From 1820 to 1837, a newspaper called the Georgetown Metropolitan was published in the city of Georgetown, DC. The copy above is from July 12, 1826, reporting on the deaths of Presidents Jefferson and Adams on July 4th, exactly fifty years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. For a short while, it was published by John L. O’Sullivan and his brother-in-law Samuel Langtree. O’Sullivan faded into obscurity until the middle of the 20th century when the term “Manifest Destiny” was attributed to him.
So what does this have to do with 2008? Well, not much. But, basically I’ve realized that the neighborhood of Georgetown lacks a neighborhood blog. I’ve decided to give it a try. I looked through Georgetown’s history for a worthy name to resurrect and the Georgetown Metropolitan sounded perfect to me. And so I have reestablished the Georgetown Metropolitan, 171 years since it last was printed. With luck, the Georgetown Metropolitan will serve as a valuable information source for Georgetown residents.
The ANC will meet for its November session next Monday night at Visitation. The draft agenda is above.
One thing you may notice about the agenda is that there are no Old Georgetown Board matters listed. While there are two months a year when the OGB doesn’t routinely meet, November is not one of them. But with the ongoing federal government shutdown, the OGB has not met since September. And it will continue to remain inactive until the government is funded and opened.
This will likely result in some serious backlogs of cases for the board to work though. These include your normal cases, but they also include all the streatery applications that are being processed by the city right now. Given that even normal OGB meetings can stretch over the entire day, I imagine they will need one or more special sessions to catch up once the shutdown ends.
From the ANC’s perspective though, this hopefully means a shorter meeting this month. Last month we went nearly to 1 AM. So a shorter meeting would be a welcome change.
This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m sharing another photo from the DC Historical Society. It’s of the canal at a time when it was still a functional canal.
According to the record, the photo was taken sometime between 1910 and 1920. You can see the old Aqueduct Bridge in the distance, which places the location up the river a bit from Georgetown. In fact, I think there are parts of the Three Sisters Islands on the right, which would put the location on Canal Road immediately west of its split from Foxhall.
The photo description states that the boats are waiting to be unloaded, although to be honest, they don’t look exactly overladen with materials. By this time, the canal was primary being used to transport coal from West Virginia. But even this usage represented the twilight time for the canal as a functioning supply route. The last boats to actually use the canal to transport goods ran in 1924. A storm later that year damaged much of the canal and spelled the end of the canal as a viable trade route.
The section of canal shown in the photo above has been a grassy field for the last several years. This is due to the the water being “turned off” in order to facilitate canal wall repairs in Georgetown. Hopefully once those are completely, this section can be watered again and the new canal boat tours can come up and at least partially recreate this photo once again.
A new coffee shop appears to be coming to 1363 Wisconsin Ave. It is called YellowSun Coffee, not to be confused with Yellow (although given the later’s wild popularity, I’m sure it’s a confusion the former wouldn’t mind stoking.)
YellowSun Coffee is based in New York City, and apparently specializes in coffee bean home delivery. It only has one store according to its website (located in Bushwick, Brooklyn). So this with join Blank Street Coffee as another New York hipster brand coffee coming to the neighborhood.
It will also join two other coffee shops on the same side of the same block. But as I have frequently joked, you could open a coffee shop within another coffee shop in Georgetown, and they’d both be packed. There seems to be a seemingly bottomless demand for coffee shops here, so the more the merrier, I guess.
This has been a dry and hot fall so far, which is not great for fall foliage. But what ever sort of fall display we’ll get is about to arrive. So here is my annual guide on how best to enjoy the fall foliage around Georgetown:
Fall foliage is a little late this year in Georgetown due to the warmer days. But it’s right around the corner. And when it arrives, there are plenty places to take it in right here without hopping off for the country.
In 2013, Casey Trees pulled together some recommended walking routes around the city to take in the brightly changing leaves. In Georgetown it recommended a meandering trail through the heart of the village to enjoy its sugar maples:
Sugar maples are definitely the kings of New England foliage, but around here they can be hit or miss. What species that does knock it out of the park around here are ginkgoes. I am not generally a fan of ginkgoes-their fruit smells awful and the don’t really create much in the way of shade-but I admit their bright yellow fall foliage is pretty spectacular.
It’s actually still a little early for Ginkgoes, but in a couple weeks you could do a nice ginkgo tour through Georgetown. You would start at the south end of Rose Park and walk up 27th st. Then jog over to Cambridge Pl. and walk up Avon to R St. Then make your way down to Potomac St. for the grand finale.
It will be beautiful, although your shoes will smell like dog poop.
But if you have other trees you’re looking for, then look no further than this updated map by Casey Trees that identifies trees by species, highlighting those with good fall color. Here is what it looks like:
You can even filter the map to show just one type of tree. For instance, here is all the maples:
And here are all ginkgoes (they’re the pale yellow dots):
If you’re like me, your strolls probably take you to the same blocks. But this time of year is the best time to get out there and explore different blocks. A stunning tree might be waiting for you!
After an initial burst of activity for the Volta Park ballpark renovations, many residents have noticed that the construction has been on pause for weeks. This has led to a bunch of speculation and rumor. The most frequent thing I have heard from residents is suspicions that they uncovered some human remains. Since the park was once a cemetery, and many remains are estimated to remain, I have not heard anything to substantiate that.
