GM is going to keep doing more of these Old Georgetown in Color posts for a little while (where GM applies his Photoshop skills to colorize old black and white photos). Today, he brings color to a 1948 photo of Dahlgren Chapel on the grounds of Georgetown University.
As you can see by comparing it to a modern photo, it was a tad overgrown 65 years ago:
Photo by Rachael Voorhees.
You can’t even see the stained glass window in the 1948 photo. Ivy growth like that (particularly if it’s English ivy) can do some serious damage to brick. It looks like either that damage was avoided or the brick was repaired.
Although the ivy is so damaging, it’s hard not to admit that an ivy covered chapel is awfully charming.
Interestingly, Georgetown’s other small gothic chapel, Renwick chapel in Oak Hill cemetery, also used to be covered in ivy:
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
Dahlgen was damaged by that ivy but 2 or 3 renovations (last one just completed) later its in pretty good shape in 2013.