systems;
Thousands of tattoo enthusiasts are expected to flock to Crystal City for an annual expo next week.
