According to a sign I saw in the window on Saturday, the cleaners known as Dryy was to be opening today (Feb. 3), in the ground floor of the 55 M office building, on top of the Half Street entrance to the Navy Yard-Ballpark Metro station. According to its web site, the store offers free pickup and delivery valet service, custom tailoring, and "Dryy drop lockers."

Meanwhile, just a few steps to the east, the Wells Fargo Express Center is now open, next to Bluestone Lane in the ground floor of 99 M. And a bit to the northwest, next to BonChon, signage has sprouted for Hill Spirits Unlimited, coming soon to 1015 Half Street SE, for all of your fine wine, spirits, and cee-gar needs. (A peek in the window leads me to believe that Hill Spirits is probably still a couple of weeks away from its debut.)

I also wandered over to 8th Street for the first time in a very long time (oops), and feel the need to officially document Ovation Eye Institute and Navy Nails and Spa, even though they've been open a while (I think the nails place actually was briefly in the space that Ovation is now in). And I admit to knowing nothing about Ti Coffee--no evidence of it anywhere on the Barracks Row or Capitol Riverfront web sites, or Google, for that matter. And I don't know about the barbershop, either--another competitor for Wrenn's and Fuller's?

Finally, in the interest of fulfilling my fiduciary duty, here are photos of Congressional Cleaners 2.0, in its spot in the ground floor of the Park Chelsea on I Street west of 2nd (no signage yet), and because I can't believe I never got a photo of it, here's Steadfast Supply in its not-really-new-anymore location in the ground floor of the Foundry Lofts on Water Street, across from Ice Cream Jubilee. And, along those lines, I'm sneaking in one food-related photo, to officially add the signage of Taco City on 8th Street to my repository.

* DC CROSSING: We still don't have an officially sanctioned rendering (so you know what that means!), but we now know that what we've been calling Square 696 will now be known as DC Crossing, with an address of 949 1st Street, SE. The new placeholder web site says that apartments will be delivered in 2020, and it will be managed by Bozzuto. My photos from last week show that the eastern half of the project, along 1st Street, is making good progress, and, if you can decipher it, this site plan schematic I found in public records shows the layout of the block, from above.

* CONGRESSIONAL CLEANERS 2.0: This is not quite as exciting as neighborhood cafe concepts or Nashville chicken, but I've confirmed that Congressional Cleaners will be returning to the neighborhood this summer, this time in the ground floor of the Park Chelsea on I Street just east of New Jersey. This is the cleaners that was located at Capitol Hill Tower from 2007 to 2017. Hopefully it won't get robbed on its opening day, like it did last time. But that was a different era.

* COOL PIC: A reader on a flight leaving DCA last week happened to be in the right place at the right time and got this great overhead shot of the neighborhood and the Douglass Bridge construction. Guess I'll need to start paying a fortune in airline tickets.

* ICE CREAM SOCIAL: A final reminder that--weather permitting!--there will be an Ice Cream Social at Canal Park on Thursday, May 30, at 6:30 pm, with free scoops from Altani Gelato and Ice Cream Jubilee, to celebrate the BID's "Then and Now" exhibits. And I'll be there, pointing at the photos and saying, "I took that. I took that. I took that one, too." RSVP on the BID's Facebook page, so that there's enough scoops to go around and we don't end up with The Great Ice Cream Riot of 2019.

My lack of interest in coffee and coffee-like beverages is well documented by this point, so I will just leave it to the JDLand Commentariat to weigh in with their opinions. But it is always nice to welcome a new retail outpost to the neighborhood.

(And I got a nice chuckle out of the line of people marching directly from next-door neighbor Orangetheory Fitness right into Slipstream. Hope they burned a lot of calories first!)

Slipstream is just the first of a mini-wave of arrivals, with reports via the Commentariat that the Salt Line is apparently coming this week and Bethesda Bagels is in Any Minute Now mode as well.

Unfortunately, there is also apparently a farewell, as reader JH_105 reported that a sign at the register says that Congressional Cleaners, in the ground floor of Capitol Hill Tower, is closing permanently on June 14. which is just two weeks short of the 10th anniversary of its opening. Which would also make it two weeks short of the 10th anniversary of it getting robbed just a few hours after it opened. Things were different then.

(PS: I'm still very much in and out. Patience requested, noted, and truly appreciated.)