Arlington is about to start blasting for the project to add new elevators to the Rosslyn Metro entrance. (Photo: TBD Staff)

It's time to start blasting big holes in the ground for the Rosslyn Metro station's new high-speed elevator project, meaning that there will be planned nightly blasting between 1 a.m. and 5 a.m. for the next couple of months. North Moore Street, as well as the existing elevators and two of the escalators leading into the station, will have to be closed during the blasts, according to an alert from Arlington County.

Notification of the nighttime blasts will come in the form of amber blinking lights as a five minute warning and red blinking lights as a one minute warning. The "all-clear" will be marked by a green flashing light.

The Rosslyn station improvement project include a new entrance to the Rosslyn Metro station via three high speed elevators located on the block between North Moore and North Lynn Street across from the existing entrance, as well as a new underground mezzanine level with fare gates, ticket machines, and a station operator's booth.

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The flag twirlers from Ballou High School's Marching Knights Marching Band. (Photo: TBD Staff)

The weather was just right for the Clarendon Alliance's Mardi Gras/St. Patrick's Day parade last night, which brought out crowds along Wilson Boulevard from Courthouse to Clarendon.

There were floats from area businesses including Liberty Tavern, Whitlow's on Wilson, Palm Beach Tanning, Red Top Cab, and Artisphere. There were beads, boas, and glow sticks aplenty. And when it was all said and done, there were long lines at most of Clarendon's watering holes. Check out the photo gallery after the jump.

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The Java Shack building in 1982, when it still served as headquarters of the National Socialist White People's Party. (Photo courtesy Java Shack.)

Even if they're not the norm, there are still people that remember when the space now occupied by Java Shack  in Clarendon operated as the headquarters of the American Nazi Party. But last week, someone apparently wanted to make sure that we never forget. 

Dale Roberts, the coffeehouse's owner, doesn't usually close up in the evenings. But on Feb. 28,  he found himself filling in for one of his employees. His final sweep of the tiny store's bathroom yielded a strange find: a flier plastered with photos of the shop's heyday as the headquarters of an American Nazi group.

"Gone but not forgotten," states the flier, which also references the "good old days" when the building was owned by the National Socialist White People's Party ("an organization of decent, law-abiding white folk ... JUST LIKE YOU", it adds). Yellow smiley faces adorned with Hitler's trademark 'stache and bangs flank the message.

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Giant is getting set to move into the ground floor of this building on Columbia Pike this spring. (Photo: TBD Staff)

A new Giant grocery store at Columbia Pike and South Barton Street in Arlington should be open by late June or early July. The new grocery option will likely come as a relief for Pike residents, who have seen both Giant and Safeway close stores in the neighborhood during the past few years.

An old Giant store on the site closed in 2009 to make way for the construction of Penrose Square. A few years earlier, a tiny, cramped Safeway store closed nearby when construction began on the neighboring Siena Park building.

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Coming off last year's Mardi Gras turned St. Patrick's Day parade in Clarendon (Snowmaggedon forced organizers to reschedule the parade from Fat Tuesday to a date closer to St. Patty's Day) this year's event will be a combination Mardi Gras/St. Patrick's Day parade, and it's scheduled for Tuesday, March 8.

Unfortunately for unwitting drivers, the parade does also snarl up traffic at the tail end of the evening commute and throughout the evening. Keep these road closures in mind if you're driving in the Courthouse or Clarendon areas Tuesday.

The list of closures after the jump.

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Part of the space that the new restaurant in Artisphere will occupy. (Photo: TBD Staff)

We know you were all just dying to know the three finalists in the naming contest for the restaurant at Artisphere in Rosslyn — there were more than 550 entries, after all. Well the wait is over, and you can now vote on your favorite choice over at the Washington Post's Express site.

Guajillo and Casa Oaxaca owners Karen Barroso and Rolando Juárez will run the restaurant, and their aim to bring their own brand of Latin cuisine to Artisphere clearly affected submissions. Two of the three finalists, Artesano and También, are Spanish words. The third choice finalist is here. (No, that's not an un-linked hyperlink. The other option for Artisphere's new restaurant's name is the word "here." And yes, the lowercase is specified.)

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Arlington plans to rip out most of the grassy median behind Clarendon Metro to create a more open, usable space. (Photo: TBD Staff)

The Clarendon Metro plaza will undergo a major revamp during the next few months, and work began this week on some preliminary installation of new paving materials in the park behind the metro, according to Arlington County officials.

The project will expand the area of the Metro plaza and make improvements to the park — which is apparently the "Central Park" of Arlington, according to its official name — by this summer.

