The Georgetown Metropolitan

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown cancelled its Homecoming festivities.
• Somebody is egging pedestrians in west Georgetown.

This week on Georgetown Time Machine, GM is exploring a fantastic photo of Jack’s Boathouse shortly after it first opened. The photo comes courtesy of the fantastic Old Time DC and dates to 1945.

Jack’s Boathouse was created that same year by John “Jack” Baxter, who had been a DC police officer for 11 years prior. From his 1999 obituary:

Mr. Baxter had been a D.C. policeman for 11 years in 1945 when he decided to go into the boating business. His primary beat was Georgetown below M Street, and he kept a canoe hidden along the riverfront. As a boy he had worked at Capt. Julius Wanner’s boathouse, and he knew his way around the neighborhood.

“I liked being on the waterfront. I’d started building boats down here, and the boat business began making so much money that I couldn’t see staying on the police force,” he told The Washington Post in 1995, 50 years after he established Jack’s Boathouse.

With six rowboats that he built himself, Mr. Baxter opened for business, just as World War II in Europe was drawing to a close. The charge was $2 a day. A half century later the rowboat fleet would be augmented by more than two dozen canoes and several motor craft, and the fees would rise to $10 an hour or $25 a day.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• No matter how many articles are written debunking the myth, people hold true to their steadfast belief that rich Georgetown residents blocked the creation of a metro stop in the neighborhood.
• GM will take this opportunity to shamelessly link to his appearance on Kojo to discuss this very topic.

A new farmers market is coming to Volta Park Fridays starting this week. The market will take place from 3pm to 6pm and will last until December 17th.

This will be the fourth farmers market to make a go of it in Georgetown in the recent past. The Rose Park market has been going on for quite a while on Thursday Wednesday nights, and has grown to a robust size in the last several years in particular. The Glover Park-Burleith market ran at Hardy for years (which is technically in Georgetown, not Glover Park or Burleith), but as far as GM understands, it has stopped running permanently. Finally there has been a farmers market at Georgetown University, but it has not started up again yet since covid shut the campus down.

Volta Park generally has good foot traffic, particularly from the tennis and dog sets. So hopefully it will also thrive. Come on out Friday night to check it out!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The ANC resolved to oppose the sidewalk widening and porous pavement.
• Some glimmers of hope for the potential of an eventual Georgetown Metro station.

The shop’s specialty will be small, beautifully crafted bonbons.

Hopefully this shop will break the string of relatively short-lived sweet shops that have occupied this space. After Originals closed around 2010, a froyo shop opened (which cycled through a couple names). After it closed a few years later, Beard Papa’s (a creampuff shop) opened. It too only lasted a few years. Then most recently the Cookie Dough Jar shop opened and closed after a few years.

Bonne chance!

Good morning Georgetown! Sorry for the long August break! Here are some of the stories GM missed:

• The DC council budgeted $10 million to buy the former Key Bridge Exxon property, which would enable it to be used as an electric car charging or a gondola/Metro station. But Rosslyn’s still not terribly interested in a gondola.
• New plan for the former Latham hotel property.
• Jamestown is converting large parts of the former Georgetown mall to residential.