The Georgetown Metropolitan

For literally decades, observers of Georgetown have pondered the exception that is the 1400 block of Wisconsin Ave. As expensive national chains crowded out independent shops (and now restaurants) from M St. and independent but pricey home furnishing shops populated Book Hill, the ragged blocks of Wisconsin between Dumbarton and P stayed the same: decrepit shops selling boxy and cheap suits. But signs on the horizon suggests that these last bastions of an older Georgetown may finally be coming down.

The story of Georgetown angsting over these blocks goes back to at least the mid 1980s. An article in the Washington Post from that year was titled “While More and More Georgetown Stores Go Away: Changes Worry Georgetown Retailers”. The text of the article could have been written last week and most people wouldn’t thought it was accurate:

• “We have not been happy with business in Georgetown the last two or three years”
• “There’s obviously a very bad climate on Wisconsin Ave. Frankly the street has become disreputable in my opinion.”
• By most accounts, times have changed for Georgetown, once the hub of boutique retailing in Washington
• With lack of parking an increasingly irksome problem for Georgetown, shoppers are turning more and more to malls.

Replace “turning more and more to malls” with “turning more and more to Metro-accessible neighborhoods” and all the quotes could have been written today.

Surprising to those not around at the time, but the blame for the decline of these blocks is placed by the article on the newly opened Georgetown Park mall. The argument went that the old “good” stores vacated this stretch of Wisconsin Ave. to occupy the mall after it opened. In their wake, the cheaper stores moved in.

In a more charged article in 1987, Marc Fisher put a bit more fine a point on it:

While malls, restaurants and night spots increasingly dominate busy M Street, the shops on Wisconsin-smaller storefronts on a narrower street-are changing too. More big names-the Gap, Banana Republic, Esprit. More strange little shops forever holding sales. A carnival atmosphere, the older merchants call it, an arcade, a bazaar.

They are talking, usually in hushed tones, about “the Iranians,” their term for a couple of dozen shops run or owned by Iranian immigrants. Longtime residents and merchants have developed sweeping theories maligning the immigrants, blaming them for running clothing and jewelry shops that attract a very “un-Georgetown” crowd.

They are also talking, as Mayor Marion Barry did recently, about jewelry merchants who sell the bulky gold chains fashionable among some young people, including many drug dealers. Jewelers who take large piles of cash from kids are “just as guilty of this drug epidemic asthe people who sell drugs,” the mayor generalized; he wants police to stand outside those shops to “scare away” druggies.

Rinse and repeat for several more decades. Still more hushed complaints about how these stores are just fronts for drug dealers. Or maybe just money laundering fronts. Or whatever other nefarious explanation can be imagined. (No actual evidence is proffered). Continue reading →

Photo by albedo20.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Man disrobes at the waterfront, jumps in the river, and drowns.
• Georgetowner and founder of Pew Research Center, Andy Kohut, has passed away.

1400 block of 35th St.

To toast the end of summer and the oncoming of fall, the Friends of Rose Park are holding another movie night this Saturday at 8:00. It’s actually a rescheduling of an earlier attempted movie night, so hopefully this time it’ll be more lucky with the weather.

So come on out and bring pop-corn!

Photo by Joe Flood.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown football player breaks five vertebrae.
• Update on that home that Curbed was making fun of for having too much art: it’s already under contract.

3100 block of M St.

This week in Old Georgetown in Color, GM brings some color to an old Hoya track star: Bob LeGendre. According to Wikipedia:

Robert “Bob” Lucien LeGendre (January 7, 1898 – January 21, 1931) was an Americantrack and field athlete. He competed in the pentathlon at the 1920 and1924 Summer Olympics and finished in fourth and third place, respectively. He failed to qualify for the 1924 Olympics in the long jump, yet at the 1924 Olympic pentathlon competition he set a world record in that event at 7.76 metres (25.5 ft).^[1][3] He won the pentathlon at the Inter-Allied Games in 1919, beating Eugene Vidal and Géo André.^[4]

While studying at the Georgetown University, LeGendre also played American football and baseball. He earned Ph.D. and D.D.S. degrees there and signed a Hollywood contract as a film actor. He abandoned the movie career and became a dentist in Washington.

Here he is in Paris setting the world record:

He died of bronchial pneumonia in 1931 at the young age of 33.

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• GU men, so hot right now.
• Too much artwork or nah?

Most people have a pretty clear idea of what Georgetown is, and what it was. But there are some weird things about Georgetown and its history that most people don’t know. Here they are ranked:

#5 – Take Me Home County Roads was written at 31st and Q:

In December 1970, John Denver was in the middle of a two week stint at the famous Cellar Door club (which now houses the Cappriotti’s sandwich shop). He was invited to a late night jam at the apartment of the club’s sound guy, Bill Danoff, at 31st and Q. Danoff and his girlfriend, Taffy Nivert, had a half-written song about driving about Maryland. Denver changed the lyrics to West Virginia and helped finish the song. He debuted it at the Cellar Door the next night and received the longest ovation in the club’s history.

Take Me Home, Country Roads, a song written by a Colorado-man about a state he never visited, while hanging out late night in Georgetown, DC.

#4 – During the Last Several Years of the 1800’s, Georgetown had a Cable Car

It’s true. From 1890-1899, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad ran a cable-car network through Georgetown. The Car Barn still has some remnants of that time on the Car Barn. In 1900 the company moved to electric power. Continue reading →