The Georgetown Metropolitan

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Eastbanc files for zoning relief extension to move forward long delayed building at Pennsylvania and M St.
• Leadership changes around the neighborhood.

Hello and welcome to your March Northwest Georgetown ANC update!

Leaf and Tree Pickup Update

Last month I discussed the atrocious job the Department of Public Works (DPW) did in terms of collecting leaves and Christmas trees. Based upon reports I’ve heard and from walking around, the city did finally come and collect most of the leaves and trees in the past week. But I’ve observed at least a few spots that they still have overlooked. At this point, I don’t believe they will be back with large crews. So if there are still leaves or trees outside your house, I would recommend you call 311. I’ve also noticed that they missed some wreaths or garlands. I would recommend just throwing those in the trash at this point. Of course it would be better if they were composted, but I wouldn’t count on the city taking them away.

I generally try to cut DPW some slack. It is a hard job, particularly for the front line workers themselves. But the performance of the agency has definitely slipped over the last year or so. I recently expressed that concern to our Councilmember, and I encourage others to reach out to the mayor and council to let them know what we have been seeing from this critical agency recently. Hopefully some more attention to this will lead to improvements.

Dealing With Chronically Dangerous Drivers

Several weeks ago two cars collided in the intersection of 33rd and Q. I was there to observe the immediate aftermath. It appears that there were no serious injuries, but the incident points to the difficulties that the city faces getting dangerous drivers off the roads. The car that hit the other car has a long string of unpaid speeding and red light tickets. With the adoption of the STEER Act, the city has moved to make it easier for cars like this to be booted and towed (read more here on that). But bizarrely, the law does not require that the police to check whether a car is subject to towing when that car is involved in a crash like this. The police can do so, but they aren’t required. And it appears that in this case they didn’t. The car with all the tickets is still sitting on the street. I’ve called 311 myself to report it, but it still remains.

The DC Attorney General’s office used the STEER ACT recently to sue some Maryland residents for have ridiculously large unpaid fines. That’s great progress, but this crash demonstrates how a great number of dangerous drivers are still moving around DC with impunity.

Restaurant Changes

A couple new restaurants are opening in our neck of the woods. The first is a familiar name. The former Oki Bowl has moved up the street to the former Jaco Taco space. It will now be called Oki Shoten. I am working through their liquor license application. One possible concern is that they are seeking the ability to host live music. I am still trying to ascertain what they have in mind and will seek a settlement agreement that will address issues like noise, trash, hours, etc.

The other restaurant is from the same group. It is a high end sushi restaurant called Koryouri Urara. It will served omakase sushi, which is basically chef’s choice sushi. They are seeking a liquor license as well, and I will be working with them on also securing an appropriate settlement agreement.

Oki Shoten is already open. Koryouri Urara will not be open until closer to summertime, I believe.

French Market Road Closures

As part of the popular French Market in late April, the organizers are proposing a few small road closures. They are designed to give the crowds a bit more space and to limit dangerous car/pedestrian interactions.

The closures would be during the day on Saturday and Sunday and would include 33rd St. (between Dent and Wisconsin) and Reservoir Rd. (between Wisconsin and Caton). It’s always a hassle to lose parking like this, especially on a weekend when a lot of people come to Georgetown. But I think it is a worthwhile and fairly limited change. Moreover, the organizers are exploring finding nearby satellite parking for residents during this weekend. That would make a huge difference on a weekend when our few blocks feel like the center of the world.

Embassy Parking

Speaking of parking restrictions, I want to provide an update on a request for diplomatic parking. The Embassy of Romania is temporarily occupying the former Long and Fosters building at Reservoir and Wisconsin. They are requesting several on-street parking spots in front of the building on Wisconsin be reserved for diplomatic parking during business hours.

I passed a resolution through the ANC last month objecting to this request due to the fact that the building already has about ten off-street parking spots. I have since learned more information about the request. The request for the spots is primarily related to security. The State Department generally requires embassies not have non-diplomatic cars park outside its entrance. The city liaison offered to me to not have the diplomatic parking, but instead just have no parking spots at all. That would satisfy them on the security side. But that seemed like the worse of both worlds. The embassy doesn’t get parking and the residents lose the ability to park there completely. With the diplomatic parking, at least residents and visitors can park there during off business hours and the weekends. So I agreed to let the request be approved.

