When GM is doing research on a building in Georgetown, one resource that often proves invaluable is the Historic American Building Survey (HABS). HABS is a massive collection of detailed building surveys of buildings throughout the country. And since Georgetown is home to a lot of historic buildings, it is well represented in the survey.
In particular, there was a wide survey done of Georgetown buildings in the 1960s available in HABS. It’s not all buildings in Georgetown, not by a long shot. But it includes dozens and dozens. Typically it includes a sharp black-and-white photo, like you see above. If you’re lucky, there’s also a thoroughly researched report on the property, tracing the chain of ownership all the way back to Georgetown’s founding. Here’s one for same house seen above (which is 1052 Potomac).
Located at the Library of Congress’s prints and photograph database, HABS is easily searchable. Go here and type in an address you’re interested in. Or just type “Georgetown Washington” and they’ll all come up. (Just a tip: if you’re searching a numbered street, you need to spell out the street number, like “1200 Thirtieth St.”).
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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