Washington Monument

Inaugural Kick-off Concert Where:: The Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington. When:: Today. Event begins at 2 p.m.. What:: Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Bono and Mary J. Blige are just a few of the musicians scheduled to perform as part of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration celebration events. The concert will be televised on HBO beginning at 7 p.m. Other performers include Stevie Wonder, John Mellencamp, Herbie Hancock, John Legend, Usher, Sheryl Crow and many more.

Washington -- The most storied outdoor venue in the nation's capital has many monikers: America's Common, America's Front Green, America's Backyard. But many visitors have a more pressing question: Where is America's bathroom? There are places along the National Mall where you don't want to be when you've really got to go - something to consider as Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer and the last surge of visits to national landmarks. Of the 80 public toilets and 26 urinals operated by the National Park Service - which manages the National Mall - most are west of the Washington Monument, in an area that includes the Lincoln, Jefferson and World War II memorials that were officially linked with the Mall in fall 2003 to form the National Mall and Memorial Parks.

The 36th annual lighting of the Washington Monument is scheduled for tonight in Mount Vernon Place, in the 600 block of N. Charles St. A holiday village with food and crafts vendors will open in the west park about 5:30 p.m., with stage entertainment at 6 p.m. The lights on the monument are scheduled to be turned on just before 7 p.m. by Mayor Sheila Dixon and Bart Scott of the Ravens, with fireworks to follow.

GEORGE Washington, America's first president, died in the last month of the last year of the 1700s -- exactly 200 years ago this week.Just as we eagerly anticipate 2000, the 67-year-old Washington dearly wished to see 1800 dawn on his Virginia plantation, Mount Vernon. But as any stroller passing by the Washington Monument in Baltimore's Mount Vernon -- the country's first such monument -- can see, it was not to be.Yet it's just as well that Washington died in 1799, for he was the quintessential 18th century gentleman (and the only U.S. president to have lived entirely in that century)

If Eric Dahler's vision pans out, the technology business incubator he's launched on the top two floors of Brown's Arcade, a retail-office complex that anchors the North Charles Street business corridor, will help recast downtown Baltimore as a hub for high-technology start-ups.Dahler also hopes his new enterprise, InfoAge Business Centers, will prove a successful model for a national chain of technology business incubators."We think there are a lot of innovative technology companies in the region that are hungry for professional office space that doesn't bust their budget," said Dahler.

Get up and get funky.Landmark plans call for Baltimore's 300-foot Bromo Selt-zer clock tower to be converted to 12 panoramified apartments, city housing officials said this past week. Among other amenities, future residents would be able to watch the Orioles' bullpen collapse without paying to see it happen.Perhaps this novel redevelopment notion for the clock tower -- Baltimore's downtown lighthouse -- will open the field for similar projects. Why should a city's landmarks be structures merely to leer at, or to list in architecture guides?

DARN IT! THE SUPER Bowl is on me once again, before I had a chance to book my flight back to southern Sudan, where there's little chance I'd hear one word about the National Football League's annual orgy of self-indulgence.So the weekend is here now, which leaves me with a choice of watching the premier game of NFL honchos -- the poster boys for greed -- or simply ignoring it as I've done the last three years.There's a strong argument for ignoring this year's Stupor Bowl. There's even a name for the argument: PSINet Stadium.

The Monumental City has a monumental opportunity.Beginning today, the famed Washington National Monument in the District of Columbia will close its doors to the public for several months to begin a multimillion-dollar renovation of the 555-foot obelisk.But tourists turned away during the repair work can still see the Washington Monument. They'll just have to make the 45-minute trip north to Baltimore.For it is here, in the heart of the city that President John Quincy Adams proclaimed "the Monumental City" in an 1827 toast, where you will find the first Washington Monument -- the 178-foot column atop Mount Vernon.

WASHINGTON -- Overheated families wilted in line at the Washington Monument, children refueled on astronaut snacks on the steps of the Air and Space Museum and the Tourmobile chugged along its usual route.Despite the looks of it, this was no ordinary day at tourist central. Visitors were getting their bags searched and avoiding concrete barriers at the Washington Monument, while their cars were shooed away from the Jefferson Memorial. In museums on the Mall, they toured next to extra security guards.

WASHINGTON -- Defeated presidential nominees more often than not are regarded in this country the way Peter Finley Dunne's Mr. Dooley described the plight of being vice president: "It isn't a crime exactly. Ye can't be sint to jail f'r it, but it's a kind iv disgrace. It's like writin' anonymous letters."H.L. Mencken proposed in 1926 "a constitutional amendment providing that every unsuccessful aspirant for the presidency, on the day his triumphant rival is inaugurated, shall be hauled to the top of the Washington Monument and there shot, poisoned, stabbed, strangled and disemboweled and his carcass thrown into the Potomac."

