Neighborhood in the News: What Murch kids found in Melvin C. Hazen Park; New excuses for bad tippers

Murch Elementary administrative staff move into their brand new and newly-renovated buildings today after a two-year renovation.

These projects take 3-4 years to complete, but the team never slowed down. Thank you @McnBuildDC @RMcArchitects @HordCoplanMacht @BD_PM @DCDGS @MurchPrincipal for making the @murchschool project such a success. Admin moves in Monday. pic.twitter.com/s0y41oqNPg

— Patrick Davis (@DavisWPatrick) August 4, 2018

During those two years, Murch was relocated to temporary trailers on the UDC campus. The location’s proximity to Melvin C. Hazen Park provided a teaching opportunity, and a heartwarming one at that. Murch pre-K teacher Daniela Silver wrote about what happened when her 20 students encountered a large tree that had fallen on the trail last spring.

Bad tippers have new excuses: Washington City Paper talked to servers after DC voters approved Initiative 77, which eventually raises the minimum wage for tipped workers. One of them works for Jake’s American Grill “in Chevy Chase” (well….).

“They’re thinking that they voted to abolish tipping,” Allen says, referring to customers. “One woman said, ‘Thank god I don’t have to tip anymore.'” Another said, “This initiative just passed, so I didn’t put a tip on there,” according to Allen.

“I’ll clarify that it’s not good tippers who are doing this,” Allen continues. “It’s the people that were never good tippers.

The Answer Man knows: Why does a Revolutionary War general from Pennsylvania have a statue in his honor at Connecticut and Ellicott Streets? The Washington Post’s John Kelly has answers. (And readers later correct some of his information.)

Why there are so many embassies at Van Ness: It’s not a news source, per se, but the National Capital Planning Commission has published an article on how the District’s first “foreign mission enclave” came to be on the former site of the Bureau of Standards. With the addition of the Embassy of Morocco this year, there is now space left at the International Chancery Center for only one more embassy.

And a couple of hundred years before the ICC came to be? The land was producing grapes for wine. A springhouse nearby is a remnant of one of the “lost farms” of DC.