The Georgetown Metropolitan

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s your weekly news roundup:

• GU outsourcing its GUTS bus drivers.
• Business ins and outs.
• The tavern at the top of 33rd St. is now finally open.

Do you have lead pipes in your house? You better hope you don’t. But if you do, right now DC Water is ready to help you out. The agency is conducting two efforts that will hopefully help eliminate any remaining lead pipes in Georgetown.

The first effort involves the replacement of the water main. This is a relatively wide pipe that runs under the street. DC Water is replacing it for the streets in red below:

As they dig up the street to replace the water main, they will inspect each house’s service line (i.e. the pipe that connects your house to the water main) to determine whether it’s lead or galvanized iron. If it is, they will replace that line for free.

If you live on these blocks, you need not do anything to enable DC Water to inspect your service line. They will reach out to you to facilitate the replacement if its needed.

But what if you don’t live on these blocks and want to have DC Water check to see if you have lead pipes and to have them replaced for free? That’s where DC Water’s Lead Free DC program comes in.

If you go to this site and fill out the authorization form, DC Water will come to your house and determine whether you need your service line replaced. I’m unclear on the timing, to be honest. I filled out this form for my own house earlier this summer, but it hasn’t occurred yet. That said, I believe they are aiming to do this work in Georgetown over the next year or so. So if you are interested in participating, you should fill out the form now.

Here is a video from DC Water explaining the process:

It’s that time of year again, when people start to wonder what the hell are those giant grain brain-shaped fruit around Georgetown. As in past years, I am ready with the answer, as reprinted below:

This time a year, if you wonder around Montrose or Volta Parks you’re bound to find on the ground weird softball-sized green fruit like the one above. People are often so struck by the sight of the fruit, they pick up one or two of them and bring them home. But what are they, you ask?

Despite their green color, they’re oranges. Osage oranges, to be specific. They are grown by Osage trees, which line the Parrot rope walk. These trees are prevalent in the Great Plains states, where they are often planted along hedgerows. Traditionally, the pliable but strong nature of this tree’s wood made it valuable for fence posts and archery bows.

Technically speaking, the fruit is edible. But you can only eat the seeds, and they’re not easy to extract.

I heard once that people should not feel guilty about taking the fruit home since no animals eat them. I find that they rot after a month or so. But if you don’t want to keep them around, Amazon sells them for $39 for a dozen, maybe you can undersell them (besides being an interesting knick-knack, the fruit is believed to  repel insects and spiders).

Tuesday I shared info about Trees for Georgetown’s annual fund raiser, but unfortunately the links were dead. So here is the info updated with the correct links! Please come out at support our precious street trees!:

Act now to get your tickets to the Sunday, September 14 Trees for Georgetown garden party! Tickets are limited, so act soon – for more information about this party at an historic location, write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com or see https://caseytrees.org/event/trees-for-georgetown-2025-garden-party/  Tickets are donations to TFG via Casey Trees, a 501(c ) (3) charitable organization.  Or donate to Trees for Georgetown by sending a check, noting on the memo line that is for Trees for Georgetown, to Casey Trees,  3030 12th Street NE, Washington DC, 20017.  These donations are tax-deductible. Since 1989, with strong support from the Georgetown community, Trees for Georgetown has planted and cared for over 3,000 trees on the streets of Georgetown. For more information, visit www.treesforgeorgetowndc.org or write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com.

Typically August is a slow month around Georgetown, but this year was quite the exception. Obviously the deployment of the National Guard was, uh, new. But beyond that, on the retail front there were lots of changes around Georgetown since I last manned the shop. Here are just a few of those items:

A new restaurant is coming to the old Dolcezza location at Wisconsin and Q. This space has been a bit cursed since the gelato shop left. A fast causal Indian restaurant, a Mediterranean restaurant and a Acai bowl spot have come and gone. Now another Indian restaurant is looking to open. It will apparently be called Delhi Belly. I’ll leave it to you to Google that name and to wonder whether it might be the worst possible name a restaurant could ever have. I wish them luck, but given the difficulty this space has had, on top of a head-scratchingly bad name, I’m not hopeful.

Solbiato has closed. Or rather, as their sign indicates, it has “transitioned to an online-only store”.

