The Georgetown Metropolitan

A new mural has been painted on the north side of the Los Cuates building (1564 Wisconsin). It honors the indigenous Wixárika people of the southwest United States and Mexico. The artist, Victor “Marka27” Quinonez, described the inspiration for the mural in an Instagram post:

Featured in this mural is an indigenous Wixárika Elder with ingredients used in many native cultures, blue maiz and guajillo peppers…The Huichol or Wixárika are an indigenous people of Mexico and the United States living in the Sierra Madre Occidental range in the states of Nayarit, Jalisco, Zacatecas, and Durango, as well as in the United States in the states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.

The mural was erected as part of the city’s Murals DC program, which has facilitated a boom of similarly artistic murals around DC. This wall had previously sported a more subtle painting of a ginger flower in connection with the former Red Ginger restaurant that occupied the building before Los Cuates. This new mural continues that connection between the art, culture and the cuisine.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• CAG is hosting a “Welcome Back Georgetown” community picnic this Sunday at Rose Park from 4-7pm.
• GU’s Covid positive test rates ticked up this week. There were 47 positive results this week, compared with 17 last week.

The Friends of Volta Park are bringing back their Fall Festival this October 2nd. The event (previously known as Volta Park Day) will feature live music, food, carnival games, a bounce house, face painting and more. It will run in the park from 11 am to 2 pm.

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!