The Georgetown Metropolitan

1600 block of Wisconsin Ave.

Photo by Mike Maguire.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown with two of the region’s most essential pizza places (according to this list).
• News is slow, and GM is gearing up to head out to the beach, so this week will be a little light on posts.

3400 block of P St.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Jack Evans fined $20,000 for ethics violations (he remains under investigation for other possible violations).
• Do restauranteurs need to be landlords too to survive?

3200 block of Volta Place

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Another article on Georgetown Visitation’s history with slavery.
• After you read that, this piece on the relationship between religious orders and slavery is worth a read too.

3300 block of M St.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Moby Dick’s promises to reopen next week.
• 23rd and M might be one of the furthest restaurants to claim to be in Georgetown that GM has seen.

C & O Canal

It’s August, news is slow. So GM is filling the gaps with a few old, fun articles of his that you either never read or forgot. Today GM connects Volta Park to Napoleon Bonaparte.:

Would Volta Park exist without Napoleon Bonaparte?

Of course it would. But would it be the same name? Probably not, surprisingly enough.

That’s because Volta Park is named after Volta Place, one of the streets that borders it. Volta Place is named after the Volta Bureau, which stands at 35th and Volta. (Volta Pl. was originally Fourth St., then it was temporarily Q St. before being renamed Volta Pl. circa 1920).

And the Volta Bureau was created by Alexander Graham Bell and named after the Volta Fund, which was Bell’s trust fund he established to study deafness. The trust was funded by and itself named after the Volta Prize, which Bell received in 1880 by the government of France in honor of his inventing the telephone. (It was 50,000 francs, which translates to about $500,000 in today’s money). Continue reading →