I mentioned that the embassy is moving here temporarily. Apparently their main building on Sheridan Circle is being renovated, which is why they need to use this building. I understand that once the work is done, they will not need the Georgetown building anymore. I was not given a time frame, but I suspect it will be at least two years.

Quick Bites

Here are a couple more quick items:

• What the future of the streateries could look like.
• Great new documentary on the history of Black Georgetown.
• ANC meeting next Monday night.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Q&A Cafe takes a deep dive into Washington protocol next week.
• Georgetown students seeking to end legacy admissions in DC.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine I am returning to the DC Historical Society archives and lookng at another painted depiction of the neighborhood. The painting is by John A. Bryans and was created in 1956. The file description claims that it’s O St. But like with last week’s painting, I think that’s not right.

The towers in the distance are obviously Healy Hall. The steeple right near the center of the painting is St. John’s. While that church is in deed located on O St., to view it from this angle you’d actually be on Dumbarton. It’s hard to see with the foliage, but this streetview is basically the same as the painting, despite being almost 70 years apart:

The painter was from Ohio originally but lived for many years in the DC area. He passed away just last November.

The ANC is meeting for its March session next Monday night at 6:30 pm at Visitation. The agenda is below.

There is one item I wanted to flag, but only because it makes me laugh a little. The subject is the Potomac River Tunnel Project from DC Water. This absolutely massive project will someday make the Potomac so clean you can safely swim in it. (Unlike now, when people like me can only slightly dangerously swim in it….)

This project has been long in coming. A very, very long time coming. I first wrote about this project in one of the earliest articles I ever drafted, way back in April 2009. That was back when DC Water was still called WASA. Also, two of my ANC colleagues were barely out of diapers at the time. And even that date was far from the beginning of the project. It’s origins date back to a lawsuit in the late 90s targeting WASA’s practice of simply dumping raw sewage directly into the river. (Until this project is complete, DC Water still does occasionally dump raw sewage in the river, hence the slight danger swimming in the river right now.)

The project is finally coming to Georgetown (although some smaller parts of the project have already come). DC Water will be at the ANC meeting to discuss the next phase. Hopefully it won’t take another 16 years to complete.

Here’s the full agenda:

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Cool spy tour coming up
• Restauranteur who owns two restaurants in Georgetown was sued by the DC AG for wage theft at a third restaurant.

The world lost a great singer this week, as the legendary Roberta Flack passed away. Many around DC know that Flack had DC-area roots; she grew up in Arlington. And many know that she first started making a splash singing at Mr. Henry’s restaurant on Capitol Hill. But not many people know she got her real start right here in Georgetown.

Now there has been some dispute on this assertion. I first mentioned it back in 2011, in connection with an article about 1225 Wisconsin Ave. I mentioned that this was once a location of Mr. Henry’s, which (at least at its Georgetown location) was a gay bar. Multiple people wrote in saying that I was mistaken, and that she really got her start at the Capitol Hill location of Mr. Henry’s (the video above is taken of her at that location). But this article on Encycliopedia.com seems to explain the confusion. It states in part:

By 1967 Flack had gained a healthy local following, and was singing five nights a week at a nightclub on K Street in Washington. She was discovered there by Henry Yaffe, who brought her to his trendy new Georgetown club Mr. Henry’s. By 1968 she was drawing such a crowd to the club that Yaffe opened a special room at his other location near Capitol Hill to showcase her talent.

Any doubt should vanish with this article from Nov. 1967:

By October 1968, Flack was indeed installed at the Capitol Hill location.

But for a little while in 1967, Georgetowners were treated to multiple shows a week from one of the greatest singers of the 20th century. Truly remarkable.

Photo by Antoine R.J. Wright.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Salty donut shop is aiming to open this summer at 33rd and M.
• Speaking of business ins and outs.

