Today for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m investigating an amusing series of photos from the DC Historical Society. They come from their Emil Press collection, which I’ve featured before. These particular photos are labeled simply “‘Hippies’ in Georgetown”. Theyappearto have been taken in May 1967.
The first photo, above, shows a couple of gents walking by the National Bank of Washington, which used to occupy the northwest corner of Wisconsin and M. The facade looks different now, but you can see from this older photo that that is how the south side used to look like:
Of course the next question is: are these really hippies?
I’m not expert, but I’d probably agree the tall guy on the right qualifies, but I don’t think I’d call the other guy a hippy if he weren’t next to Mr. Leather Fringed Boots.
The next group of hippies is standing in front of 3279 M St. I believe the buildings they’re standing in front of were demolished for the Eton Court development. It looks like a diner on the left, an interior decorating shop in the middle, and some other restaurant on the right.
But to the more important question: are these guys hippies too?
I was going to call the guy on the left a borderline case, but then I saw that he’s barefoot. So definitely a hippy there. The other guys a bit shaggy and sporting cool shades, so I’ll grant him hippy status too, if not just because he’s hanging out with a barefoot guy, and that’s pretty standard hippy behavior.
The last photo gives a bit of a more intriguing hint of what’s going on. It’s a hippy looking guy (of the collegiate sort) giving an interview in front of the old Little Tavern burger shop at N and Wisconsin. He’s surrounded by a couple more hippy looking people with at least one police officer looking on. For a moment I wondered if the date of the photo wasn’t wrong and this was part of the May Day anti-Vietnam War protests. But looking at photos from that day, it just feels like a different year and a different occassion:
Welcome to the February Northwest Georgetown ANC Update!
Although I grew up in New England, I’ve been living in the DC area for over 25 years now. And in that quarter of a century, I’ve gotten a bit soft with regards to harsh winters. The nice thing about DC winters, though, is that just when you start to get sick of them, they’re already on the way out. And with that (and an eye on the extended forecast) I can say that spring is already on the way! Pitchers and catchers report next week!
Leaf Collection
Despite the fact that spring is right around the corner, for many of us autumn is still sitting on our curbs. The leaf collection this past year has been abysmal. In our SMD two over arching failings are evident:
DPW crews failed to collect bagged leaves
DPW crews didn’t collect just about any leaves north of Q St.
To the first issue first: the messaging from the city was confusing and conflicted on the question of whether residents should bag the leaves. Some sources suggested it was ok, others said they should not be used. (This is, of course, doubly confusing since for the rest of the year, DPW always insists you bag your leaves if you want them collected).
I was advising people to not bag the leaves since the primary way that the DPW crews collect the leaves is with this massive suction tube, which doesn’t really work with bags. But, again, some messages suggested the bags were fine. And, frankly, some people have no other choice but the bag the leaves given their house configuration.
So we ended up with dozens and dozens of bagged leaves sitting on the street for months now:
The bags are not designed to survive weeks and weeks of winter weather. And as a result many are breaking open, spilling the leaves on the sidewalk.
I walked the neighborhood taking photos of each collection of bags with the goal of submitting 311 requests to have them taken away. But the process is so cumbersome and the number of bags so high that I had to give up. The ANC is pushing DPW to come back and collect the bags en masse. But if there is a group of bags by your house, it would be helpful to file a 311 request to have them removed.
Which brings me to the second failing: that they simply missed many blocks. Walking around the blocks before the first snow storm hit (and supposedly after DPW had performed the first round of leaf collection) it was clear to me that they had not come through. Here are some photos from early January:
This is clearly not a case of mixed messaging. No crews even tried to clear these blocks. As far as I can tell, no blocks north of Q St. were addressed at all.
In fairness to DPW, the snow storms can at least excuse the fact that the second phase of leaf collection is being delayed somewhat. But it is starting now and I have been pushing them to make sure they don’t miss these blocks again. And, as discussed above, we will also push them to take the bagged leaves as well.
I’ll keep you updated on this!
WMATA Bus Changes
Last month I wrote at length regarding the forthcoming radical changes to the Metrobus network. I’ve since learned that the plans have been tweaked from the ones I discussed then. Please see this article detailing all those changes. In short, the tweaks are:
The Wisconsin Ave. line will be like the current 30 Series, with one line ending at Foggy Bottom and the other going to Union Station
The D2 replacement will travel through Dupont more like the current route does rather than the more circuitous route that was previously proposed
The G2 replacement will no longer go to Union Station, as had previously been proposed, but will head to Howard University (like the G2 currently does)
These are smallish tweaks, but I want to reiterate that the overall changes coming to the Metrobus network are truly transformational. If you are at all a Metrobus rider, it is imperative that you start getting familiar with the changes now. There still is no clear timeline for when the changes will be literally and figuratively rolled out, but they are likely to be introduced sometime this summer.
