The Georgetown Metropolitan

Dumbarton Oaks Park

Last week, the results of the new unified school lottery were announced. Although Georgetowners have no need to go through the lottery to attend Hyde-Addison, the local elementary school, for Kindergarten onward, they do if they’re interested in the Pre-K level. So every year a certain number of local families apply through the lottery.

Of the nineteen slots for Pre-K for next year, all nineteen were assigned to local families in the lottery. An additional twelve local children are on the wait list. Thus thirty-one Georgetown families applied for pre-K next year. That’s roughly the same as we’ve seen over the last couple years and reflects a strong and steady interest from Georgetown families in their local school. Continue reading →

Photo by Ron Cogswell.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Despite blitzing into the city, Peet’s Coffee can’t find a place in Georgetown.
• Here’s Carol Joynt’s interview with the great Kojo Nnamndi at the George Town Club.

1700 block of 32nd St.

There’s a new cafe open in the East Village on P St., just east of 27th. It’s called After Peacock Room. It is filling the long vacant space that the Consignment shop used to occupy. According to the cafe’s website:

AFTER PEACOCK ROOM is a fine dining cafe located in Georgetown, Washington DC. We provide excellent coffees and teas with fine pastries and savory light meals.

The design is a modern interpretation ofPeacock Room: Harmony of Blue and Gold, created by James McNeal Whistler in 1877.

This is the original Peacock Room: Continue reading →

Photo by Sofia Bustamente.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Georgetown resident kept dutiful weather records during the Civil War, providing a reliable historic climate record.
• GM saw this last weekend and hopes it doesn’t portend a downward spiral: Capitol Prague is under new management and is closed. That space is just damned.

3400 block of Q St.

This week in Old Georgetown in Color, GM travels to the days after World War I and visits a dog named Stubby. As the Smithsonian explains:

Stubby the dog, known to many as “Sgt. Stubby”…was the mascot of the 102 Infantry 26th Yankee Division in World War I. He showed up at training camp one day on the grounds of Yale University, and was such a hit with the soldiers that he was allowed to stay (he would drill with them, and even learned to salute). When it was time to ship off for Europe, Stubby went along for the ride to Newport News, Virginia, and was smuggled by Private J. Robert Conroy aboard the SS Minnesota. Upon discovery by Conroy’s Commanding Officer, the story goes, Stubby saluted him, and the CO was so impressed he allowed Stubby to remain with the troops. Stubby took to soldiering quite well, joining the men in the trenches. He was gassed once, and wounded by shrapnel another time, and once he disappeared for a while, only to resurface with the French forces who returned him to his unit. Stubby even captured a Hun (that’s WWI slang for a German soldier)!

After the war, Stubby’s caretaker enrolled at Georgetown University. Stubby, already a celebrity, became the mascot for the Hoyas. Stubby passed away in 1926 and was the subject of multiple newspaper obituaries. He was stuffed and eventually donated to the Smithsonian, where you can see him today, draped in about a dozen medals.

In the photo above, Stubby is being inspected by none other than the great Gen. John “Black Jack” Pershing.

Photo by Ulises Juarez Polanco.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Well we won’t be having a Georgetown mayor, but at least we’ll still have a Georgetown Ward 2 councilmember for the foreseeable future?
• Mmmm, homemade peeps at Pinstripes.

1600 block of 31st St.