The Georgetown Metropolitan

At our last ANC meeting, the house at 2900 Dumbarton St. came up for review. The owner is interested in converting it to several apartments. But what caught my eye about the property is that it is clearly another example of a former commercial building buried deep in the residential portions of Georgetown. I decided to resuscitate my long dormant series called Ghosts of Georgetown’s Market Past to dig into the history of the building!

But first: why did I instantly conclude that this was originally a commercial building? It’s due to the fact the door opens up horizontally on the corner. It is literally a corner shop. That almost always indicates that the building was constructed to host a shop on the first floor (often with the shop keeper living on the second). It’s also probably not a coincidence that the building is catty-corner to Scheele’s.

So I dove into the local newspaper archives to see what I could find. And right away I learned that while it was a commercial building, the business operating there was not a market. At least not during the period I could find evidence for. It was a real estate office:

Here is another announcement:

Hill bought the agency in 1942. I was able to find only a couple more ads listing this office’s address:

Perhaps the reason I only found a couple of ads using this office address is that Hill appears to have stopped using it only a year later:

Oddly enough, I ran into a dead end trying to find older businesses at this address. But then I realized that Hill changed the address of the building. Previously it was 1326 29th St. Searching that address opened up the history. As I originally suspected, it did host a grocery store. At least as of 1918 when a Mrs. L.P. Bernsdorff operated a market there.

A year earlier it was apparently the R.W. Thompson grocery store:

But most of the hits I found for this property related to the rental apartment on the second story. And as this was near the hear of Georgetown’s Herring Hill district, the housing was used by Black families:

I could find no references to a commercial establishment at either address after the 1940s. So It appears the property was a grocery store in the early part of the 20th century, converted to a real estate office for a stretch around the 1940s, and then it either was used for an office or otherwise converted wholly to residential.

Hill lived into her nineties, dying in 1985:

In honor of the Whitehurst turning 75 years old this week, I wanted to re-run an article I wrote exploring an old photo of the throughway when it drove over a much more industrial Georgetown waterfront.

This week for the Georgetown Time Machine, GM visits this photo of a relatively young Whitehurst Freeway. Come check out what interesting scenes it contains.

The first question is of dating. The DDOT website does not list a date, so it will take a little sleuthing. First of all, the Whitehurst wasn’t built until 1949, so that’s the earliest point. In the distance, as discussed more below, the old Huerich Brewery still stands. That was demolished in 1961 to make way for the Roosevelt Bridge. Also, that large white building that’s in front of the Washington Monument is what is now the Saudi embassy. It was built in 1959. So this photo is from between 1959 and 1961.

The first striking thing about this photo is how the waterfront was a rail yard, there’s even a caboose down there:

The next most obvious it is the massive Capital Traction Power House, which looks a little worse for wear with so many windows smashed out:

The main reason it was smashed up is that it wasn’t in operation anymore. It stopped providing power for the streetcar system in 1933, and was decommissioned in 1944. It nonetheless sat an empty shell until it was demolished in 1968.

GM always laments its loss. It could have served as a wonderful civic space had it been preserved. Look at this interior:

Ah well…

As mentioned above, that noticeable white building in the upper left is what is now the Saudi embassy:

But it didn’t become the Saudi embassy until 1983. Before that it was the headquarters of the People’s Life Insurance Co., which constructed the building in 1959:

What you’ll also notice is that you can actually see this building from Georgetown, which you can’t do anymore. That’s because the Watergate isn’t in the way yet. That wasn’t built until 1964.

And finally, as mentioned above, the last significant structure to notice is the late, great Heurich Brewery:

Here’s a better view:

As also mentioned above, it was sadly demolished in 1961, which must have been just a couple years after the photo was taken.

Photo by Victoria Pickering.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Whitehurst opened 75 years ago yesterday.
• What happened at our last ANC meeting.

There will be a used book sale at the Georgetown library later this month. Here are the details:

Thousands of donated books will be for sale the weekend of Oct. 19-20 at the Georgetown Neighborhood Library, 3260 R St. NW. Of special interest: 40 brand-new historical fiction and nonfiction books for seventh through ninth graders donated by a judge for a prestigious literary prize.

Saturday: Public admission 11am-4pm. Hardcovers $4, paperbacks $2.

Sunday: Admission 1-3pm. All books half-price or fill your shopping bag for $10. 

Proceeds go toward library programs.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Osteria Mozza open possibly as soon at Nov. 14th.
• Former Georgetown Running Co. space at 34th and M to become a gelato shop.

A lot of people know that Dumbarton Oaks is beautiful in the spring. But I like to to issue this annual reminder that it’s also quite lovely in the fall:

Dumbarton Oaks is well known for its spring displays of incredible seasonal bounties. But people often overlook how spectacular the acres of gardens are in the fall. Hurry up and catch it now before it’s gone.

But here’s just a taste. The wildflowers of the Herbaceous Border are breathtaking:

The rest of the garden is at that magical moment when the gardeners loosen their grips and the plants give off one more explosion before the winter:

Of course the rest of Dumbarton Oaks is also looking great:

Photo by Jeanine in DC.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• New bubble tea shop on Grace Street opens.
• Serial sexual assaulter (unfortunately nicknamed the “Georgetown Cuddler”) was arrested, years after his assault spree.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Mason lobster rolls closed.
• Reminder for Volta Park events this weekend: Fall Fest on Saturday, 11-2, Concert in the Park, Sunday, 4:30 to 6:30.

The final death march of the Georgetown Circulator has begun. As I’ve previously written, the city is ending the bus service due to budget constraints. Although popular, the program proved to be too expensive (as measured by cost-per-rider) to justify keeping around in a belt-tightening era.

The axe has already come down on one Georgetown-based Circulator route. The Dupont-to-Rosslyn route, which travels down M St., was terminated as of yesterday. Of the remaining routes (including the Georgetown-Union Station route) late night service has also been terminated. Moreover, buses will now be operating on a 20-minute headway.

And then this hollow shell of a formerly great service will finally be put out of its misery come January 1st. By then all Circulator service will be gone and the red-and-silver buses will be nothing but a memory.

As I’ve also mentioned before, the city is working with WMATA to try to beef up or modify metrobus service to compensate for the lost Circulator service. The details are in this link. In short, there will be no replacement service for the Dupont-to-Rosslyn bus. And the replacement for the popular Georgetown-to-Union Station route will be replaced with new 30 series routes that will go all the way to Union Station.

This replacement service would appear to be somewhat adequate, but it does not account for bus frequency. The new 30 series buses will not come any more frequent. So to the extent you use either the 30 series or Circulator to get vaguely downtown, you will have noticeably fewer buses per hour offering that service.

This is a major blow to transit service for Georgetown. And given the fact that the neighborhood is still the most popular and dense retail and entertainment neighborhood in the city and still lacks a metro stop, this is bad for the city as a whole. We must keep pushing for more service on the 30 series to compensate for this huge loss of transit service.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Dixie Liquors may become Dixie Cannabis.
• Circulator service begins its end. (More on this later).