This week on Not So Long Ago, GM stops by Wisconsin and Dumbarton. GM’s not going to pretend this is an interesting flashback; the only thing that changed was the name of the bank and the awning color. But the history of American Security Bank is kind of interesting!:

American Security Bank was founded in 1889 in Alexandria, Virginia, as a banking and trust concern, operating a branch in the District of Columbia at 1419 G Street, NW; the following year it reincorporated in the District and moved to 1405 G Street. It was the second trust company established in the District and the first to offer a woman’s department. By 1903 business had grown to the extent that a new location was once again sought. The present location (a block from Lafayette Square and part of the Lafayette Square Historic District) was selected, and construction began in 1904. The design was praised in the banking press, and it was featured in The American Architect and Building News in 1905. The building now houses a branch of Bank of America as a result of the latter’s merger with NationsBank, which purchased MNC Financial in 1993. MNC had purchased American Security Bank in 1987 but continued to operate it under the original name. Due to its location immediately north of the Treasury Building the building appeared on the back of the ten dollar bill for many years,[5] a fact exploited in advertising with the slogan “right on the money.”

It’s too bad this building continues to be occupied by a bank (as several of the more prominent corners of Georgetown are). Banks provide little in the way of street life and with online banking becoming more dominant, bank buildings are becoming even more unnecessary. Hopefully someday Bank of America will clear out and something more interesting will move in.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Oh please make these stop.
• On homelessness in Georgetown.

Blues Alley

In 2011, GM counted 530 stores in Georgetown. (For the purposes of this exercise, a “store” is a shop, restaurant, salon, etc. Basically any commercial establishment except purely office space). This year the total tally is 509. And the reduction of 21 stores is probably slightly worse than it sounds because every year GM adds some more shops to his list that he overlooked in previous years. In fact GM counted 96 closings and 40 openings, which would suggest a net loss of 56 stores, or 10.5%. It’s worth noting that the closings were highly concentrated in the mall.

One more stat GM will throw out there: there are 117 vacant shop spaces in Georgetown right now. Many are already spoken for (even if GM knows a shop is going to open in a space, just for consistency’s sake he counts it as vacant) but most are not. So opportunity knocks for you aspiring shopkeepers out there!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The most Second Empirest of Georgetown Second Empire homes is still for sale.
• GM heard it was going to be a Good Stuff Eatery, but if that’s not going to happen, what would you like to happen with Morso?

1300 block of Wisconsin Ave.

Monday was the beginning of the out of boundary lottery process for DC public schools. This is the process by which students who don’t want to attend their designated local school can get a slot at another school.

As discussed here before, for several decades Hyde has been a school mostly filled with students from other neighborhoods. This started to change over the past decade as more Georgetowners decided to send their children to the local school. This has, in turn, reduced the number of slots available to students from other neighborhoods trying to attend Hyde.

One thing parents new to the system might not realize is that even children in the neighborhood have to apply through the lottery for a slot in the pre-Kindergarten program. They are not guaranteed a slot. They do, however, get priority in the lottery. And last year there was such a groundswell of interest from neighborhood parents for the pre-K program that all the slots went to neighborhood kids. Some neighborhood kids didn’t even get a slot in the lottery, but all neighborhood kids that wanted a pre-K slot eventually got one off the waitlist.

Last year there were 19 slots in pre-K. This year there are only 17. And beside those 17 slots, which will likely all go to neighborhood children, there is only one more slot in the whole school that is open to the lottery: a seat in the second grade.

There is no advantage to signing up for the lottery early, but if you’re interested in sending your child to Hyde for pre-K, you need to sign up for the lottery by February 27th. (Again, just to be clear, if you live in Georgetown and you want to send your child to Hyde for any grade beside pre-K, you don’t need to enter the lottery; your slot is guaranteed. That said, it helps the school plan class size to know how many neighborhood kids are attending, so if you’re planning to send you children to Hyde for the first time next year, let the school know by this summer).

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• From the photo above, which was taken a couple weeks ago, it sure looks like Dumbarton Oaks had to cut down that massive beech tree. What a shame…
• Interview with Mike Isabella about his new Georgetown Mexican place.

