]

A stretch of small businesses along the Route 1 corridor in downtown Hyattsville was highlighted by DCist this week for its strategies to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

The three-block stretch from Farragut to Jefferson streets is home to a dozen locally owned retailers, including Franklins, Arrow Bicycle, Chez Dior, Sangfroid Distilling, Vigilante Coffee, Love Yoga, Tanglewood Works, Three Little Birds, Suffragette City and Wills Decorating.

All of the businesses faced different challenges when the pandemic hit, but loans from the city of Hyattsville and the federal Paycheck Protection Program helped. The businesses also worked together as they tried new strategies.

“Maybe the secret sauce is that there is a social network,” Hyattsville Community Development Corp director Stuart Eisenberg told DCist. “And the intelligence that we are sharing together. We’re all strategizing together.”

At Vigilante, that meant online sales and coffee-to-go and installing a thick plastic sheeting around its counter separating customers from its staff for extra safety precautions. Franklins switched to curbside pickup and delivery, set up picnic tables in its parking lots and opened an outdoor tiki bar. Tanglewood Works owner Sue Mondeel began making online videos while Lova Yoga studio held classes online.

The nonprofit SoHy Co-Op also helped strategize putting together events like socially distant sidewalk sales to help support local businesses while following CDC safety protocols and guidelines.

Their next event, the SoHy Spring Scavenger, takes place on Saturday, March 20, where residents can come out and support a number of small businesses. The event will include a scavenger hunt, a socially distanced outdoor gathering space and live music.

Support the Wire and Community Journalism

Make a one-time donation or become a regular supporter here.

Morgane Polanski shot her first scene at six - now she’s making her mark on film

]

“I’m 28, what have I achieved?” Morgane Polanski shouts these words into the wind as we take a socially distanced walk around blustery Kensington Gardens, her daily lockdown stomping ground. “I’ve got to get a move on. By 25 Orson Welles had already made Citizen Kane!”

Wrapped in a vintage military coat, and solidly grounded in DM boots, she has a light French accent, and her fingernails painted a harlequinade of different colours, like her heroine Margot Robbie in Birds of Prey. Like Robbie, she aims not only to act, but to produce her own projects; Polanski wants to co-write, produce, direct, act - the lot.

This is a woman who is deeply knowledgeable and passionate about film (I am put in mind of a young Sofia Coppola, although it’s David Lynch with whom she shares a birthday). By any normal standards, she has achieved rather a lot for 28.

First, she has created her own life here in Britain, away from her thunderously talented parents, the legendary director Roman Polanski and his muse the actor, singer and immortal beauty Emmanuelle Seigner. “I worked hard for everything I have,” she shrugs. “Four years of training at drama school. I know my own journey and I did it myself.”

Syria - Ten Years of War: Looking Back at a Decade of Violence

]

Ten Years of War Looking Back at a Decade of Violence in Syria

It has been 10 years since the beginning of the civil war in Syria. What began as a popular uprising against dictator Bashar Assad has transformed into a proxy conflict with no end in sight. Dozens of trips to the country in the last decade have born witness to the destruction.