The improvements will make the front section of the plaza wider, providing more space for the Wednesday farmers market, and also remove the grassy area stretching back from the escalator entrance to the elevators. There are also plans to install a covered bike storage rack, and modular newspaper racks. (Will it keep them from blowing over? Only time will tell.)

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The building that is soon to be home to Mala Tang hot pot restaurant. (Photo: TBD Staff)

It was refreshing to read yesterday's news from ARLNow.com that there's a new restaurant planned for Arlington, and it's actually not a burger joint or a pizza place.

Mala Tang is to be Arlington's first Chinese restaurant offering the "hot pot" concept, as far as we can tell, and its owners are planning to open sometime this spring, according to a rep. The restaurant will be located at 3434 Washington Boulevard, in the same complex as the George Mason law school.

The restaurant's chef, Liu Chaosheng, knows his way around a hot pot. He opened Uncle Liu's Hot Pot in Falls Church last year, and also owns Hong Kong Palace, according to this Washington Post review of Uncle Liu's. One of his co-owners, as well as Mala Tang's general manager, are former managers from Asian fusion restaurant Mie n Yu in Georgetown.

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University of District of Columbia president Allen Sessoms has issued a response to a report by FOX 5 that he was using taxpayer money to pay for expensive trips to Egypt and England.

He also speaks with ABC7's Sam Ford.

In a letter he addressed to the university community, Sessoms criticizes the FOX 5 report, but notably he doesn't deny the accuracy of the information behind the report, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request for details on Sessoms' travel expenses and compensation.

“The receipts used in the story were taken out of context and do not fully address the purpose and nature of each trip, as well as any extenuating circumstances surrounding the travel," he writes.

He then goes on to write about the purposes of the trips to Cairo and London, and that “any expenses incurred by my office are paid for out of University generated revenue.”

Read his response below:

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IHOP is giving away pancakes today to raise money for charity. (Photo: Jay Westcott)

TBD loves free food and so should you. The International House of Pancakes, the obvious authority on pancakes, has declared today National Pancake Day and is celebrating by giving away free flapjacks to all.

You have until 10 p.m., today to head to an area IHOP and get a free short stack. IHOP just asks that you consider making a donation to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society in lieu of pancake-payment.

The IHOP in Columbia Heights had a considerable wait around 2 p.m., but TBD photographer Jay Westcott reports that the Ballston IHOP wasn't all that busy around lunchtime. Check out his photos.

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Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium

The nonprofit group trying to keep the David M. Brown Planetarium in Arlington open to the public still has a way to go in terms of fundraising. But unlike last year, it looks like they won't have to fight to keep the planetarium open on an interim basis, as Arlington Public Schools has proposed to set aside more than $230,000 for the facility in its 2012 budget plan.

The Friends of Arlington's David M. Brown Planetarium are endeavoring to raise more than $400,000 for capital improvements to the planetarium by the end of June. At this point last year, APS opted to cut funding for the science facility from the budget, essentially closing it while the group tried to raise the money.

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Zpizza opens in Rosslyn. (Photo: TBD Staff)

Looking for lunch in Rosslyn? Well 1100 Wilson Boulevard just got one more option in its multicultural eatery portfolio: Zpizza. The newest location of the local Italian chain opened for lunch today, and at least right now, you can grab a slice without waiting in line. 

Zpizza is next door to Baja Fresh and just downstairs from Chinese restaurant China Garden, making the veritable building a melting pot of lunch options.

The restaurant's menu features standards like pepperoni and mushroom pizzas, but also stocks some of its signatures like the ZBQ with barbecued chicken, the Thai pizza, and the Berkeley Vegan. There's also a range of salads, sandwiches and pastas, if the proliferation of pizza joints in Arlington has you pizza'd out.

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A photo from the Arlington Fire Department's test of North Edgewood Street. (Courtesty of Arlington County.)

North Edgewood Street residents aren't looking forward to losing almost half of their street parking. After going back and forth with Arlington County during the past several months, they thought they had reached a compromise that would keep that from happening.

But it looks like that may have been too good to be true. The Lyon Park Civic Association wrote to the County Board this week to delay action on the parking restrictions until the two sides can negotiate further, ARLNow reports.

And the latest proposal from the county would reduce parking on the street by 44 percent, according to Edgewood Street resident Ron Salazar. Neighbors have been fighting a county plan to restrict parking to just one side of the street since late last year, when a complaint prompted the Arlington County Fire Marshal to look at the street and determine that it's too narrow for emergency vehicles to pass.

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D.C. resumes street sweeping today, so here's to hoping you bothered to check the parking restrictions in your neighborhood before you headed out the door.

Street sweeping didn't begin until March 22 last year, but given that the District's new snazzy signs clearly state that sweeping is supposed to begin today, it's probably in your best interest to err on the side of caution. Don't tempt the parking enforcement gods!

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