Women's Titanic Memorial in Southwest DC

This post is a response to Melissa’s question about the Titanic Memorial from the comments on QOTD: How to Respond to Teens Attacking Adults in SW DC. Picture by Flickr user NCinDC.

If you follow the sidewalk southeast past the last club on Water Street, SW, you will find yourself leaving the road to walk on a wide promenade between the glimmering surface of the Washington Channel and the high, curving boughs of old trees in Washington Channel Park.

Follow the quaint globe lights to the very end of the park and you will see a tall statue of a man with his arms flung wide to form a cross, a flowing stone cloth partly draped around his body. Behind his left hand the water stretches out past Hains Point to join the Anacostia and Potomac rivers as they flow together toward the ocean.

It's a quiet spot, a fitting place for a silent tribute, even though it's not the location the monument's designers had in mind.

According to the Great Lakes Titanic Society and the National Park Service, the Women's Titanic Memorial was initially erected by the Women's Titanic Memorial Association in Rock Creek Park at the end of New Hampshire Avenue on May 26, 1931 to honor the men who gave their lives on the Titanic so that women and children could escape on life boats.

Just over thirty years later, in 1966, the planners for the Kennedy Center decided on the same spot, so the Women's Titanic Monument was slipped into storage to make room. In 1968 the monument was quietly planted in its current home in Washington Channel Park, and soon few besides the locals seemed to remember it existed.

According to an old fragment of a Washington Post article, twelve years later a small group of men decided to change that. In 1978 they began an annual tradition of toasting the men who gave their lives on the Titanic every April 15th. This tradition has expanded into a full evening of events: a men-only black tie dinner by the Kennedy Center on the 14th, followed by a ceremonial walk to the memorial in full tuxedos, and culminating in a round of champagne toasts in front of the memorial at 1:30 a.m. on the 15th.

The Men's Titanic Society coordinates this quirky annual event. It has become such an ingrained tradition that the society's founder and president, Jim Silman, poo-poohed a suggestion this year to move the memorial to a more prominent position at the tip of Hains Point where J. Seward Johnson's sculpture "The Awakening" once stood.

To reach Washington Channel Park and the Women's Titanic Memorial by Metro, you can walk straight south from the Waterfront Metro on 4th Street and hang a left on P Street. However, it's a prettier walk if you take M Street to 6th Street SW and walk through Washington Channel Park, especially if you manage to come in time to watch the sunset play on the water of the Channel.

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Franklin School Shelter Closing Today

Franklin School Homeless Shelter

UPDATE: Sept. 26, 7:15 p.m. Leslie Kershaw, Communications Specialist for Mayor Fenty's Office, sent the following comment in response to emailed questions about the change in Franklin School Shelter's closing date: "Today, the administration is excited to announce it has housed more than 300 long term shelter residents. We are currently in the process of preparing a summary illustrating the fulfillment of the Mayor's commitment to provide permanent supportive housing for our homeless neighbors, instead of placing them in a poor shelter environment."

Protests continued in the rain on the corner by the shelter this evening. A lone homeless man who gave his name as Philip stood apart from the protesters in front of the building and waited patiently to be picked up and taken to his new shelter. He said the city was relocating him to the "North Capitol" homeless shelter, the shelter run by Community for Creative Non-Violence at 425 Second Street N.W.

When asked how he felt about the Franklin shelter closing, Philip shrugged. "It's been coming for a long time."



Left: Protests continue. Right: Philip, former Franklin occupant.




UPDATE: Sept. 26, 3:50 p.m. Rodney Savoy, Program Manager for Franklin School Shelter, has confirmed that the shelter closed to the homeless at 7 a.m. this morning, and that they expect to have "the majority of the furniture moved out" by close of business today. He said the staff at Franklin first learned of Fenty's decision to close the shelter today on Thursday, but since they had been preparing for closure on Oct. 1, things went smoothly.

According to Savoy, only 53 homeless men stayed in the shelter last night; out of those men, 11 are "going to supportive housing units" and the rest will be accommodated at other shelters in the area.

Savoy confirmed that the Department of Human Services was responsible for providing the D.C. Council with names and new addresses for the former occupants of the shelter. DHS declined to comment for this article, referring all inquiries back to Fenty administration spokesperson Mafara Hobson.

Savoy plans to keep in touch with some of the men from the shelter in his new position. He will be moving to Fortitude Housing, which he said is part of Anchor Mental Health and will help provide support for the men who have moved into apartments.

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Sept. 26, 1:30 p.m., Washington, DC: The last occupants of the Franklin School Shelter walked out into the cold and wet with their belongings at 7 a.m. this morning. Staff members of the homeless shelter for men confirmed this morning that the shelter will close permanently at 5 p.m. today.

