The Georgetown Metropolitan

Photo by Jeannie in DC.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Excellent Georgetown gift guide.
• Some business ins and outs, including Malbon Golf and Hunter and Huntress.

As you get ready for Thanksgiving this week week, it’s important to take some time to think about those that have much less than us to be thankful for. And to turn those thoughts into action, please consider giving to Georgetown Ministry Center.

The institution, based right in the heart of Georgetown, offer services and programs to the area’s homeless. And in cold winter nights, it offers a place to sleep, which can be a question of life or death.

If you’re a federal employee who participates in the Combined Federal Campaign, please add the center (CFC# 31661) to your list of charities. Then pass the gravy!

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU President Jack DeGioia steps down.
• Tillie’s Pet Supply store opens on O St.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out the one and only Stombock’s.

The photo is from the late 1950s and shows 3278 M St. Nowadays it’s J. McLaughlin and Pizzeria Paradiso. But in the middle part of last century it host W.H. Stombock and Sons. And it was a horse saddle shop, of all things. You can even see the model horse it famously kept on the sidewalk.

I wrote about the store back in 2016:

According to Capital Losses, the store opened in Georgetown in 1895 across the street at 3293 M St. But only a few years later it moved into 3278 M St. (which now houses J. McLaughlin).

At the turn of the century, a saddle shop in the middle of the city wasn’t an odd thing, seeing as so many people still got around by horse and buggy. But as the automobile took over, the shop switched to the equestrian sport business.

To grab the attention of passersby, the store installed a cast iron life-sized horse, seen above, that they’d roll out every morning.

The store finally left Georgetown in 1970 and moved to Poolesville, MD, and then later Gaithersburg. It closed for good in 1990.

Photo by Mike McGuire.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• More details on the future of the City Tavern building.
• Update on where the streateries stand now.

Every month, the Old Georgetown Board publishes the plans they will be reviewing that month. And since stores have to apply to do something as small as install a sign, it is often a great place to get the first tip for a new store or restaurant coming to the neighborhood.

But for some months there’s simply not much revealed. That’s the case this month. The only interesting piece of news I could extract was that Warby Parker is moving (or expanding) next door.

They currently occupy 3225 M St. They are applying to take over 3233 M St., which is the long vacant storefront that last hosted a souvenir shop about ten years ago:

It will be good to see this ling empty storefront finally returned to life. Although that leaves open the question of what will happen to the current Warby Parker space. My guess is that if the store is really leaving the space, the landlord probably won’t have much trouble filling it again.

PBS published this wonderful piece on Georgetown’s Yarrow Mamout. It’s goes wonderfully deep on Yarrow and his identity as a muslim in early America. Enjoy!

Photo by Victoria Pickering.

• City Tavern Club sold to Cechi Group, which plans to maintain it as an event space.
• Just an update from my Barnes and Noble article, apparently they do plan on having a coffee shop on the third floor. They are aiming to open it by the spring.

Late last week, my neighbors on 33rd St. woke up to find no parking signs plastered up an down the block. This is not a rare phenomenon. But what was particularly irksome was that the permit claimed the entire block for a whole month. This would be unprecedented. So I dug into the permit and here’s what I found.

First of all, while the permit is good for 30 days, my understanding is that it will be a moving project and once they are done with a block, the restrictions will be removed. It looks like they are going to take about 3-4 days a block, which is a pain, but is far better than 30 days. Also, while the restrictions are post on both sides, it looks like the work is mostly on the east side and they are not demanding cars be moved from the west side of the street.

So the parking restrictions are annoying but not the end of the world. But what is really irking me (and anyone I mention this to) is that this work is involving digging a trench. But this trench is getting dug in a street that just was repaved last year!! This is such a wasteful destruction of public infrastructure. But surely it’s for a good cause?

Eh, about that. This is what it’s for:

It’s for a slightly upgraded business internet service. That’s it. Our streets were nicely repaved just last year, but that gets to be thrown into the dumpster because AT&T wants to make a buck.

Looking through permits, this work has been going on across the city. This particular job appears to be heading up 33rd St. and spreading on Volta and Q. It may spread beyond that in Georgetown, and I’m digging for answers on that question.

And it’s not just our nicely paved streets that AT&T is being allowed to vandalize. As part of the digging, they spray paint all the sewer and gas lines going into each house. So now our sidewalk and street look like this:

And, of course, they only just replaced all these bricks a year or two ago. So these neon lines will be with us for a long time.

I levied a complaint with DDOT for this wasteful practice. They acknowledged that they are supposed to coordinate work like this with plans for repaving. But “it just fell through the cracks”. Of course, falling through the cracks doesn’t apparently lead to any consequences for the massive telecom company. Only residents and taxpayers.

I will be asking AT&T to come before the ANC and explain this work, why we had zero notice, and how much more of it we’re going to have to endure. I’ll keep you posted on that.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• More on Call Your Mother getting its zoning relief.
• Large office-to-residential project still trying to move forward.