The Georgetown Metropolitan

This edition of Where the Streets Had Old Names, GM is tackling one of the oddest old street names in Georgetown: Road Street. But sadly he couldn’t get to the bottom of it.

Road Street is what is now known as R St. It became R at the same time the other streets changed over in the 1890s. (Although starting in the 1880s, it was already getting called R St. occasionally.)

But what an odd name. Road Street. What could explain this redundant name?

The first thing to note is that it was called Road Street seemingly from the very beginning. There is an act of the City of Georgetown in 1808 referring to the roadway with this name:

That’s notable because being such a northern street for Georgetown, it was very much the backwoods of the neighborhood at the time.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Are you concerned about the situation with Ukraine and Russia? Come to the next Q & A Cafe Feb 22 for a talk with Margaret Brennan of CBS on the topic.
• Great photo of a streetcar passing the old Georgetown Theater in the 1950s.

The cap on tavern liquor licenses in Georgetown looks set to double in the near future. But given the current trends, it might not make much of a difference.

First some law, then some history. Most liquor licenses in DC are issued as restaurant licenses. Since the licenses are meant to be for genuine restaurants, they come with a requirement that the establishment generate at least 45% of its revenues from the sale of food. Taverns, on the other hand, are meant to run as bars primarily. As such, they do not have any food sales requirements. From the perspective of an establishment owner, therefore, tavern licenses are more desirable for places that want to get most of their revenues from sales of beer, wine and liquor.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU’s Covid numbers are spiking again…
• Takeout Tuesday is Los Cuates and City Sliders today. Share your experience for a chance to win a $50 gift card!

Another large retail space is about to become vacant: the CB2 is closing. Its last day of operations with be February 20th. GM is not aware of any tenants planning on taking over the space.

This spin-off from Crate & Barrel first opened in Georgetown in 2011. (It took over a space that was vacant long enough that GM has no records of what preceded it.) This space joins the Gap and Zara (not to mention large parts of the former mall) among the largest vacant gaps in the streetscape.

On the positive side, this space is owned by Eastbanc. And that firm has generally had success leasing out vacant space, either to long term tenants or to one or more short term pop-ups (as we’ve seen in Cady’s Alley). So perhaps it won’t be vacant long. We’ll see.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Last Friday was the 127th anniversary of the end of the independent municipality of Georgetown.
• GM mentioned that it looked like the 7-Eleven was really done last week, and then on Thursday it looks like the last of the remaining equipment was removed as well.

For this edition of Where the Streets had Old Names, GM is going to explore both names of a tiny street. The story of those names and how they came about says a great deal about the history of 20th century Georgetown and the role of gentrification.

The street is now known as Pomander Walk. It’s really an alley, not a street, but it contains ten tiny rowhouses. They were built between 1889 and 1890 and like other alley dwellings, they were built to house domestic workers and other laborers. (Sometimes they are mistakenly described as former homes of enslaved people, but they were built decades after the end of slavery). In the case of this alley, the residents were primarily (if not exclusively) African American.

Despite the homes being so small (approximately 600 square feet each), they were originally split into two, with each floor hosting a different family. At the time of the 1900 Census, the enumerator counted twenty-seven people living in the seven homes he surveyed (GM’s not sure why three of the homes weren’t counted). All of them were black:

The alley was called Bell’s Court. It was named after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, who lived around the corner on what’s now called Volta Place (here’s the story behind that name, by the way). Bell was a large property owner in Georgetown, however building records indicate that the alley was built by someone named F.P. Naylor. Naylor was likely part of the same Naylor family that gave its name to places all over the DC area (e.g. Naylor Road, Naylor Court).

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• There are so many GU students testing positive right now that their conference center that they use to isolate the students is full.
• Petite Souer is hosting a bonbons and bouquets pop-up this Friday for Valentine’s Day.