How did the sprawling Crystal City complex, near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, get its name? In the 1960s, developer Robert H. Smith dressed up his first apartment building there with a chandelier in the lobby, and soon the name spread to other Smith properties. It was, as I see it, a perfect example of […]
Read MoreD.C.’s power lunchrooms: Then and now
The Solomon Scandals mentions the Sans Souci, where so many members of the D.C. elite plotted and dined. In real life JFK almost surely ate there on occasion, and aides such as his press secretary, Pierre Salinger, most definitely came. So did dealmakers and celebrities like the late Art Buchwald, seen in the right photo. A […]
Read MoreThe ACTUAL Telegram?
A friend and I had just seen a movie with a soft-spoken and obscenity-free editor, a balding Boy Scout of the city room. Now she wondered if my novel hadn’t sinned in making such a wild character out of George McWilliams, editor at the fictitious Washington Telegram. Her message couldn’t have been clearer. Ben Bradlee, […]
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