The Georgetown Metropolitan

This Monday night, the first community meeting will be held as part of the important Georgetown transportation and access study. It will be held at the Georgetown Library from 6:30 to 8:00. It will also be available virtually, but you’ll need to sign up here to get the link for that.

This first meeting is incredibly important since it will be focused primarily on gathering every and all idea the public has to improve transportation to and through the neighborhood. No idea is a bad one! Want more bike lanes? Want fewer bike lanes? Want traffic cameras? Want more one-way streets? Want a six lane superhighway? Whatever the idea, just bring it. The point right now is to get every idea on the table, and the process moving forward will take those ideas and kick their tires to see what would actually make the neighborhood’s transportation system work better and safer.

Thankfully what this meeting will not be is an opportunity for a couple people to stand up on a soap box and monopolize the meeting with their pet grievances. It will be broken out into two main sections. The first will involve a series of boards around the room where people can meet with DDOT and the consultant staff to discuss their ideas and suggestions. Then later there will be breakout sessions where small groups will discuss in more depth their suggestions and ideas. The idea is to get more input from a wider population, not just the usual suspects.

So please do try to come, even if only for part of it! Your participation is crucial to getting the most out of this process!

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• First public meeting of the Georgetown Transportation study next Monday. (I will be echoing this later!)
• This is a time as old as time, but yet another example of a faraway building claiming “Georgetown” status.

I was working on another article idea that fell through, but was reminded of this old article from 2018. I thought I would repost it:

A little over two years ago, GM came across an image in the archives of the Library of Congress that was a bit alarming. It was a map of a proposed “Francis Scott Key Boulevard” which would run from the Key Bridge down M St. to Pennsylvania Ave. This is the image:

As you can see, this plan would call for a large traffic circle where Key Bridge meets M St. M St. would be replaced by a grand boulevard interspersed with three different medians. All of Georgetown from N St. south would, apparently, be destroyed.

There have been a variety of plans floated that would call for the construction of highways through downtown DC. Thankfully most of them were stopped. But none of those plans called for anything like this for Georgetown. (Most simply used the Whitehurst Freeway, which would have been attached to an expressway to the west that would cross the Potomac at a new Three Sisters Bridge and link up to the GW Parkway near Spout Run.)

This week for Georgetown Time Machine, I’m dipping back into the pile of 1993 photos I’ve got. Today I’m visiting the northwest corner of Potomac and M St.

This late 20th century building has an odd layout, which remains to this day. Every other door goes to the basement level. And at this corner, the two street-level doors enter into one large space. This has been through a bunch of different tenants recently, from Moreso to Cafe Prague to a mini-food court with Subway, District Pizza and an Acai place. But in 1993 it hosted Fettoosh, with a takeout version called Fettoosh Express to the left. Fettoosh, not surprisingly, sold Middle Easter food. It lasted quite a long time, only closing around 2008.

Next door to Fettoosh was the legendary record shop, Smash Records. It was opened in 1984 and only moved out of Georgetown in 2006. It’s been in Adams Morgan ever since.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Small fire at the Potomac Boat Club, which luckily did not lead to major damage.
• New ice cream shop on Prospect opening May 11th.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• What are the BID’s priorities this year?
• As part of a long tradition, the clock hands of Healy Hall were stolen (and already returned).

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• The first public meeting for the transportation and access study will be May 15th.
• Not a Georgetown-specific story, but one that impacts us regardless: The Post highlights the huge problem stemming from a small number of extremely dangerous drivers and how the city is failing to focus on it.

The relative newcomer Fountain Inn is already well known for its high end cocktails in a historic space. Well, now the bar is adding daytime cafe service.

Good morning Georgetown, here’s the latest:

• Capitol Fringe is coming back to Georgetown this summer.
• Councilmembers Frumin and Allen are proposing to budget money to save the Foundry Branch Trolley Trestle. YAY!!

It’s time for the monthly update for neighbors of Hyde Addison Elementary School! 

Enrollment

The time to enroll at Hyde for the 23/24 school year is now! The timing matters: starting May 1, if a class is not fully subscribed, the school will start offering spots to the waitlist.  Enrolling now closes the waitlist and keeps class sizes LOW. The average class size at Hyde is 19 students. This compares to an average of ~22 at the neighboring elementary schools.  Smaller class size is directly correlated to higher student achievement! Please message me if you are interested in learning more about Hyde.  We decided to send our children to Hyde instead of Beauvoir and I am happy to explain how we reached that decision.

Hyde Impresses me

This past weekend, I was telling my 4 year old, who was holding a tulip, “be careful, its delicate”—he asked what delicate was. I told him that delicate means fragile (he knows what fragile means) and I mentioned (for the benefit of my 6 yr old standing nearby) “delicate and fragile are synonyms. Do you know what a synonym is?” She said “yes—and I know that an antonym is the opposite.”  “That’s right! Where did you learn that?” She explained (I think rolling her eyes) that she learned it with Ms. Kenagy and iready (iready is part of her kindergarten curriculum at Hyde).  I remember learning the word antonym in 1997 studying for the SATs…

Sip & Shop at Kendra Scott on Wed May 10

Hyde’s next fundraiser is at Kendra Scott (1249 Wisconsin Ave) on Weds May 10 from 430-630pm. 20% of sales revenue goes to Hyde PTA—plus a complimentary glass of champagne! Just in time for mothers day….So that we have an accurate headcount, please RSVP here https://forms.gle/ti1XHZa8y4jjWujZ7

Hyde Addison’s Playground is Open all weekend long!

Yes its true–the playground at Hyde is open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays.  Please enjoy!