AT&T Construction
In December I discussed how contractors for AT&T were ripping up 33rd St. to build a new trench, despite the fact that the street was repaved just one year before. I’ve since confirmed what I suspected, that this was part of a massive project across the city. Here is a partial map of the course it is taking through Georgetown:
If you’ve travelled up Wisconsin in the middle of the day recently and been forced into one lane: this is the reason. I don’t know how far up Wisconsin they are traveling, but it is a fairly massive project, all so one other telecom can sell people Internet service.
Beyond the hassle of the construction itself, the patch job they are leaving behind is completely unacceptable. It’s coming away in some places and creates a bumpy surface everywhere. It is particularly dangerous for cyclists and other two wheel vehicles as the uneven surface is often right where they tend to travel. The contractor is supposedly coming back to perform street “restoration” starting later this month. I am trying to find out whether that simply means a better patch or a complete repaving of the block. In either event, residents will have to put up with yet another disruption as a massive for profit corporation comes back to (maybe) clean up the mess it created.
The contractor is supposed to be at the ANC meeting Monday night and will hopefully answer these questions and give a better idea of what timeframe they are working with.
ANC Meeting
Speaking of that ANC meeting, it will take place at Visitation next Monday night at 6:30 PM (with a Zoom option). One additional item I want to highlight is that request from Romania for embassy parking along Wisconsin Ave. The eastern European country has acquired the former Long and Foster building at Wisconsin and Reservoir. It is in the process of converting it to provide consular services (the actual embassy will likely remain at Sheridan Circle). They are requesting about 2-3 spaces on Wisconsin to be reserved for embassy parking during business hours. I am disinclined to support this request since the building already has about ten parking spaces. Parking along Wisconsin this block does not normally get super filled up, but that’s all the more reason that they don’t need special treatment. It will be discussed at the meeting.
The ANC will be meeting next Monday night for our February meeting. The preliminary agenda is below, but one item I wanted to highlight is a request for diplomatic parking.
As I reported in October, Romania is opening diplomatic offices in the former Long and Foster building at the corner of Wisconsin and Reservoir. As the time, I cautioned that while I hadn’t heard anything about diplomatic parking space springing up, I would keep an eye on it.
When, they’ve since sprung up. A request was filed to convert several parking spaces along Wisconsin Ave. to diplomatic parking. Here is the proposed layout:
The green would remain normal parking. The orange would be converted to diplomatic parking. (The red would be an expansion of the corner no-parking zone to increase pedestrian visibility and safey.)
So the proposal appears to be establishing 3-4 new diplomatic parking spots on Wisconsin. That would be somewhat par for the course, but the fact is that the building already has off-street parking. There are about 9-10 off-street spots, in fact. I am not terribly open to turning over public space to the exclusive parking of an office building with its own private parking simply because the office is diplomatic in nature. I have asked for more clarity from DDOT about this, but have not heard back yet. I hope to have more information by Monday, but lacking it I will likely oppose this request. (That said, I am not terribly confident DDOT will listen to this, especially if the State Department has already approved it.)
Over the past year I have been trying to pass along the dramatic changes that WMATA is planning for the Metrobus network. Literally every bus line will be different in name and (mostly) route by the end of this year. I recently learned that some tweaks have been made to the plans I’ve circulated, so I wanted to pass those along to you as well.
For the benefit of those who have not been following these changes, I’ll try to sum them up here. A good place to start is from the map above, which shows how the various bus routes will pass through Georgetown. It’s probably best to group them in a couple baskets:
Wisconsin Ave.
Since the days of the streetcars, Wisconsin Ave. and M St. have been serviced by the 30 Series. What particular routes ran has changed a lot over the years, but right now we have two routes remaining: the 31 (which goes only to Foggy Bottom) and the 33 (which now goes to Union Station as a substitute for the defunct Circulator). The Better Bus network will maintain similar service, but the names will change. Now it will be the D80 and the D82.
The last time I discussed the possible changes, the only route I discussed was the D82 (if WMATA had proposed the D80 at that point, I must have missed it). This was that previous D82 route:
The D82 Route now only goes to Foggy Bottom, and is basically the same as the current 31:
The D80, on the other hand, would now travel all the way to Union Station, much like the 33 does now:
So in short: the 31 becomes the D82 and the 33 becomes the D80. Travelers along the Wisconsin Ave.-> M St. routes will likely just have to memorize new bus route names. The service will otherwise be fairly similar (although I am working with my ANC colleagues and the BID to make sure that WMATA keeps the frequency to what we’re used to).
East-West Lines
The second basket of routes I think it’s helpful to consider are the primarily east-west routes through the heart of Georgetown. This currently includes the D2, D6 and the G2. The D2 and the D6 cross Georgetown mostly on Q St., with the D6 traveling from Sibley to the west and RFK stadium to the east, and the D2 running between Glover Park and Dupont. The G2 starts next to Georgetown University and snakes through Georgetown on a couple different streets before heading east to Dupont along P St.
Each of these routes will be mostly replicated in the new system, however they will all travel primarily on Q St. as they travel east-west.
Here is the D94, which is the D6 replacement:
As you can see, it will no longer travel all the way to RFK Stadium. This is unchanged from earlier proposals.
