The Georgetown Metropolitan

Georgetown has too many banks. I’m not sure what the appropriate number of banks is exactly for Georgetown, but it’s fewer than the amount we currently have. This has been a bit of a bugaboo of mine for quite some time. As of late 2019, there were as many as 18 banks in Georgetown. That’s one whole bank for every 500 or so Georgetown residents. If all of DC had that same density of banks, there would be about 1,500 banks in DC. For perspective, there are only six bank branches in all of historic Ward 8 (not counting the wealthy Navy Yard sections that were added to the ward recently).

We’ve made some progress since then. We now have 12 bank branches in Georgetown. The good news is that yet another bank branch closed. The bad news is that it just moved down the street.

The closed branch is that Citibank that has long stood just north of the Safeway on Wisconsin Ave. If anything, you could argue that this was not exactly an egregious case of bank over-saturation: it had been there forever, it was off the beaten path and the neighborhoods to the north and west of Georgetown have few other bank options.

And if that branch’s closing is a mixed blessing, the bad news is not mixed at all. As I previously reported, Citibank has opened a massive new branch in the former Gap store at Wisconsin and N. This is a historical building that once served as a popular theater in the 19th century, once hosting Mark Twain.

It even served as a military prison during the Civil War. (Here’s a great history on the building).

But now it will be just a huge billboard for a bank (with glowing bright TV screens shining their ads through the windows 24/7 and making the purpose of the location clear).

There’s nothing inherently bad about having banks. But when we have so many of them, and when they squat on such prominent properties like this (or the Chase at Wisconsin and P) it becomes a case of the tragedy of the commons. Banks want these locations to take advantage of all the eyeballs of the people walking by who have absolutely no intention on entering their business. They are free-loaders taking advantage of the stores and restaurants that actually draw people to the neighborhood.

It may be that I’m being over-dramatic, but just take a walk by Yellow on a Saturday sometime and count the people in line. Then take a look across the street at the Chase and try to remember whether you have ever seen a single customer enter. If that’s not a gross misallocation of real estate uses, then I don’t know what could be.

Hello and welcome to your April Northwest Georgetown ANC update!

Spring is here! And with the magnolia and cherry blossoms comes the need to sweep them up and take them away. As a reminder, if you have bags of garden waste, you need to place a request with 311 to have the city pick them up. (You also have to make sure to put the waste in paper bags in the first place).

The Department of Public Works has not exactly covered itself in glory with how it has handled leaf and Christmas tree pick up this past year. This service was supposed to happen on a comprehensive basis without the need to call 311. As we all saw, this simply didn’t happen. Leaves and trees remained on the sidewalk for months. The north part of my district (above Q St.) was particularly neglected. While the city did eventually collect the bulk of the leaves and trees, to this day bags and other detritus remain.

During our ANC meeting last night, a representative of the Mayor’s office explained that one of the possible contributing factors to this failure was that the supposedly sophisticated tracking system that was used to ensure total coverage of the all the city’s blocks was unable to distinguish between when the trucks were picking up the leaves and when the trucks were simply driving by. This seems like a fairly obvious flaw that should have been anticipated!

In either event, at this point the best approach to finally getting the bags of leaves to be taken away is to make a 311 request. Sadly, I can tell you that there is currently a three week wait for such requests. I pressed the Mayor’s representative last night for that time to be brought down substantially. With the spring rains we have, the bags cannot hold up that long.

Until that delay comes down, my best advice is for neighbors to organize 311 requests for the block moving forward. If you stagger the requests, multiple houses can put their bags out together and avoid the delay. It’s not an ideal solution by any means, but may be a reasonable hack for an unreasonable situation.

Change in Leadership at the Georgetown Community Partnership

The Georgetown Community Partnership (GCP) does not have the flashiest name. It could be describing almost anything. A book club? A farmer’s market? A small scale insurance company? Of course it’s none of those things. It’s actually one of the most important and successful projects that the Georgetown neighborhood has seen in decades.

The GCP came about as a solution to the acrimonious fights that took place between the neighborhood and the university every ten years due to the school’s campus plan renewals. Essentially what would happen would be that the two sides would duke it out over the renewal (sometimes in court) and then spend the next eight years or so stewing in anger over town gown issues until exploding in another supernova with the subsequent renewal.

Wiser heads finally prevailed with the 2010 renewal process. Rather than letting issues build up over a decade, the new model involved the creation of a standing platform for the school and the neighbors to address the problems while they happen. The steering committee oversees a group of active working groups each tasked with tackling long standing issues that come from a major university and hospital operating in a residential community such as transportation, trash/rodents, an off-campus life.

Most importantly, the steering committee is led by two co-chairs: a VP from the university, and a representative from the ANC. Since the creation of the GCP, the ANC’s representative has been one of my predecessors on the commission, Ron Lewis. The GCP has truly been Ron’s baby, as he was instrumental as ANC chair in its creation. And he has remained dedicated to its success ever since.

