DC By the Book

Excerpt: From the story "Acts of Resistance" -- Willie migrated to Washington from his native New York in the early '70s after dropping out of graduate school (NYU) to help set up a draft counseling office in D.C. when the anti-war movement disintegrated, he began a succession of careers (including folk-singer, bartender, mailman, and carpenter's helper) that ended when he became "an audio engineer," as he described himself, with Alligator Sound. He met Madeleine at a Ry Cooder concert at Lisner Auditorium. She was the date of a musician friend of his who introduced them during the intermission. -- HISTORICAL CONTEXT --> Named for one of GW’s earliest benefactors, department store owner Abram Lisner, this building was DC’s premier concert venue before the Kennedy Center opened in 1971. It was one of many structures on campus designed by Waldron Faulkner, whose other work in included hospitals, schools, and among the first modern houses in the city. Four years after co-starring with Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, Ingrid Bergman came to Lisner with a Broadway-bound production in the fall of 1946. When she learned African Americans were barred from the venue, the actress protested with letters to local papers. Picketing and boycotts led GW’s board to admit black patrons. In 1990, Lisner Auditorium was designated a National Historic Landmark.