A rainy morning and a tragic animal death created a bummer of a start to Adams Morgan Day. A friend told me about the shooting of a dog that happened just minutes before I arrived, but I heard nothing else of it until I got home and read reports on several news sites and watched the evening news.
Unaware, most of the thousands of visitors enjoyed the improving weather and streamed up and down 18th Street throughout the day. Some of the other notes and highlights from the day, and photos too.
*Very much like Columbia Heights Day, politicians and their supporters were a dominant force. Fenty, Gray, Graham, Smith, Weaver, even ANC candidates had a presence.
*Madam's Organ was Vincent Gray central and actually opened this year. They closed in protest last year.
*Ben's Chili Bowl made their first ever appearance at Adams Morgan Day.
*The Green and Health Pavilions returned, as did the kids' area complete with multiple moon-bounces.
*Three music stages with rock, soul, cover songs, indie music and more.
*PETA's "lettuce ladies" got lots of attention and handed out veg friendly info to festival goers. Sorry, no photos, but one of the ladies had also run a triathlon yesterday morning. Impressive.
*Keren Restaurant was still putting together the pieces after a drunk driver hit two people and destroyed their storefront last week.
*Karaoke outside Peyote Cafe is now a tradition and as expected performers were either lounge singer good or cringe worthy bad. Not many middling types. One guy played a violin to the music instead of singing.
*Once again, people watching topped all other activities as DC's best, weirdest, prettiest, quirky, over-dressed, under-dressed, fashion challenged, stroller pushing, mouth stuffing, skinny, chubby, mostly happy crowd descended upon its most unique neighborhood.
As crazy as this neighborhood gets on certain nights of the week, it's DC's best for having a good time. Adams Morgan Day Fest is possibly the best of the local neighborhood festivals. We didn't need a nice dog to be shot and killed to make it a memorable day. Here's to a less violent finish to the festival season.
