Columbia Heights Day
by Amanda on October 5, 2008
Yesterday Cosmo and I decided to check out Columbia Heights Day (Cosmo is very community-minded), and let me tell you – we were disappointed.
On the heels of Adams Morgan Day, with its blocks of tents featuring artists, restaurants, and community organizations, the dozen or so tents spread across the Harriet Tubman Elementary soccer field for Columbia Heights Day just felt underwhelming. There were no artists in sight, though I was happy to encounter a few local arts organizations, including the new Tonic Arts program (“Tonic” as in, the restaurant in Mount Pleasant – wait, a Mount Pleasant establishment at Columbia Heights Day?! This made our brains hurt a little bit. Cosmo is pretty literal-minded…)
But we made the best of things. After quickly perusing the CH Day tents – and pausing at the
“Poop The Potato” lawn game (nothing says community like excreting a spud) – we continued on to the
Wonderland Ballroom, where we enjoyed sitting on the shady patio and people-watching (the mayor even walked by at one point!). When we got tired of that one dog sniffing our butt (we hate that, and by the way, why didn’t someone tell its owner to use a leash?), we meandered around the ‘hood, and came upon a “costume yard sale” roundabout 13th and Irving.
Talk about community spirit! People of all ages dug into boxes full of wigs, masks, and various rubber body parts, and chimed in with their contributions to the running group commentary. “Yeah, man, you make a really good Freddy Krueger! Oh hey, here’s the hat that goes with that….” In all seriousness, it was pretty cool. Here’s a picture I took of a creepy-looking clown mask:
The moral of the story: the happy buzz of community isn’t always in the obvious place, but if you keep walking, you’ll usually find it.
And with that – Cosmo and I are off to poop some taters.
Tagged as:
community,
fairs_and_festivals,
hoods
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
Did you see the petting zoo? The Sticky Fingers Cupcake Eat-off? The free burgers, dogs, fries, wings and pulled pork, all made on the premises and FREE?
What about the 7 bands and various other performances? All local and from the community, unlike Adams Morgan Day who hires organizations and vendors from outside DC, let alone outside Adams Morgan. Adams Morgan Day also receives money from the city. Columbia Heights raises it all on their own.
p.s. the Poop the Potato lawn game was over in the “Kid Zone.” They seemed to love it. And the fun you had over at Wonderland…all part of the festival. They were participating and had specials and people were walking back and forth. Glad you had fun at the yard sale, though.
Yeah, the Mayor walked by…to come to Columbia Heights Day, along with about 1,200 other people. Oh, and by the way, he LOVES the festival….along with everyone else that donated their time and money and committing to next year already. The costume sale….part of the various local vendor and neighbors celebrating Columbia Heights Day in their very own way (I guess you were at the bar when she was selling her costumes at the festival?)
Have fun sitting at the bar…..and blogging about what other people are doing….
I’d suggest looking at Prince of Petworth for a more accurate review of the festival
“When we got tired of that one dog sniffing our butt (we hate that, and by the way, why didn’t someone tell its owner to use a leash?)”
The irony… you were at Wonderland with your dog, and you complained about someone else’s! You must be the world’s most perfect dog owner, to have a dog that never so much as licks a stranger’s hand. And I am sure you’ve not once let him off leash outside your own home. I salute your righteousness and incredible dog training skills.
All: I should clarify, I was at the festival at around 1pm for about 20-30 minutes, so I clearly didn’t experience all of the day’s programming. Sounds like it picked up later in the day. I wasn’t covering the event, just sharing my impression – my disappointment is just a reflection of one person’s experience.
Ken-E – I missed the food completely. Didn’t see it (or smell it). Was it there the whole time? The cupcake contest definitely sounds fun. :)
And that’s interesting that the city helps fund Adams Morgan Day, but not this – why is that? Does it fund any other neighborhoods’ festivals?
I definitely wished local artists had been showcased.
Anonymous- my point about the dog at Wonderland was that the owner didn’t have him on a leash, and therefore couldn’t keep him under control. Cosmo’s far from perfect, to be sure, but he’s closer to perfectly behaved when he’s on a leash. Yes, I let him off leash at the park from time to time, but not when there are a lot of people around.
Glad others had fun. Sounds like I may have just been there at an off time.
Late or not, it sounds like you’re a bit too critical of other people’s efforts to have a good time:
http://picasaweb.google.com/columbiaheightsday/2ndAnnualColumbiaHeightsDay#
I am one of the organizers. How odd you didn’t see the food? Here’s a picture taken at 1:50 PM of the food table (right next to the main stage) with a huge line of people coming to get it, right about the time you should have been there.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamietre/2918178543/
I didn’t think it was that hard to find… in fact I barely had a break until 3:30 when we shut down because we ran out of food. For the third time… we made two extra runs to buy a couple hundred more burgers throughout the day. But if you have suggestions about how we might do a better job next year I’m all ears.
Food was served non-stop from 11:00 until about 3:30 then again at 5:00 PM when the pulled pork was ready.