What I have heard from DPR, and confirmed once again last night, is that the construction is on pause while they wait for a pipe. At least one resident has expressed a great deal of skepticism of this explanation to me. And honestly, I can’t blame them for their doubt. But as far as I have been told, the delay is related to the pipe. Not skeletons. Not anything else.
As a result of the delay, no estimate is available for when the construction will end. I fear that if the delay lasts too much longer, the arrival of winter will delay the project even more. So lets hope it is the pipe, and lets hope it gets here soon.
A lot of times when I search for news or photos of Georgetown, I often end up with stories or pictures of other Georgetowns, like Georgetown, Delaware or Georgetown, Guyana. So when I saw that Ikea is planning on opening a store in Georgetown, I assumed it was another case of mistaken Georgetown.
Hold your meatballs, though. The plan is not to open a normal ginormous Ikea store. Rather, the plan is more like a design studio featuring Ikea cabinetry and furniture. You won’t be able to walk out of the store with the items, like you do at their normal stores. You will instead be able to order them and have them delivered to your house. Ikea is actually moving the store to Georgetown, from Pentagon City. So if you’re familiar with that location (which will close on Nov. 30th) then you know what to expect here.
The announcement states that it will be moving to 3307 M St., which is just next to the similarly out-of-place Tesla store.
This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m exploring another photo from the DC Historical Society. This one is a a shot looking westward along the canal between what we now call 31st St. and Wisconsin Ave.
I say “what we now call” because the information for the photo identifies the location as “C&O Canal at 32nd St.” That is what Wisconsin Ave. was called from 1895 to 1905. Before then, it was called High Street. It was changed to 32nd St. in 1895 as part of the wider Georgetown street renaming. This was done in order to synchronize Georgetown’s streets with the rest of the District. (If you’re wondering: what we now call 32nd St. was called Valley Road during this period).
The date of the photo lists 1911-1915, i.e. after the street was officially renamed Wisconsin Ave. But many of the streets of Georgetown continued to be referred by both names over this period, as this 1919 map demonstrates:
What really caught my eye from this photo is not the photo at all but rather the description of the bridge as the “Bridge of Sighs”. That is not a sobriquet I’ve ever heard applied to that bridge. The term is familiar, of course. It was first used to describe an especially ornate bridge in Venice:
Apparently Lord Byron coined the term to reflect the fact that a glimpse of this bridge was the last thing prisoners saw before being led to the Venetian jails (supposedly).
Other bridges around the world have also earned that nickname, likely due to their resemblance to the Venetian bridge rather than some other apocryphal feature. They include the Bridge of Sighs in Cambridge:
Not to be outdone, their rivals in Oxford have their own Bridge of Sighs:
Essentially, if it’s a fancy, enclosed bridge connecting two buildings with an arched bottom, you got yourself a potential Bridge of Sighs.
But why would the Georgetown bridge qualify? It’s got a similarly shaped bottom, I suppose. But that’s it. And plenty of bridges have a similarly arched bottom. That’s pretty much a routine bridge design. It’s not enclosed and doesn’t connect two buildings. It’s just a bridge.
Anyhow, the poetic-yet-not-really-accurate name distracts from the one thing that makes this bridge unique: it’s the oldest bridge in the District. It was built in 1831.
Last Wednesday, the Department of Parks and Recreation hosted a community meeting to discuss the next steps in the project to improve Book Hill Park. The meeting was attended by about twenty members of the public, most of whom are either involved with the Friends of Book Hill Park or live nearby. The presentation, included below, described some of the elements that the planners are considering for the project. Here is the slide with the big picture:
The project as proposed includes both repairs to the existing infrastructure and the addition of new features. The most eye-catching of the proposed additions was the idea of a new terrace. The proposed new terrace would be in one of three locations:
At the top of the hill:
In the middle of the hill:
Or at the bottom of the hill:
The idea was generally to create a new space for people to enter into the park and enjoy the hillside view without having to tramp across a steep grassy lawn. The audience in the room was not terribly enthusiastic for this idea, especially the middle of the hill option. Option C, the plaza right above the bottom plaza, received the most support of the three. But the audience was much more interested in other additions instead.
Most of all, the Friends of Book Hill Park wants a new water spigot towards the bottom of the hill. The city reps explained that that could end up being hugely costly, which might require some sort of a public-private partnership to accomplish. But they will prioritize it and evaluate its feasibiiity.
A final element that many in the room felt strongly about was the addition of lighting to the stairs. The planners had suggested it, but stated that the lights would likely turn off around 9 pm daily. Some in the community requested that they be on all night. Curious, I took a walk down the (currently unlit) stairs after the meeting, and I have to agree. They are basically unusable at night without lights. I could hardly make each step out, even with plenty of nearby streetlights.
As for the timeline, this is what the DPR reps estimate:
According to this timeline, construction would begin next spring or summer and end by the fall. Based on my past experiences with DPR’s promised construction timelines, I would not bet even assorted Monopoly money on that. But I’m always happy to be pleasantly surprised.
Here is the full presentation. If you have any comments on the proposal, email Christopher Dyer at Christopher.Dyer@dc.gov and copy me if you don’t mind (2e02@anc.dc.gov):
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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