Last Thursday GM was passing by the construction at the old Georgetown Theater and saw that the workers were finally taking down the scaffolding. You can now see the restored stucco facade, with all the awful formstone stripped away.
The facade is meant to restore the theater to how it appeared for a short time in the mid-20th century, before the Heon family purchased it in 1949. Before that time it was called the Dumbarton and looked like this:
GM would’ve loved to see that restored. But it wasn’t meant to be.
The mid-40’s style that has been restored is what existed at the time the iconic neon sign was constructed. And the sign is being restored by the same company that created it in the first place. GM passed the owner/developer/architect of the project, Robert Bell, as the scaffolding was coming down. He congratulated Bell on how nice it looked and asked when the sign would return. “A couple weeks” was the answer.
The canopy also needs a major restoration. Presumably that’s on the list.
No word yet on possible tenants for the building. But for now we can sit back and admire what a beautiful building was hiding under all that awful formstone for over half a century.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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