The Georgetown Metropolitan

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Another large org relocating from Georgetown office spaces.
• The GU student elections are getting messier.

Look at the new Michelin Restaurant Guide for DC. Look how it shines for Georgetown. And everything that one restaurant does. And it was called Yellow.

For those of you not hearing the last paragraph in the voice of Chris Martin, let me try again: the vaunted Michelin guide group has taken a break from making tires and updated it list of DC restaurants that make its grade. And ten spots have been added to the elite list, including Georgetown’s Yellow.

The press release describes Yellow as:

Chef/owner Michael Rafidi and team are behind this daytime casual concept in Georgetown where Levantine cooking takes center stage thanks to a wood-burning oven. It’s always humming here, where long lines form for pastries, breakfast sandwiches or shashuka in the morning and pita sandwiches, spreads and sides (creamy labne with charred corn, urfa chili crisp and smoked feta, anyone?). Fluffy pitas filled with chicken shawarma, Palestinian pickles and green tatbili labne, or tender lamb with smoked peppers, feta and toum are popular. Just try not finishing the batata tots, or golden-brown potatoes with shawarma spices and urfa sauce. To finish, a brown butter and cinnamon cookie, Turkish coffee brownie or soft serve are compelling choices.

(That sounds like it was actually written by a human being. Which would be an odd observation to make but for the fact that the rest of the Michelin press release sounds suspiciously AI-generated.)

It’s quite something that Yellow has made this list apparently even before they added their new not-pizza dinner options. Honestly I can’t remember a new restaurant making quite as big a splash in the neighborhood recently as Yellow has.

The release does not say whether any of these new restaurants have received stars or are just being added to Michelin’s Bib Gourmand honorable mention list. I would be surprised if Yellow were actually awarded a full star, but you never know.

With this inclusion, Yellow joins Das, Fiola Mare, Reverie (which is still closed after a fire last year), 1789 and its neighbor Lutece to represent Georgetown in the guide.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetowner reaches its 70th year.
• Is the Exorcist based on a true story?

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m exploring a fantastic shot that was published by the even more fantastic Old Time DC Facebook group. It shows the 1500 block of Wisconsin Ave. in the 1950s. And there’s so much here!

The first is obviously the streetcar. This was the 30 streetcar line, like the 30 series bus that replaced it in the 1960s, it went from Friendship Heights all the way to Barney Circle in southeast. But what’s interesting about this particular spot is that this is where the streetcars shifted from getting power from the overhead wire to the conduit in the street.

In this detail, you can see the DC Transit worker who would switch the power source. In this particular case, the streetcar was switching to the in-ground power as it went downtown.

Another item you can see when you zoom in are the two gas stations:

At the location of the current Shell, you can see a Texaco. Just across the street you can make out the edge of the Esso sign. The Esso stood where the former Capital One Bank is. (There was yet another gas station where the Exxon is now. This intersection has pretty much always had a lot of gas stations!)

What I find intriguing about this detail is the red brick building behind the Texaco. The property at the northwest corner of Q and Wisconsin held a used car dealership from the 1930s through to the 1980s. But I always understood that it was an open lot throughout the time (like it appeared below in the 1960s:)

But from the main photo above, it sure doesn’t look like an open lot. An aerial photo of the intersection from 1950 is inconclusive:

There appears to be five cars or so parked on that lot, which would suggest an empty lot. But maybe the cars were parked on the roof? It’s really hard to reconcile all the photos, honestly.

That mystery aside, there are some great store fronts along Wisconsin in the photo:

But I think the sign that intrigues me the most peeks over the streetcar from what is now the George Towne Club:

There are two intriguing signs off the corner by Volta and Wisconsin. I’m not sure what the circular sign says, beyond the letter 2. But I believe the CLE sign fully spelled out “CLEANERS”. The location hosted a dry cleaners in the 1950s owned by Peter Maroulis:

During a particularly brutal heat wave in late June 1952, the Washington Star visited workers who had particular hot workplaces and attached a thermometer to them to see what they suffered through. Mr. Maroulis’ tally came to 108 degrees, which wasn’t nearly as bad as the blacksmith who worked on 24th St. His thermometer got up to 131!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Madeleine Albright’s former home for sale.
• New spot for breakfast burritos.

Buried in the submissions to the Old Georgetown Board this month is an application to convert the former Old Glory building to a New Balance shoe store.

The application calls for a somewhat dramatic alteration to the street level facade, as you can see above. I didn’t happen to catch the Old Georgetown Board discussion on this application last Thursday, but I would be surprised if it were approved as is.

But in either event, the New Balance is going to come. This is a bit of a shame. Not for any fashionable reasons, but because it means yet another restaurant building on M St. is being converted to fashion retail. While the decline has been less steep in recent years, the aggregate loss of dining options on M St. over the past 10-15 years has been significant. True, Old Glory itself closed way back in 2018. But the relatively short-lived Americas Eats Tavern maintained a lot of the same casual dining spirit (although not quite at the same prices). The two restaurants combined for nearly 30 years of food being served at this address. Now it will be only dad shoes served instead.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Election chaos at GU.
• Canal boat doing a ghost cruise for Halloween.

This week for the Georgetown Time Machine, I’m swinging by a great example of faux historical archictecture that once sat on Wisconsin Ave. The address is 1235 Wisconsin Ave. Today the Apple Store occupies this space. But in 1993, it was the home of something called Boogie’s Diner.

As for the actual Apple store address itself, there stood a building that Apple knocked down to build its store. I believe that building was built in the 1980s and replaced a parking lot. In 1993, it hosted a diner called Boogies. One commentator described it thusly:

In the early 1990s, there was a branch of Boogies Diner in the Georgetown section of Washington, DC. They tried to sell trendy clothes in a diner atmosphere.

The clothes smelled like grease, and the restaurant area smelled like leather. Suffice to say, the concept did not work.

Continue reading →

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Nice rundown on the history and future of Metro in Georgetown.
• Lots of aspiring senators aspire for senate.

It’s time for my monthly update for neighbors of Hyde Addison Elementary School, Georgetown’s only public elementary school! 

The 2023/2024 school year started almost a month ago (The first day of school was August 28^th for grades K through 5 and the 31st for the PK-3 and PK-4 classes).  Hyde has approximately 380 total students, with an average class size of 19 (not including Hyde’s PK 3 class which is capped at 16). 

I have lived in Georgetown and Burleith for almost 15 years and this is our second year at Hyde, with our oldest in 1^st grade and our 2^nd oldest in PK4.  They love heading to school each day and practically smack my coffee mug out of my hand each morning (“We don’t want to be late, Dad!”). 

Hyde Impresses Me

I am always happy to answer your questions about Hyde—please just shoot me an email.  Having completed one full year with two of our kids, we had no hesitation about sending them back to Hyde.  It’s a great school.  One reason Hyde is great is the focus on learning, and the test scores bear that out.  For example, in testing administered this past June at the end of the 22/23 school year, 96% of Hyde students in grades K-2 were on or above the literacy benchmark established by DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills), a national standard, compared to the DC public school average of 78%. 

Stop by Hyde This Friday at 5:30!

As part of Georgetown Art All Night, Hyde has an awesome program this Friday evening and you and your young ones are invited to participate. 

5:30 – 6:15 PM: The Great Zucchini performance

5:30 – 7:30 PM: Enjoy eight rotating hands-on make and take activities for elementary age children hosted by Hyde-Addison’s very own Art Teacher, Ms. Zaid, along with other community members. Activities include painting, crafting, jewelry making, print making and more.

Continue reading →