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Georgetown Waterfront

This week for Now and a Long Time Ago, GM is mining the wonderful archive that is the Wymer’s archive from the DC Historical Society. The photo he’s starting with is a view of the old Peck Memorial Presbyterian Chapel at the intersection of Pennsylvania and M St.

GM has visited this building before. Here’s what it looked like from the west:

GM wrote that the church was torn down in 1951 and replaced with the gas station that remains there today. What GM didn’t realize was that there was already a gas station on the lot. It was a Lord Baltimore filling station, which was a regional company with many locations. The larger service station that replaced the church a few years later was also a Lord Baltimore station, and was given an award by the Progressive Citizens Association of Georgetown for beautification in 1953:

A couple of things are interesting about this side note. For one, GM should explain that the Progressive Citizens Association of Georgetown is one of the parent organizations of the Citizens Association of Georgetown. Unlike the original Georgetown Citizens Association, the Progressive Citizens Association of Georgetown allowed women to join. The two organizations merged in 1962 to become the Citizens Association of Georgetown.

Secondly, what’s interesting is that CAG awarded the gas station for “beautification” which is a curious thing to say about a service station that existed only because an historic church was torn down first. Continue reading →

Photo by Anthony Gonzales Reyes.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Keep an eye out for this bike, it was stolen from a Georgetowner.
• Bourbon Steak is going Hawaiian this summer.

1200 block of 30th St.

As part of its update to its Transportation Plan for the Circulator, DDOT is proposing to cancel the Wisconsin Ave. leg of the Georgetown-Union Station route. It is a move the agency has proposed multiple times in the past, and it would be very bad for Georgetown residents.

Right now the Circulator comes up Wisconsin Ave. from K St. and continues past M St. all the way up to Whitehaven. Since a large portion of Georgetowners live closer to the stops on Wisconsin than to M St., this provides residents with access to the route.

But DDOT hates this leg. It has proposed cutting it multiple times in the past. For instance, back in 2009 the agency tried to kill the leg, and it took intervention from Mayor Fenty to save it.

The logic behind the animosity is that this leg does not get the ridership to justify its cost. As a result, the subsidy-per-rider is high. This is true, as far as things go, but the subsidy to this leg is nothing compared to, for instance, the subsidy for the Navy Yard or Skyland routes. But since those lines have powerful defenders on the Council, DDOT will keep them chugging along. Continue reading →

Photo by Joe Flood.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Yesterday was the anniversary of the demise of the City of Georgetown.
• Free mint on 31st St.

3400 block of Volta Pl.

CityLab published an article yesterday discussing the great life’s work of DC resident from the last century: John P. Wymer. As a personal hobby, Wymer spent thousands of hours between 1948 to 1952 charting the geography of the District and taking thousands of photos. After decades of the photos being hidden away, the work of a dedicated librarian is making them available again.

Wymer ultimately took 4,000 photos of average life around DC. Jessica Richardson Smith, the librarian, is meticulously digitalizing these photos and merging them with Google Streetview to enable you to quickly place all the photos on the map. She has already digitalized about half of the photos and the map can be found here. Continue reading →

Photo by Bill Starrels.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Luke Russert was at the ANC meeting the other night, rallying against the Key Bridge Exxon development.
• What’s the future of retail in Georgetown?

3200 block of Reservoir St.