Photo by Ruth Flickr.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Last friday, GM had to buy some scalped tickets to watch the Nationals lose badly. Seems like he should’ve hit up his councilmember for seats.
- Beautification at Hyde-Addison.
Monthly Archives: August 2011
The Morning Metropolitan
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Not So Long Ago: Wisconsin and O
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This week on Not So Long Ago, GM finally strolls down from Book Hill a few blocks. The block in question is the east side of Wisconsin Ave. just south of O St. Today it holds BB&T bank, which even by bank standards has a terrible street presence. So it comes as quite a surprise to see that this now staid building once was about the most garish buildings on Wisconsin Ave.
In 1993, this building housed a Nobody Beats the Wiz. Unlike the chain’s locations up north (which GM was very familiar with while growing up), this location was not a full service electronics store. It just sold music and movies.
On the corner there was a flower shop called Peter’s Flowerland. On the other side was a shop whose name started with “Brav”. GM’s not sure if that was short for Bravo, or something else. Nowadays the space is a Subway. Continue reading
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The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Jim Malone.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Einstein’s Bagels will be back in the new Safeway development.
- Another argument against building a new Ward 3 middle school.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
Washington Post Writes Yet Another “Is Georgetown Dead?” Article
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Every six months of so, it seems some news outlet rolls out another “is Georgetown is dead?” story. This week it was the Washington Post’s turn.
Inspired by the genuinely sad story of the closing of Furin’s, the Post ponders:
Is Furin’s merely an example of the normal business cycle of Georgetown, or a sign of larger problems to come? Do mom-and-pop shops have a place in the neighborhood or are national chains destined to take it over?
In fairness to the Post, they do present a slightly more nuanced picture of the neighborhood than many “Georgetown is doomed to mall stores” articles. They quote John Hays, owner of Phoenix, who argues that changes come and go. In the end, the Post concludes that there has in fact been a reduction in independent shops, and that that is a result of high rents:
Nancy Itteilag, the real estate agent who sold Furin’s, said rents on M and Wisconsin can range from $30 to $70 per square foot, a cost that she and Hamilton think puts pressure on existing independent businesses and can be intimidating and prohibitive for small-business owners looking to set up shop. (Being a chain doesn’t guarantee success, either; American Eagle Outfitters and Reiss are two recent casualties.)
What the Post doesn’t mention is that the vast majority of business in Georgetown are still independently owned. Yes, there’s less independent retail than there was 20 years ago. And the retail, whether independent or chain, is less resident-oriented. But that’s a trend common to many commercial districts. You can blame the Internet for that, among other uncontrollable forces. Continue reading
Filed under Retail
The Morning Metropolitan
Photo by Jim Malone.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Aditi Indian Cuisine to become Kabob joint.
- ANC Commissioner argues against the draft ANC redistricting map.
Filed under The Morning Metropolitan
What Cheh’s Proposal Would Mean For Georgetown Families
Last week, Ward 3 Councilmember Mary Cheh publicly floated a proposal to create a new middle school for Ward 3. This would dramatically affect Georgetown families, as discussed below.
Citing overcrowding, Cheh wrote in a letter to the Current this week that “the problem at the middle school level seems to be a lack of capacity.” She suggests as a solution the construction of a new school at the Palisades Recreation Center. She also mentioned the possibility of expanding the Mann School. It’s so early at this point, though, that Cheh doesn’t really have a “plan” so to speak and is open to other suggestions for locations.
The good news for Georgetown: the plan would lump them in with the Ward 3 elementary schools that currently feed in Hardy like Hyde-Addison does (Mann, Key, and Stoddert). So if this theoretical new middle school is constructed, Georgetown students would have a right to attend it, even though it would be in another ward (ward boundaries don’t really have much to do with school boundaries). This seems somewhat obvious, but there is always a remote possibility that DCPS would break Hyde off from the other schools and have Hyde students flow up to Francis-Stevens in the West End (which would be a much closer school than a Palisades-based school).
The story behind this story has already been well told by Mike Debonis:
While parents at Lafayette and Janney and Hearst have some comfort in knowing their kids are entitled to a spot at Deal, parents at Mann and Key and Stoddert have less certainty that Hardy is the right place for their kids…That was the subtext of Michelle Rhee’s effort to remake Hardy (which is actually in Ward 2) from an application-only [GM note: Hardy was never application only] arts-focused school attended mostly by out-of-boundary kids to a more traditional neighborhood middle school. At this point, after all the fury, some Ward 3 parents just don’t want to mess with Hardy any more.
Cheh puts a different spin on this dynamic. She states that what Hardy has become to out-of-boundary students is too precious to take away by making it more into a neighborhood-serving school:
[Hardy’s] arts-focused curriculum does not appeal to a sufficient number of Ward 3 parents. If the school’s structure were changed to attract Ward 3 families, then Hardy would no longer have room for many of the out-of-boundary students who thrive there and benefit from the school’s quality education.
In other words: “it looks good on you though“. Continue reading
Filed under Schools
The Morning Metropolitan
Baked and Wire muffin by Byronpeebles.
Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:
- Carol Joynt relates her unusual experience with Albrecht Muth.
- If Georgetown smelled weird yesterday morning, here’s why.
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