Here is the D96, which is the D2 replacement:
This obviously doesn’t look terribly like the current D2 route, but between Glover Park and Dupont, it is basically the same. But now it will continue westward all the way to Bethesda (and on weekdays it will travel beyond Dupont to Foggy Bottom).
This is basically the same as earlier proposal but for one tweak. The route around Dupont appears to be more like the current D2 route than in the prior iteration:
Here is the previous proposal:
It’s hard to make out exactly what’s going on, but it appears to be using Mass Ave. and Sheridan Circle in one direction (probably westbound). The newer proposal is cleaner:
That appears to match the current D2 route which takes Q St. eastward all the way to the Dupont northern escalator and takes P St. westward to 20th St. at which point it heads back up to Q St. westward to Georgetown again. This is a much better plan, if you ask me.
Finally, here is the G2 replacement, the C91:
This is a big change from the previous iteration. Previously this proposed route was called the D92, and it went to Union Station:
The C91 will now instead more closely match the G2 by going to Howard University/Le Droit Park (but with a somewhat more circuitous route on the eastern end.)
The western end is also going to change from the current G2 route, but it is consistent with the earlier proposals: to whit, rather than snaking through the middle of Georgetown, it will travel up 35th St. to Q St. and go eastward from there. This will be a big loss of transit access to those in the middle of the east village, who will now have to walk all the way up to Q St. But it will be an improvement for those closer to Q St., who can now have even more options at the same stop versus before. Sadly, as with many changes to transit networks, it often ends up with zero sum games like this.
M Street Lines
The last bucket to consider are the bus lines that are primarily on M St. through Georgetown. Right now that only includes the 38B, which goes from downtown, along M St., to the Key Bridge and ultimately Ballston. Two new routes will be in this bucket: the A58 and the C85.
(Before I go on, just a quick note on the naming conventions: WMATA is giving the new routes different prefixes depending on where they mostly go. Arlington/Alexandria routes start with an A; Fairfax/Falls Church routes start with F; Montgomery County routes start with an M; Prince Georges County routes start with a P; and DC routes start with a D or a C. The D routes are more likely to go downtown and the C routes are mostly between residential neighborhoods. I think that is why the G2 replacement was changed from D92 to C85 once it no longer travelled to Union Station.)
Here is the A58, which is the 38B replacement:
This is identical to earlier proposals.
Here is the C85, which is a genuinely novel route that has no obvious precedent in Georgetown (except perhaps the former D5 route):
It travels from Foggy Bottom, through Georgetown on M St. to Canal Rd. Then after going through the eastern part of the Palisades, it turns back through Burleith and Glover Park upwards through Ward 3.
This route is mostly the same as earlier iterations, but they’ve modified the route substantially north of Burleith, as you can see from the earlier design:
In total, these tweaks are mostly that: tweaks. But the totality of the oncoming change is nonetheless monumental. Not since the (in my opinion) tragic demise of the streetcars and the “bustitution” that followed has such a radical change come to Washington’s surface transit.
Way back in 2011, I wrote an article about the old Key Theater that stood in the building recently vacated by the Wawa. Writing about old establishments like that often inspires people to share their memories in the comments section. And one individual left such a long and interesting comment that I posted it as its own article several days later: Plucked From the Comments.
That article itself has attracted its own long string of comments, and I’d like to once again pluck a recent one out to make sure everyone sees it. A Mr.LLoyd1964 writes:
I used to work at the Biograph Theater (1967-1996) in the mid seventies and early eighties. Hot Diggity Dog was a hot dog restaurant in a repurposed gas station next door with ample table seating out front. Their fries were oval potato slices which I drowned with malted vinegar that they had in bottles. The place was only open from May 1977 to August 1978. On the other side of the Biograph used to be a club in the sixties called Emergency that utilized the concrete ramp going down under the auto dealership where the Biograph was. People would sit on the ramp and watch shows on a stage at the back of the club, or so I heard. On M between 30th and 31st, Harold’s was a working class deli serving thin sandwiches and chili in a waxed paper cup. In the middle of that block was the Charring Cross, named after a London subway stop, serving Italian food, run by Iranians. A little farther up the block was Kemp Mill records. At 31st and M was Food Mart (Mood Fart to those in the know) that was a small grocery store with great sandwiches. Woolworths did have a lunch counter with circular stools that you could spin around on. Between Wisconsin and Key bridge, a large video game arcade appeared in the mid to late seventies on M street where I parted with many quarters. A bit farther west on M Street was Stetsons, a bar with live jazz music and a small pocket of outdoor seating in the back. At the end of the block near Key Bridge (across from the Cellar Door) was Max’s a dive bar with red and white vinyl checker board table cloths that got damp with beer by the pitcher. Below the C&O canal were abandoned block-long concrete factories that were empty, except for homeless people and curious teenagers like myself. I had heard there used to be a glue factory along the Potomac in Georgetown well before my time.
As always I love to receive comments and personal stories like this, so please consider adding your own below!
The Georgetown Metropolitan 
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