1200 block of Wisconsin Ave.

Last night the ANC met for its February session (apparently they have a time machine that made last night actually February). GM couldn’t stay long due to his new paternal responsibilities, but the bits he caught are worth passing on.

DCRA

The ANC invited the Director of DCRA, Nicholas Majett, to speak about his agency. Majett took his time to describe all the ways in which DCRA touches on DC citizens’ lives. From building permits, to corporation licensing, to inspections, DCRA is likely the agency you need to call when you have a problem.

While Majett’s presentation was interesting, the main draw for Georgetown was the situation with 1424 Wisconsin Ave. This property, which until last year hosted Ashhik clothes, was undergoing construction to become a Z-Burger. But on Thanksgiving day, half the building collapsed. Some have suggested that the cause of the collapsed was unauthorized excavation. Majett, however, suggested that if it was excavation that caused the collapse, it wasn’t unauthorized since the owner had a permit to dig.

Right now the parties seems to be engaged in a blame-sorting exercise. The ANC was a bit alarmed to find out that the structural engineer hired to determine the cause of the collapse was to be hired by the building owner. Tom Birch wondered whether that wasn’t a huge conflict of interest and that won’t the engineer be inclined to say it’s not the fault of the guy who’s paying him. Majett responded that it was the opposite of a conflict of interest since it put the responsibility on the building owner, not the government, to determine the cause. GM’s not quite sure that counts as “the opposite of a conflict of interest”, and the ANC remained skeptical too. They asked Majett to consider using an independent engineer to evaluate the collapse (particularly considering that the building owner in question has a history of building collapses in Georgetown).

After wrapping up the discussion on 1424 Wisconsin Ave., the ANC noted that there was another item on their agenda that touched on DCRA: food trucks. DCRA has proposed regulations governing food trucks, which up to this point have operated under the rules for ice cream trucks. The new regulations would address food trucks more directly and allow them to operate in any legal parking spot, under certain restrictions.

Andrew Kline, who is one of the city’s biggest ABC lawyers, showed up at the ANC last night to push the case of his client, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington. These brick-and-mortar restaurants hate food trucks because the trucks take a lot of the business away from the fixed restaurants and get to keep a lot more of their revenues since they don’t have any overhead and the city doesn’t make them pay sales tax (they just pay a flat $500$1500 fee every year [again, it's because the rules the operate under assume they're selling ice cream, not $15 lobster rolls]).

So the restaurants would like the food trucks to be lumped in with the hot dog vendors, which would mean sticking them in fixed locations, and at a very limited density. In other words, they want to kill vitality of the food truck business in DC.

Of course Kline swears up and down that squashing competition has absolutely nothing to do with it. “Restaurants don’t want to get rid of food trucks”, he asserts somehow with a straight face. They just really care about the public space of the city and don’t want the food trucks taking up too much of it. It’s aesthetics, not competition. (By the by, GM’s looking to unload an old stone bridge ideally located near Brooklyn, are you interested?)

Kline even threw out the horrible possibility that if these rules are adopted K St. could become a magnet for the food trucks. GM had to stand up and say, “God I hope so!” (in person, GM doesn’t speak in the third person).

But the ANC expressed concerns over food trucks being on the residential streets. GM doubts that’s likely, but the proposal to restrict food trucks from RPP spaces. GM thinks that’s probably a fair compromise, but it may be too late to change the proposed rule.

DCFDDCFEMS

Last year, the Chief of the DC Fire and Emergency Medical Services, Kenneth Ellerbe, issued an order banning all firemen from wearing anything with the acronym “DCFD”. You see, the agency isn’t called the DC Fire Department anymore. And Ellerbe, who also spoke at the ANC meeting last night, seems to still be interested in this issue.

While we all still think of it as the fire department, putting out fires is a small part of the agency’s duties. According to Ellerbe, DCFEMS received 161,000 calls in 2011. Of those, 130,000 were medical related calls. Only 900 were fire related, and of those, only about 500 were house fires. So it’s probably more accurate to use the DCFEMS name. But GM still thinks it’s a bit of an overreaction to throw away the history of the DCFD name.