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Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Second most expensive condo sold in DC this year (so far) was along Georgetown waterfront.
• Call Your Mother zoning decision was delayed to September.

It’s that time again, I’m providing (and slightly updating) my annual Intern’s Guide to Georgetown:

As year-round Washingtonians know, it’s that time of year again. Eager young interns will soon arrive in earnest droves to fill those couple inches on their resumes between their GPAs and their “other interests”. Many of these interns will be drawn to live and/or play in Georgetown. I publish the below crash course for interns each year:

To Live:

There’s a movement to pay interns more, in order to allow a wider swath of the population to participate in career enhancing experiences. But that said, if you’re an intern you’re still probably living on little to no pay. Can you afford to live in Georgetown? Maybe. But you’ll have to look hard. You’re young, so you probably can’t even remember a time before Craigslist, so no need mention that. But there are other places to look too. The City Paper still has decent listings, but for the short term rentals that you’re probably looking for you may try off campus housing listings like you’ll find here. I’ve also heard good things about Facebook Marketplace. Good luck.

To Eat:

The Safeway should be on your weekly checklist. You can load up on groceries without going totally broke. For some variety, go to the newly re-opened Whole Foods in Glover Park, or the Trader Joe’s just up the block from the Safeway. Or you could sign up for Carsharing and head out to Costco at Pentagon City to really make your dollar go far.

Restaurants in Georgetown get a bad wrap. But there are plenty of relatively cheap options for a weekly night out. Here are some of GM’s old reliable options:

• Mexican – Los Cuates
• Falafel – Falafel, Inc.
• Pizza – Pizzeria Paradiso
• Spanish – Bodega

When your parents come to visit and are paying the bill, make a reservation at Chez Billy Sud or, if you’re a traditionalist, 1789.

To Work:

There are over twelve bus lines that go through Georgetown. They all come pretty frequently, particularly during rush hour. The main crosstown corridors are Q St. to Dupont and M St. to Foggy Bottom. Get yourself a Smartrip Card and put on about $70 month and you’ll be set.

Georgetown also has ten different Capital Bikeshare stations around the neighborhood. Of course there are now dockless bikeshare and e-scooter options too. (The best way to browse them all is to install the Transit app.) The best thing about bikeshare is that unlike riding your own bike, you don’t have to worry about getting the bike home at night. You can ride to work in the morning, then go out drinking as interns are wont to do and you can walk or take a cab home.

To Play:

GM doubts you need much advice from some barely-still-a-30– sadly 40-something where to find intern-friendly bars. You’ll find them. The only advice GM has on that account is to branch out from Georgetown. Although nowadays even that is advice that 20-somethings hardly need to hear from some middle aged guy. That said, if you are looking for tips for places beyond Georgetown, the obvious locations are 14th St. (I recommend Bar Pilar, Churchkey, and Etto), Shaw (Dacha is a fun beer garden, but really crowded, I also recommend the Passenger, and Right Proper), and H St. (hit the Pug). Finally, check out the new Wharf development, especially the Anthem.

Beyond booze, there’s plenty of fun stuff to do in Georgetown. Check out these ideas:

Rent a Boat – The Key Bridge Boat House on K St. below Key Bridge will rent you a canoe or kayak for a cheap price. Grab a picnic and head over to Roosevelt Island for lunch sometime. Thompsons Boat House is another option. They offer rowing shells on top of kayaks and canoes. If you’re experienced, they’ll let you rent them. If you want to learn, they offer week-long classes after which you’ll be certified to row. But you need to be an early riser!

Play Some Sports – There are tennis courts all over Georgetown. Try Volta Park (34th and Q), Rose Park (27th and O), or Montrose Park (Avon Pl. and R). The newly renovated Montrose Park courts are definitely the nicest, but the Rose Park courts are also in great shape, but both of them can get crowded. The Volta courts are less crowded but not nearly as nice. Beyond tennis, Volta Park and Rose Park both have basketball courts and small ballfields. Finally, go to Volta Park or Jelleff to cool off in the pool.

Hang out – The Georgetown Waterfront Park is a great place to spend an afternoon. Bring a book and a Frisbee and spend a few hours here. Also, make sure to stop by Dumbarton Oaks at least once this summer.

