Good news if you are a smoker or vaper: a reader sent this photo of 3459 14th Street NW, a vacant storefront that formerly was home to Cooper Hardware. Cooper has been closed for some time and the building was considered vacant and blighted by the city. The reader noted that the windows are covered…

Photo by DCDPR As readers of this blog know, the city has a lot of small triangular parks where diagonal streets meet the grid. Often these are pretty underused, maybe an occasional picnic or place to take your dog. The city just opened a new idea, a “meditation garden” in the triangle bordered by Kansas,…

It’s my belief that Columbia Heights is the best place around to watch the 4th of July fireworks — we’re high enough that we can see the big show on the Mall (especially if you’re on a roof) and if you look in any direction you’ll see tons of DIY displays — some an occasional…

Good stuff — two different readers spotted hilarious signs at 14th and Kenyon: they look like missing cat signs, but it turns out they’re just talking about how fat these cats are. And there are pull tabs for “THICC” instead of the phone number. The small text reads “I don’t need you to do anything…

This is a scary story: a friend of a friend was riding a Capital Bikeshare down 13th Street Monday morning around 8:30am — and then he woke up in an ambulance after a crash. The police report filed about the incident says he was apparently hit by a car and found around 13th and…

Good news for fans of Ethiopian food, and hopefully a tenant for a long-vacant space: there’s an Ethiopian restaurant coming to 3630 Georgia Avenue NW, the storefront between DC Reynolds and what used to be Walter’s Sports Bar. The space had been Gena’s Beauty Salon but it’s been vacant for some time. I saw a…

If you’re interested in vegan or Jamaican food, there’s a new option: Sweet Sosumba at 3501 Georgia Avenue NW. This space was formerly an Ethiopian market. The place only has one Yelp review so far but it’s glowing, and I found an old fundraising page from the owner with more info: My name is Loi…

A reader just sent me this — Panera on Irving is closing. I liked it pretty well, but it never seemed too crowded. I’d be interested in seeing what’s coming next. There are a lot of changes afoot at DCUSA, I’ll write a post about that shortly. This is directly across the street from the…