The Georgetown Metropolitan

It seems like a million years ago, but it was only January (or approximately 500,000 years ago [and it was 400,000 years ago when GM already used this joke]) when Call Your Mother received a positive vote from the Board of Zoning Adjustment, which would let it open in Georgetown at O and 35th. As GM warned at the time, due to the fact that that BZA awarded party status to a neighbor–Melinda Roth–at the last minute, it would need to issue a formal order for the vote to take effect. And at best that would take three months.

Well a pandemic happened in the meantime, and yet still the order was finally issued last week, after just six months. Cheers to the hardworking DC employees!

GM reached out to Call Your Mother to see whether they would open now, and they responded that they hoped to soon. The restaurant already has experience dealing with the current environment, with their original Park View location and a new Capitol Hill location being open. Continue reading →

Photo by Bill Starrels.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown Butcher (which is awesome, by the way) makes national news for its perseverance in the face of the worst timing in the world. GM highly recommends you check them out! You can peruse their offerings online, order them, and swing right over to pick them up.
• Walking tours seem like the type of thing that could safely restart.

3200 block of Volta Place

This week on Georgetown Time Machine, GM is back with another amazing aerial photo from the National Archives. This one is of Georgetown University and western Georgetown from the 20s or the very early 30s. And the details are again quite amazing.

Healy Hall and the buildings to its west are largely the same as they are today, but beyond that the campus is totally different. Copley and White-Gravenor Halls weren’t yet built (they were built in 1932 and 1933, respectively). And where they would end up held a football and baseball stadium:

Speaking of sports, where Lauinger Library is was once a couple tennis courts:

Looking beyond the campus, you can see west Georgetown in incredible detail. If you happen to live on those blocks, there’s a decent chance that this photo has a very clear photo of your house in much earlier days. (Click the photo at the top to see a full resolution version). Go ahead and poke around. Continue reading →

Photo by Matt Kieffer.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• DC is entering Phase II of the reopening, with Georgetown possibly poised to be one of the areas most affected. Will you be trying out new (old) things?
• And yet the city has done nothing to make the sidewalks and streets safer in Georgetown. People will be returning to sidewalks just as tight as they were before, and drivers will roar back to make our streets even more dangerous than ever.

Georgetown Waterfront Park

A masked intruder crawled into GM’s garden early Saturday morning to sleep one off. GM first noticed the intruder about noon, curled up between GM’s bike shed and his deck. About all that was visible was his or her furry striped tail.

It was, of course, a raccoon.

This immediately alarmed GM. While it was good that the raccoon was asleep instead of awake during the day (a classic sign of rabies) it was nonetheless unusual for a raccoon to sleep so close to humans. Out of an abundance of caution, GM called Animal Control, but they weren’t alarmed. They said to let it sleep, or maybe make some noise to get it to move. GM decided to just let it sleep for a while.

But after about five hours, it was still asleep, and GM wanted to get out some bikes. After a bunch of noise didn’t seem to get the raccoon to leave, GM placed another call to Animal Control. They agreed to come out and take look. A half hour later an officer arrived. She came out back, poked the raccoon, and decided that it was harmless. This was mostly because the raccoon scurried away after being rudely poked. She stated that it was a juvenile raccoon just looking for a place to sleep and that it would probably leave at night. Continue reading →

Photo by Matt Kieffer.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Kevin Plank finally sold his Georgetown house, a “steal” just under $18 million.
• GM hears the Washington Sports Club is closing its Georgetown location permanently.

1500 block of Wisconsin Ave.

Just two weeks after several nights of looting led to the widespread boarding up of storefronts around Georgetown, the plywood is starting to come down.

Unsurprisingly, restaurants are taking the lead. Seeing as they are few of the businesses permitted to be open in the first place, it makes sense that they would move first. But other non-restaurants have also taken steps towards normalcy:

Continue reading →