Victoria’s Secret has opened.

Andy’s Pizza has opened in the former Baker’s Daughter space on Wisconsin below M. As a fan of 90 Second Pizza, I hope the new restaurant doesn’t cut too much into their business. But as a fan of pizza, just generally, I’m always happy for more options!

Honestly I’m not sure when this happened, but the Smoothie King closed on M St.

Finally, Yala greek ice cream opened on N St.

Anything else I missed?

Hello and happy end of summer! I can’t remember an August with such perfect weather like this. May it stretch well into the fall!

August Update

Obviously a great deal has happened in the city since my last update in July. With the dramatic and largely unprecedented intervention of federal officials into local DC affairs, many residents are upset, scared, and angry about the short and long-term impacts this will have. I’ll not pretend to know where this is headed, but I’ll note that it is perhaps unsurprising to see that the impact of this effort is not being felt especially much by neighborhoods like Georgetown. The New York Times created this map showing all the arrests across the city since the federal intervention, and very few took place west of Rock Creek Park (the red dots are arrests involving federal agents, and the green are arrests just with MPD):

The only thing I’ll add is that I highly recommend you read the great Dream City book, which chronicles the story of DC in the second half of the 20th century and how counterproductive and, ultimately tragic, federal intervention into DC local affairs inevitably becomes. (If you’ve already read that, then I can also recommend Between Justice and Beauty and Chocolate City to give you an even better historical perspective on the current situation).

Streateries

And having discussed a controversial topic that stirs passion on all sides, I’ll turn to streateries. 😉

A significant change in the administration of the streatery program is about to be rolled out. Up to this point, in Georgetown the streatery program was run by the BID. They were granted a public space permit to construct and maintain all the sidewalk extensions, whether they be for a restaurant, a bus stop, or just to give pedestrians a bit more space. That permit is coming to an end later this year and in its place will be the citywide program.

That program is fundamentally different from the existing one in Georgetown because the primary permit applicants will be the establishments themselves.1 So now each and every establishment will submit an application to the city, and then each and every one of the permits will be vetted.

As part of this, some, but not all, of the sidewalk extensions that don’t serve a restaurant have been (or will be) removed. The ones that remain will generally be ones that have proven to make intersections much safer for pedestrians, as evidenced in crash data.

What none of these changes actually address is the question of aesthetics. In fact, if anything we’re now further from addressing that complaint. With the BID stepping back as the central authority, there will effectively be no one but the city government to complain to about what any one restaurant is doing with its streatery. Whatever you want to say about the responsiveness of the BID to endless complaints over dead plants, mismatched umbrellas, or whatever, it’s highly unlikely that the city will be more responsive.

Moreover, the pilot for a much improved streatery design that I discussed back in February is not likely to come about anytime soon. That is an effort by the BID to establish a different model for streateries that would replace the Jersey barriers and the plastic decking with much better materials. With all the budget uncertainty for the city, it did not get the funding it would need to move forward now. It’s not dead, I’ve been assured, but it’s not likely to happen soon.

I’ve long compared streateries to cilantro. Most people like, or at least don’t mind, cilantro. But for some people it tastes like soap and they hate it. (It’s a genetic thing, apparently.) That’s been my observation about streateries. For some people, streateries taste like soap, so to speak, while for the vast majority of people they taste great (to belabor the analogy). The pilot could have helped bridge this gap by addressing the largest complaint about the streateries. I still hold out hope that we’ll get there, but it will sadly not be anytime soon. So we’ll continue to argue over cilantro.

Trees for Georgetown Event

Trees for Georgetown has long been one of the best and most loved organizations around the neighborhood. The organization is now under the Casey Trees umbrella but they remain very active. They are having a big fundraiser later this month and I encourage you to get a ticket! Here are the details I received from TFG:

Act now to get your tickets to the Sunday, September 14 Trees for Georgetown garden party! Tickets are limited, so act soon – for more information about this party at an historic location, write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com. Tickets are donations to Casey Trees, a 501(c ) (3) charitable organization; you can also give to TFG at https://give.caseytrees.org/campaign/605896/donate. Since 1989, with strong support from the Georgetown community, Trees for Georgetown has planted and cared for over 3,000 trees on the streets of Georgetown. For more information, visit www.treesforgeorgetowndc.org or write us at treesforgeorgetown@gmail.com.