Franklin School Shelter is one of the last remaining homeless shelters located in downtown D.C. Mayor Adrian M. Fenty has pressed forward on plans to close the shelter over the objections of homeless advocate groups and resistance from the D.C. Council as part of his ambitious program to move homeless residents into more permanent housing.

While the administration celebrated successfully moving 53 homeless men from the shelter into apartments earlier this month, the city has not yet released permanent housing plans for the remaining 250 regular occupants of the shelter.

The D.C. council passed emergency legislation on Sept. 16 demanding the mayor keep Franklin School Shelter open until he provides a detailed plan to provide housing and services for these men. The mayor must sign or veto the legislation by close of business today.

In an article about protests last night over the shelter’s closing, the Washington Post reported that Fenty administration spokeswoman Mafara Hobson refused to confirm or deny rumors that the shelter was closing today, stating only that “The administration is still committed to providing permanent supportive housing to the men at Franklin Shelter, with the end goal of closing the shelter by Oct. 1.”

Administration officials did not return calls for comment on why the shelter was closing five days early by press time.

GRDC # 2: Hamster Rock

Jam Session from left: Mona Schamess, Maia Cafri, Starr Hill, and Skye Ray, with coach Jeanni Centofanti at bottom.

On Saturday, Aug. 16 the ladies of Jam Session stepped out under the blue and green lights of the 9:30 Club main stage and began their first performance by yelling out "We're Jam Session, and we love hamster!" Featuring frontwoman Skye Ray on vocals, Mona Schamess on guitar and vocals, Maia Cafri on bass, Starr Hill on drums, and Gigi Diaz on keys, the young women performed a complex piece that fused several tempos and styles and included some fancy beatboxing by Ray.

Like the other girls in the Girls Rock! DC inaugural showcase at the 930 Club in Washington, DC, the ladies in Jam Session met, formed a band, and wrote a song for the showcase all in the space of five days. Many of the girls in the showcase, including Cafri from Jam Session, picked up their instruments for the very first time that week.

I caught up with Schamess, Cafri, Hill, and Ray in the 930 Club's Moon Room after their song. I asked Hill about their fondness for hamsters, and she quickly explained that they didn't mean the small furry rodents pictured in their band art. They were referring to alternative hamster, a style of music that is "totally better than regular rock" because it includes "a little bit of everything." She said their band coach, local musician Jeanni Centofanti from the all-female punk band Mess Up The Mess, told them about it, and the band fell in love with it. Hill said the idea of alternative hamster inspired the band to include salsa, rock, and other styles in their song.

Ray told me that the best part of rock camp was making new friends, especially her band mates. The funniest? "In self defense (class), my friend accidentally kicked me in my back!"

Just before the young rockers made their way back upstairs to see their friends in the band Flaming X play, their coach, Centofanti, pointed out the glow-in-the-dark pinpoints decorating the ceiling and walls of the impromptu press room. A former 9:30 Club employee, Centofanti told her proteges that the Moon Room was painted to exactly match the sky on the night that the 9:30 Club was founded. The girls ogled the walls, then, armed with this insider knowledge, they ran up to join their friends in the performers-only balcony.

Skye Ray on vocals.

Maia Cafri on bass.

Mona Schamess on guitar and vocals.

Jam Session under the spotlights.

So there was this shooting...

(Photo has been cropped and rotated.)

At 7:35 p.m. on August 16, 2008, the cacaphony of a gun battle shattered a seemingly normal Saturday afternoon. But the backdrop wasn't Bagdad, the Gaza strip, or even Detroit; it was apartment complexes and townhouses with neatly groomed gardens right across the intersection from my window. And it happened in broad daylight, with people out walking dogs and kids everywhere.

Journalism has given me an excuse to dispense with any instincts of self-preservation and common sense I might have had before (strong emphasis on might). So, instead of watching from my window like everyone else, I rushed downstairs and plunged headfirst into an eruption of tensions that have been simmering in my neighborhood since before I came to this city four years ago.

A little over two weeks later the blog Prince of Petworth agreed to publish my article about the shooting and what happened next, calling it "the definitive account" of the events of Aug. 16. You can find that article here.

Baptism by gunfire wasn't what I thought I was signing up for when I started freelancing, but something about reporting this story felt completely natural. Not easy, but right. And while I didn't manage to get this particular article into a paper, I came the closest I've ever been, and I know a heck of a lot more about how to do my job now than I did three weeks ago.

An editor I met while interviewing people on the street said she told her partner that night that I was "a natural" at crime reporting. She also said I didn't need grad school. We'll see.