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This week for now and a long time ago, GM returns to the Wymer Map collection for a great shot of Grace St.

Much hasn’t changed between the 1940s and today. The buildings along the right appear almost all the same. However, the building that currently holds the Patagonia was actually built in the 70s, and it appears there was another building immediately to the west that no longer exists.

The building that now houses Chaia tacos was at the time of the older photo occupied by G. Morris Steinbraker & Sons. In fact, they built the building in 1945, only a few years before the photo was taken. This family-owned contractor incredibly continued to use this building as a woodworking shop until a few years ago.

The family still owns the building and is renting it to the restaurant. Continue reading →

Photo by Bill Starrels.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Guide for Georgetown restaurants.
• New farmstand coming to the parking lot at Grace and Wisconsin. Hopefully they’ll have more luck than the farmer’s market at P and Wisconsin, which isn’t coming back.

Potomac River

As GM wrote in June, the city is proposing to chop the Wisconsin Ave. leg of the Circulator bus. GM reflexively rejected this proposal. And perhaps that’s the correct position, but there are some possible alternatives that could make it a worthwhile trade off. Let GM know what you think of them.

The city’s argument (as expressed by DDOT) for ending Circulator service up Wisconsin Ave. is that it is causing the entire line to fail. The original promise of the Circulator was that it would come every ten minutes. It does not meet that goal anymore. And the city largely blames traffic on Wisconsin Ave. for that failure. If the bus turned around at M St., DDOT argues, it would gain back a lot of the time lost.

Additionally, DDOT argues that the supposedly ridership on Wisconsin Ave. further justifies cutting it.

As GM mentioned, his initial reaction was to reject this proposal. If any traffic is hurting the Circulator on Wisconsin, it’s mostly coming from below M (and along K) and cutting service above M won’t address that. Additionally, ridership is always worse at the end of a line, particularly one that doesn’t end at a node. Maybe if the city complied with the Council’s legislation that ordered the line extended to the Cathedral, ridership would pick up. Continue reading →

Photo by Joe Flood.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Nice piece on Gypsy Sally’s.
• GM tried Blue Bottle last week. Eh. It was fine, but not really worth the price or wait.

1600 block of 31st St.

This morning a family of ducklings made their way from upper Georgetown all the way down to the river:

Continue reading →

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• DONUTS COMING TO VIA UMBRIA.
• Georgetown has 8 of the 16 oldest homes in DC. (Which frankly is more a testament to how many original homes in Georgetown were torn down over the years. Georgetown ought to have 100 of the top 100 oldest homes, really.)

2700 block of P St.

The ANC would typically be taking the summer off, but they announced a special meeting for August 9th at 5:00 pm. The commission hasn’t released an agenda for the meeting, but GM believes the purpose of the meeting is for the body to vote on one or more projects that need input before the next scheduled meeting in September.

Separately, the ANC has formed a new ad hoc committee to address concerns over the Hyde-Addison construction. They wrote:

On July 20th ANC Commissioner Rick Murphy convened a working group to proactively deal with the Hyde-Addison School Construction Project. ANC Commissioner Murphy included Community leaders; Hazel Denton, Leslie Maysak and Constance Chatfield-Taylor. ANC Commissioner Murphy brought in DCPS/DGS representatives and the MCN General Contractor. This robust meeting achieved substantive and concrete results which will allow for an efficient and commonsense approach to the construction process. This ongoing working group is committed to providing the public with transparency, real time answers and accountability.

The ANC clearly doesn’t know how to take a summer break.