Over the weekend, the New York Times published an article on the Transformers saga. I am quoted in it responding to the author’s question about how much average Georgetowners were concerned about the matter. I told her that it wouldn’t make my list of “top five dramas” for the neighborhood over the last ten years.
This got me thinking after the fact about what I would put on a list like that. So here is my list of topics that have animated a lot of discussions around the neighborhood over the last ten years (or so):
Georgetown Campus Plan
I really would have to put the Georgetown Campus plan on the top of this list. When it came up for renewal in 2010, it was very clear that a fight was at hand. The previous campus plan from ten years before had ended up in the courts, and there was no reason not to think this next one would too.
The state of relations between the school and the surrounding neighborhoods really were pretty bad. Part of the reason for that is that tensions would build up over the years between plan renewals and then explode.
But through a virtual miracle, a new model emerged. The Georgetown Community Partnership was formed with representatives from the school, students, and surrounding neighborhoods. The group would meet regularly with active sub-committees addressing long standing issues, like transportation or trash. And it worked. Town-gown relations in Georgetown have likely not been this good in at least a lifetime. It has worked so well that late last decade, the school submitted a campus plan for 20 years, instead of for 10, and it was approved. For that reason the “dramas” have happily receded, but getting there took one big, last drama.
Commercial Vacancies
If there is one thing I have heard Georgetowners complain about more than anything else over the years, it’s vacancies on Wisconsin Ave. Things got especially bad at the peak of the pandemic, and many worried about the long term viability of the commercial corridor.
I think things are clearly better now then they were, say, early 2021. But worries remain. And an adjacent issue to the vacancies are the spaces that aren’t vacant, but are nonetheless filled with stores that many don’t think add to the community, such as cheap suit shops or (now) unlicensed pot shops.
And of course, the longer you’ve been here, the more you can remember what’s left us, be it Neam’s or the French Market, etc. So I think angst over the commercial corridors in Georgetown will always be there, bubbling away through thick and thin.
Liquor License Moratorium
In response to Georgetown being considered overrun by loud, hard partying bars, the city instituted a liquor license moratorium in the late 1980s. It put a cap on the total number of restaurant and bar liquor licenses that could be issued for Georgetown. Whether it was the cause or not, the institution of the moratorium coincided with the beginning of a long gradual decline of the Georgetown nightlife scene.
By the middle part of the last decade, even those that were around in the 1980s asking for the moratorium could see that its utility had passed. The DC nightlife scene had propagated to a half dozen other neighborhoods, and Georgetown became passeé. In an attempt to inject some life into the patient, business and community groups joined together in 2016 to end the moratorium.
While this wasn’t necessarily a “dramatic” episode, it was notable. Georgetown’s return to cool status is at least partially attributable to the end of the moratorium.
West Heating Plant
This large, extremely expensive new condo building took about the whole last ten years to get to a ground-breaking. Opinions are pretty divided on the merit of the existing historic structure (I like it, but I get why people think it’s ugly). Preservationists tried to prevent the building’s razing, but saving the it was probably never in the cards, given its decrepit state. Nonetheless it took a legal saga to get the raze permit finally issued.
Banks
There are too many damn banks and when they take over prominent locations like the former Nathans or the aforementioned Neam’s, people’s ire increases. While we’ve seen a recent decline in the overabundance of bank branches in the neighborhood, the ire is set to explode again once Citibank takes over the old Gap building.
So what would you put on a list of big issues from the last ten years or so?
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
You left out the very one that they quoted you about in the NY Times… Call Your Mother.
Love banks!!
Hi Topher,
Iâm not sure whether you were living in Georgetown and chronicling its history in the early 1990âs, but if you werenât you might not be aware that the seeds for the eventual détente between Georgetown University and the community were planted when the ANC negotiated the 1990 Campus Plan with the University. I was serving on the ANC then, and Jack DeGioia, who was not then GU President, represented the University. At that time, a number of ANC Commissioners believed that it made more sense to negotiate with the University on student/community issues, rather than to litigate, because litigation is costly, time-consuming, and doesnât usually end up in the communityâs favor.
When we began negotiations on the 1990 Campus Plan, the University had limited on-campus student housing, and didnât require undergraduates to live on campus in their freshman and sophomore years, as it does now. As a consequence, a large number of undergraduates lived in west Georgetown and Burleith, adversely impacting life in these communities.
The major achievement of the 1990 Campus Plan negotiations was getting the University to commit to the goal of âhousing essentially all of its undergraduates on campusâ in exchange for a slight increase in the undergraduate student enrollment cap. The University also agreed to require all freshman and sophomores to live on campus.
Following BZA approval of the 1990 Campus Plan, the University built a substantial amount of new on-campus housing, and made major improvements in the on-campus dining and social amenities aimed at keeping students on campus rather than out in the community. As part of this effort, the University established an Office of Off-Campus Student Affairs, revised its Student Conduct Code to address off-campus behavior, and began regular neighborhood patrols to respond to student conduct issues in the community when they arose. Having lived in west Georgetown since 1980, I can report that conditions here dramatically improved as a result of the Universityâs efforts following adoption of the 1990 Campus Plan. The Georgetown Community Partnership has continued the good work the ANC and the University began in 1990.
So, far from being a âvirtual miracle,â the Georgetown Community Partnership exists because of the work of those who came before it.
Grace Bateman