This week on Now and a Long Time Ago, GM stops by a particular favorite of his: the old Dumbarton Theater at Wisconsin and Dumbarton. (Again, GM is having some computer problems and isn’t able to mash the now and then photos together).
You probably need no reminded of the sad state that this old building currently is in:
This is what the great Jerry McCoy had to say about the old Dumbarton Theater:
In 1913 Georgetown residents Henry Frain, who lived at 3323 P St. N.W., and William A. Marceron, residing at 2911 Q St. N.W., hired Washington, D.C., architect William C. Nichols to remodel a late 19th-century structure on the east side of Wisconsin Avenue facing O Street…Together the partners spent around $2,500 ($54,000 in today’s money) to remodel the structure, resulting in a theater that measured 32’ x 76’ with a seating capacity of about 460…While not the first movie theater in Georgetown (the Scenic was the earliest, having opened circa 1907 at 1305 Wisconsin Ave.), the Dumbarton certainly had the most opulent exterior.
The theater was purchased by the Heon family in 1949 and renovated with the ugly formstone that covers the facade now. GM had hoped that there was a chance that the old facade was still there underneath the formstone, but Angie Heon Nys informed him that it was not.
Last winter at a CAG meeting held in the theater, Heon suggested that the neon sign would be restored as the family looks for a new tenant. Unfortunately, no work has been done on the facade since then.
GM hopes dearly that whatever the next use of the building is (GM suspects a complete gut job is necessary) the old facade can be reconstructed. What a truly remarkable piece of whimsy that was.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
The Georgetown, like the bigger and fancier Calvert, which was located on the site of “The Sheffield” condominium, were great second-run houses, a genre that has completely disappeared over the past 40 years. After feature films played at the big downtown theaters, they would make the rounds in the neighborhood screens, which usually charged less than the first-run houses. The Peter Cook and Dudley Moore version of “Bedazzled” springs to mind as one of the last films I saw at The Georgetown. Curiously, the Georgetown area had a brief golden age for movie theaters in the 70s and 80s, maybe through the 90s, when the Key and the Biograph strove for art-house status, and a multiplex occupied, I think, the old Parkway Motors Building on the south side of M Street. “Mais, ou sont les neiges d’antan?”
Agree, re: whimsical design. Would love to see if any of that remains under the formstone…
I recall about 10 years ago that someone promised to restore the neon “Georgetown” sign on this building. I recall reading it in the now defunct “West End Guide.” Nothing ever came of that promise. Does anyone know who that was and why it didn’t happen?
To remove that wonderful old facade and cover it with the ugly formstone that is there now – what were they thinking?!!
A Georgetown architect surveyed the building several years ago and found it to be a wreck. In need of very expensive renovation. The landlords do not make any investment in upkeep.
The landlords also own the building where Nathans used to reside…..and there was a lot of structural damage to that building as well. They also own the old Cellar Door building at M and 34th, also falling apart. Don’t look to the Heons for any repairs.
The Heons don’t own the Cellar Door building anymore.