Category Archives: Uncategorized

GM is finally back with an installment in his Where the Streets Had Old Names series! Today he is exploring the street currently known as 36th St.

Prior to the street renaming in 1895, this short little street was named Lingan Street. However prior to that it was known as Gay St. It was renamed Lingan Street in the 1810s, and the reason for the switch was quite dramatic, as described below.

Lingan Street was named after James McCubbin Lingan. Lingan was born in 1751 in Hartford County, Maryland (coincidentally the very same month that Georgetown was founded). He would later serve in the Maryland militia and obtained the rank of Lieutenant during the Revolution. However, he was captured at Fort Washington in New York just months into his service and spent years on a prison ship.

As a young man, Lingan moved to Georgetown, working in the tobacco warehouses and acquiring land. He was among the first men named as Alderman when Georgetown was officially recognized as a town in 1789. And he was one of the original nineteen landowners that signed an agreement for the establishment of the District of Columbia.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Alliance for New Music Theater is working on a musical theater production about Georgetown’s black cemeteries. A preview of some of the music will take place this Wednesday.
• Some Georgetown Glow installations will remain up throughout the month.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Taste whiskey with Mount Vernon’s own master distiller tonight at the City Tavern.
• The new chocolate shop on Wisconsin is now open.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, GM is exploring once again a postcard found on Ebay.

This particular postcard shows a scene of Georgetown College as viewed from Observatory Hill. You can see how much more rural the western half of the campus was at the turn of the last century.

The card itself was sent on March 28, 1905. It is addressed to Miss Nellie T. Downes of Brooklyn, NY. care of Edward Fearon. (Downes married Fearon shortly thereafter).

Curiously the sender of the postcard (who’s only identified with the initials “CCD”) tells Downes “Our Glee and Mandolin Club Concert – April 4 – Wouldn’t you like to come and hear us. We’re good-if not bad.”

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Rake your leaves into tree boxes by Nov. 14th if you live in east Georgetown and Nov. 21st if you live in west Georgetown.
• Buy a chicken pot pie to benefit Georgetown Main Streets!

A developer submitted a plan for Old Georgetown Board review this month for two lots it owns along the waterfront, and boy are they shabby.

The lots–located at 3224 and 3226 Water St.–currently consist of two rowhouses built in the mid-20th century. They, along with a third next door, are unique properties in all of the District. They are the only single family homes that are truly waterfront. There are some apartment buildings, like Washington Harbour, that are technically on the water, but no other properties have private backyards that end with a shoreline.

And that uniqueness actually poses the greatest challenge for these lots. This land gets flooded. A lot. And it’s only going to get worse with rising oceans and climate change-driven extreme storms. There is no way you would be able today to build townhouses like the ones that occupy the site right now. You’d have to build in some significant flood-mitigation, like an unoccupied ground floor.

However, that’s not what the developer did. It submitted the plan with no such measures. The plan, as it is, calls for the construction of a 8 units apartment building. The rendering, however, makes it appear that the proposed five story building would only be about 8 feet taller than the third remaining townhouse. In reality, it would be about two stories taller.

Which is fine as far as GM is concerned. We need more housing in Georgetown and can’t keep letting obsessions about current viewsheds keep getting used to thwart all construction. (And in this case there would be literally no view being blocked.) But between the failure to address the floodplain and the ridiculously out-of-scale renderings, it seems fair to conclude that this developer is not up to the challenges this site presents.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The GU Covid situation is not getting better. This week marked the highest cases reported and positivity rate since the beginning of the semester.
• After a $50 million gift, the new Georgetown Hospital wing will be named after Grant Verstandig.