To Read:

Of course you should read the Georgetown Metropolitan for all your Georgetown news. But since you probably don’t know what an ANC is, you may want to branch out to the links on the right for other Georgetown and DC blogs. DCist is a must RIP!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• A nice write-up of the Call Your Mother fracas.
• Post CEO moving in to Avon Lane.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I felt like sharing this charming drawing of the neighborhood. It comes from the DC Historical Society. It dates to around 1860 and it was published by Charles Magnus, a famous mid-19th century lithograph publisher.

It’s not exactly a photo-realistic depiction of Georgetown, of course. But it does nonetheless convey the feeling of how bustling and urban the neighborhood already was at this point in its history. This may be depicting Georgetown at the peak of its identity as an active port town. You can see both steamships and sailboats plying its shores. (If you want a photorealistic depiction of this era of tallships in Georgetown, look no further than this spectacular 1865 photo:

But there’s something a bit more charming about the lithograph…

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Fete de la Musique coming June 21st.
• No decision from the BZA on Call Your Mother yesterday, despite hours of testimony…

The Board of Zoning Adjustment is about to start their public meeting. On the agenda is the application for Call Your Mother to remain at its current location at 35th and O St. (read here for background).

If you would like to watch on, go here for instructions on how to view the meeting. Please note that the Call Your Mother item is at the end of the agenda, after at least six other matters. So it probably won’t be actually discussed for a while.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Quick summary on the Call Your Mother zoning fight.
• Reminder: Giant donated book sale this Saturday at the library.

St. Mary’s Hall is a building on the northeastern end of the Georgetown University campus. It’s been there since it opened in 1956 (there was an earlier St. Mary’s Hall on Prospect St.) St. Mary’s is primarily the home of the Nursing and Health schools of GU, but it also houses the mathematics and computer science departments.

And it’s looking absolutely fantastic these days.

With the opening of the new grassy square between the building and Reservoir Rd, St. Mary’s looks so much more inviting and collegiate than it did just a few years ago.

What did it look like before?

Like this:

When fields build for cars get replaced with fields build for humans, it’s genuinely jarring to look back at the previous use and believe that people were ok with it. And this particular field for cars has been marring the view of St. Mary’s for as much as sixty years. You have to go back to around 1964 to see how the original plan was laid out:

A similar experience occurs when you’re reminded what the Georgetown Waterfront used to look like not that long ago:

The transformation of St. Mary’s is not on the level of the transformation of the Georgetown Waterfront, but it’s in the same ballpark. So next time you’re walking down Reservoir Rd., pause and take in the view and see what is possible when we prioritize people over cars.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Dancing classes return to the waterfront Tuesday nights this summer.
• Tudor Place honors Tom Birch.

Above you’ll see a bluish gray Ford Bronco. This new style of Bronco is eye-catching. And that is especially true with the bright white wheels.

I know it’s eye-catching because it caught my eye on Thursday while I was walking my foster dog. And then it caught my eye on Friday. And then, once again on Saturday. And each time it’s been in the exact same place along 35th St.

And it’s a perfect example of a problem that has been deviling me since I started on the ANC. That’s because this car has Maryland plates. And it doesn’t have a visitors parking pass. And yet it also doesn’t have a single parking ticket sitting in its windshield wiper. Whoever it is who owns this car has successfully parked it in this spot for at least three straight days without getting a parking ticket.

There’s nothing particularly special about this car. We have all seen out of state cars parked well past the two-hour limit over-and-over again without seeing any pink tickets applied. The only thing that is notable about this car is that it is literally notable due to its style. And yet it didn’t catch the eye of any DPW ticketing authority.

As Commissioner, I’ve had meeting after meeting with representatives from DPW pleading with them to please start enforcing the parking rules. Ever since the pandemic in particular, people have learned that there simply is no risk in parking all day long in Georgetown. The response from DPW is always that they’re doing their best and everyone across the city is asking them for the exact same thing. It’s frustrating and exhausting.

What the city is promising is a significant increase in the number of automatic license plate readers. These are scanners on the DPW cars that can log every car on the block simply by driving down it. This is a huge improvement over the manual method that currently reigns, whereby the ticketing officer has to enter each car manually into the system. And then do it again at least two hours later before they can give a ticket. With an automated reader, an officer can scan their whole beat in a fraction of the time it currently takes.

Right now the city has ten license plate readers for the whole city. They will soon have 100. That’s a huge jump, but I’m still not sure it’s sufficient to get us to the point where people (particularly those from the region) have any genuine fear that they will get a parking ticket in Georgetown if they park all day (or all many days). Even when they have an eye-catching brand new Ford Bronco with sparkling white wheels.