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A new mural will be unveiled next week (July 20th to be exact) in Georgetown. It will be the work of the Bring Our Families Home organization and it will be aimed at spreading the word about the dozens of Americans being held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad. The mural is going up on a wall in the alleyway between Levain Bakery and the former Ri Ra.

From the organization’s press release:

The mural, designed and installed by Iowan artist Isaac Campbell, will use the wheat paste technique to capture the faces of 18 Americans held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad. According to the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, there are actually 64 publicly known cases of Americans being held hostage or wrongfully detained around the world. Given families are often reluctant to publicize or inform the U.S. government that their loved ones have been taken, there are likely even more. With this public mural, families of American hostages and wrongful detainees hope to increase attention to the plight of their loved ones, to educate the public about hostage diplomacy, and to create community advocacy that will encourage the Biden administration to use all tools available to them to urgently bring them home.

GM understands that the organizers are hoping that residents and passersby will participate in applying the mural to the wall as a part of the outreach. So stop on by in the days leading up to it to see if you can give a hand!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The soon to be ex-Nike store can be yours for the right price!
• GM’s got a new adorable foster cat if you’re looking for a new furry family member.

In writing his article yesterday, GM discovered that there are a new set of old Georgetown matchbooks for sale on Ebay. He wrote about a similar collection last November. Here are the new ones available:

The first is seen above. It’s for Tom Ross’ Charcoal Hearth. It once stood where the Citibank is, just north of the Safeway. It appears to have been open as early as the early 1960s, as this menu from 1962 suggests:

Here’s a bit from a 1969 review in the Washington Post:

An obituary from 1987 suggests that the restaurant may have moved to Arlington at some point:

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Some signage discouraging drivers from driving west of 34th on Water St.
• What a great place to celebrate Bastille Day!

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, GM is checking out a postcard again. The postcard comes from an Ebay listing. It shows the steamboat Bartholdi plying the Potomac.

The back of the postcard offers a bit more information:

The small notes indicate that the card is actually only from 1977. The credits say: “The steam launch Bartholdi on the Potomac River near Georgetown College, ca. 1900. (Courtesy of the D.C. Public Library, Washingtonia Division)”

This is not the first time GM has discussed a boat named Bartholdi. Last year he discussed the Bartholdi powerboat, that ran on the canal:

The boats appear to be different, as you would expect, since canal boat and river boats had different jobs. (For one, a river boat would probably have too deep a hull to ride in the canal.) In fact, in GM’s previous article, a source specifically discusses the fact that there was another boat at the time also called the Bartholdi.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Tomorrow the Q & A Cafe dives into the history of Gay DC.
• Everything you need to know about the Fringe Festival, which is taking place in Georgetown this month.

When Eastbanc President Anthony Lanier talks about the state of Georgetown retail and real estate, it always worth a listen. And on Tuesday night, Lanier spoke of both during the July ANC meeting. The soapbox was offered to him as part of the ANC’s monthly effort to hear from commercial tenants and landlords about how they view the outlook for Georgetown’s retail corridors.

And despite the doom and gloom that many are observing and/or predicting for the neighborhood, Lanier is mostly sun and opportunity. He started off the talk with an overarching theme that wove through his whole brief discussion: “rather than looking at all the vacancies as a black mark on Georgetown, we should look at it as an opportunity to escape sameness.” To escape the homogeneity that our commercial corridors have largely succumbed to (i.e. it’s just an outdoor mall) Lanier hails “new and innovative retailers, so few of which exist” that Georgetown should try to attract with all the empty space.

Lanier then gave some examples of how Eastbanc was trying to put that advice into practice. He cited Showfields, which is moving into the former Brooks Brothers. It is essentially a small department store, where new and small retailers are giving a small space in the building with short leases in order to test the DC market. He also mentioned Glossier, a cosmetics store that is moving into the old Sephora at 3065 M St.

Most excitedly, Lanier announced that the refurbishment of the Zara building at the corner of Prospect and Wisconsin will be done by the end of the year and five new tenants will move in, where two were before. (Lanier didn’t mention who the new tenants were, but signage on the building already is promising Wolford, an Austrian clothing store.)

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Nice video on the trestle bridge that WMATA wants to tear down instead of restoring as a pedestrian bridge.
• Former GU tennis coach gets two years in connection with Varsity Blues scandal.