The Georgetown Metropolitan

Good morning Georgetown! Hope you had a lovely August. Here’s the latest:

• Save the trolley trestle!
• The history of that one striking Queen Anne on 31st St.
• Museum of Failure now open at Georgetown Park.
• Daniel Chao successfully was selected to replace Elizabeth Miller on the ANC. Welcome Daniel!

I’m off on my now annual August 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 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.

Over the past ten years or so, Georgetown has really become a hotspot for sneakerheads, i.e. those looking for high-end street apparel. And another shop is looking to join the party soon. Homecourt is coming to 1363 Wisconsin Ave.

Signage on the wall announces the store, with a call to customer to “Buy Trade or Sell”. So if you want to buy some new kicks or sell off some old (and valuable), then this may be the place for you.

While I’m no sneakerhead myself, it’s great to see Georgetown continue its long tradition (going back to Commander Salamander and earlier) of being a hip shopping district for those with a style a step apart from the straight and narrow. Welcome Homecourt!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• New Asian-inspired fashion shop opened.
• Lots of ins and outs for the summer.

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m moving further through the 30 year old photos I have of Georgetown. Today we see some familiar names and sights.

The block is 1300 block of Wisconsin, just above the Georgetown Inn. The first shop of the left is Towne Liquors. It…pretty much looked exactly the same until it moved up the block last year. Now sadly there’s a vape shop there.

Next up the block was a sports clothing store. There is no signage, but it appears that it basically sold the same type of gear that you can still buy at this location from GT Players. So I’m guessing either this was GT Players or an earlier iteration of the same.

Finally on the right we see Coffee, Tea & Spice. This store sold a wide variety of coffees and teas on Wisconsin Ave. from at least the 1970s. It appears to have shut down in the mid 90s. It should not be mistaken (as I briefly did) with Just Paper and Tea, which is right around the corner on P St. That shop opened in 1989.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Reminder: CM Pinto office hours this Wednesday at Yellow.
• Driver kills pedestrian in GU Hospital parking lot.

The utterly essential Georgetown Village organization is seeking board members. They need members willing to help out with communications, developments, health care, membership and organizing volunteers. They meet just once a month. If you think you’re a good candidate, reach out to them at 202-999-8988 or visit Georgetown-village.org.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Washingtonian digs into the wall story.
• CM Brooke Pinto will be at Yellow next Wednesday from 8:30 – 10 am for office hours. Bring your gripes!

Just last week I was writing how the possibility of a Metro station finally coming to Georgetown was still inching (millimetering?) forward.

And of course that news drew the predictable clucking from people who believe deeply in the folk myth that Georgetowners block Metro from coming here in the first place. (They didn’t). While it’s one thing for internet commenters or others to spout this false story, it is quite another thing when the Washington Post publishes a letter doing the same. That is what you see above, where DC native John Schelp (who now resides in North Carolina) confidently asserted the myth and the Post decided to run it without any disclaimer.

What’s especially frustrating is that in the online version, the Post links to an article definitively debunking the myth. Why is the Post publishing a letter based on a lie that it knows to be untrue?

I do commend you to read that linked article by the way. It is by Emma O’Neill-Dietel at WETA and it is quite good.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Lots of business ins and outs recently.
• Filomena hits 40.