Why is Barack Obama having such an expensive inaugural when we are in such dire times?

As the recession continues to wreak havoc on the U.S. economy and inauguration celebrations ramp up, a lot of people are asking: "How much will this shindig cost?"

The short answer? More than $150 million — and yep, that's the most expensive ever. (By comparison, George W. Bush's 2005 inauguration cost $42.3 million. Bill Clinton managed with $33 million in 1993.)



For the first time, President Bush has declared an emergency in Washington, D.C. to supplement the $15 million Congress has already allotted for security measures. It's no surprise that security costs are sky-high — Barack Obama received Secret Service protection very early in his presidential run and record crowds (likely anywhere from 1.5 to 3 million people) are expected for the record number of events. In fact, the Secret Service will be in charge of security not just for inauguration day, but for four days, starting Saturday with Obama's train ride from Philadelphia. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told the AP:

"It will be the most security, as far as I'm aware, that any inauguration's had."

Obama's much-discussed (and very cool-looking) custom Cadillac limo certainly couldn't come cheap, though we'll never really know how much it cost. Cadillac spokesman David Caldwell said the car's exact specifications are a big secret, including the safety features and production cost.

But Forbes reports it's not all flak jackets and armored cars:

To manage an event of this scale, the District of Columbia will spend a mammoth $47 million. It is not enough.... Much of the $45 million will go toward creating a dynamic Inauguration experience for the everyday visitor, not just funding exclusive events. "We don't even consider these events to be extravagant," says Linda Douglas, a spokeswoman from the Presidential Inauguration Committee. "With crowds of this size, most of our attention is being devoted to opening up as many events to the public."

Read the entire story HERE

Barack Obama Metro Cards in Washington D.C.

I think this is cool but it would be nice to do something like this for all incoming presidents.
~Corey


~
There are three options. For $10, you can purchase a rechargeable SmarTrip card with Obama’s face and “January 20, 2009, Inauguration Day” printed on the front; this card has no fare preloaded. Twenty dollars will get you the same plastic SmarTrip card with $10 in Metro fare preloaded. SmarTrip cards can be used on trains and buses.



A one-day paper pass is also available for $10. Printed with a black-and-white image of the President-elect, the pass gives you unlimited subway travel starting at 9:30 AM. You can use the pass any day of the week, including Inauguration Day, but it expires at midnight Sunday through Thursday and at 3 AM Friday and Saturday.



By comparison, a regularly priced SmarTrip card costs $30 and comes with $25 in Metro fare preloaded. A one-day rail pass costs $7.80.





Read more in the Washingtonian.

Remember what Memorial Day is all about this weekend

Gaylord National Hotel Goes All Out to Charm Prospective Customers

By Anita Huslin
Washington Post Staff Writer



It's a balmy, picture-perfect autumn morning when the limousines begin arriving, and the reception at the historic mansion overlooking the Potomac River has been laid out by hospitality company Gaylord National to impress.

The guests -- potential corporate clients, mostly planners who book meetings and conferences in the mid-Atlantic region -- lap up the mimosas and bloody marys, nibble on hors d'oeuvres, and bask on the sun-kissed portico of the Oxon Hill Manor, a property once owned by a nephew of George Washington.

Though the guests are appreciative of the effort, it remains to be seen whether the endeavor will translate into business for the newest property in Gaylord Entertainment's hotel chain.

They have lots of questions about the place. How would guests get to Washington, to sightsee or dine in the nation's capital? What other restaurants and retail will be at the Gaylord complex and neighboring National Harbor? What kind of hotel overflow capacity does it have? Could they hang a trapeze from the ceiling of the convention hall if they wanted to?



This is only the beginning of a sales push for the Nashville-based company that wants to establish its complex in the Washington area as a premier meeting and convention space.

Over the next several months, the Gaylord National executive sales team will be pressing to fill its reservation book. It has already sold more than 1 million room nights (over the next decade and beyond), filling the 2,000-room hotel to 60 percent capacity next year when it opens, 55 percent in 2009 and 35 percent in 2010. Now, Gaylord officials said, their focus is booking short-term corporate and leisure clients -- in hospitality industry parlance, transients.

This will be a smaller share of Gaylord National's business, of which large association meetings and conventions account for 70 percent. But that 30 percent, Gaylord executives believe, represents future clients of other properties in the hotel chain.

Which is why the elaborate, invitation-only reception last week was so focused on details. Gaylord flew in executives and chefs from Nashville, Orlando and Dallas for the day. They sent limousines to pick up each guest individually, and then they wined, dined and walked their guests to the top of the hotel, showing them the vistas and the amenities.

Read the entire story in the WashingtonPost.

Vietnam Memorial Desecrated

The city that I lived in for a couple of years, Washington D.C. had horrible thing happen recently. Someone tried to and did damage the Vietnam Memorial. I hope they catch whoever did it and I hope they can restore the beauty of this sad yet beautiful memorial.

This is a popular attraction for tourists and locals. It is a shame to see a place made to honor the loss of so many brave individuals disrespected like this.

Wardman Park Hotel in Washington D.C.

This was where I spent many, many hours during my time in Washington D.C.. A great hotel with lots of history and elegance. The old Wardman Tower was once a place of residence and the rest of the facility was the hotel. That changed a few months after I started and I remember the stories of Dwight Eisenhower living there for a time.

Truly a remarkable place to stay during a visit to Washington and with the upper rooms you get a great view of the city.

They also have an amazing variety of foods on the same block which also has a Metro stop. Very convenient and elegant.










