This week on Georgetown Time Machine, GM visits the west end of M St. circa the 1960s. And it offers a striking contrast to the scene today.
The specific location is the intersection of 33rd and M, looking east. Right away one thing you’ll see is that the historic Georgetown market (soon to be a fancy Italian restaurant) was then occupied by Southern Distributors Auto Parts Store:
Nearby you can just make out the horse statue outside of Stombock’s (which sold horse riding equipment):
You also have a great view towards what later became the Georgetown Park Mall:
The long building lurking behind the M St. buildings was the old streetcar storage facility whose footprint was used to build the mall in the 80s.
As GM has pointed out in the past, there were far more car-oriented businesses on M St. in this era. And this part of M St. was consistent with that. On top of the auto parts store, there was a used car lot:
And a Sunoco gas station:
The last thing to note is how there are no brick sidewalks on M St. Those were added well later in an attempt to make the street more old-timey looking.
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
Curious how there was an auto parts store there when I thought it had to be a designated market? Did they sell food there too?!
Law was passed in 1966. The store (which dated to the 40s) was allowed to remain despite the law and didn’t close until the mid 70s. The city tried a famers market after that, but it failed. Then it stayed vacant until ’92 when Dean and Deluca opened.
In the first photo on the left, through the trees you can see the vertical Hardware sign of Meenehan’s Hardware.