This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out an absolutely adorable little red bus. The photo comes from the DC Historical Society and it shows an early iteration of the GUTS Bus.
GUTS is the Georgetown jitney bus. I would have guessed that it stood for Georgetown University Transportation System, but no. The ‘S’ stands for “Society”. Which is way fancier.
This photo is from 1979. The bus system dates to 1974. This page offers a great history of the bus to mark its 50 anniversary in 2024. One interesting fact, the august descriptor “society” was specifically chosen to “evoke a feeling of community and connote a cooperative University organization.”
It actually replaced a short-lived shuttle system that was offered by the student-run CORP. That shuttle was a good proof of concept but ran at such a deficit that the CORP couldn’t maintain it long. The GUTS bus was sufficiently funded to stay open. Here’s a flyer from the GU archives touting the new bus:
That Benz looks to be the same from the top picture. It’s unclear how long it ran before needing to be replaced. There’s a photo in the GU archives of one of them in 1984, looking only a bit worse for wear. Any 80s Hoya alums remember when they were finally replaced?
This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out a shot that may be a little more relevant to today than it may seem at first. It is a photo from 1974 and it comes from the DC Historical Society.
The scene is of the service station that still stands at the northeast corner of Wisconsin and Q St. It’s an Exxon now, but back then it was a Gulf Station. Other than the lack of a canopy, it looks pretty similar to present day.
What is notable about this shot is the “No Gas” sign. The photo was taken during the tail end of the 1973 oil crisis. This was caused by an embargo by OAPEC against countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. This caused wise spread gas shortages around the United States, and scenes like this of gas stations out of gas were common.
Will another violent war in the Middle East produce scenes like this again? Time will tell.
The 1973 embargo came to an end in March 1974, although high gas prices continued for a while after. The prices didn’t return to the pre-embargo rates until the mid-80s.
Gulf stations disappeared around then too. The oil company merged with Standard Oil of California and became Chevron in 1985. You occasionally see the Gulf name on gas stations around the country, but those are just the result of IP licensing deals with local stations. There’s no Gulf Oil company anymore.
This week on the podcast I’m exploring Georgetown’s annual rites of spring. Listen here or at Apple podcasts or Spotify. Here are the events/guides I discussed:
Hello and welcome to your March Northwest Georgetown ANC update! It’s going to be 70 degrees at some point this week! Baseball’s getting played in Florida! Spring is coming!
There are lots of things going on with the ANC right now that I want to keep you up to date with. Here are the highlights:
Resident Only Parking
We are continuing to move towards making a formal request to the city to evaluate Georgetown for resident only parking (ROP). (I think most people are familiar with that system by now, but if not, here is a primer). We are scheduled to consider a resolution on the topic Monday night.1 As I write this (Saturday morning), I am anticipating this resolution being a statement of intent for the ANC that it is resolved to continue the process of evaluation and, where appropriate, implementation of ROP. Recent discussions with DDOT indicate that we need to do a little more work before the formal request to kick off the official DDOT evaluation process can be submitted.
In particular, DDOT is requesting that the ANC create a map of all the blocks that it wants considered for ROP. They want to work with us on what would even be possible, so a few draft may have to go back and forth. Once we settle on a map then we will formally submit it for consideration.
To be clear, this map would not be a guarantee that all the blocks flagged for ROP analysis will in fact get ROP in the end. But it does mean that if a block is not flagged for ROP analysis, it will not be evaluated for ROP and won’t get ROP.
I anticipate submitting my entire district for ROP consideration. We are squeezed between Wisconsin Ave. on one side and Georgetown University on the other, two major drivers of parking demand. I also have a small part east of Wisconsin Ave. that is similarly impacted. Just as a reminder, here are the contours of my district:
If you live within that blue box and you don’t want your block considered for ROP, let me know! If you live in other parts of Georgetown and want to express your preference to your commissioner, let them know. If you don’t know who your commissioner is, go here.
Lobby Bar Protest
The ANC is involved in a liquor license renewal protest against the Lobby Bar, which opened up at 1660 33rd St. last year. As many living around there know, even since it opened it has been operating its rear patio in an unacceptable manner. It stays open way past its permitted time frame and when it is open it is excessively loud.
Its license came up for renewal last year2 and the ANC protested its renewal based on the impact the bar’s violative behavior is having on the nearby residents. The Citizens Association and two abutting neighbors also protested. We were scheduled to hold the protest hearing on February 25th. Unfortunately the ABC Board had too full an agenda to fit it in, so it has been postponed. A new date has not yet been set.
I will keep you informed as the hearing is set and we proceed to the resolution.
Podcast
I started a podcast for Georgetown. It’s called Wisconsin and M and you can subscribe through Apple or Spotify. I will also be posting each episode through this newsletter. But if people find the extra emails annoying, please let me know!
I’m aiming for an episode every week or two covering topics from around the neighborhood. The episodes will be nice and short, 5-10 minutes. Although if it goes well, I may look into occasionally doing a slightly longer format with interviews or other deeper dives. We’ll see!
I’ve got a new episode on the annual spring events around Georgetown coming up next week. Stay tuned!
You may ask why a brand new bar would have its license come up for renewal so fast, but that is because the city renews all licenses at the same time, regardless of how long any particular license has been outstanding.
The ANC will be meeting for our March session next Monday night at Visitation at 6:30 pm. A draft agenda is below.
The big ticket item of the evening will be our consideration of a request to DDOT to evaluate the introduction of Resident Only Parking and introduce it where appropriate in the neighborhood. For my part, I’ve heard fairly enthusiastic support for the idea from my constituents, so I look forward to pushing the idea forward. Come on out to let us know your thoughts!
Who needs another podcast? Nobody of course! But I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve been thinking about putting out a regular short (5-10 minute) podcast that covers news you should know as a Georgetown resident. My first podcast is about the state of the Potomac River and the Resident Only Parking proposal. Future episodes might cover fun history, short interviews, and other bits of info that make living here so great (or not so great, sometimes).
The podcast will publish through the newsletter but I’m also going to make it available on all the usual platforms, if you want to get it there. Here is the RSS feed.
And let me know what you think! Even if you hate it! Maybe especially so! But also if you like it!
In January I reported that a long vacant lot on O St. just east of Hyde-Addison school was for sale. Now the new or prospective owner is proposing the construction of a new home on the lot, according to a recent Old Georgetown Board filing.
As I discussed in January, this lot is empty due to the previous owner controversially razing an existing home on this lot in 1997. The OGB filing includes news clippings covering that controversy, including photos of the building before and during the razing:
The plans submitted to OGB appear fairly conceptual at this point, which is a common approach in situations like this. This enables the owner and architect (Christian Zapaka in this case) to get a general sense for what the board will accept before they spend too much time and money on fleshing out the details.
One aspect of the design that the applicant is floating relates to the footprint. One option, (seen above) pulls back the east facade from the property line and puts the entrance on the east side, seen here from the east:
The other option would have the house go right up to the east property line and keep the entrance on the streetside:
To long time observers, the history leading up to the razing represented the epitome of demolition of neglect. Rumors have long circulated that as a form of informal punishment for the alleged demolition by neglect, no plans would be approved for a new building as long as the same owners held the lot. I cannot confirm those rumors at all, but it would be notable if almost 30 years later plans for a home get approved only along with an ownership change.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
You must be logged in to post a comment.