The Georgetown Metropolitan

Photo by Payton Chung.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The Georgetown Campus Plan discussions are already off to a much, much better start than the last time around.
• If you saw a weird looking boat in the river last week, it was this.

Dumbarton Oaks

GM is back this week for Now and Long Time Ago by returning to the great Willard R. Ross postcard collection at the DC Public Library archive. Specifically, he’s visiting the Masonic Hall on Wisconsin Ave. above M St.

Home to Weaver’s Hardware since 1889, the Masonic Hall was built approximately in 1878. Like all Masonic Halls, the meeting room in on the second floor. It’s there that Potomac Lodge No. 5 meets. This is the oldest Masonic Lodge in DC, and in fact predates the District having been founded as Maryland Lodge No. 9 in 1789. This lodge, which still meets in the building, has many treasures including the gavel used by George Washington when he laid the cornerstone of the U.S. Capitol.

Weaver’s ran a typical hardware shop for most of its existence. Here’s a shot inside from 1920 (which is just 9 years after the postcard photo)

Continue reading →

Photo by Payton Chung.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Some more stories from the descendants of the slaves sold by Georgetown University.
• It’s a hold-over from a long forgotten over-haul, but Farmers Fishers and Bakers still has some great tiki drinks.

2900 block of O St.

Speaking of streetcars in Georgetown, a lot of people are aware of the more famous artifacts around Georgetown of DC’s old streetcar system. There’s obviously the tracks on O and P St. And also the Car Barn. Some may know that the Georgetown Mall was once a streetcar facility as well. But not many realize that one of the more iconic sites in Georgetown is also streetcar-related: the Hoya Saxa sign. Continue reading →

Photo by Eloísa Ramírez Vaquero.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Another write-up on the Georgetown streetcar meeting.
• The former Cappela Hotel is letting non-guests visit the roof for dinner, which, um, they said they wouldn’t.

The C & O Canal

As previewed by GM earlier in May, the DC Department of Transportation (DDOT) held a meeting last night to announce the status of the plans for a westward expansion of the streetcar to Georgetown. Right now, after too much delay, a line runs along H St. east of Union Station. It was always planned that this line would continue westward through downtown and reach Georgetown. Last night the planners announced several big decisions they have made about the project.

GM would summarize those, but frankly, Greater Greater Washington already did it better than he would. So read there to find out about how they want to use a lot of dedicated lanes and won’t use overhead wires.

GM will instead focus on how the plans would address Georgetown.

They have narrowed the build options down to two. One would have dedicated lanes (i.e. lanes that only the streetcar [and maybe buses] would be able to use) for practically the whole stretch from Union Station to Georgetown. The other option would not have dedicated lanes between Georgetown and Washington Circle.

Having dedicated lanes is crucial to the success of a streetcar line, especially one going through the congested parts of downtown. But dedicated lanes come at a cost of space that would otherwise be used for general traffic and/or parking.

In Georgetown, the line would come in on K St. underneath the Whitehurst. Here what the road would look like with the dedicated lanes:

Right now on the easter end of K St., there are two travel lanes in each direction and a center turn lane. West of Thomas Jefferson, there is only one travel lane in each direction, with a lane of parking.  Continue reading →

Photo by Rob Mathews.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Just in time for the coldest and grayest May on record, Lilly Pulitzer opens Friday.
• Georgetown real estate has had a mixed bag over the last eight years.