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In 2004, 73-year-old resident Ellie Becker, then editor of The Foggy Bottom News, announced she would be retiring and that the paper would no longer be printed. In December, however, Michael Malloy, a 45-year-old West End resident, brought The News back to Foggy Bottom after many called for the paper's revival, he said.
Malloy, the new editor of The News, however, has made some changes. The paper, which is funded by the Foggy Bottom Association, a local community group that has been a vocal critic of many GW expansion efforts, is now being distributed weekly through another local paper, The Foggy Bottom Current.
Also, Malloy has brought The News to the Web by posting PDF files of each issue on the FBA's Web site http://www.savefoggybottom.com.
"Technically it's a paid ad in the Current," Malloy said. Although there is no banner stating that the newsletter is a paid advertisement, it is printed in a different font and font size than the rest of the news in the Current, he said.
Malloy said he became a member of the FBA after he asked the association to help him save his apartment building from a zoning change a few years ago. Now a part of the FBA's Board of Directors, Malloy said he is glad to have the newsletter back.
"There was a large clamor from the community for this paper," he said, adding that the best thing The Foggy Bottom News brings to the neighborhood is a sense of community.
Since June, the FBA has been criticizing the University's plans for Square 54, the old hospital site across from the Foggy Bottom Metro, and has threatened to use legal means to block the project because members of the association believe that the University is not in compliance with the Campus Plan, a legal agreement between GW and the city. Previously, The News has been used as a platform from which several residents denounced GW's expansion into residential Foggy Bottom.
