Trash & Recycling Service Slides Forward One Day for Holiday

<BULLET> Mon., Jan. 18: In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, city trash and recycling service will be suspended and pushed forward one day. In neighborhoods with twice-weekly trash collections, Monday and Thursday collections will be made Tuesday and Friday and Tuesday and Friday collections will slide to Wednesday and Saturday. As for yet to be disposed of Christmas trees, they may be placed with the regular trash and will be collected as truck space permits.

Art Exhibit & Gallery Talk at Historical Society

<BULLET> Thu., Jan 21 (1:30pm): The Historical Society of Washington (Mt. Vernon Sq., enter from K Street directly opposite Convention Center) is offering a free GALLERY TALK & EXHIBIT TOUR of their current art exhibition, “Form and Content: Selected Works by Floyd Coleman,” to be presented by the artist who is also an art scholar and a Washingtonian. His works reflect abstract themes and nuances of improvisation, expressing elements of harmonic freedom captured on canvas. No reservations needed and no charge. For more info, call 383-1850 or visit www.historydc.org.

New 14th Street Business Open House

<BULLET> Thu., Jan 21 (3-9pm): HomeMade Pizza Company (1522 14th St.), an icon in Chicago, is inviting neighbors to a GRAND OPENING PIZZA PARTY in its new Logan Circle store at Church Street, just across from the Studio Theatre. To celebrate their arrival, the company’s founders will be on hand to meet neighbors while their chefs demonstrate dough tossing and pizza-making skills and staff will be serving complimentary pizza, salads, cookies and ice cream.

Energy Efficiency Presentation in Columbia Heights

<BULLET> Sat., Jan. 23 (10am-12noon): “Energy Efficiency & Old Houses” will be the topic of a program to be presented at Stoddard Baptist Home (1818 Newton St.).Learn about energy audits and what home improvements are the most cost-effective with particular attention to the issue of window repair, replacement and integrity.

The program will presented by Pascale Maslin, founder of Energy Efficient Experts, an energy audit firm specializing in reducing energy costs while making environmentalism accessible, and by John Sandor, an architectural historian and expert in the repair and replacement of windows in historic buildings.

The $10 charge (free to members of Historic Mt. Pleasant and the DC Preservation League) will include a light breakfast. Space is limited and advance registration can be made by calling (202) 783-5144 or sending an email to rsvp@dcpreservation.org.

18th Street Project to be Subject of Public Meeting with DDOT

<BULLET> Tue., Jan. 25 (7pm): A special COMMUNITY MEETING and discussion with officials from the city’s transportation department (DDOT) on the timing and phasing of the 18th Street reconstruction project between Massachusetts and Florida Avenues, which is likely set to start soon, will be conducted by Dupont Circle ANC Vice-Chair Will Stephens at the International Student House (1825 R St.). For more info, contact Commissioner Stephens by email, will.stephens@dupontcircleanc.net

Dupont Circle Public Safety to be Subject of Community Meeting

<BULLET> Tue., Jan. 26 (7pm): Public safety will be the focus of another Dupont ANC-sponsored COMMUNITY MEETING, this one to be held at the Hotel Palomar (2121 P St.). The location is more than symbolic. Police recently were digging a bullet out of the bricks of the hotel and in that same week there had been a carjacking less than a block away, while earlier in the month there had there had been a break-in and rape in an apartment nearby, in the 2100 block of N Street.

According to the ANC’s chair, Mike Silverstein, “each of these incidents is unprecedented. For all of them to occur in within a few hundred yards of each other [and] within several weeks of each other gives a sense of urgency to those in the community who want to meet with police to discuss the situation and see how we can cooperate to restore peace and some sense of public safety.”

The meeting will be conducted by Rob Halligan, who for years has worked to foster cooperation between the police and the community, and by Jack Jacobson who chairs the ANC’s public safety committee. Lt. Alan Hill of the 2nd police District is scheduled to attend will attend, along with his top deputies.

Underlying the concerns about this spike in crime in this western end of the Dupont Circle neighborhood is the ongoing questioning by many of whether some of the licensed establishments on P Street regularly violate the peace, order, and quiet of the neighborhood. As Chairman Silverstein told The InTowner, while “reasonable people can disagree on the POQ issues, when bullets fly and people get carjacked, this moves to a different level and there is no longer any disagreement.”

For more info, call either Rob Halligan, at 319-1313 or the chair of  Commissioner Jacobson, at 251-7644.

Wine Tasting Event in Adams Morgan

<BULLET> Tue., Jan 26 (6:30-8:30pm): AdamsMorgan MainStreet will be sponsoring another in its series of WINE TASTING fund-raisers to benefit to Main Street program, this time at the new, up-scale The District (2473 18th St.). Featured will be samplings of red and white wines and appetizer tidbits from their menu while enjoying the company of neighbors surrounded by the establishment’s unique décor on two levels. $25 per person. For more info, call 232-1960 or visit www.AMMainStreet.org.

Cardozo-Shaw ANC Meeting Scheduled at Reeves Center

<BULLET> Thu., Feb. 4 (7pm): The next regular, first Thursday of the month PUBLIC MEETING of the Cardozo-Shaw ANC 1B will be held, as usual, in the second floor conference room of the Reeves Center (14th & U Sts.). While at the time we went to press it was too early to learn of the items to be considered on the agenda, we had been informed of the election by the commissioners of their new chairperson, Commissioner E. Gail Anderson Holness, who narrowly won out over incumbent Chair Brianne Nadeau by a vote of six to five. In addition to serving as Pastor of Christ Our Redeemer AME Church on Upshur Street, she is also a member of the DC Commission for Women. Also elected to the other officer slots were Commissioners Peter Raia (Vice-Chair), Myla Moss (Secretary), and Eduardo Ferrer (Treasurer).

National City Christian Church Free Lunchtime Organ Series Resumes

<BULLET> Fri., Feb. 5 (12:15-1pm): The weekly MUSIC AT MIDDAY free, 45-minute lunch hour concerts at National City Christian Church on Thomas Circle kicks off its 2010 winter-spring season  with church’s own organist, Charles Miller performing, to be followed during the next three weeks by David Christopher from the Episcopal Church of Saints Andrew and Matthew in Wilmington, Delaware (Feb. 12); Stephen Harouff from Faith Presbyterian Church in Baltimore (Feb. 19); and concluding with Charles Miller returning to the console (Feb. 26).

These performances all take place inside the soaring John Russell Pope-designed sanctuary (reminiscent of a great Christopher Wren church in London) on National City’s magnificent 7,000-pipe, five-keyboard Moller organ. In the words of the church’s Dr. Miller, it is truly a “magical, musical, mystical machine [that produces a] most thrilling, floor-shaking, audience-friendly, and entertaining music composed be some of the greatest musical geniuses.”

Also enjoy and learn from the hands-on displays of organ pipes, colorful photographs of the inner workings of the organ, interesting information on pipe organ history, and a post-recital demonstration of how the organist operates the five keyboards, pedal board, and over 300 controls will provide an up-close look at this complex and fascinating “King of Instruments.”

For those who love wood-working, computers, electronics, and physics, as well as music, these recital/demonstration events are a special treat and are geared to attract and engage people of all ages, those familiar with the pipe organ and those who’ve never seen or heard one before. For more info, call the church’s music office at (202) 797-0103 or send an email to cmiller@nationalcitycc.org.