The Georgetown Metropolitan

This week on Georgetown Time Machine, GM visits the west end of M St. circa the 1960s. And it offers a striking contrast to the scene today.

The specific location is the intersection of 33rd and M, looking east. Right away one thing you’ll see is that the historic Georgetown market (soon to be a fancy Italian restaurant) was then occupied by Southern Distributors Auto Parts Store:

Nearby you can just make out the horse statue outside of Stombock’s (which sold horse riding equipment):

You also have a great view towards what later became the Georgetown Park Mall:

The long building lurking behind the M St. buildings was the old streetcar storage facility whose footprint was used to build the mall in the 80s.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Soon you can buy Julia Child’s old house.
• GM received a tip that the new burger place that is taking over the short-lived Mono Diner’s space has opened. Will it last longer than Mono Diner? We’ll see…

In celebration of Pride, a “loud and colorful” boat with dancing unicorns will buzz by the Georgetown waterfront this Saturday afternoon at 2:45ish.

What does a boat full of dancing unicorns celebrating pride look like? Well check out this interview from Wharf Life with the man behind the plan:

Georgetown doesn’t get much of a taste of the rowdy colorful fun of Pride. But this should give us a little bit of it.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• This list of Instagram-able spots around Georgetown oddly leaves out GM’s home, which must have been an oversight.
• People getting rid of their pandemic puppy 😢

A happy game of musical chairs has taken place down on Grace St. recently. Some established shops have moved around and some new faces have appeared.

The Grace Street Collective is the brainchild of Jessica and Ezra Glass and consists of a series of commercial spaces on the north side of the street. Focusing on quality tenants with high co-tenancy (i.e. they work well together) the Glasses turned a sleepy side street into a millennial magnet. Walk into the space (at least pre-Covid) on any random day and it was packed with a decidedly young crowd sipping coffee, dressed in athleisure wear, chatting with friends.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• More on the lawsuit against the Georgetown fraternity and its executive director.
• Correction to GM’s early post on DC public pools: the hours are different this year. They will be open from 10 to 6 every day. That’s an hour earlier on the weekends, and two hours earlier on the weekdays. But it comes at the cost of closing two hours early on the weeknights, which is a really blow to working adults who want to get a swim in after knocking off.

GM always puts out an advisory in April to start watering your trees. And without fail, we end up with a wet April and/or early May, which largely makes watering trees, even new ones, not strictly necessary.

But that always comes to an end. And that end is nigh. June is already pounding us with summer heat and despite some rainy spells last week, we’re still in a bit of a drought. Any young trees on your block will need someone to water them stat. At least 25 gallons a week, all summer long.