1989 THE YEAR THAT WAS

JANUARY

"Never again," Mayor Marion Barry pledges at the D.C. Council inauguration, vowing not to allow the city's homicide rate to reach the 1988 level of 372 deaths.

In Adams-Morgan, increased competition disturbs the normally peaceful coexistence between street vendors and local merchants along Columbia Road NW.

The District Building and the Reeves Municipal Center are opened for emergency overnight shelter, as Mitch Snyder of the Community for Creative Non-Violence offers to settle his lawsuit against the city for a binding promise to open 1,000 more beds for the homeless.

Four students are shot outside Woodrow Wilson High School, escalating concerns about security at city schools.

The D.C. Department of Public Works says it is strained, hauling away the more than 10,000 cars abandoned each year on neighborhood streets.

George Washington University announces it will provide full four-year scholarships to 50 graduates of D.C. public schools over the next decade.

Prostitute Prissy Williams-Godfrey collects 36 write-in votes to win a seat on the Logan Circle area's Advisory Neighborhood Commission, but is bounced for lack of a permanent address.

Parents and students mount a daily vigil outside the mayor's office demanding that the D.C. school budget not be cut.

FEBRUARY

Cardinal James A. Hickey

announces that three of four Catholic high schools in the city will close in June and the remaining one, Archbishop Carroll High in Fort Totten, will be made co-ed.

Greyhound bus station on New York Avenue NW sheds its art deco facade as restoration of the 1940 "Super Terminal" begins.

Federal drug agents and a D.C. police SWAT team seize the Tropics Restaurant on Georgia Avenue NE, closing a major center for drug operations by Jamaican traffickers.

Thomas Circle Singers, a nonprofit choir that sings for charity projects, offer "singing Valentines" as a fund-raiser.

The U.S. government agrees to build a $226 million headquarters for the Environmental Protection Agency near the Navy Yard in Southeast, the first new federal complex in the city since 1975.

The D.C. government agrees to sell developer Oliver T. Carr Jr. a prime Gallery Place tract.

In response to community pressure, pay phones in many neighborhoods are altered or removed to disrupt drug deals.

Softball players at the American Enterprise Institute go to bat against U.S. Park Service over access to Mall ballfields.

The city's $650,000 AIDS education campaign is stalled over objections to posters promoting the use of condoms.

Ethel Redd of Northeast is seriously injured on K Street in a two-block rampage by a truck driver; doctors save her leg.

Dashikis and drum rhythms mark the second Pan Africa Day at Ellington School of the Arts.

H Street NW parade for Year of the Snake charms the city's biggest Chinese New Year's crowd ever.

MARCH

The National Zoo, which began its mission in life as the Department of Living Animals, celebrates its 100th anniversary.

D.C. police and residents join ranks to close down a crack house in Stanton Park on Capitol Hill; neighbors in Northwest's Shaw and Cardozo sections cheer an arsonist's torching of six buildings frequented by drug users.

Residential assessments rise by an average 16.9 percent and as high as 35 percent in some neighborhoods.

Howard University students disrupt a convocation, then occupy the administration building to protest the election of GOP National Committee Chairman Lee Atwater to the Howard board of trustees; Atwater later resigns.

The circus comes to town, with animal-rights activists close behind.

Annual kite-flying festival on the Mall sets the sky ablaze in silky colors.

Shoeshine vendors take to the streets again after a federal judge overturns the city's century-old law banning bootblacks from public spaces.

APRIL

D.C. police launch a springtime crackdown on jaywalkers as tourists arrive for the annual Cherry Blossom Festival and thousands swarm into town to the nation's largest abortion-rights march.

A mysterious case of disappearing ducklings in a pond at 18th and C streets NW is solved when Park Police apprehend a 14-inch catfish.

After disclosures that he and Mayor Barry are partners in a Massachusetts business venture, developer Jeffrey Cohen threatens to pull out of a $200 million redevelopment project in Shaw.

St. Albans School on the grounds of Washington National Cathedral is shaken when several students are expelled for exploding homemade bombs on a suburban Maryland golf course.

"The Girl's Have Moved to 5th and K" proclaims a red-and-white banner at 10th and M streets NW, hung between two lampposts by nearby residents fed up with transvestite prostitutes in the area; the city orders the sign removed.

Students and teachers at Roper Junior High in Northeast say school uniforms have reduced peer pressure to wear expensive designer clothes.

In a Ted Koppel "Nightline" town meeting broadcast from a Catholic church in Anacostia, city resident and ex-convict Patricia Godley electrifies viewers with an account of her former addictions and life of despair.

