Topic A: Where Should Sonia Sotomayor Live?

TOM SHERWOOD

Reporter for NBC News4; co-author of "Dream City -- Race, Power and the Decline of Washington, D.C."

Judge Sotomayor, it's simple. Pack your bags and move to Southwest Washington, just blocks from the Mall.

And as we say on TV . . . but that's not all!

If you live at Harbour Square, as I do, you'll be six-tenths of a mile west of Nationals Park. You're already known as the judge who saved baseball from itself with a ruling that ended the 1994 strike.

Come to the games. We can cheer you, if not the woeful Nats.

Our neighborhood around Fourth and M streets SW is being rebuilt. The developer, Forest City Washington, has gleaming new glass office and apartment buildings opening next spring in place of a decrepit mall that had been so bad that the Environmental Protection Agency moved out years ago.

Arena Stage at Sixth and M streets SW has more drama than the Supreme Court. Next year it's opening an ultra-modern, $125 million complex that will be the envy of regional theaters across the nation. You can have one of my seats if you promise not to be late for the curtain.

Afterwards, have a cold beer at Cantina Marina, an outdoor bar on the river. Its casualness easily snuffs out the stuffiness of official Washington. Not far down the river is the little-known Titanic Memorial. Find it and you'll be a local.

Finally, sunsets along the Washington Channel and Potomac River -- assuming you get out of the office on time -- will soothe any weary soul. It's open sky from the Wilson Bridge on the south to the National Cathedral on the north. I have pictures in my cellphone. I'll e-mail them if you want.

But don't take my word for it. Just ask retiring Justice David Souter. He's rented in my co-op for 19 years. Too bad he's leaving just as the neighborhood is turning around.

REMY MUNASIFI