Howard Bray, 96, Writer, Educator, Public Affairs Activist
Howard Bray, a writer, educator and public affairs activist, and longtime resident of Washington, D.C., died on Saturday, June 28, 2025. He was 96 and suffered from heart disease. Bray, a native of Albany, N.Y., and graduate of Washington University in St. Louis, began his career in newspaper newsrooms, with posts in Cape Girardeau, Mo.,…
DC Mayor’s New Budget Drops $56-Million Foxhall Elementary
After three years of fractious controversy, spending for construction of a $56-million, 550-seat public elementary school at Hardy Park at the east end of Palisades has been cut from Mayor Muriel Bowser’s 2023 budget proposal. The school would have landed in the middle of the Foxhall area, where Bob Avery is president of the community…
A Nation’s Capital Dissection: Anacostia
There’s the celebrated Washington, D.C., of grand acts on the national and global stage. And there’s the nearer life of the city itself. In the Civil War’s wake, an African American community sprouted in Anacostia and thrived. It was called Barry Farm. There was room enough for house and garden, and orchards and farms that…
Palisades ‘Blockbusting’ Probe Nets DC’s AG $300,000
A developer must pay the D.C. Attorney General’s office $300,000 to settle allegations of “blockbusting” to try to turn a MacArthur Boulevard duplex into condos and force out an owner. “The tactics deployed by the defendant harken back to the type of overt discrimination that occurred more than 50 years ago,” Attorney General Karl A.…
MPD: No Info To Suggest Cops Clipped Hardy Protest Signs
The removal of protest signs more than a week ago from a Hardy Park fence leaves a whodunit. But one city agency provided a clue about who didn’t do it. “I’m unable to find any information to suggest that MPD removed the signs,” a Metropolitan Police Department public affairs specialist, Alaina Gertz, told Potomac Times…
School Protest Signs Cleared From Hardy Park Fence
Signs protesting a city government plan for a new school on Hardy Park land were cleared off a Park entrance fence sometime over this past weekend. The signs, posted at Q and 45th streets, near Foxhall Road, had been accumulating for months, with growing concern about the Park’s future. “So far, I don’t believe anyone…
GDS MacArthur Blvd. Campus Sold To City For $45.3 Million
The Georgetown Day School campus on MacArthur Boulevard has been sold to the city. The school’s chief financial officer, Jeffrey Houser, said that “as of today,” the campus has been sold to DCPS. Houser declined to elaborate. D.C. property records show a transaction valued at $45,250,000.
Changes Afoot Along MacArthur Blvd.
(This article originally appeared in the November 2020 edition of the Foxhall Community Citizens Association newsletter.) Key sites along the east end of MacArthur Boulevard are in play. A blank slate now occupies the site where a 15,000-square-foot Safeway store once stood, leaving the Palisades with no large, full-service grocery. Developers have gained approval to…
Demolition Of Glover Archbold Trolley Trestle Cleared
The way has been cleared to tear down the abandoned trolley trestle that spans the south end of Glover Archbold National Park. In September 2020, the Mayor’s Agent for historic preservation in D.C. issued the demolition permit sought by WMATA, which oversees the trestle and right of way. Mayor’s Agent J. Peter Byrne, who in…
Potomac Times 