04-04-2025
They just don't make stores like Brown's Hardware anymore
The March 28 Metro article 'History yields to the present' brought tears to my eyes.
My father, Sidney Berman, picked up things from Brown's Hardware several times a week for many years. I am sure those trips provided a much-needed lunchtime break from his demanding job as the executive director of Northern Virginia Family Services.
My visits to his office almost always included a stop at Brown's for something he needed. My father loved to fix things and would always find something around the house that needed mending or improving.
Brown's Hardware was just across the street from his corner office overlooking the intersection of East Broad and South Washington streets. If you drive by this area now, you'll see a Whole Foods where my father's office used to be. Though development provides nice new amenities, there's also real value in places such as Brown's Hardware, which was in business for 142 years, that provide a sense of community. I appreciate The Post for taking the time to make us all remember.
Adrian Fremont, Alexandria
My wife and I have been Falls Church residents for almost 44 years, and during that time, we were frequent visitors to Brown's Hardware.
We live in a community of colonial townhouses where property standards specify that the exteriors of the units must be painted in 'Williamsburg colors.' Brown's sold an approved paint specially mixed for our neighborhood. Several years ago, we had our kitchen repainted and told our painter to pick up the paint at Brown's. Many of the units in the neighborhood also had interiors painted in Williamsburg colors, and although we were not required to, we chose one to use in our kitchen. We planned to be away for the day while the painter completed the work. When we arrived home, we found that the kitchen paint was the wrong shade. I told the painter to return to Brown's and pick up the proper paint. Brown's gave him the new paint free of charge; the painter repainted the kitchen for free.
Weeks later, I was in Brown's, and Hugh Brown came up to me and asked whether I owned the home where the incorrect paint was used. Brown said he sent a letter offering to pay us for any additional charge for repainting the kitchen. I said there had been no additional charge and that I greatly appreciated his gesture.
A lot of folks in Falls Church have stories similar to mine. Brown's Hardware will be missed by us all.
James E. Schoenberger, Falls Church
When the D.C. Public Schools lottery let us down, sending our child to one of the community-based organizations that, along with public schools, are part of the city's delivery system for early-childhood education became our only option for accessible child care. The opportunity to do so turned out to be more than a convenience. It changed our lives forever.
Our first time doing the DCPS lottery was in 2021, and even though we ranked 12 schools, we didn't get into our in-boundary school on the first try. (We were wait-listed and eventually got a spot five months later.) We needed to move to get more space with a second child on the way. It was kismet finding a house one block away from Estrellitas Montessori School, one of the community-based organizations that serves prekindergarten students and their families, and we were accepted two weeks before school started. As someone who experienced the worst-case scenario of the lottery firsthand, I'm not sure what we would have done without this opportunity. Given that DCPS does not have pre-K slots for 3- and 4-year-olds in all neighborhood schools, the high-quality care that community-based organizations provide is not a luxury. It's an essential part of the city's education system.
At Estrellitas, our daughter excelled and formed strong attachments to her favorite teacher. This experience led us to enroll our second child six months after he was born. Because we enrolled before our children were pre-K age, we knew they would be able to attend two years of D.C.'s free Pre-K Enhancement and Expansion Program, giving us a way out of the lottery system and a guarantee of stable relationships between our children and their teachers.
When our son graduated from his first class, I cried with his teacher. She supported me when I breastfed him during the lunch hour, and she allowed us to feel as though the classroom really was an extension of our family. As my son moved through two more classes, the quality of caretakers stayed high. One of my son's teachers even became the only caretaker we use in our home, given my son's strong attachment to her. We continued to send our older child to the school's privately run aftercare program while she attended DCPS kindergarten so she could stay connected to the community where she thrived.
When the school raised tuition for children who are not yet old enough to be in pre-K by $500 last year (from $2,300 to $2,800 per month), instead of leaving for a less expensive option, we felt it was necessary to stay and support the teachers and staff because of the high-quality care and learning environment our children received. Unfortunately, it seems D.C. does not feel the same way: As reported in the March 12 online article 'Parents fear D.C. may cut some preschool funding. Here's what we know.,' the city has said funding for pre-K at community-based organizations is not guaranteed for next year's budget.
Ours is just one story. But I know that many families in our Ward 4 community have similar ones. We agree on the need for continued funding. Our children deserve the best care this city has to offer.
Anjali Richards, Washington
Regarding Donald E. Graham's March 25 op-ed, 'Jerry Wilson transformed the D.C. police':
Jerry V. Wilson not only transformed the D.C. police, but he also raised the bar for policing everywhere else.
In 1971, Wilson hired 100 women and 100 men as police officers and deployed them to the same assignment: routine patrol. At that time, women often served as secretaries or support systems for male detectives interviewing women and child victims of rape and abuse. What Wilson planned for his recruits was radical.
Not only did he take what was then considered a risk by deploying women without male partners, but Wilson also had the 200 new officers' performance evaluated by a neutral third party, the Urban Institute. The institute found the women's performance mirrored that of the men, with one exception: The way policewomen performed their services invited fewer incidents of violence from the citizenry.
The impact of the study was immediate. Department after department expanded its recruitment base to include women. Federal law enforcement agencies followed suit. Simply put, doubling the recruitment base to include women produced a better cadre of officers, even if only a small percentage of women made the grade.
Thus, Wilson — by his commitment to science, to transparency in policy formation and to establishing the strong law enforcement our nation's capital demanded — transformed policing nationwide. Washingtonians were lucky to have him as their chief.
Ava J. Abramowitz, Leesburg
Catherine Milton, Palo Alto, California
The writers marshaled initiatives to recruit more female officers and helped produce the 1972 book 'Women in Policing.'
The March 26 Metro article 'Waymo aims to put its taxis in the District' reported that Waymo, an autonomous vehicle company, plans to bring its 'robotaxis' to the streets of D.C. for paying customers next year. While covering the company's claims of superiority over human drivers in terms of safety, the article smartly noted that the foundation of this claim relies on a small dataset of miles traveled by Waymo vehicles relative to the trillions of miles driven by humans in the United States every year.
In addition to this flimsy comparison, how these machines perform should not be compared against average human drivers but rather against the best human drivers. Human drivers are not provided with billions of dollars in development, millions of miles of testing and training, or an array of cameras, radar and lidar sensors, and still most manage to drive safely.
Just days before this announcement, two Waymo vehicles in Austin stopped and blocked a local roadway, halting traffic flow. Though no crash was reported, a similar scenario during an emergency could cause delays with serious consequences for safety. In fact, San Francisco has experienced numerous incidents in which robotaxis have impeded police and fire response, including driving through emergency tape and blocking firehouse driveways.
Of note, numerous public opinion surveys, including one we commissioned a few months ago, show people have significant concerns and trepidation about riding in and sharing the road with driverless cars. Even the head of the automotive division at advanced chipmaker Nvidia believes that fully self-driving technology is a 'next-decade marvel.'
While we certainly hope that the promises of safety, accessibility, reduced congestion and environmental sustainability offered by the autonomous vehicle industry come to fruition, transparency and accountability — including what data actually reveal — are essential to ensure that the public understands not only self-driving cars' capabilities but also their limitations. Safeguards and regulations are needed. We should not rush driverless cars onto public roads before they're safe and reliable.
Cathy Chase, Washington
The writer is president of Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety.