To a lesser extent, I was also involved in the creation of the GCP and served on the transportation working group for several years. But it wasn’t until I joined the steering committee as an ANC commissioner that I saw the full scope of the GCP in action and the role Ron played in keeping the ship on a steady course.

But the time has come for Ron to hand off the reins to his successor. The whole ANC is hugely grateful that he has found a worthy (and, more importantly, willing) successor in Rick Murphy. Rick, another long time Georgetown resident and former ANC chair, has large shoes to fill in the role, but the ANC is fully confident in his ability to step in and continue the success that Ron made routine. Thus the ANC designated Rick our co-chair for the GCP at our meeting this week. Best of luck to Rick and congratulations to Ron on his many years of success and well earned retirement!

Volta Park Cleanup This Weekend

There will be a park clean up at Volta Park this Sunday at 8:30. I’ll be there so if you’re itching to give me a piece of your mind, come and join me in picking up trash as you fill me in! There will be a Tunes for Tots session from 10-10:45 following the clean up.

Speaking of Volta Park, Councilmember Brooke Pinto has requested funds in this year’s budget to allow for a renovation of the playground and the installation of a splash pad. Both would be huge improvements for the park. If you would like to see these requests actually funded, reach out to the Mayor to request she include it in her budget proposal!

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Eastbanc condo at M and Pennsylvania finally breaks ground.
• MPD looking for help catching a Lululemon thief.

March lived up to its promise to come in like a lion and out like a lamb, as the creepy AI photo I generated above suggests. So what’s in store for April? How about the April ANC meeting? Which is actually tonight, March 31st, but close enough.

Here are some topics we are going to discuss tonight:

• The possibility of a pilot that would require dockless scooters and bikes to be parked in designated areas
• The possibility that the rush hour traffic rules for Rock Creek could be revoked
• The announcement of a new co-chair of the fabulously successful Georgetown Community Partnership

And more!

Here’s the full agenda:

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Love blossoming on the waterfront.
• Remembering Jill Hinckley of Hinckley Pottery.

I’m officially declaring the arrival of spring, and with that comes the best time to be at Dumbarton Oaks Gardens. So I am reprinting my guide from several years ago about how to make the most of it:

The gardens of Dumbarton Oaks are spectacular throughout the year. But during the spring, they are somehow even more beautiful. But the beauty comes in successive waves. Visit only once a season, and you might miss out. Or even if you do visit at a perfect moment, you might simply miss out on some corner of the gardens that are especially gorgeous that day.

I spend every spring carefully timing his visits to the gardens to maximize the best parts. And its only fair that he share this knowledge with the public. So without further ado, here is a Users Guide to Dumbarton Oaks in the spring.

The guide is broken down by the particular attraction and when to visit to see it. Weather obviously can affect the timing a great deal. So if you are really eager to see one or more of the vernal shows below, it’s best to check it out on the early side and come back again if you’re too early.

Refer to this map on the gardens’ website for where to find the exact locations of the scenes below.

Plum Walk

One of the first displays of spring in the gardens is the Plum Walk. It’s a row of about a dozen plum trees that blossom with strikingly purple flowers. Like many of the items on this list, it is perfect for portraits, particularly of couples. When it’s in bloom, you often find newly engaged couples posing along the walk.

It is typically in bloom early to mid March.

Forsythia Hill

At the far northwest corner of the gardens is a massive planting of forsythia. This shrub breaks out early in the spring with a lively display of yellow. With such a huge area covered with nothing but the plant, it creates a huge wall of the color.

Forsythia is subject to extremely early blooming in the DC area, if there is a stretch of warm weather. I have seen it blooming in sunny spots this year as early as January due to the heat. But Forsythia Hill in Dumbarton Oaks is somewhat tucked away from the sun. Expect it to be in bloom by the first week or two of April.

Saucer Magnolias

Saucer magnolias are one of the harbingers of true spring in DC. Walk on the right blocks at the right time, and your nose is filled with the intoxicating scent of the tree’s lovely pink and white flowers. (Of course, they are also delicate flowers that can be destroyed overnight if a frost hits).

Dumbarton Oaks has several large saucer magnolia trees, primarily along the Box Walk. Wander the gardens and it’s a toss up what will hit you first, the sight or the scent of these fragrant beauties.

The saucer magnolias bloom normally around mid March.

Cherry Blossoms on Cherry Hill

Dumbarton Oaks has one of the most impressive orchards of cherry trees in the area. It is located at the northeast corner of the gardens, overlooking the adjoining Dumbarton Oaks Park.

The gently sloping hillside is a perfect spot to lie on the grass and stare at the little puffs of flowers above. Even when the hill is crowded with people seeking the same serene experience, the grove is peaceful.

The cherries bloom the same time they do all over the area, which is generally late March into early April.

Cherry Blossom Snowfall

Catching the cherries at peak bloom is great. But the real show comes the week after, when the blossom come down in a blizzard of dropping petals.

