Today, January 28, is Capitalsaurus Day

[PotomacCyclist]

January 28 is Capitalsaurus Day, named in honor of the District’s “unique” dinosaur, Capitalsaurus. Well, at least the DC Council agreed to the designation. The Smithsonian does not consider the fossil to be a newly discovered dinosaur species. More likely a theropod carnivore of an already discovered species.

The dinosaur fossil was uncovered in January 1898, at 1st and F Streets, S.E. The fossil was turned over to the Smithsonian on January 28 that year.

In 1990, a local paleontologist claimed that the fossil belonged to a newly discovered species, which he named Capitalsaurus. The Smithsonian does not agree with this designation. I believe they still consider it to be a Dryptosaurus.

But the DC Council was not deterred. They passed the Official Dinosaur Designation Act in 1998.

§ 1–161. Capitalsaurus dinosaur.

http://dccode.org/simple/sections/1-161.html

Capitalsaurus has an official song, a day of recognition, and an official block. If you ride to the intersection of 1st and F Streets, S.E., you will see a secondary street sign naming the block Capitalsaurus Court. (That also happens to be the only stretch of F Street, S.E., this side of the Anacostia River. There is no F Street, S.E., between 2nd and 33rd Streets, S.E.)

http://goo.gl/maps/dXPlT

For more info, see the Washingtonian Magazine article from 2013: http://www.washingtonian.com/blogs/capitalcomment/local-news/happy-capitalsaurus-day-1.php

Topic

[Crickey7]

It might be contagious. I felt like a coldblooded lizard last night.

[mattotoole]

You should blog this stuff! It deserves a wider audience than this little peanut gallery…

Anyway thanks for the tidbit. I had no idea!

[cyclingfool]

@mattotoole 106831 wrote:

You should blog this stuff! It deserves a wider audience than this little peanut gallery…

I’d subscribe…

[cyclingfool]

It would be way easier to make jokes about this thread if Robert Byrd or Strom Thurmond were still around.

[PotomacCyclist]

I first heard about this while reading an article about the absence of F Street, S.E., one of the DC Q&A’s in the City Paper. They noted that there is no F Street, SE, west of the river except for a small block. I was curious to see what the street looked like, so I checked Google Maps Street View. I navigated across the street and saw the odd street sign. I thought it was a joke at first, either placed by someone at Google, or a real-life prank before the Google Maps camera truck drove by.

I looked up Capitalsaurus Court and learned that it was the real alternative name for the street. When I looked up what a Capitalsaurus was, I found that Capitalsaurus Day was coming up on the calendar. I posted the info on Facebook too.

I have a few more DC-area oddities and trivia items in the pipeline. I also posted a thread titled “P.O. Box 1142” a couple years ago: http://bikearlingtonforum.com/showthread.php?2426-P-O-Box-1142

I’ll have to think about a blog. I also collect some of these tidbits to include in an amorphous future novel of some sort. I’ve been collecting items, thoughts and ideas for years now, but I haven’t thought of a good way to tie everything together into a cohesive work. I don’t need to use everything all at once. I do know that I would like to give the book a strong D.C. flavor, with the sort of details and facts that don’t usually make it into the regular tourist guides or “DC power politics” movies and TV shows. Political stories, movies and shows about DC have been done to death. I don’t need to do that, and I don’t want to.

I find George Pelecanos interesting, although I admit that I haven’t read any of his books yet. He is a prominent detective story novelist who sets most of his stories in and around D.C. He was also a writer and producer for the well-known HBO series “The Wire.” Although I haven’t read any of his works, I did see him speak a few years ago. He introduced a rescreening of “The French Connection” at the AFI Silver Theatre in Silver Spring. Pelecanos interviewed the director William Friedkin live on the stage. (Friedkin is also known for directing “The Exorcist,” the famous DC-based horror movie.) My book wouldn’t necessarily be about cycling either, but I do plan to include at least a couple characters who would be avid cyclists. Not necessarily competitive athletes, but regular bike commuters and/or people who use bikes for running basic errands. I could tie in some of the bike advocacy issues like transportation design, traffic safety and so on, but not as the main story. That could get tiresome. But if I could toss it in from the side, perhaps as relevant issues to a major crash that affects the lives of several people, something like that. I would want to avoid writing a polemical novel, but I would include some points about the death toll from cars, etc.

[dbb]

@cyclingfool 106836 wrote:

It would be way easier to make jokes about this thread if Robert Byrd or Strom Thurmond were still around.

There are still a number of analogs to those fine gentlemen!

[PotomacCyclist]

I’m going to start adding the “history” tag to these types of threads, for future reference.

[Author]

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