Memorial Day in Washington, and geese swimming in the great reflecting pool that reflects the Washington Monument or the Lincoln Memorial, depending on where you are standing, and busloads of tourists pulled up to the curbs. Heroic architecture everywhere, bas-relief sculptures of heroes, men on pedestals, monuments to Fidelity and Sacrifice and Devotion, and a milling crowd of people, many of whom are Hot and Irritable and Dazed with Tedium. Signs of museum fatigue everywhere. Stone-faced couples in shorts walk by, cameras dangling from their wrists, who appear to be on the verge of divorce.

The Photographer's Guide to Washington, D.C. Countryman Press, $14.95 Because Washington is one of the most photographed cities in the world, it is understandable why some visitors might think it difficult to find a fresh perspective while shooting the town's landmarks. After all, the Washington Monument is the Washington Monument. How many ways can you shoot it? But authors Lee Foster and Ann F. Purcell take a different view. "Remember," they say, "no one will ever see it in exactly the light in which you see this iconic place."

Inaugural Kick-off Concert Where:: The Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall in Washington. When:: Today. Event begins at 2 p.m.. What:: Bruce Springsteen, Beyonce, Bono and Mary J. Blige are just a few of the musicians scheduled to perform as part of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration celebration events. The concert will be televised on HBO beginning at 7 p.m. Other performers include Stevie Wonder, John Mellencamp, Herbie Hancock, John Legend, Usher, Sheryl Crow and many more.

The staff members at the U.S. Botanic Garden in Washington agree that it is their favorite moment: A holiday visitor is gazing at the miniature U.S. Capitol or at the miniature Jefferson Memorial in the conservatory's courtyard, or at any one of the fanciful structures that line the tracks in the nearby holiday train garden. "And suddenly they realize they are looking at an acorn or a corn husk and the look on their faces is amazing," said Laura Anthony, coordinator of the garden's visitors center.

A long-vacant basement coffee shop near Mount Vernon's Washington Monument could become a 7-Eleven convenience store over the objections of community activists, who are enlisting city support to buy the spot as a tourist information center. The former Buttery restaurant, at the southeast corner of Charles and Centre streets, faces the Washington Monument, Walters Art Museum and Peabody Institute. Negotiations are under way with its owner and a convenience store operator to open a 24-hour-a-day retail operation, which under zoning rules is a permitted use. "I'd rather have a 7-Eleven in my own backyard than on Mount Vernon Place," said R. Paul Warren, a Park Avenue resident who is vice president of the Mount Vernon-Belvedere Improvement Association.

There are mornings when I say to myself, do I really need another Flower Mart? Then I get my walking shoes on, pace down Charles Street, bless the lack of traffic (streets closed) and wind up in the right mood. Call it the Flowermart effect. Are there people who come out only three times a year for these annual festivals? I saw people yesterday morning around the Washington Monument who show up only for Flower Mart, the Christmas lighting of the monument and maybe the September book festival.

Standing at one of the 16 floor-to-ceiling windows inside his 20th-floor luxury condo, Christian S. Johansson brings to mind a popular movie scene -- you know, the one about being king of the world. Indeed, Johansson's lofty perch at the Harbor Court in downtown Baltimore is certainly fit for a king. Or at the very least, a successful 35-year-old bachelor who enjoys living in a residential building attached to a four-star hotel, complete with restaurants, a concierge and doorman, gym and more.

Get the blues The lowdown -- Blues musicians know how to stick together. Members of the Baltimore Blues Society are performing Sunday to support local bluesman Memphis Gold. Gold suffered a 40-foot fall last month and is in physical therapy. The concert has more than 10 local bands, including Bobby Parker and the Memphis Gold Band. If you go -- The show is 3 p.m.-11 p.m. Sunday at Fish Head Cantina, 4802 Benson Ave., Arbutus. Donations are accepted at the door. Special food and drink prices are available to those who donate.

WASHINGTON -- Barry C. Black was 8 when his mother returned to their West Baltimore home one day with a record album of two sermons by Peter Marshall, the famed preacher of Washington's New York Avenue Presbyterian Church. It was a gift from the family whose house she cleaned. "I learned both of those sermons," says Black. And more than half a century later, he still knows them, putting on Marshall's high Scottish brogue as he recites: "The morning sun had been up for a few hours over the city of David ... " Marshall was chaplain of the U.S. Senate when he died in 1949.

On a list of city landmarks -- the Washington Monument, Fort McHenry -- add a funky little boutique on Sulgrave Avenue in Mount Washington. That's an extravagant statement, but a lot of people who grew up in Baltimore would agree with it. Three generations of women have shopped there, made lifetime friends in its community dressing room and been nurtured by its owner. This month, Something Else celebrates its 40th anniversary, a remarkable achievement for a small clothing, accessories and tchotchkes shop that's nothing less or more than a reflection of owner Elsie Fergusson and her prophetic sense of color, style and ornamentation.