The Georgetown Metropolitan

This week on Old Georgetown in Color, GM visits to the lovely Margaret Gorman of Cambridge Place. Here she is in 1921, after having become Miss District of Columbia. Later that year she would be crowned the Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America and be named the Golden Mermaid in Atlantic City. Continue reading →

Photo (from 1998) by Jessie Lynn McMains.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Are calzones a thing? If so, here’s where you can find them in Georgetown (and elsewhere).
• Nice look at the GU and GW undergrads who are military veterans.

1500 block of 33rd St.

Photo by Ehpien.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Whoa, GU student suspected of making ricin may have been targeting fellow student.
• Union Station to Georgetown streetcar still in the plans.

2900 block of R St.

Last weekend, GM had a conversation with a Georgetown restaurant owner that left him feeling pretty glum about the future of Georgetown’s dining scene. Reaching the same conclusion that many have reached, the owner said that Georgetown had lost the young people who were now spending all their dining budget on U St. or 14th. He said many restaurants in Georgetown are just barely holding on.

But when it came time for GM to sit down and add up all the restaurants that opened in 2013 and those that closed (as part of his annual census) GM reached a different conclusion: the Georgetown dining scene is in good shape. There are some caveats, but we’ll get to those later.

First, last year (for these purposes, GM is counting roughly February 2013-February 2014) sixteen restaurants opened in Georgetown. Moreover, only seven closed. And of those seven, two of them were Iceberry. Continue reading →

Photo by Jantos.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Ricin scare at GU yesterday. (It wasn’t ricin).
• Georgetown retailers sued by people for requesting zip codes. (They won)

3100 block of Q St.

GM is busy pulling together the State of Georgetown 2014, but he wanted to get the highlight out first: store turnover was way down last year.

GM does an annual census of stores, shops, restaurants, etc. Rather, GM normally does this survey. But this year the staff at the BID did it for themselves and shared it with GM. GM took that data and plugged it into his historic data to come up with trends. (Point of clarification, GM doesn’t do this on a calender year basis, but rather approximately on a February-to-February basis)

In 2012, there were 56 store closings and 43 store openings. In 2013, there were only 24 store closings, but also only 35 store openings. So closings were down sharply and openings were down slightly. Continue reading →