Wardman Park hotel
2660 Woodley Road, NW
Washington, District Of Columbia 20008
202-328-2000

Build It and They Will Come
The Life and Times of Harry Wardman (1872-1938)

When real estate agents describe their listings in Northwest Washington, they are always happy to add "It's a Wardman", if the house or apartment building was built by Harry Wardman. He was one of the greatest of all Washington real estate developers, and his name is associated with a high quality of design and materials. So great is his legacy that some houses are "Wardman Wannabe's", who’s past owners pretended they were built by Wardman, when in fact they weren't. Since Harry Wardman was responsible for building some 80,000 housing units from the early 1900's to 1938, the real thing can be found all over the city, in neighborhoods such as Columbia Heights, Brightwood, Woodley and Kalorama.

Born in England, Harry Wardman came to this country by accident. At he age of 17, he stowed away on a ship bound from London to Australia. When he was discovered, he was put off the ship in the nearest port, which happened to be New York City. He worked his way to Philadelphia, then on to Washington, DC, where he began to work for construction companies. From these modest beginnings, he became the biggest, most influential builder in the District of Columbia. His work spanned three decades, including over 4000 single-family houses, 12 office buildings, 2 embassies, 1 parking garage, 8 hotels, 2 clubs, 2 hospital annexes and 400 apartment buildings!

He built the Northumberland, the Dresden, the Hay-Adams Hotel, the Jefferson Hotel, the St. Regis, and the British Embassy. He built elaborate, expensive buildings and he built low cost housing. Harry Wardman wasn't shy about his talent or his success. When he built seven buildings on R street, between 14th and 15th, he had the first letter of each building spell out his name: W-A-R-D-M-A-N. Ten years later, Morris Cafritz followed suit with seven buildings on Spring Street NW that spelled out C-A-F-R-I-T-Z. Wardman was responsible, more than any other developer, for turning Washington from a city of rooming houses to a city of apartment buildings, most of which were later converted to condominiums in the 1970's.

Of all the things he built, Harry Wardman considered his crowning glory to be the Wardman Park Hotel and the Wardman Tower, at the corner of Connecticut and Woodley. The hotel, which is now owned by Marriott, was called "Wardman's Folly" in 1916, while it was under construction. Critics said it was too far out of the city to be successful, but they were wrong. The hotel was soon filled to capacity. At the end of World War I, Washington's population increased greatly, and at that time, people lived in hotels much as they live in apartments today.

It was the largest and grandest hotel to be built in Washington, and one of the 10 largest in the country. Designed by Frank R. White, the building was patterned after "The Homestead" resort hotel in Hot Springs, Virginia. Among the special features were 1200 rooms, a 200' by 45' lobby, a dining room for 500, a Turkish bath, billiards room, drugstore and grocery.

In his book,"Capital Losses", James Goode describes just how far Wardman would go to pursue a project. When he decided to add a luxury apartment tower to the hotel, he tore down his own house, while his wife was visiting in Paris! He moved all the furniture out in 48 hours, tore down the elegant stucco manor house, and quickly set to work on the dream tower.

Over time, the Wardman Tower turned out to be everything Harry Wardman envisioned. No other place in Washington was home to as many famous people; a partial roster of resident s over the years includes Herbert Hoover, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Adlai Stevenson, John Foster Dulles, Perle Mesta, Clare Booth Luce, Dean Rusk, Barry Goldwater and Lyndon Johnson and Casper Weinberger.

Harry Wardman finished the apartment tower in 1928. Unfortunately, he paid more attention to the construction and design of his buildings than to his finances. The Depression found him cash-short and overextended. He lost all his vast real estate empire worth $30,000,000, and only managed to keep on building houses, because some of the land he owned had been deeded in his wife's name. He built more than 1000 houses in the 1930's, and was on his way to creating a second real estate empire, when he died of cancer in 1938. At the time of his death, he estimated that 10% of Washington's population lived in a "Wardman".

I found this story at

Evers & Company

Real Estate Inc.

5 Observations on D.C.

1. Aircraft - With the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport located a couple miles south of the Mall on the Potomac's western edge, commercial planes are an almost constant presence. On the three days I was in D.C. planes took off to the north and west, flying low over the Jefferson Memorial (above), the western edge of the mall, and Arlington Cemetery. These three areas are home to monuments, places of remembrance and reverence, so I was surprised to almost always have the sound of engines overhead, be it planes or helicopters.


3. Grand Streets - Grand MetroThe streets in D.C. are extremely wide, helping to give the place its monumentality and scale that makes people feel small in the face of the government. One thing these wide streets enable are similarly grand underground stations for the Metro. Unlike many of the stations in New York that are constrained by not only street widths but other service snaking their way underground, the D.C. stations are beautifully spacious, aided by dramatic, indirect lighting illuminating the concrete vaults. Interestingly, the light levels are lower in D.C. than New York, though the feeling of security is greater, achieved via the large, open spaces.


To see the rest of this list, visit the archidose blog. It is an architectural blog.

Lost in the city? “Map” scarf to the rescue!

Inspired by the silk escape maps issued to Allied airmen during WWII, Map Scarves are now available for fashion conscious travelers.

The silk gold-tone scarves feature detailed city maps of London, Paris, Rome, Venice, Berlin, Vienna, New York, San Francisco and Washington, DC. They “cover” all the major sights and attractions, along with a few off-beat ones, too.

They’re quirky yet practical. Should you get lost, simply consult your scarf!

Visit Vagablond for the entire story

150 from Nashville visiting Baltimore, D.C. on study mission

Nearly 150 local business and community leaders left on a trip to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. Sunday on a joint leadership and study mission.

"There is a real value in making these trips to see what other cities are doing," said Ron Samuels, vice chairman of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce and visit co-leader in a news release.

"When we take into account the best practice of other cities and incorporate them into the Nashville area, these visits become a community development tool. This is because tangible results are impacted and produced, such as the development of the downtown Nashville Public Library and the Schermerhorn Symphony Center."


Visit the Nashville Business Journal for the rest of the story