Anyway, sorry you didn’t enjoy it. We weren’t going for a big alcohol-fueled street festival like Adams Morgan day. There are enough of those in DC already. We wanted to celebrate our local musicians, businesses, artisans and have a fun venue for neighbors, friends and family to enjoy their community. I felt that it a great success and have gotten lots of positive feedback from people who attended. I’m sorry it wasn’t your thing, but as I said, we welcome suggestions for next year. But we really don’t want to be Adams Morgan Day regurgitated.
Wow, the comments are hot. A little sensitive, aren’t we? I mean, isn’t creativedc just sharing her opinion? It’s not about right or wrong. It’s an opinion. People have them. People disagree. There are no “accurate” reviews of the festival. Maybe just the reviews you agree with. Relax!
yeah, it sure sounds to me like the crowd is trying to shout her down about things here. really, it’s an opinion. if you don’t agree (and you had a GREAT day), then good for you. tell us about your great day. but people are allowed to say negative things about things on blogs, folks. phew!
Yeah, I’m not liking the “beatdown” vibe around here myself. It’s one blogger’s opinion. Nobody killed your mother.
I went around 4:30 and I liked it fine. There wasn’t really enough going on to keep me there longer than 30 minutes, but I enjoyed the live music and the petting zoo.
I avoid the bigger festivals like Adams Morgan Day and Crafty Bastards because crowds make me crazy, and it’s usually the same vendors over and over (how many hipster t-shirts can one person need?). So a low-key, family friendly fest like CH Day was definitely more my speed. I liked it for what it was.
What the hell. Creative just reported that she didn’t have a terrific time, and the response is an unmitigated flamefest with all sorts of personal attacks?! I was out of town and missed the festivities, so I don’t know if they were fantastic or lame, but based on the comments here, I can tell there were no shortage of douches in the area. Glad I missed the bad company and will make a note to repeat the near miss next year.
@5:26 PM anon, what “personal attacks” are you referring to? Flamefest? Really? The only personal attack I see here is your own, with the the “no shortage of douches” comment.
While the tone of a couple of the comments is a little defensive and a bit too sarcastic for my taste, honestly, the criticisms of those comments are a lot more vitriolic than the original comments!
Amanda’s post says she didn’t like the festival, but doesn’t give much detail about that opinion except to say “it wasn’t like Adams Morgan Day”. Fine, that’s her opinion, but it’s a pretty shallow review of an event that had a lot more to it than she wrote about.
So what is so unreasonable about people who actually spent more than 20 minutes there pointing out all the activities that were taking place that she apparently missed? I thought the whole point of allowing comments on blogs was so readers could react.
I guess it’s either “agree with the author” or “you are a douchebag” around here. But I don’t see a big problem with this thread.
Yikes! After 2+ years this is the first bout of negative comments I’ve experienced here on Creative DC. Clearly I struck a nerve. Which is good – I want to hear diverse viewpoints! But I definitely want us to keep the discussion civilized. Give peace a chance!
After reading all the comments so far, I just want to reiterate that I only meant to share my personal impressions of the festival, not to suggest I’d covered it in a journalistic fashion. I’m one person who lives nearby, wandered over, wasn’t that excited by what I saw, and kept wandering on a sunny fall afternoon. That’s it.
If I’d been on assignment I would have talked to the event’s organizers and reviewed the full schedule of events to make sure I sampled the full spectrum of activities. But, again, that wasn’t my purpose.
I compared the event to Adams Morgan Day not to pick a fight, or because I think AM Day is the be-all, end-all of neighborhood festivals – but b/c I was just there, and had a great time. I didn’t get drunk (someone suggested AM Day is mainly a drunkfest) – I enjoyed checking out the artists at Arts on Belmont, mostly, and people-watching, and just generally soaking up the festive atmosphere.
It was energizing to see such a mix of people out enjoying the day. I felt similarly at Mt. Pleasant day last week.
Thanks for reading and again, all views are welcome, and you definitely don’t have to agree with me. Let’s just play nice. Thanks everyone!
I was on the planing committee, please read my comment on my blog at about all this.
Festivals can be different with something for different tastes. CH was terrific -had a good time, music & neat events. AMDay has been around much longer and is more of a Metro-wide event. But its FiestaDC and the Carribean Festival that have been receiving the city grants — hundreds of thousands every year, and AMDay has not been receiving a city underwriritng grant. But I know it has much higher police costs and stuff like that as well as being a major local and visitor draw, so they’ve musta been more efficient with volunteers or snagging sponsors.
But what is this fabricated crap about “alcohol-fuled AMDay.” There are no AMDay Festival alcohol sales, only what is ordinarily sold at brunch or sidewalk cafes, and AMDay is a major cultural festival – dance, arts, jazz stage, kid’s area, the main Florida/ Columbia stages, cultural plaza, etc. i go to AmDay just cuz there are more original local artists of quality there than anywhere else. Let’s be glad of the fun diverse DC events we’ve got!