It’s tough to time it just right, as it might fall midweek when you’re stuck at work, but if you catch it just right, it’s a real treat.

Tulips

The elegant herbaceous border garden comes alive in mid April, when its scores of tulips are on display.

Wisteria

I have been using a lot of superlatives here. And they’ve all been justified. But I struggle to come up with adequately intensified adjectives to describe the wisteria vines at Dumbarton Oaks. Words simply fail.

They appear at several spots around the garden, including outside the Orangery, and along the lawn directly behind the main house. But the densest grouping is in the Pebble Garden. Ancient, thick and gnarled vines weave through the garden’s screens and create a wall of purple, dangling grape-like clusters of flowers. The scent rivals the magnolias for sweetness. And swarms of bees descend to get drunk off the nectar.

The wisteria typically blooms in late April.

Hopefully this guide will help you take most advantage of the best that spring has to offer at Dumbarton Oaks. But really, any trip there will be worthwhile.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• My Little Chamomile, opened last night.
• I’m going out of town next week, so no updates till I get back the following week.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out another photo from the DC Historical Society’s archives. Like last week, it’s a photo from the John Wymer collection. This is an incredible collection of street photos taken by Wymer all over DC around 1950. This particular shot is of the Hebrew Academy, which stood in the former Curtis School on O St.

I’ve discussed the Curtis School many times in the past as it’s probably the “lost” Georgetown building I miss most of all. It was the first school building built on the education campus between O and P Streets. It was constructed in 1875 and had a striking Second Empire design:

This is what I’ve written previously about the history of the building:

Curtis school was designed by the great Washington architect Adolph Cluss, who designed Eastern Market and thirteen other DC school buildings, including the historic Franklin School. It was named after William Wallace Curtis, who was president of the Board of Trustees for Georgetown (which ran Georgetown’s public schools when it was its own municipality).

It was quite large, as you can see in the photo above. It was three stories tall, plus an ample mansard roof. The tower rose even higher. And it was built to be more than just a school. It was built to be home to the Peabody Library, a public library funded by a $15,000 donation by George Peabody in 1867. This fund was supplemented by an even larger $50,000 donation from Edward Linthicum (the owner of Dumbarton Oaks). The city of Georgetown kicked in roughly $35,000 more to build the school building with the Peabody Library inside. You can even see the sign for the library on the left side of the building in the photo above.

But even with the library and all the classrooms, Curtis still had room. And the school administrators took up that space. Throughout the last part of the 19th century, Bernard T. Janney ran the fifth school division out of Curtis (Janney School is named after him).

And in 1890, the newly formed Western High School also took up space in Curtis. (If you’re wondering where the elementary school kids fit in, they probably got mostly switched over to the Addison School next door, which opened a few years earlier.) Western High School remained for eight years until its home on 35th St. was opened (the current Duke Ellington School).

Like all the other school buildings in Georgetown, Curtis ran into enrollment challenges in the 20th century. In the 1920s, it was merged with Addison and Hyde. Hyde taught the youngest kids, Addison the middle aged kids, and Curtis was converted into a vocational high school. That didn’t last. Addison was closed for being obsolete in 1944. And two years later Curtis was closed. It was briefly leased out to the Hebrew Academy. But it was torn down in 1951.

The Hebrew Academy is now known as the Berman Hebrew Academy, located in Rockville. It was founded in 1944. Here is an article from two years later, when the school took over the abandoned Curtis School:

The school next moved to a location in 16th St. Heights:

There was a debate in 1951 whether to keep the building:

But ultimately the decision was taken to tear it down. It stood where the Hyde-Addison playground is, so it should be said that generations of school children enjoyed a much larger playground than they would have if the school were saved. So I can’t be too sore about it….

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Thai pop-up coming to redesigned Hamilton Court property.
• Georgetown University announces reduced admissions and other resources for fired federal workers.

Victoria’s Secret is coming to 1220 Wisconsin Ave., according to plans filed with the Old Georgetown Board. The building has been one of the longer term vacancies on this stretch. Massimo Dutti closed a location here around 2019 and it’s been vacant ever since.

Not much more to add here other than to note this is somewhat of an outlier for recent retail openings in Georgetown. For years now, retailers opening here have been overwhelmingly coming from the DTC (direct to consumer) field. These are companies that start off selling straight to customers via the internet before opening their own brick and mortar shops. Victoria’s Secret is classic mall fodder, i.e. the type of store Georgetown has been moving away from. It’s an improvement over a perennially vacant space, though, that’s for sure.

There is one more notable item from the OGB materials. Some store called “The Tox” is coming to 3001 M St.:

This appears to be a business that will occupy the second story of the property (with the Mykita store remaining). The company’s website says it provides “body sculpting through lymphatic drainage” which sounds genuinely sketchy to me. Honestly, it sounds like a service you should not be using without a thorough consultation with an actually licensed medical professional.