In the Land Of Fenty

A 3-Hour Tour of Washington With the Mayor-in-Waiting

Do you know your mayor-to-be, Washington? Really know him? Yes, he's a Democrat. Yes, schools are his top priority. And yes, he's a BlackBerry fiend. But there must be more, right? Things you didn't learn from his sorta awkward political commercials or his citywide press-the-flesh campaign? We thought so, too. So we asked mayor-elect Adrian M. Fenty to give us a personal tour of D.C., the city he grew up in, where he met his wife, where his children were born, the city whose future he hopes to shape.

We caught up with Fenty on a chilly, late October Saturday afternoon outside of Fleet Feet, the running-shoe store in Adams Morgan owned by his parents, Phil and Jan. After grabbing a quick lunch of chicken gumbo a few doors down at So's Your Mom ("the soup here is always excellent," Fenty tells us), the tour begins.

Almost begins, that is. On Jan. 2, Fenty will be sworn in as the fifth mayor of Washington, D.C. At just 36, he'll be responsible for a budget of $9.6 billion and a city of about 550,000. But right now, he has a much more pressing concern: Clambering over the back seat of his city-issued shiny black Lincoln Navigator, Fenty is struggling to fasten seat belts on his restless and chatty 6-year-old twins, Matthew and Andrew.

"If you ever run for office, have twin boys," he advises, snapping a belt into place. "They love to go everywhere." The inexorable campaigner ought to know; he took his boys with him to almost every nook and cranny of the city as he sought the city's top office.

"Are we g-o-i-n-g to the park?" Drew asks.

"Yeah, we're going to the park."

"Can we play f-o-o-t-b-a-l-l?"

Spelling is big with the Fenty twins these days.

"Yeah, where's the football?"

"H-o-m-e."

"Okay, let's go home and get it."

And so the tour begins with a detour. Fenty's driver sets off to the mayor-elect's Crestwood home to pick up a football. As we arrive, however, Fenty remembers that he hasn't told his wife that he's stopping by with visitors in tow. "I guess I should let her know," he says, flashing a toothy, slightly guilty grin. Standing 10 feet from his front door, the BlackBerry cowboy speed-dials wife Michelle inside the house to warn her.