Category Archives: Uncategorized

1500 block of 33rd St.

Thanks to an astute reader, GM is now aware of some more of the insane plans that would have utterly demolished a huge swath of Georgetown had they been enacted.

The two additional renderings show more of what the new streetscape would look like. And it’s 100% straight from the City Beautiful playbook. It would call for a grand new boulevard lined with dramatic new civic buildings. Here’s some closer looks:

The landing of the Key Bridge would have a grandiosity that would make Albert Speer blush: Continue reading →

Photo by Bill Starrels.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Falafel, Inc. makes Food and Wine magazine.
• Mark Ein has his moment.

3200 block of O St.

A common refrain you’ll hear from longer time Georgetown residents is that the neighborhood isn’t what it once was. GM doesn’t have to list all the old stores or restaurants that people miss. Or any other neighborhood amenity lost to history.

What GM would like to suggest today is that maybe Georgetown is somehow less than the sum of its parts. In other words, when considered as an entire neighborhood, there are countless complaints about what it lacks or has in excess. But people rarely experience the entire neighborhood on any sort of a regular basis. If most residents are like GM, they spend most of their time in the neighborhood within 5-7 blocks or so.

And when you start breaking up Georgetown into some natural groupings around that premise, you end up with seven smaller “neighborhoods”. And each is distinct from the others with impressive strengths and unique drawbacks. So maybe Georgetown as a whole is great, and maybe it isn’t. But the seven sub-neighborhoods are pretty great when judged on their own.

GM came up with a map, seen above, with these seven sub-neighborhoods. Is it a perfect map reflecting all residents’ views? Of course not. But it is GM’s best guess. Suggest your own changes below if you’d like! Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Commission of Fine Arts approves some additional changes to the new hospital building.
• Bourbon Steak (a restaurant inside the Four Seasons) wants to be more budget-friendly. Tall order.

1200 block of Wisconsin Ave.

Photo by Dan McQuade.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• This is such a funky house on one of the most deserted streets in Georgetown. It’s yours for $2.5m.
• Georgetown ANC chair on Kojo yesterday to talk dockless bikeshare.

1500 block of 28th St.

A little over two years ago, GM came across an image in the archives of the Library of Congress that was a bit alarming. It was a map of a proposed “Francis Scott Key Boulevard” which would run from the Key Bridge down M St. to Pennsylvania Ave. This is the image:

As you can see, this plan would call for a large traffic circle where Key Bridge meets M St. M St. would be replaced by a grand boulevard interspersed with three different medians. All of Georgetown from N St. south would, apparently, be destroyed.

There have been a variety of plans floated that would call for the construction of highways through downtown DC. Thankfully most of them were stopped. But none of those plans called for anything like this for Georgetown. (Most simply used the Whitehurst Freeway, which would have been attached to an expressway to the west that would cross the Potomac at a new Three Sisters Bridge and link up to the GW Parkway near Spout Run.) Continue reading →