Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 22:50:25 -0500 (EST)
From: "Keith F. Lynch" <kfl at KeithLynch.net>
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: A DC hotels question
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

"Michael Nelson" <mike.nelson at seahunt.org> wrote:
> If there's a lot of empty office space now, maybe the hotels are
> feeling a bit more hospitable?

It's been 26 years; maybe it's time to give the Hostility House
another chance.  (That's the only time Disclave was ever in
Crystal City.)

> It was my impression from taking some courses in Crystal City that
> the underground shops and restaurants become a ghost town after 5 pm
> and on weekends.  Is that the case?

Not exactly.  Most shops close at 7 pm.  At least some restaurants
stay open until 10.  The underground itself stays open all night, and
there are uncomfortable chairs and tables where perhaps as many as two
dozen people can hang out and chat.

I do think that the corridors which allow you to travel nearly a
mile without setting foot outdoors, all accessible from Metro, are
wonderfully cool.  And if you've ever read Swanwick's _Bones of the
Earth_, you may recall that the secret gateway to the Mesozoic is in
a Crystal City hotel.

But since I've been to Toronto, I'm spoiled.  I arrived a day early
for Torcon, exited the train station, walked miles and miles all day,
explored the con hotel and convention center, went to the top of the
CN Tower. and shopped at the Hudson's Bay Company -- and never went
outdoors once.  (Once the con began, I went outdoors when going
between the convention facilities, to save time, since the way to go
between them indoors was much longer, and the indoors path actually
crossed itself on another level.)

(Why is it "Hudson Bay," but "Hudson's Bay Company"?)

Their great indoors connects to *six* subway stations, and to the
city's main railroad station.  Since you can take a train from there
to DC's Union Station, from which you can take Metro's Red Line to
Metro Center, then Metro's Blue line to Crystal City, in a sense
they're the same underground -- you can get from one to the other
without ever going outside.

Getting back to DC, any chance we could pull a Marian Anderson, and
award the Hugos on the Mall from the steps of that building on the
back of the penny?  There's no rule that says non-members have to be
prevented from watching, is there?