For many years, out-of-state drivers could violate our traffic laws with near impunity. This was especially true for Virginia and Maryland drivers, since these states refuse to enter into reciprocity agreements with the District that includes camera enforcement. As a result, drivers from these states (who on a daily basis represent the majority of drivers on the street) can blast through red light and speed cameras knowing they can simply ignore any ticket they receive.

Yes, theoretically MPD officers can stop them and issue a ticket directly to the driver. But MPD has largely given up on that method of enforcement. And yes, the city can boot and tow a car under some circumstances. But that requires the city to find the car on the street and have it still be there when the boot and tow teams show up. It is a system where enforcement of the law is the exception, not the rule.

Last year the city passed the STEER Act, which attempted to address some of these flaws. For example it makes cars become more easily eligible for towing. Previously a car needed to have two or more tickets that were unpaid for at least 60 days before the car would be “boot eligible”. Under the STEER Act, the city introduces a point system whereby a car becomes immediately boot eligible if it racks up ten points in a six month period. For example, if it is ticketed for speeding 16 mph or faster (3 points) four times, then it is eligible. This is an improvement, no doubt, but, as I will explain, it still has some gaping holes.

Another aspect of the STEER Act is that it enables the DC Attorney General to sue out-of-state drivers for unpaid tickets. And this week the AG did just that when his office sued three Maryland drivers for over $95,000 combined. One of the drivers, Earl Curtis, is a particularly egregious scofflaw, as the Post explains:

Earl Curtis, 58, of District Heights, Maryland, was sentenced to three weekends in jail after running a red light and hitting Paisley Brodie with his Range Rover, fracturing her foot. But his vehicle has continued to get caught on traffic cameras. At the time of that incident, there were $19,000 in unpaid tickets from D.C. traffic cameras on the SUV. As of Friday, the fines topped $33,000, including six speed camera tickets in January alone — twice within a mile of where Curtis hit Paisley.

This is a good start, but it is merely a drop in the ocean considering the huge numbers of cars driving on our streets with outstanding unpaid tickets. And as of a few years ago, the city had all of two towing teams for the whole city. It has ten now, but it will take from now until the heat death of the universe for these crews to make a substantial dent in the numbers.

And this problem was brought home to me last week. In the photo above, you can see the aftermath of a car crash at 33rd and Q, just a block from my house on Feb. 17th. The white car had t-boned the red car, hard enough to cause the red car’s side air bags to deploy. Luckily no pedestrians were hit (although I understand the driver of the red car was taken to the hospital with minor injuries). I, of course, immediately noticed that the white car had temporary tags and the red car didn’t have tags at all. Upon closer inspection, the white car’s temporary tag expired in July 2023, if it was even real in the first place.

Typing the plate into the city’s ticket payment system resulted in the expected result. It owes almost $4,000 in tickets for violations you would absolutely expect someone who ends up t-boning another car would have:

Was the driver at fault for the crash on 33rd St.? I don’t know, especially given that the other driver was driving around with no plate at all. Maybe they both blew through the stop sign.

But what I do know is that the white car is absolutely boot eligible! Right now! But despite being involved in a violent collision and having so many outstanding tickets, the car was not immediately towed. It was not towed the next day either. In fact, after limping into a parking spot on Q St., it’s still there. Despite the fact that an MPD officer came to the scene and (presumably) wrote up a report, there is no requirement for the officer to call in a tow for boot eligible cars. They can do it, but there’s no requirement for them to even check the plates for tickets, as far as I can tell. I’ve followed up with MPD to see if a tow request was put in, but have not received an answer back yet.

So while the STEER Act has improved matters–and the gears of justice are beginning very slowly to turn–reckless drivers still act with near impunity. On 33rd St., the driver hit another car, with all its modern safety technology. And the other driver appears to have walked away with minor injuries, it easily could have been one of my neighbors or even family members that he struck. And there’d be no side impact air bag to save them in that case.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• In case you missed it: the long delayed Key Bridge Exxon condos is moving forward again.
• More on the new Google store.