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Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Another article on Georgetown Visitation’s history with slavery.
• After you read that, this piece on the relationship between religious orders and slavery is worth a read too.

3300 block of M St.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Moby Dick’s promises to reopen next week.
• 23rd and M might be one of the furthest restaurants to claim to be in Georgetown that GM has seen.

C & O Canal

It’s August, news is slow. So GM is filling the gaps with a few old, fun articles of his that you either never read or forgot. Today GM connects Volta Park to Napoleon Bonaparte.:

Would Volta Park exist without Napoleon Bonaparte?

Of course it would. But would it be the same name? Probably not, surprisingly enough.

That’s because Volta Park is named after Volta Place, one of the streets that borders it. Volta Place is named after the Volta Bureau, which stands at 35th and Volta. (Volta Pl. was originally Fourth St., then it was temporarily Q St. before being renamed Volta Pl. circa 1920).

And the Volta Bureau was created by Alexander Graham Bell and named after the Volta Fund, which was Bell’s trust fund he established to study deafness. The trust was funded by and itself named after the Volta Prize, which Bell received in 1880 by the government of France in honor of his inventing the telephone. (It was 50,000 francs, which translates to about $500,000 in today’s money). Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Wolfgang Puck opens new steakhouse in Rosewood Hotel.
• How Jack Evans’s challengers are using the new public financing laws to run.

3300 block of Cady’s Alley

August is here. And it is perhaps the greatest time of year for Georgetown.

Sure, this month is tagged with the “dog days” of summer gibe. And the heat of July is a houseguest with its feet comfortably sprawled on our couch, with its bags not remotely packed upstairs.

And gardens get long in the tooth this month too. Black-eyed Susans wilt. Geraniums burst further out of their pots, knowing the end is near. Petunias get leggy and brown. Even in its overgrown state, an August garden is one succumbing to decay.

And despite the fact that school is still a month away, camps across the city shut down, as if we’re all French and heading off to the Cote D’Azur in our Renaults for four weeks.

But August is still one of the greatest times of year in Georgetown. True, the holiday season fills Georgetown streets with twinkling lights and festive greens. And surely the scent of magnolias and the sight of Yoshinos puts springtime on top. But August is close behind. Continue reading →

Photo by Mike Maguire.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The New York Times writes about Georgetown Visitation’s history with slavery (which GM wrote about back in April).
• ANC chair helps subdue shoplifter at 7-11.

1500 block of Wisconsin Ave.