Category Archives: Uncategorized

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Tree forum informs about trees.
• Did you know that the new M.M LaFleur is also a bookstore?

The Boys and Girls Clubs of Greater Washington are fighting to keep funding for the critical afterschool program at Jelleff Rec Center in this year’s DC budget. The funding, which totals $600k, is being cut on the premise that the construction will be moving forward at Jelleff next year and thus the program cannot be offered. This premise is possibly doubly flawed. For one, there is no gaurantee that the construction will move forward next year. We’ve seen time and again projects like this get delayed, years at a time. Second, even if the construction moves forward, the after school program is nonetheless critically needed. Organizers are currently searching for a replacement location for the year (possibly at Hardy School itself) and that funding would be the difference between that happening or not.

Please see the plea below sent out by the Boys and Girls Club and reach out to your councilmembers to ensure this funding is restored!:

A massive donated book sale will be coming to the Georgetown Library the weekend of June 15th. Here are the details:

Giant June 15-16 sale of donated books at Georgetown Neighborhood Library, 3260 R St. NW.  Special collections on Japanese art and culture, royal families of Europe, Ernest Hemingway. Extensive selection of history and biography as well as fiction and other nonfiction. Saturday, June 15, Georgetown Library Friends admitted 10-11 am (memberships available at the door); public hours 11-3 pm: hardbacks $4, paperbacks $2. Sunday, June 16, 1-3 pm: all books half price or fill a regular-sized shopping bag for $10. Scanners allowed. Cash, check, Venmo and Zelle accepted.
Questions? Email gtownlibfriends@gmail.com.

Come on out bookworms!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU might buy a part of TikTok??
• Great old photo of Georgetown from a rustic Rosslyn at the turn of the 20th century.

A Louisiana-based fast food chain is seeking to open at 3249 M St., according to a signage application filed with the Old Georgetown Board. The restaurant, Raising Cane’s, sells chicken fingers. That’s not from the children’s menu. That’s literally the entire menu.

The chain, created in Baton Rouge in the 90s, has expanded to over 700 stores. This would be the second location in the District, after a Union Station location opened recently.

The thing is, though, that the zoning rules in Georgetown don’t actually allow fast food restaurants to open. This is what the zoning code says:

M St. is in the MU-4 zone. But what’s “fast food” you might ask? Well the zoning code has that covered too:

I think it’s fairly clear that Raising Cane’s fits this definition. The tricky part is, don’t other restaurants also fit in to this definition? Most chain restaurants that have grown a lot over the last decade or so often fall into the “fast casual” definition. That category name comes from the merger of “casual dining” and “fast food”. Casual dining is the category of restaurants that provide cheaper food in less formal environments, but with the traditional table service model. Think Olive Garden or Pizza Hut. Fast casual emerged by taking the heightened cuisine (at least as compared with traditional fast food) and combining it with the faster pay-at-the-cashier model of fast food.

Restaurants that clearly fall into the fast casual model have opened in Georgetown without obtaining a zoning waiver since that category emerged. In fact, one of the quintessential fast casual restaurants (Sweet Green) was founded in Georgetown. But I think it would be a stretch to call Raising Cane’s a fast casual restaurant. Put it this way, while you could argue that restaurants like Greco or Good Stuff Eatery fall under the fast food definition of the zoning code, if Raising Cane’s doesn’t fall into the definition then nothing counts as fast food anymore.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Final public meetings on the transportation study this week.
• Raising Cane’s seeks to open on M St. (more on this later)

Friends of Volta Park’s annual spring cocktail party fundraiser will be held at the George Town Club on Saturday June 1st. from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm. Tickets (including raffle tickets!) are available for purchase here.

This is one of the most important fundraisers of the year for FOVP and always a great time for all the neighbors. So come on out!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Reminder: Last public meetings for the Georgetown transportation study next week.
• M.M. LaFleur now open in the former 7-Eleven space.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m exploring an interesting image that gives a glimpse of an entirely vanished part of Georgetown’s past. In the words of its description:

Barn On Georgetown Heights A View of 2 Barns And Fencing. One Barn At the Left Has a Small Extension Attached To It. Barn At Right Sits Atop Wall Footings, Creating an Open Space Below It.

The drawing comes from the Winfield Scott Clime collection at the DC Historical Society. It is dated to June 29, 1913.

Of course I immediately wondered where exactly this is depicting. Georgetown Heights could mean a couple different places. Firstly, it can refer to the northeastern parts of Georgetown proper, basically north of Q St., east of Wisconsin Ave. But I’m not sure there were barns up in this part of Georgetown that late. Here’s a map of the area a few years later in 1919:

It already had the urban layout that it carries to this day. So it doesn’t seem too likely that the barns were here (of course it’s possible, just not likely).

The other more likely possibility is that this was actually somewhere in what we now call Burleith or Glover Park. Before these neighborhoods were developed as neighborhoods in their own right, they were simply the rural outskirts of Georgetown. And it would be perfectly normal to refer to these hinterlands in 1913 as Georgetown Heights.

Despite this conclusion, this drawing nonetheless offers a fascinating window into Georgetown’s rural past. While the main part of Georgetown was pretty much always developed with an urban form, the areas outside the central part were quite rural at times. There were even small farms west of Georgetown University into the 20th century. This drawing takes us to those days.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Grace Street Coffee now open on the part of K St. that is also called Water St. So don’t let street names confuse you too much!
• Business ins and outs.