Newseum, a Developing Story

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At the Newseum, News Is the Attraction

At the Newseum in Washington, visitors can take in the history of news, then create some of their own by taking on the job of a journalist.

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During a Penn Quarter breakfast at the Hard Rock Cafe in late February 2000, buzz began to spread about the Newseum maybe moving to Washington. Then-Mayor Anthony Williams's administration accepted the Freedom Forum's offer of $100 million for the city-owned site, $25 million of which was slated for affordable housing elsewhere in the city.

First to open on the site were the upscale Newseum Residences. Leasing started in the summer. The apartment wing is a richly understated place of granite countertops, hardwood floors and big slabs of onyx in the public areas.

"It is the most dramatic block on the avenue as far as I'm concerned," says tenant Erma Striner, a writer and researcher with a background in interior design. Her downtown lifestyle includes daily walks to the museums or the National Gallery Sculpture Garden, occasional cocktails at the Source and writing at her desk on the 12th floor.

Mike Magouirk, an executive with a defense contractor in Connecticut, needed a place in town during a one-year fellowship in Washington. He last lived in Washington in 1980. "There's something to do and people out all the time," he says. "It's certainly not the D.C. I remember."

Downstairs at the Source, executive chef Scott Drewno oversees a classic Puck menu that runs from smoked salmon pizza with dill cream and caviar ($22) to lacquered Chinese duckling with wild huckleberries ($32).

Drewno moved with his wife from Manhattan. He was somewhat dubious he could get by without a car in Washington. But the couple found a two-bedroom condo in the neighborhood and just about everything they need within reach of walking or public transportation. Exception: groceries. Solution: Zipcar.

Now, at last, Safeway is planning to open a supermarket in the fall at Fifth and L streets -- still a long walk for some, but, oh well.

Living here, on top of the region's newest museum, in the middle of everything, "it's vibrant, there's a vitality, there's a verve," Striner says. "You feel a part of tomorrow."