Neighborhood in the News: Hunger in Van Ness; Whittle School renovation; Beach Drive staying closed to cars for now

Hunger may be closer than you think: We missed this report when it was released in July. As The Washington Post reported, “census tract 13.02, in the District’s affluent Cleveland Park and Van Ness neighborhoods, may see a jump from 460 to 870 people in food insecurity in the coming year.”

A 2018 artist’s rendering of a Whittle School interior space.

Whittle School’s renovation is complete: The Chinese immersion school on the former Intelsat campus was still under construction when it first welcomed students in fall 2019. The Washington Business Journal reports the Covid-19 shutdown was a silver lining that allowed the work to be completed more quickly.

Keeping Beach Drive for bikes, hikes and roller skating: The National Park Service had said that Beach Drive north of Broad Branch Road would reopen to weekday vehicle traffic on October 9th, but now says it will be closed to cars until the District lifts the state of emergency. WAMU spoke to a roller skating neighbor (who happens to be running for ANC 3F) and she isn’t the only one who hopes Beach Drive stays like this.

UDC and Microsoft give 700 laptops to students:

Before Bread Furst: Mark Furstenberg opened Marvelous Market where Little Red Fox is today. And according to Washingtonian’s “50 Most Influential DC Restaurants of the Last Century,” “[b]read in Washington was an afterthought until Mark Furstenberg upped the city’s baking game.”

Sounds perfect to us: Margaret Brennan, the host of CBS’ “Face the Nation,” would start a “perfect” day in DC at Little Red Fox.