Residents of Benning Heights and Marshall Heights form a coalition to fight drugs and crime; their efforts win stepped-up police patrols and evictions of drug dealers from Eastgate public housing.

More than 5,000 volunteers with hammers and nails fan out across the city for "Christmas in April," rehabilitating 200 homes of elderly and handicapped residents.

MAY

In gratitude for stepped-up foot patrols, elderly residents of Potomac Gardens heap home cooked meals on police officers every night.

The D.C. Fire Department and Sasha Bruce Youthworks Inc. launch Project Safe Place, turning the city's 34 fire stations into temporary havens for runaway and troubled youths.

Community pressure spurs Metro to alter the name of several stations to better reflect the neighborhood: "Georgia Avenue-Petworth," "U Street-Cardozo" and "Gallery Place-Chinatown" are born, and the Navy Memorial Foundation pays Metro the $38,000 cost of having "Navy Mem'l" added to the Archives stop.

Rayful Edmond III and 28 others plead not guilty to charges that they ran one of the city's largest cocaine distribution networks.

A parade of boats sails up the Potomac to the Washington Marina for the annual blessing of the fleet.

An emergency 90-day curfew for youths under 18 is derailed when a federal judge declares it unconstitutional.

JUNE

"Riverfest" makes its annual splash, in celebration of the Potomac River cleanup.

Washington's erogenous zone fades as the last two adult bookstores on 14th Street NW lose their leases.

Stunned residents in upper Northwest survey miles of devastation after a storm moves through the area like "a train going through a tunnel."

Thousands gather at Dupont Circle for the city's 14th annual Gay and Lesbian Pride Day.

The D.C. Court of Appeals reverses itself and upholds a 1980 law forcing apartment owners to win consent of a majority of tenants before converting to condominiums.

For heroic efforts in combating drugs, 57 patrol officers are given police honors.

Bulldozers begin leveling Gallinger Hospital in Southeast, for long-delayed building of a new 800-bed prison near D.C. Jail.

Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife opens, and American Indian display sparks unexpected interest when a buffalo calf is born.

JULY

The award-winning D.C. Youth Orchestra warms up for a concert tour of Spain.

A "victim of success," the annual Hispanic festival -- renamed "Fiesta D.C." -- moves from Adams-Morgan to the Mall, while a breakaway group plans its own event at the traditional location on Columbia Road NW.

"Ain't no stopping us now," declares the Rev. George A. Stallings Jr., as worshipers pack the suspended priest's Imani Temple services at Suitland High School in Prince George's County.

Students of the Multi-Cultural Intern Program in Columbia Heights, which serves the city's growing immigrant community, celebrate a decision to upgrade the program to a fully financed high school.

Rhonda Anthony, 33, is killed by a stray bullet from a nearby gun battle while sitting on her front porch on Hanna Place SE.

Jesse L. Jackson moves from Chicago to an apartment on upper 16th Street NW while a LeDroit Park house he owns is being remodeled.

Salvation Army leaves the city after 50 years, shifting its book store, thrift shop and treatment center from First Street NW to Bladensburg.

AUGUST

After reports that city libraries are plagued by drug users and prostitutes, an anonymous citizen donates $15,000 to hire a security guard for the Mount Pleasant branch.

Eighty D.C. churches pledge to create a citywide network of family-oriented drug counseling services, funded by the D.C. and U.S. governments, foundations, churches and the business community.

A border war flares in Kalorama, as pet owners and parents of small children squabble over the use of Mitchell Park.

Anacostia residents mourn the death of Joseph R. Kinard, director of the popular Smithsonian-run neighborhood museum of black history for 22 years.

Ground is broken in the Deanwood community for an alcohol and drug abuse outpatient clinic -- a facility that local activists say has been a long time in coming to Ward 7, the city's "forgotten Washington."

Clifton Terrace Apartments in Northwest adopts photo IDs, to identify residents and keep out drug dealers.

Citizens seeking to curb new liquor licenses in their neighborhoods get a boost when a federal judge upholds their power to stop licenses by petition. But the ruling fails to resolve a 15-month battle over a liquor license request for Cates Restaurant and Jazz Club near Tenleytown in Northwest.

Lured by chicken, ribs and go-go music, throngs of city residents make Georgia Avenue Day a big block party.

SEPTEMBER

For the second time in four years, Hugh M. Browne Junior High School in Northeast is named by the White House as one nation's 218 best schools.

The birth of a female panda at the National Zoo holds out hope of an offspring at last for Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing, but cub succumbs to infection.