Come out to support a great cause!

Students Back

With the arrival of September, Georgetown students have returned for the year. As I write every year, that may mean you have new neighbors on your block. This sometimes leads to conflict, but I find reaching out directly to the students first is a good approach. Many of these students are living independently for the first time in their lives, so there’s bound to be some growing pains. That said, remember to reach out to SNAP at (202) 687-5138 if there is a problem.

And, as always, if you have an issue you’d like my assistance with, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at 2e02@anc.dc.gov.

1

Technically the BID will still be involved by way of a block permit it will seek, but ultimately each individual streatery will be primarily issued pursuant to the restaurant’s own application.

This week marks the beginning of August, and with it my annual break. Here is my paean to the eight month, see you in September!:

August is here. And it is perhaps the greatest time of year for Georgetown.

Sure, this month is tagged with the “dog days” of summer gibe. And the heat of July is still a houseguest with its feet comfortably sprawled on our couch, with its bags not remotely packed upstairs.

And gardens get long in the tooth this month too. Black-eyed Susans wilt. Geraniums burst further out of their pots, knowing the end is near. Petunias get leggy and brown. Even in its overgrown state, an August garden is one succumbing to decay.

And despite the fact that school is still a month away, camps across the city shut down, as if we’re all French and heading off to the Cote D’Azur in our Renaults for four weeks.

But August is still one of the greatest times of year in Georgetown. True, the holiday season fills Georgetown streets with twinkling lights and festive greens. And surely the scent of magnolias and the sight of Yoshinos puts springtime on top. But August is close behind.

Because, in August, Georgetown is empty.

The streets are empty. You can park your car like it’s a suburb in the 60s. The pools are empty because the interns left. The sidewalks are empty because even tourists have better sense than to visit DC in the summer.

Despite the stifling, turgid air, you can breathe. You can walk into a restaurant at 7:00 on a Friday and get a seat. You can even walk on M St. on a weekend.

And like spring, it is great because it is brief. We don’t ultimately love Georgetown because it’s empty, but because it’s decidedly not. That restaurant walking you to a table would be out of business if it were like that year round. Those streets without parking in September mean more people coming and keeping our thriving businesses thriving. Quiet is nice, but too much is boring.

Knowing August is fleeting is the best way to enjoy it. So enjoy it, it’s already later than you think.

Photo by M.V. Jantzen.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s your weekly news roundup:

• Blues Alley celebrates 60 years.
• Feta restaurant closed, to be replaced with a Bibibop Asian Grill (which was what it was before Feta, oddly enough)
• Profile of the new sushi spot in the old Smith Point location.

I reported on Monday that Volta Park construction was finally going to begin that very day. But given all the delays, I think I can be forgiven holding on to a bit of skepticism that an actual activity would start up right away.

So color me pleasantly surprised when I swung by the park last night and could see for myself that they really are doing it!

So far the work mostly involved fencing going up. The fences aren’t simply going around the whole park, as you might expect, but rather appear to be marking off different areas. So for now, on off hours you can still walk through the park, but that may soon change.

But for today: hooray! It’s actually happening.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’ve got a bit of an unsolved mystery. The photo (from the DC Historical Society) is labeled as an unidentified unpaved street in Georgetown. The date is given as a range of 1895 to 1905.

But beyond that, it’s a mystery. I thought perhaps it was somewhere in the east village. The wood frame houses were common for the Herring Hill area, mostly occupied by Black families. While that may be true, the blocks I checked it against don’t match.

There are blocks with wood frame houses on the west side as well. But I can’t match it up to any of those either.

(Another possibility is that this is a photo from another primarily black neighborhood nearby Georgetown that has since been erased for highways. This was a neighborhood on the western edge of Foggy Bottom that bordered the east side of Rock Creek.)

It’s a fascinating photo in either event. It shows what life was like on our streets 125 years ago. There were muddy streets that surely got awfully messy after a rainy day. You can understand why there used to be so many boot scrapes around!