The Capital: Ring in the New

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The table hopping was livelier, and the members seemed happier (the club, founded in 1955 with the motto "Out but Happy," has changed its slogan to "In and Very Happy"). And through it all ran the insistent obbligato of job seekers on the make ("I hear there's an opening in Frank's office . . . What else ya got . . . ? When can we start . . . ? How about that guy . . . ?").

In the Connecticut Avenue office of Larry O'Brien, Kennedy's patronage dispenser, the traffic in job seekers, from state bosses to ordinary citizens who "just come in off the streets, introduce themselves and ask what's available," was like Dupont Circle at rush hour. "I haven't had a day here that's been less than 16 hours," sighed O'Brien wearily.

Booming Homes. Almost as intensive as the search for jobs was the search for homes—especially in stately old Georgetown, where an outlandish real estate boom was well under way. The big attraction was proximity to the Kennedys' home on N Street—even though the Kennedys will soon be moving to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Home sellers take delight in burbling that their little gem is "just nine blocks from the Kennedys," and the closer the address, the higher the price. One brick row house across the street from the Kennedy home—in a bad state of disrepair—is priced at $69,500.

Its twin, a few blocks away, is being sold for an overpriced $55,000.

Michigan's Soapy Williams, newly appointed Assistant Secretary of State, paid a reported $100,000 for his chic Georgetown address (1401 31st Street), and a well-heeled Eastern Congressman put up a whopping $165,000 for his.

The housing problem was complicated by the fact that many Republicans (e.g., the Christian Herters, the Cabot Lodges) are keeping their Georgetown properties, further reducing—and inflating—the market. One eager home owner breathlessly told prospective buyers that she had "flown right back from Nassau in the middle of my vacation when I heard that Georgetown prices were getting higher and higher." Hammers & Hats. Along with the harbingers of the new Administration, there were signs of the passing of the old. Vice President Nixon, who had, by his own wish, plummeted from public view "for a while," begged off from appearing on a TV testimonial to President Eisenhower.

(Among those accepting: Jack Kennedy.) Amid the clamor of hammers as workmen put up the viewing stands for the Kennedy inaugural parade near the Treasury, other workmen quietly dismantled the lights and ornaments from the 70-ft. fir tree on the White House lawn—President Eisenhower's last Christmas tree as Chief Executive. And in the stores of F Street and Connecticut Avenue, salesmen reported with satisfaction that sales of top hats (at $40 and up), in conformity with Jack Kennedy's plans, had outstripped the black Homburg, an inaugural innovation that came with Dwight Eisenhower and, apparently, will end with his Administration.