ThayerAvenue.com

I heard some disquieting news this morning: Last night was Nicaro’s last night of operation. The Georgia Avenue restaurant had been a hot spot of fine dining in Silver Spring for what seems like a couple of years now, attracting the likes of Lebron James. News reports have it that the business was sold, and Executive Chef/Owner Pedro Matamoros is opening a new restaurant in the former Luau Hut near the Silver Spring Metro and will offer a similar menu.

Hope to have additional details soon, but please feel free to comment if you have any other news.

Or at least *mattered*. No, I’m not getting all historic on you. (Come on – you know me better than that by now.) Thayer Avenue lost its one gas station. The place I always went to refill the gas cannister for the mower. And nothing else. I heard it was because of an outrageous rent hike, but I’d still like to get the full story. At least it gives me a chance to poke fun at the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s “This Place Matters” campaign.

And yes, I am (partially) in disguise.

In other news…

The building at 818 Easley Street (behind Alliance Comics) is reopening its doors the weekend of July 4th. Formerly Siembra First (a mortgage service company that opened at exactly the wrong time), it is now Forever Frugal, a consignment shop of sorts. Evidently, they’ll be happy to clean out your garage for you. Then they take the good stuff and sell it here.

I expect the inventory to change regularly, but this is a small sampling of things through the window. Yes, that is a hand chair. Some of the stuff is kitschy (good and bad), some isn’t. Oddly enough, those are Siembra First brochures on the table.

As I type this, there’s a man sitting outside the Perpetual Building at Georgia and Cameron giving people the finger and cursing at them. I never was really a fan of keeping the building after all the recent talk of tearing it down, but now it has a warm, special place in my heart. I managed to do a lap around the block by Mi Rancho and Tastee Diner just to snap a few less-than-conspicuous photos:

Crazy man inadvertently flipping me the bird

Crazy man giving the double bird to southbound drivers on Georgia Avenue

Crazy man telling me to fuck off and get a fucking haircut while flipping me the bird

His exact words to me were “Fuck you, you motherfucking asshole! Get a fucking haircut, motherfucker!” He managed to say something to that effect to every southbound driver at Georgia and Cameron. And I just got a haircut last week. God, I love this town.

First of all, thanks to all who made the crawfish boil an unqualified success. And because of the work involved (and subsequent necessary sleep), I have neglected to address a recent story in the Post.

Ahh, my beloved Washington Post. How I love to link to thee. I understand that the little “Where We Live” stories in the real estate section are done by freelancers and such, but even those people can get two sides of the story. Check out “At Stake, a Community’s Identity” which ran in the Sunday Real Estate section of the Post. For once, I’ll focus on a lack of journalistic equality and not dragging ESSCA itself through the mud. (Thanks to JUTP for the nod/nudge.)

Some questions to ask the story’s author, though: Where are the people who are pro-Purple Line? What about smart growth? I’m all for local businesses, but can’t there be a balance? To some extent, ESSCA seems to strike that balance, and they’ve done some good work in the neighborhood. Granted, I don’t agree with all their views, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

And speaking of ESSCA, how the hell did the East Silver Spring Citizens Association come to include 1,200 households? I’ll wager there aren’t that many members in the organization. Perhaps that many in East Silver Spring (proper), but they need to get the membership right. And I’ll also bet that there are plenty of people who don’t want to be represented by the likes of the ESSCA board.

Now to the boundaries of East Silver Spring. Does it go all the way to Georgia? I’ve heard many say that it stops at Fenton Street. That seems to make more sense. Is that definition of the border a land grab for the purposes of affecting more change in the Fenton Village development? Just wondering. There are also questions of whether the north border is Wayne or Bonifant, and if the south border stops at the DC line or the rail tracks. The South Silver Spring Association would have something to say about that, methinks.

And then this: “McCoy said a committee has formed to consider requesting designation as a historic district.” I think my response to this in an earlier post used the phrase “over my dead body”. I’m gonna stick with that for now, and you can bet this issue will be addressed in the future. In the meantime, I like the tweet from @sprungion that says “ESSCA seeks historic designation to preserve current officers.” Beautiful.

At any rate, it’s high time to get the other view out there. Yes, this is a great neighborhood. Sure, the issues have brought a lot of the people together. But we don’t all agree, and the growing swell of support I’ve seen for differing opinions dictates that those voices should be heard.

UPDATE: Speaking of a good, smart growth policy, the Washington Post  has a new story out today (“Sea Change Recommended in Montgomery County Growth Policy“) that highlights just the sort of policy I think we need. Sure, it’s gonna be painful in the short term, but these are the kind of changes that need to be made.

And would someone please run for the at-large council seat and send Marc Elrich back to Takoma Park?