The Georgetown Metropolitan

Love it or hate it, Georgetown is a desirable name. We can see this played out in the frequent attempts by companies or entities to label something as Georgetown which is not actually in Georgetown. It happens all the time, but a couple of these mislabelings caught GM’s eye recently.

The first one is from a press release GM received. It’s mostly innocuous but amusing nonetheless:

Cushman & Wakefield today announced the sale of Georgetown Plaza at 2233 Wisconsin Avenue, NW, a 150,097-square foot, 79% leased Class A office building in Washington’s Upper Georgetown submarket…“Given Georgetown’s supply constrained market, the institutional quality of the asset and the strength of the area economy, this is a great opportunity for JOSS Realty,” said Mr. [Eric] Berkman.

This building is not in Georgetown. It’s at Wisconsin and Hall St., squarely in Glover Park. Obviously whoever built the building chose the name for cachet. Fine, no big deal. But what’s funny is that rather than mention the building being in Glover Park, where it is, the release throws in the phrase “Upper Georgetown”, and to the extent that phrase means anything, it means the part of Georgetown between about P and the Safeway (for a more detailed look at what the specific, federally defined, boundaries of Georgetown are, see here.) Continue reading →

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown girl (and neighbor of GM), mature beyond her years, reflects on the disappearance of Relisha Rudd with award winning poem.
• The Current covers the simmering rolloff dumpster debate.

3300 block of Q St.

This week on Old Georgetown in Color, GM sticks with the Hoya theme. Today it’s the 1910 men’s track team (or as the all men’s school called it back then: “the track team”).

There’s not much GM has to add except that this one took a crazy long amount of time to colorize, so enjoy. One thing he will add is that it appears as if the fellow on the far right is wearing a Georgetown Prep jersey. Perhaps he was a double Hoya.

Photo of the Key Mansion by Streets of DC.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Yay! Jerry McCoy wins medal from the DAR!
• Thomas Sweet’s among the best ice cream in DC.

3200 block of S St.

GM decided to revive his occasional series “Why Not” to address an overlooked corner of Georgetown and consider what it could be: a biergarten.

The spot is a tiny recessed commercial building on Wisconsin Ave., just north of Q St. The setback building creates a forecourt, but it also creates a challenge. The retail space has seen a recent succession of stores coming and going: including a tea shop, a lingerie shop, a christmas tree lot, and most recently a consignment shop (which just closed). Book Hill has challenges drawing foot traffic, and that side generally draws even less foot traffic than the east side. Add that to the setback, and it makes for a difficult space for a shop to succeed in.

So GM wonders if that forecourt couldn’t be better used, and what better way than a biergarten? There are few places in Georgetown to enjoy a cold beer outside, and the ones that do exist are mostly down closer to M St. Continue reading →

Photo by Bill Cecil.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• View of DC from Georgetown, in 1865.
• Art Vandalay…of Georgetown.

Montrose Park

This week in Old Georgetown in Color, GM brings some vibrance to Georgetown University’s nineteenth President, Patrick Francis Healy.

Healy left his mark on the college, overseeing the construction of the massive building that was named after him. But what he later became more well known for was the fact that he was born a slave (the child of his slave owner and his multi-racial slave mother) and thus he was the first African American to earn a Phd., become a jesuit, and serve as president of a predominantly white university.

Healy served as GU president from 1872 – 1883. He lived from 1830 – 1910.

(And the reason GM keeps doing Old Georgetown in Color pieces on GU items is that they have such a rich photographic archive!)