Update at 3:05 a.m. — A video posted on AllDMVHipHop.com (NSFW) shows a group of nearly a dozen people fighting inside the hotel.
A huge brawl broke out at a local hip hop award show in Crystal City Saturday night, sending several people to the hospital.
A large piece of scaffolding apparently used for washing windows fell about 15 stories from the top of a Crystal City office building this afternoon.
The scaffolding fell onto some trees in a courtyard below. Amazingly, nobody was injured and the building did not appear to have suffered any damage.
On Friday, county board chairman Chris Zimmerman will be joined by Viktor Anushkevychus, mayor of the city of Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine, at a signing ceremony in Crystal City to make the familial relationship official. The signing will be part of the 55th annual Sister Cities International Conference, which Arlington is hosting this weekend.
Ivano-Frankivsk will become Arlington’s fifth sister city, joining Aachen, Germany; Coyoacán, Mexico; Reims, France, and San Miguel, El Salvador.
When it comes to sister cities, Arlington is part of a big family. Arlington County has familial relations with Aachen, Germany; Coyoacan, Mexico; Reims, France; and San Miguel, El Salvador. A relationship with Ivano-Frankivsk, Ukraine is also in the works.
So when the whole extended family comes to town, Arlington’s sister city organization wants to make sure we cross the T’s and dot the I’s.
One annual springtime tradition that’s quickly approaching is Crystal City’s 5K Fridays.
Every Friday in April, starting on April 1, Crystal Drive and Old Jefferson Davis Highway will be shut down between 6:15 and 7:30 p.m. to allow hundreds of runners to take a jog through the heart of Crystal City.
Congressman Dated Pentagon City Mall Employee — Disgraced former Congressman Christopher Lee (R-NY) had “a relationship” with a young woman who “worked at an upscale Pentagon City department store,” according to the New York Post. GOP leadership reportedly ordered Lee to “curtail his randy DC antics” after word got out he was dating the “young salesclerk.” There is a Macy’s and a Nordstrom department store at Pentagon City mall. [New York Post]
Post Editorial Slams Arlington, Again — Three days after declaring that Arlington Public Schools should investigate the explosive claims of a former middle school teacher, the Washington Post’s editorial board is on Arlington’s case again. The Post says Arlington won “a battle over HOT lanes but may lose a war.” By effectively killing the I-395 HOT lanes project and blocking the widening of I-66, Arlington’s “NIMBYism” is “frustrating the county’s populous and fast-growing neighbors” while “undercut[ting] its own economic interests.” [Washington Post]
The new Renaissance Arlington Capital View and the new Residence Inn Capital View hotels are currently expected to open on March 9.
The hotels will both be owned by developer JBG and managed by Marriott. Construction, which began in 2008, was funded with $129 million in financing from Wells Fargo.
Crystal Couture, Crystal City’s annual week-long fashion show, continues tonight with more models, more DJ sets and more runway fashions.
We attended last night’s event and snapped some photos. See the more, after the jump.
According to a site plan submitted to the county, the project will consist of three buildings, each between four and six stories high, built on a 4.7 acre parcel of land along Old Jefferson Davis Highway. The office project is expected to replace a number of dilapidated structures, including the Clark Street Playhouse and the abandoned Crystal City Motel.
(The site is shown to the left, during a rain storm last year.)
For several weeks, the newbies are subjected to a barrage of visits from police officers, who themselves are responding to complaints from local businesses. Most of the complaints are made when the trucks are in Rosslyn or Crystal City. In almost every case, an officer responds, checks the truck’s license and leaves after verifying the truck is licensed and not illegally parked.
We started paying attention to this trend in October, when the BBQ Bandidos truck was the target of police visits (see photo, left). In December, we felt compelled to write about the Bada Bing truck’s travails as it was inspected at least eight times.
Pizza Autentica has opened up at Crystal Drive and 23rd Street in Crystal City.
The location is the South Arlington counterpart to the rapidly-growing pizza chain’s Ballston restaurant, which opened in October.
The American Booksellers Associations, which represents independent booksellers, held a four-day convention in Crystal City last week to network and discuss business strategies.
Among the activities was a field trip to Arlington’s Revolution Cycles.
