The Georgetown Metropolitan

1600 block of 31st St.

On May 26th, Dumbarton House will be offering a walking tour focused on trees. The tour will be led by professional tour guide Dwayne Starlin, but GM will be there as a special guest to chime in with some wisdom he’s accrued from writing his Know Your Trees series.

Here’s the info:

Washington, D.C. has long been known as “The City of Trees.” But can you identify our trees by name & variety? Frederick Law Olmsted was good enough to label the ones that he had planted on the grounds of our Capitol but we don’t enjoy that luxury along our Georgetown streets and in our parks. Join Dwane Starlin, member of the Guild of Professional Tour Guides, and his guest speaker, Christopher “Topher” Matthews of the Georgetown Metropolitan, on a scenic stroll of one of D.C.’s truly green and well-shaded neighborhoods.
DETAILS:
•Meet at the corner of Q and 27th Streets, NW (by the east garden gates of the Dumbarton House and the tour is start at 12:00 pm sharp. It will take place rain or shine and will last 2 hours.
•You are encouraged to purchase tickets in advance. They are $20; cash or check only on the day of tour.
•Children 3 years or younger are free, but must be in a stroller. No pets please.
•Tour also ends at Q and 27th Streets, NW.

Purchase tickets here. Hope to see you there!

Photo by Dion Hinchcliff.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Wawa is still going ahead.
• The Post’s food critic comes back to 1789 for a check in.

Potomac River

GM is back to the great collection of old photos of the Georgetown Branch. Rather than try to merge this one with a modern shot, he decided to treat it as a Time Machine post and present the whole picture as is.

This is the description from the collection’s description:

Switching the west end of Georgetown
2/23/1947
Here we see several covered hoppers being passed by the B&O Scale House (to the right, behind the cars). Note the brakemen standing next to the cars. In the foreground is a B&O Section House, complete with jigger tracks in front for the hand car. In the distance an S unit is seen as the power for this train. Also seen in the distance is the pedestrian foot bridge over the GB, with a telltale to protect brakemen atop cars. To the left are some of the local boat houses on the Potomac River. There are 2 missing, no doubt from a recent flood. And, if my eyes don’t deceive me, if you look real hard, you can see what appears to be smoke & a headlight from a waiting steam engine just to the right of the center steeple of the boathouse in the background. There’s definitely something smoking back there. View is West. Photo is taken from atop the Aqueduct Bridge.

GM can’t add anything to the discussion on trains, but he can provide a bit more about the boathouses.

The far boathouse is the Washington Canoe Club, which still exists (although the building is in bad shape and is partially condemned). The club was founded in 1904 and the building was built in 1905. Continue reading →

Photo by Dion Hinchcliffe.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU having a good spring sports season.
• Eater includes Church Hall on its list of Hottest DC Bars, what do you think?

Montrose Park

GM heard a couple tips about two retail shops that he thought worth passing on:

• The Roots shop that GM reported on last week, is going into the space where Coach is (or was, GM’s not sure if they’re still open)
• Zara, which closed abruptly last month, is looking for a larger space in Georgetown. One possibility is the new building being built where the Latham Hotel was.

Coach to Roots seems like a step down for the space, and GM will miss being able to easily buy small gifts from the leather goods store. But it’s a new store for the area, so maybe that will be interesting?

It’s somewhat surprising that the old space wasn’t big enough for Zara, but apparently it was.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Is Fiola Mare the only essential brunch in Georgetown?
• Apparently a sexual assault happened on P St. last Friday night. The indications are that it was not a stranger situation. MPD are investigating.

1500 block of 33rd St.