On the Mall, pride animates the fourth annual celebration of the black family.

Prized elms, maples and oaks of many neighborhoods become silent victims of city's budget crunch as maintenance cutbacks leave trees vulnerable to disease.

Adams-Morgan squeezes 275,000 people into its streets for what stalwarts consider the real Adams-Morgan Day festival.

The D.C. Rape Crisis Center on P Street NW quietly observes 17 pioneering years of helping women who have been attacked.

In tribute to student protesters in Tiananmen Square, a 20-foot-high plaster figure, modeled after the "Goddess of Democracy," is erected near the Chinese Embassy at Connecticut Avenue and Kalorama Road NW;

City pledges to ease gridlock in registration lines at city's Department of Motor Vehicles after outraged residents protest waits of up to five hours.

OCTOBER

David Roffman, editor of The Georgetowner, raises the wrath of neighbors for his suggestion that the city build a new jail on the Georgetown waterfront.

First phase of the new mandatory recycling program gets underway; but waste fills a local storage pit at the rate of 300 tons a week, as officials admit they have yet to arrange a destination for the refuse.

AIDS quilt spreads stories of tragedy and compassion across 14 acres of the Mall.

Foundry United Methodist Church at P Street NW, where more than a dozen presidents worshiped, celebrates its 175th anniversary.

Community groups join city residents and bus loads of out-of-towners in a national rally to demand affordable housing.

The 2,000-seat Warner Theatre at 13th and E streets NW, declared a historic building a decade ago, closes for a

$7 million restoration.

The Pennsylvania Avenue Development Corp. chooses a developer to transform a vast parking lot at Federal Triangle into city's largest government building and an adjacent trade center.

Work begins on a national memorial at Judiciary Square to honor 30,000 police officers slain in the line of duty; the design consists of a wall and three bronze figures amid an oval of trees.

The city's largest unofficial Halloween party draws 60,000 to M Street in Georgetown and a suburban visitor is stabbed. The D.C. Council considers pulling back from city support of the revelry.

In the city's only fall elections, residents 13 and older vie for seats on 20 Neighborhood Planning Councils that oversee $1 million in job training and recreation funds.

NOVEMBER

A busload of conventioneers detours off the tourist track and finds foot-stomping music, spicy foods and a rich melange of culture in the city's popular ethnic hideaways.

Bread for the City, D.C.'s largest provider of groceries and clothing for the needy, cuts 400 families from its rolls because the federal government has less surplus food to give.

Parents in several neighborhoods, including Brookland, Petworth, Lincoln Park and Stanton Park, rally for private funds to replace deteriorated equipment in city playgrounds.

The city announces it will begin an inventory of public housing units in an effort to speed repairs.

Motorists and joggers spot more deer and fawns in Rock Creek Park and a stray buck is killed after it wanders into rush-hour traffic downtown. Officials say the park's deer herd is increasing because development is stripping outlying woodlands.

Capitol City Inn, the city's largest and most costly shelter motel, is closed after seven years. The last remaining families are moved into permanent, federally subsidized housing.

Eight D.C. residents with mental disabilities move up to independent living in a group house on Euclid Street NW sponsored by the Coates and Lane Foundation.

Volunteers pack grocery bags and assist at shelters to provide Thanksgiving dinner for the city's homeless and elderly.

DECEMBER

For the second year, Tenleytown residents' efforts to gather around a community Christmas tree are upset; last year the centerpiece was chopped down, and this year the donated tree died.

A weekend fund-raiser nets $50,000 to help restore the legendary Lincoln Theatre on U Street. Singer Harry Belafonte announces plans to make it the base for a black repertory theater company he is forming.

Mayor Barry spends the night in Southeast's Valley Green, where residents are hospitable but reserve judgment on a pledge for a major renewal of the neighborhood.

Protesting a mall ban on Salvation Army Christmas kettles, Georgetown Park shop owner Marla Ottenstein posts the bell ringers inside her store.

Dreaming of independence, residents of Sursum Corda Village off North Capitol Street NW spruce up neighborhood midway into plan to manage and then own the complex.

Police Chief Isaac Fulwood Jr. readies a plan to assign patrol officers to specific neighborhoods so they will be in closer touch with residents.

Following two years of negotiations with neighbors, American University wins city approval of a scaled-down expansion plan.

Members of the revitalized Mount Pleasant Business Association, worried that street crime and public drunkenness are scaring away shoppers, agree to fund a community police center to help clean up their streets.

Articles appear as they were originally printed in The Washington Post and may not include subsequent corrections.